Perennials, page 2
“It’s getting really good, I think,” he’d say. “I hope you’re excited for it.”
Rachel was excited to see him in it. People started talking about them like they were a pair.
“What base have you gotten to with him?” Fiona whispered one night after lights-out.
“No base,” Rachel said.
“Don’t lie to me, Rachel! I’m your best camp friend.”
“I’m not lying. No base.”
She sighed. “Well, tell me as soon as you do get to one, okay?”
Fiona seemed ready to tell Rachel all her secrets at any moment.
“How far have you gone?” Fiona whispered in the bunk. “Like, ever?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “Not far.”
She sighed again. “You’re so private sometimes.”
In the city, kids saw things early; they learned the names of sex positions and underground drugs, and for many, it was not long before they tried them. And though Rachel knew things, she was something of a late bloomer in the Manhattan middle school social scene.
“You mean you don’t get horny?” Karla once asked. Karla was Rachel’s best friend at school; Karla had met her boyfriend, Joe, who was in high school, late at night when they were both smoking weed in Riverside Park.
“I don’t think you can be horny if you’ve never even done it,” Rachel had said.
In the spring, Karla and Rachel had gone to Joe’s apartment for a party, because his parents were never home. There were bottles and smoke everywhere, and there was loud rap music playing. Rachel sat on the couch between Karla and Kevin, Joe’s younger brother. Kevin passed her a bottle of Bacardi, and she took a huge sip of it and swallowed. Kevin said, “Daaaaaamn, girl,” and Rachel pretended it tasted like water even though inside, her lungs felt like they were tearing apart from each other. But the rush to her head was good, and it made her care less about where she was and about Kevin’s arm clamped tight around her shoulder. She didn’t remember how or when he started to kiss her, but she knew they were doing so right there in front of everyone.
The next day, Karla called her. “Kevin told Joe he had a great time with you last night.”
“That’s weird,” Rachel said. “We hardly did anything.”
“Yeah. He knows you’re playing hard to get.”
“I’m not meaning to.”
“Well, meaning to or not,” she said, “keep it up. It’s working.”
—
On Visitors’ Day, Denise drove up in a rental car again and brought Rachel a bagel from their favorite neighborhood deli. Fiona’s family showed up to see her—her parents and her younger sister and their yellow Lab; her older brother was away at lacrosse camp. They had a picnic lunch together, Rachel’s and Fiona’s families; Mrs. Larkin had made chocolate-and-vanilla sandwich cookies, which weren’t as good as regular Oreos.
After lunch, Rachel’s mom took her to CVS to buy some toiletries; Fiona’s thirteenth birthday was coming up the following week, so the Larkins went out for a “birthday surprise.” Rachel filled up the shopping cart with necessities like toothpaste and bug spray, but also cans of Pringles, boxes of sugary cereal, and Pixy Stix, which she’d heard were fun to snort, while Denise wasn’t looking. At the register, Rachel expected her mom to tell her to put all the junk food items back—partly because they weren’t necessities and partly because Rachel wasn’t supposed to eat that stuff anymore—but Denise was in a good mood. She smiled and didn’t say a word, except to order a pack of Newport Lights from the guy behind the counter.
They drove back to camp with the windows open. Their relationship felt different in the country, all the stresses of city life left behind. There was no smog, no subways or sirens. Here it was just Denise and Rachel pared down, mother and daughter driving along a country road.
The unspoken element, of course, was that Rachel’s dad made all this country ease possible. But he was the one with another family. He was the one who had left. This was, as they understood it, their due.
They parked next to the horse stables, and when they got out of the car, Rachel saw Fiona brushing a sandy-haired mare that wasn’t one of the Camp Marigold horses. The rest of the Larkins surrounded them; Mrs. Larkin was taking pictures.
Rachel approached the fence of the arena, and Denise followed behind her with the CVS bags in her hands. When Fiona saw Rachel, she stopped brushing the horse and ran toward her friend.
She leaned against the fence, breathless. “They got me a horse, Rachel! Can you believe it? Her name is Josie. And you can ride her whenever you want.”
Rachel looked up at her mom. Denise shoved the CVS bags into Rachel’s arms and took the pack of Newports from her back pocket. She pulled one out and lit it right there. She took a long drag.
She wasn’t allowed to smoke at camp. But Rachel decided not to say anything.
—
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory went on that night so the parents could see it, but Denise had already driven home to beat Sunday night traffic. The show was pretty bad, but Matthew had real talent, a way of dominating the entire stage.
At the end of the show, he came over to hug Rachel. He was sweating and had orange makeup on his face that she hadn’t noticed from the audience. He smelled like he needed to put on more deodorant, but she liked it. It was a long hug, their bodies closer than they had ever been, and she felt small and safe in it. She pulled away because otherwise she might have stayed for a long time.
“What’d you think?” he asked.
“You were great.” Over Matthew’s shoulder, Rachel saw Fiona watching them. “Do you want to meet up later?” Rachel asked.
His eyebrows went up, and he looked around the auditorium with all the kids and counselors laughing and buzzing.
“You mean sneak out?” he whispered.
