I was seized with more of that nostalgia in advance. I felt it in my chest, a physical ache. I was missing camp while I was still here. I was missing my camp boyfriend.
I couldn’t have Teddy, not for real. I didn’twanthim, not for real. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to miss him.
Eventually I got up and, in preparation for reentering the real world, turned on my phone. Rory was going to text when she was close.
It felt strange in my hand. Alien. As it found a signal, notifications started rolling in. I felt ill.
It was good to see Rory, though, when she arrived that afternoon. It hit me how much I’d missed her. She wasn’t my camp friend; she was my real friend. We’d been through some shit together. I hugged her, and she was solid. Real.
And so very pregnant. “You look amazing!”
“I look huge is what you mean.”
“You look amazing,” I reiterated. “Feeling OK?”
“Pretty much. A bit of swelling at the end of the day, andit’s getting hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in, but I’m hanging in there.”
“Let me give you a tour. Unless you want to just go chill in my cabin until the show?”
“How about a minitour followed by chilling? I brought you a treat that I may need to eat ninety percent of myself.” She produced a bag of Cheetos from her purse.
Which made me think of the last time I’d had Cheetos—as a side dish with cold pack cheese food grilled cheese. Made by Teddy last week, or a lifetime ago, one or the other.
The show was a hit.
Everyone did great. There was a gallery of visual art that everyone perused at the start of the evening, the kids standing by to answer questions about their paintings and sculptures and pots while Maiv and Danny hovered like proud parents.
The performance part of the show started with readings from Jack’s writer kids. As with the paintings and pots, a couple stood out from the crowd—a poem from a small, quiet boy who never looked up while he read, and a viciously funny short story from a goth girl.
The drama kids went next, performing a one-act play set in a British air-raid shelter during World War II. I only caught the first ten minutes or so because we were up next, but they did a great job.
The girls gathered backstage in their costumes. They seemed to be looking to me for words of wisdom. “I guess I’m supposed to give a pep talk here?” I was unprepared. “I don’t know what to say except I know this is going to begreat. We’ve immersed ourselves in these stories, these themes. There’s no way it can go wrong.”
When I got a few skeptical looks, I fell back on Miss Miller’s Morals. “And even if it does go wrong, it’s just dancing. Dancing is supposed to be fun.”
Some of the artists had opened their sections of the show with introductory remarks. I skipped that. I felt the work should speak for itself. And it did: my girls stormed out for the ball scene set to Beyoncé, and it wasgreat. I’d run around and was watching from the back of the audience, which erupted into cheers when Meg and Jo broke out of the formal quadrille and started a modern duet. And I hadn’t been wrong about the Jo/Lori chemistry. The audience was feeling it, too—everyone grew quiet and attentive, and I could feel the crackling tension in the air.
Obviously the audience was biased, but when at the end they leaped to their feet and hooted and hollered as my girls, beaming, took their bows, I had to wipe away a tear. On paper this wasn’t that different from the recitals I ran twice a year at my studio, yet it was. I knew what had gone into this. Well, I knew what went into my recitals, too. I guess the difference was thatmorehad gone into this. The recitals were fun. I taught the steps, the dancers danced them, and the parents clapped and cheered. But there was no story, no overarching narrative. There was no meaning.
As the applause went on, I saw a few girls wipe away tears through their smiles as they bowed. I was so proud, I about melted into a pile of goo. When they called me onstage and group-hugged me, I think my soul left my body momentarily.
It was the greatest moment of my professional life, as overwrought as that sounds.
The music kids closed out the show. As with the othergroups, some kids were better than others. Until Teddy’s music prodigy kid, who went last, blew us away. She played an original on banjo that had the breezy but brutal wordplay of Taylor Swift, the twang of the Chicks, and a delicate, high soprano that reminded me of Billie Eilish. It was really something. I sneaked a look at Teddy, who was standing off to the side, his hands folded under his chin in a really intense way. When she was done, his face lit up like a Christmas tree, and when she looked over at him, he punched the air. Then he got onstage and joined the music kids and counselors for a rousing version of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” By the end, we were all singing along. It was transcendent.
Rory turned to me after the final curtain call. “Wow. Just… wow.”
“Pretty great, isn’t it?”
I was so glad she’d made me come here, and I started to say as much but was interrupted, pulled away by girls wanting me to meet their parents, and later by Brianna and Grace, who had duties yet this evening—they had to supervise the moving-out process—which was for the best because it made our goodbyes less emotional than they otherwise might have been. “I’ve learned so much from you both,” I said into our group hug.
“Are you kidding?” Grace said. “I’velearned so much fromyou. And not just about dance, but about, I don’t know, leadership.” Brianna echoed Grace’s sentiment, and I was on the verge of tears again.
Eventually the kids and parents were herded outside by the counselors, who were leading everyone back to the cabins to get their stuff, which left Rory and me with the artists and Marion. I introduced her to everyone, congratulating myself when my voice came out normally during the Teddy Knight intro.
“Usually I make this speech at the end of the second session, but since Gretchen is leaving us, you’ll get it early,” Marion said as we stood in a loose circle at the back of the auditorium. “I’ve stayed out of your way, but now you’re going to get some unsolicited advice—from someone who’s never made a painting or written a song in her life.”
Everyone smiled. Marion was a good egg.
