Chapter 1: Newly Wed and Nearly Dead

©Elke Ray 2011 [e-mail]
70,550 words, Commercial fiction: Mystery/Romance elkaray.com

NEWLY WED & NEARLY DEAD

A teenage crush. A bad divorce. A brutal murder.
Life on Vancouver Island was supposed to be peaceful...

- Chapter 1: Knock-Out -

Summer camp. Individually, they’re both great words. But put them together and it can get ugly. Ugly as in being forced to run around Lake Philobee – commonly known as ‘Full ‘o pee’ – at dawn, and then being expected to jump into it.

“I’m not jumping into that,” I say. “Look at the water, it’s mustard-colored.”

“That’s a result of tannin. It’s totally natural!” says our group’s counselor, Thelma, as though this were reason to celebrate.

“So’s dysentery,” I say, but Thelma ignores me. Obviously, camp counselors are obliged to be positive, but for Thelma, excessive enthusiasm seems to come naturally. She’s
studying Education, and I pity her future students. Faced with Thelma’s unrelenting encouragement I’d probably drop out, or at least try not to study. Overly sunny people have that effect on me. Maybe it’s a yin yang thing, as my mother would say; I’m just trying to restore the natural balance of the universe.

I would never have agreed to come to Camp Eagletree in the first place if my best friend, Kirsten Allan, hadn’t wanted to come here. But even Kirsten, who isn’t phased by much, doesn’t look eager to jump into Lake Philobee, especially after she’s stuck a toe in it. “Holy crap! It’s freezing,” she announces.

A gust of cold wind lifts her long blonde hair off of her shoulders and she shivers. While this passes for summer on Canada’s West Coast, in most of the world we’d be wearing sweaters instead of swimsuits.

“It’ll get your blood moving!” says Thelma. She peels off her flannel shirt to reveal a set of enviable breasts, restrained by the sort of black, one-piece swimsuit that camp counselors are supposed to wear. Aged twenty-two, Thelma has the muscular look of an East German swimmer, back before the Wall came down and they were all on steroids. I try not to look at her boobs but can’t help it. If I had a quarter, no, a sixth, of Thelma’s cleavage I’d be happy.

Cold and discoloration are just two of the reasons why I don’t want to jump into Lake Philobee. The third – and perhaps more important – reason is that I don’t wish to be seen in my bathing suit, not now and not at any other time during the ten days that I’m supposed to spend at Camp Eagletree. I guess that I should have thought of this before I signed up, especially since I knew that activities like canoeing and kayaking were involved.

“Let’s go!” yells Thelma. She jumps off of the rock on which we’re all huddled.

“Whew!” says Thelma, when her head pops up. The cold has knocked a little of the strength from her smile, but she’s still trying. “It’s fantastic!” she trills. Just looking at her gives me goose bumps. “Last one in is a rotten egg!”

This might work on toddlers, but does Thelma actually expect it to work on six fourteen-year-old girls? Strangely enough, it does. Predictably, Selena Knowles is the first to jump. That girl is a total suck-up. If Thelma had told her to drink from Lake Full ‘o Pee she’d probably do it, then tell the rest of us that it tastes like apple juice.

Corrine McAllister is next - she’s one of those rugged, field-hockey-champ types who can’t resist a challenge. I’m dismayed to see Kirsten leap off the rock, only to pop up screaming as though something just bit her. I give her a reproachful look but she’s coughing too hard to notice.

Louise Dobson goes next, although it’s more of a forlorn shuffle-off-the-plank than a jump. That leaves just me and Tonya Cabrilatto on the rock. We both turn look at each other.

Tonya’s upper lip inches upwards. “Nice swimsuit,” she says. “I had one just like it when I was six. But you forgot your water-wings.”

“I think you forgot your brain,” I say. This clearly isn’t one of my best come-backs but Tonya Cabrilatto has a mind-numbing effect on me. Maybe her lack of brain power is contagious.

While I wouldn’t actually befriend any of the girls in my group (besides Kirsten), they’re all more or less okay – except for Tonya. I hated her on first sight and not just because she has the kind of hot-tramp good looks that would give every guy I know an instant hard-on. Kirsten’s pretty too – in fact she’s much, much prettier than Tonya Cabrilatto – so it’s more than jealousy that has raised my hackles. Even before Tonya said a word I knew how she’d sound, what she’d say, and how she’d say it. I knew that she enjoys putting people down, and that the pathetic power that she gets from being mean has her convinced of her own coolness.