“Yeah.”
She knew that inside he was terrified and thrilled like her. She could tell by the way his nostrils were flaring and how his eyes had taken on a crazy wideness.
He slowly nodded. “Okay.”
—
Later, after lights-out, it wasn’t hard for Rachel to keep herself awake. Her pulse hammered against the flesh of her throat; her limbs were electric, tingling. When her watch said twelve-forty-five, she peeled up the mosquito net and climbed, very quietly, down on top of her trunk and then onto the wooden floor of the tent. She slipped on her flip-flops and tiptoed out of the back of the tent and stopped at the bathroom. She took her hair out of its bun and fluffed it around her face. She put on lip gloss and smacked her lips together. She pinched her cheeks to make them rosy.
She tiptoed out of girls’ camp and all the way down the gravel road, which eventually ended at the stables. It was so quiet and so hard to see at night that she had to move very slowly, so she didn’t trip over a hidden root or a loose stone. Her eyes started to adjust to the dark, and she could see the rectangular wooden performing arts building ahead. They’d agreed to meet in the woods behind it.
When she walked around to the back of the building, a dead leaf crunched under her foot, and she paused. She saw a tall figure and held her breath as she moved closer.
“Hey,” Matthew said. She moved toward him and saw he was also in his pajamas, flannel drawstring pants and a Camp Marigold hoodie.
They walked into the woods without talking. Marigold felt different at night: dark and scary but in a good way. Like it was uncharted territory. Like it was impossible there were hundreds of kids and counselors sleeping in their bunks in the very same camp.
Matthew slowed and stopped at a spot between two trees.
“This is good,” he said and took off his backpack. Then he pulled a blanket out of it and spread it over the flat part of the ground. He was very careful to flatten and even it out just so.
They sat down on the blanket at the same time. They looked at their feet.
“I was really happy that you invited me out here,” he finally said.
“Oh,” she said. “How come?”
“Well, I’ve always had a crush on you.” His voice cracked on the word “always,” and he cleared his throat. “Well, not always. But you know. For a long time.”
Just the edges of their kneecaps were touching.
“How long?” she asked.
He thought about it for a minute. “Since Buckeye summer, I think,” he said. “Yeah, that was it. You were green team captain that year, weren’t you?”
“I think so.”
“You were. I remember you were standing in front of all the Buckeye girls at the pool before a swim race and leading a green team cheer. We were at the athletic shed playing four square, but I saw you all the way over at the pool in your green shorts and green paint under your eyes and your hair in two braids. I couldn’t hear what you were yelling, but it didn’t matter because everyone was listening to you and watching you. You were really, really in charge of all those girls.”
“That’s funny,” she said. “I don’t remember that.”
“Anyway.” He cleared his throat again. “I just am trying to say that I like you, Rachel.” Before she could say anything back, he leaned in and pressed his mouth against hers. Then his tongue pushed its way into her mouth, poking and prodding as if it was going to find something in there.
They kissed like that for several minutes. She could tell Matthew thought that was what he was supposed to do. She didn’t really know at the time exactly what you were supposed to do, but she knew it couldn’t be that.
She finally pulled away to take a breath. He was panting.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, which he took as “Let’s keep going,” and he went back in. This time, though, he rolled over on top of her. He pressed down into her, and she could feel his penis, erect and hard, poking the bottom of her stomach. He was slobbering, grunting, a different person from the one she thought she was starting to get to know. But as he moved down slightly, it started to feel right—not quite as good as when she was riding Micah, but a hint of it. They stayed that way for a long time, their bodies heating up inside their flannel pajamas, until she also began to feel like a different person.
Then in the midst of all the grinding and grunting, Matthew reached a hand up her pajama top, and as soon as he cupped his hand around her breast and squeezed, he went, “Oh,” and his body convulsed against hers.
“Sorry,” he said, glancing down at himself, and it took her a moment to understand what had happened.
They lay on the blanket looking up at the stars for a few minutes until Rachel said, “We should probably go back now.” They walked out of the woods not touching and got to the hill separating the boys’ and girls’ camps. He went in to give her a hug goodbye.
“You’re supposed to kiss me good night,” she said, and he did, dutifully.
—
Rachel was so tired in the morning that Fiona had to shake her awake.
“What’s wrong with you, Rachel?” she asked.
Rachel groaned. She could barely keep her eyes open as they walked to the showers.
“You’re seriously acting so weird,” Fiona said when they were getting dressed and Rachel was practically silent.
“I just didn’t sleep that well last night,” Rachel said.
“Whatever,” Fiona said, suspicious.
At flag raising, Rachel looked over at Matthew as he was yawning. He caught her glance and smiled with half his mouth, like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to or not.
Rachel offered a mischievous smile back, then flipped her hair behind her. She grabbed Fiona’s arm, and they walked arm in arm to the dining room. He followed behind them the whole way. Rachel had never liked coffee before, but at breakfast she was so tired that she decided she wanted a cup. In the dining hall, boys and girls sat on opposite sides, but as Rachel went up to the coffee station in the middle—which was supposed to be for counselors only—Matthew came rushing toward her.
