“It’s great,” I say, touching the fabric over my head. “You should’ve waited. I could’ve helped.”
“Oh this nice young man came by and helped me with it. He helps manage the property.”
“Bobby?” I ask, recalling the name of Anita’s husband. She said he manages the campground while her brother worked at the marina. I suspect the guy that turned off my water is probably Bobby. Maybe he came over to help my mom to make up for being such a wanker.
She has a string of lights in her hand and is weaving it around the underside of the awning. “I think he said his name is Justin?” She eyes my chest and touches me with a finger. “Wow, you’re red.”
“I know. I may have forgotten sunscreen.”
“I have some aloe in the bathroom cabinet, but you’ll still probably peel.”
I touch the red skin on my arm and make a white spot. “Great.”
“I’m going on a field trip this afternoon—for the book. Do you want to come?” she asks.
I consider her offer for a moment but realize if she’s gone then I can have the camper to myself for a while. “I think I’ll stay here and continue unpacking.”
It’s a white lie, I think later, when I’m clean and sprawled on my bed. Just one more to add to the pile. I’m in shorts and a tank top with aloe slathered all over my body. I do feel bad, lying to my mother. She’s always been supportive and honest with me—something that, until recently, I had been with her.
Humiliation makes it harder to tell the truth.
It also makes me desperate because I pull out my laptop to see if I have any messages or emails. We have wifi here, since Mom needs it for her book. The computer takes a minute to warm up but soon I’m faced with a long string of emails. I open the first one from my friend Irene. Apparently, sheisstill talking to me.
Wish you were coming! There’s still time. We don’t leave til the 1st and I talked to Mason. He says you can still come. The choice is yours…call me.
Then from Catherine:
I’m sorry about how things ended between us. I was just shocked and worried. I get now that you were in a weird place but hiding won’t make it better. Face it and own the mess. It’s not the big deal you think it is. No one knows but us and we’re not telling.
My friends mean well, but I wish they would leave the subject alone. They’re leaving for Paris in a couple of weeks (thirty-five days—but who’s counting?) and the willpower it took to walk away from Mason has been the hardest thing I’d ever managed to do. I’d given up a lot for him—spring break, prom, graduation activities…so many things, and now I’m giving up the trip because he’ll be there too and I just…can’t.
I noticed there were no emails from him. There never have been. He couldn’t leave a paper trail or anything tangible to connect us together. I guess texts could be deleted but emails were too risky. At the time I brushed it off. Like a lot of things.
I run my hand between the mattress and the wall and dig out my journal. The photo is of the two of us, a selfie. Both our heads are on a pillow and he’s smiling at the camera while I’m smiling at him. It’s a good photo. A telling photo. Little did I know, within weeks of this photo everything would be a mess. Next to the picture is the airline ticket to France. Still valid. As long as I have it I know there’s a chance. A choice. But choosing him, which is what it would mean, is not an option.
The metal door opens and my mother walks into the camper. I toss the papers back in the book and slide them next to the wall, unable to just trash them like I know I should.
“Get up,” my mother says, seeing me lying on the bed. I notice a bottle of wine wrapped in a brown paper bag in her hand. “Put on something nice.”
“Why?” I ask. I’m not even sure I can. My sunburn is pretty bad. No chance I can wear a bra.
“We’ve been invited to cocktail hour.”
“Cocktails? In a trailer park?”
“Yes, every Monday they have cocktail hour. We’ve been invited.”
“You’re kidding. You want to go?” I can tell by the look on her face she wants to go. What has my life come to? Where is my mall-shopping, suburban, keeping–up-with-the-Joneses mother?
“Oh, I’m going. And so are you.” She starts to undress and I avert my eyes, but not before I see the old jagged scar on her chest. The one she got climbing a fence when she was a kid. In a second, she’s slipped behind the shower curtain and yells, “Twenty minutes. Be ready.”
2
I’m not wearing a bra.
I can’t.
My shoulders and back and chest and that sensitive skin near my armpits is fried. I have on a loose sundress that if I bend over too far will reveal everything. I don’t even care. The pain takes precedence.