Faced with Tonya’s dead-eyed sneer, the rock feels too small, like I’d rather be submerged in that pee-colored lake than out here with Tonya. Maybe Tonya has the same thought because she rips off her sweatshirt.

And so she trumps me.

She is wearing a bikini in a hideous but effective shade of neon green, her breasts – almost as gargantuan as Thelma’s – spilling over. There is no way that I can disrobe with those twin orbs glowing beside me. The contrast between them and my teensy nubs would be too stark, my humiliation too apparent.

I fix my eyes on the murky depths of Lake Philobee.

“Both together!” yells Thelma. She claps her hands. I bet that she was a cheerleader back in high school. “One! Two! Three! Jump!”

I am frozen.

Before Tonya’s feet leave the rock I feel her eyes scrape across my flat chest. That girl can sniff out insecurities - no matter how well hidden - with the same ease that a shark can detect a drop of blood in the ocean. Tonya’s lips twitch into a smug smile, her muscles tense, and she dives into the dark water.

“Nice one!” yells Thelma, when Tonya surfaces. “Come on, Toby! We’re all waiting!”

I see that I did this all wrong. If I’d just jumped in first, my chest would now be hidden by murk. Instead, six sets of eyes are staring up at me. I consider jumping in without taking off my sweat-top. Either that or I could feign whooping cough or appendicitis.

“Back flip!” yells Kirsten who, ever since we met in kindergarten, has seemed to have an uncanny ability to know what I’m thinking.

In one reasonably fluid motion I spin around, peel off my shirt and do a back flip. The one and only advantage of my small, skinny build is that it’s well suited to gymnastics. Kirsten and I used to take lessons together, but she dropped out when she hit five foot eight, which was two years ago. While I’ll never make it to the national level, I’ve stuck with it.

I come up spluttering and laughing, more from relief than from pleasure, since this is anything but pleasant. The water is so cold that it takes my breath away. I can’t believe that nobody has died doing this. Don’t the owners of Camp Eagletree realize that they’re just asking for a lawsuit?

“Whoo hoo!” yells Thelma. “Isn’t this refreshing?”

Not even Selena Knowles bothers to answer her. Weeds slither around my ankles. Teeth gritted against the cold, I head for shore, determined to be the first one out and wrapped in a towel.


--

Each group of campers is named after a population of the native people who used to live all over British Columbia until they were practically wiped out by white folk in the 1800s. We’re the Haida, who were famous for their cedar war canoes, their fierceness, and their carved totem poles.

Perhaps in a bid to help us connect to our namesake, Thelma has got us whittling miniature totem poles, an activity that seems unnecessarily risky – and really boring. I wonder how long it’ll be before someone nicks their thumb, requiring Thelma to delve into her bulging first aid kit for disinfectant and a Band-aid.

We’re all seated on logs in the area which, after dark, is used for sing-alongs around the campfire. The afternoon is unusually hot with no trace of a breeze, the pines and cedars hanging limp and the lake unruffled. In the heat, I feel sleepy.

All of us are bent over our sticks, nobody talking except for Selena. She keeps holding up her creation for us to admire, seemingly convinced that her totem is Art with a capital A rather than Camp Eagletree’s cheap-skate way of keeping us busy, thereby minimizing the risk that we’ll vandalize camp property or get pregnant.

“Oh shite,” says Kirsten, who rarely swears. She exhales and her bangs come unstuck from her shiny forehead. “I chopped off my thunderbird’s wing.”

I examine her butchered totem and shrug. “You could cut the other one off and turn it into a bear or something,” I say. “Not that you should be taking carving advice from me.” I hold up my own totem pole, which resembles nothing more than a lumpy dildo.

I look around for Thelma and can’t see her. “Or we could get out of here,” I say. I figure that we could walk to the canteen and try to convince the cooks to give us some cold drinks. If they’re male and aged anywhere from eleven to one hundred Kirsten should be able to get at least a Coke out of them.

“How are we all doing?” trills Thelma, who has somehow managed to walk up right behind me. I’m so shocked by her proximity that I jump. My hand slips. I feel a stab of pain and drop my knife. “Ow,” I say. My left middle finger is dripping scarlet.