“Hey,” he said conspiratorially. “Are you allowed to be up here?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said without an iota of worry.
“Let me get it for you,” he said, taking the cup from her.
“Skim milk, two Sweet’N Lows,” Rachel said, which was the way her mom fixed hers.
He handed the coffee and the Sweet’N Low packets to Rachel and said, “Want to sit together on the lawn during free period?”
He was just a boy again—nervous and human. Whatever he had been the night before, in the middle of all the sweating and heaving, that was not who Rachel was looking at now. Now he was a boy who would do whatever she wanted.
Fiona could have her stupid horse.
“Maybe,” Rachel said, and turned away, flipping her hair behind her once more.
When she got back and sat down at the table, Fiona leaned against her. She had been watching. “Did something happen with him last night?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“What did you guys do?”
“None of your business,” Rachel said, stirring the Sweet’N Low into her coffee.
The excitement on Fiona’s face fell away. “That’ll give you cancer,” she said about the Sweet’N Low.
“See if I care,” Rachel said, and took a scalding sip.
2
Denise smoked one cigarette after another on the drive home, lighting each new one with the butt from the last. She felt a stronger urge to smoke in the country than she did in the city, as if it were the clean air that didn’t belong in her lungs. She had the radio tuned to classic rock and was pushing eighty on the Taconic. She just wanted to get home.
The blue lights of a police car lit up in her rearview mirror. She knew immediately that they were for her. “Fuck,” she muttered to herself, and put on her blinker as she slowed and pulled onto the shoulder of the parkway.
She put out her cigarette in the car’s ashtray and turned off the radio. The cop car, with the words HIGHWAY POLICE stamped on the hood, slowed and parked behind her. She checked her reflection quickly in the overhead mirror and pinched her cheeks and lips for a flush of color. As the officer walked toward her, he grew larger in the side-view mirror. Aviator sunglasses obscured his eyes. She rolled down her driver’s-side window.
“Hello, Officer,” she said. He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, and now she saw what she was working with. He was probably in his early twenties, with chubby cheeks and a hint of a moustache that looked like it was having trouble growing. She took a quick look at his name tag: OFFICER DANIEL MCGILL.
“Ma’am, are you aware of how fast you were driving?” Officer McGill asked, tentatively peering into Denise’s car.
“Was I speeding?” Denise had at least fifteen years on him. “I had no idea.”
“I clocked you going eighty-three in a fifty-five.”
Denise gasped—which, as soon as she did it, felt ridiculous to her. But she did what she had to do. “I’m so sorry, Officer McGill,” she said, bringing an equally ridiculous hand to her mouth.
He took a pad and a pen from the breast pocket of his uniform and wrote something down. “License and registration, please,” he said.
Denise beamed up at him. She wasn’t as young as she used to be, but she was still attractive. Only, he wasn’t even looking at her.
“Do you have kids, Officer?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I was visiting my daughter at camp,” Denise said. “I still have another six weeks without her, and she’s so young.” She saw this elicited no response from him. “She’s all I’ve got,” she tried.
“It sounds difficult, ma’am.” His voice cracked into a higher register, and he cleared his throat. “But if you could just give me your license and registration, I can run your information, and this will be over in no time.”
She imagined how freeing it might be to start the ignition and drive over the divider onto the other side of the Taconic and go back in the direction she came from, to scoop up Rachel and bring her home. Every summer, Denise would see how happy her daughter became when she got to camp. But then, during Denise’s drive back to the city, her regrets would grow. Rachel didn’t belong there. She was a city girl, like Denise: hard and street-smart and tough. Denise knew it took two people to make one kid, but she resented every hint of Mark she saw in her daughter. Every time Rachel asked for a designer bag or went to the suburbs to ride horses with Fiona, Denise’s heart flinched. That kind of spoiled, materialistic behavior could only have been borne from him.
“Let me tell you,” Denise said, trying to make herself emotional. “It’s the biggest sacrifice of your life. Don’t ever do it.” She wiped a fake tear from her eye. “They need you, and they need you, and then, just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“they don’t need you.”
“Ma’am,” Officer McGill said, “I’m sorry that you’re upset, but if you’re not going to cooperate, I’m going to have to ask you to step outside of the car.”
“And you know why?” she said. “It’s because you can’t give them what they need anymore. Imagine that. A mother, not being able to give her own daughter what she needs.”
Denise opened her purse and took out her wallet. She opened it, and then remembered the unpaid tickets. For some time now she had been receiving the envelopes with the red block letters on the front of them, and she had ignored them, quietly hoping they would go away. Mark always paid for a rental car in the summer for Denise and Rachel, for camp. Somehow last summer she’d managed to get pulled over several times. She couldn’t help the feelings of rage that fucking camp brought out in her.
Quickly, she closed the wallet.
“Officer, I completely forgot my license back in the city,” she lied, rapidly thinking of ways to get out of this.
“Ma’am, if you don’t have your license with you, I’m going to need your name and Social Security number.”
“Does it really need to come to that?” she said. He didn’t smile back at her. So she took her hand and reached outside the car window, toward his leg, and grazed his inner thigh with her fingers.