“Oh my god, you’re bleeding,” gasps Louise Dobson, her face, which is normally beige, turning even paler. Even her hair, which is also beige, seems to lose some color. If she were standing she’d now collapse into a chair, but since she’s already seated next to me she just leans over and vomits noisily.

Luckily, I manage to move my feet out of the way. “Ew, guh-ros!” says Tonya Cabrilatto, who was sitting on Louise’s other side. She springs to her feet and stands glaring at Louise as though she’d just puked on purpose. “You are like so disgusting,” she says.

“The sight of blood makes me sick,” says Louise apologetically. Round two looks imminent. I stand up and take a big step backwards.

“No shit,” says Tonya. Thelma gives her a look.

For want of a towel I wrap my t-shirt around my hand, a dark splotch growing, amoeba-like, on the blue fabric. I wonder if the shirt will be ruined forever.

“Let me see that,” says Thelma, her tone less upbeat than usual. She eyes me suspiciously, as though I might actually be faking it.

I extend my hand and Thelma sighs. For now, she is solidly pretty but I can see how she’ll look in twenty years, all that muscle turned to fat and a frown line etched deep into her forehead. Excessive fake smiling is bound to cause wrinkles too. I pull my baseball hat down. Thelma retrieves a roll of gauze and some scissors from her first aid kit.

“This is just temporary,” she says, after she’s wrapped my entire left hand in gauze and sticky tape. She releases my hand. “You need to see the nurse. It might need stitches.”

Thelma, I know, is debating what to do next. If she sends me to the nurse alone and I faint behind a bush, she’ll get in trouble. But leaving the others isn’t a great option either. I wonder if she’ll force all six of us to troop down to the infirmary.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be fine with me,” says Kirsten, as though Thelma had already asked. While authority figures tend to mistrust me on sight – something that I blame, depending on my mood and circumstances, on racism, my sarcastic streak or my annoyingly youthful appearance – they all trust Kirsten. Not only is she the picture of blonde haired, blue eyed innocence but she’s got a maternal quality that makes new moms hand over their babies and men of all ages long to rest their head on her chest and be sung to.

This just goes to show how dumb most adults are, because while Kirsten is trustworthy in the big picture – she is loyal, brave and deeply kind – she doesn’t care much about the things that grown-ups seem to stress about, such as copying homework (mine) or keeping her panties on. [Not that she’s a slut. If that many guys were interested in me I might have sex with some of them too, not that it’s come up yet.]

Sure enough, Thelma trusts Kirsten. She checks her watch. “Okay, but come right back when the nurse says she’s okay, alright?” she says, addressing Kirsten as though I were a pet or someone who doesn’t understand English. “If we’re not here when you’re done we’ll be at the flag pole for assembly.”

“Sure thing,” says Kirsten, already steering me towards the path out of here.

Although my finger hurts, I can’t help but feel smug, a backward glance revealing four sweaty girls clutching a knife in one hand and a lumpy stick in the other. All of them look sullen and overheated. Tonya, who is dressed in a Lycra tank top and a tube skirt, looks especially furious. When she catches my eye she mouths the word ‘loser’.

“Slut!” I mouth back. Kirsten tugs impatiently on my elbow.

“Cut it out,” she says. “Let’s get out of here.”

Sure enough, like our totems, my joy at having escaped is whittled down when Thelma calls after us. “Louise had better see the nurse too,” she says. “She’s feeling dizzy.”

“No problem, I’ve got her,” says Kirsten quickly. She drops my elbow and speed-walks to where Louise sits drooping. No doubt Kirsten has reasoned that, should another helper be required, Thelma will do the math and realize that we’d be better off going to the nurse en masse. Luckily, Kirsten manages to propel Louise out of there.

The infirmary, which lies near the mess hall, flagpole and camp office, is only a five-minute walk from here. But with Louise in tow, it might take twenty. She moves like an octogenarian wading through quicksand.

“Slow down,” she says for about the fiftieth time in fifty feet.

I grit my teeth. Even Kirsten, who’s really good with sick people, looks strained, although she continues to murmur encouragement.

“I need to stay in the shade,” says Louise. “I forgot my hat back there and I’m prone to sunstroke.” I narrow my eyes and she shuts up, an aggrieved look on her face. “It’s all right for you,” she says. “You’re used to the tropics.”

No doubt to shut her up, Kirsten steers Louise into the shade. I roll my eyes. Louise’s logic is way off base. I’ve never been anywhere warmer than San Francisco. But she is right about one thing – I have inherited my mom’s Asian skin. Sometimes I wish that I had Kirsten’s rose-tinted complexion but then I remember the plus side: At the age of thirty-eight, my mom still gets carded when she goes to the liquor store. Based on how young I look now, I won’t be worrying about wrinkles until I’m seventy.

“You look like you could use a little sun,” I say to Louise. If she dyed her hair black she’d be the world’s palest Goth. I wonder if it’s possible to be part albino, or whether it’s all or nothing, like being drowned and pregnant. I’m about to ask when we turn a corner and hear male voices followed by a shrill whistle.

Up ahead in a dirt parking lot a bunch of guys are playing dodgeball. There’s so much dust in the air that the whole scene has a sepia tint, the guys indistinguishable through the haze. They look around our age. One guy, whom I guess is their counselor, lets out another blast on his whistle.

“I’m allergic to dust,” moans Louise. Her geriatric shuffle morphs into a speed-walk. I want to tell her to slow down so that we can check out the guys, but of course I keep quiet. Last night at mess Kirsten and I had agreed that most of the guys look like dorks but a couple might be okay. Not that we could really tell. No doubt to minimize fraternization, the older guys had been seated at the opposite end of the dining hall, behind an ocean of squirming younger kids.

As we pass, I can feel the guys watching us. I’m trying to pretend that I’m not looking when I hear a whooshing noise. Louise Dobson ducks and Kirsten sidesteps, but I stand frozen, the ball hitting me straight in the face. It feels like my eyeballs are about to pop out of my nostrils. Then I crumple into the dirt, unconscious.

The first thing that I see when I come to is Louise, her face even paler than it was when I last saw her. I blink and her face comes in and out of focus. I blink again, then shut my eyes. The sky seems too bright. My chest heaves and blood rushes through my ears, deafening me.

“Toby? Are you alright?”

Kirsten sounds so alarmed that I crack open one eye, which is when I realize that I have a sizeable audience. Besides Kirsten and Louise, who’s now got her hand pressed to her mouth, there are other, taller shapes. I manage to move my eyes clockwise. Guy. Guy. Guy. Old guy who must be their counselor, clutching at a bead necklace. Guy. Guy. God. I feel what little air there was left in my chest leave me.

Last year in Social Studies we studied Greek mythology. The guy at seven o’clock is my idea of Adonis, complete with blond curls, an aquiline nose and azure eyes, now framed by two worried-looking eyebrows. I try to look away but am unable to do so.

“Can you talk?” says the counselor. Based on his large afro, I thought that this guy was black, but repeated blinking reveals that he has red hair and lots of freckles. His eyes are red too, and he’s got the vacant stare and late-night-munchies-belly of a committed dope fiend. Sure enough, when he leans closer I catch a whiff of pot and patchouli. The guy’s still worrying his worry beads.

I try to answer but can’t, which is when it occurs to me that I might be brain damaged. I wonder if my mom will sue and what bizarre natural treatments she’ll subject me to, crystal therapy or aura repair or something. I’m finding it hard to breathe. The pain is nauseating. It feels as though someone has wedged a potato up my nose.

“Toby?” says Kirsten. “Can you hear me?”

Since she looks like she’s about to cry I feel compelled to respond, my voice all wonky-sounding, as if I were underwater. “Wha-wha happened?” I say. I have no need to ask where I am because whatever brain damage I’ve sustained has failed to erase my memories of Camp Eagletree.

“I’m so sorry,” says Adonis, brushing a stray curl from one guilty-looking eye. “I didn’t mean to hit you. It was an accident.”

“Way to go, Josh,” says the guy at nine o’clock. Looking at him, I do a double take. Does Adonis, whose real name seems to be Josh, have a twin? It’s like waking up to find two suns. But then my vision sharpens and I see that this guy, while similar-looking, lacks Josh’s godlike perfection.

“Shut up, Mike. It’s not like I hit her on purpose,” says Josh. By their aggrieved tones, plus remarkably similar looks, it’s obvious that Mike and Josh are brothers.

“It’s alright Josh,” says the camp counselor. “We all know that it wasn’t intentional.”

I look back at Josh. Since he’s the cause of my agony I should be pissed off at him, but weirdly, I feel no rancor. I shut my eyes again. When I open them, Josh’s blue eyes are locked on mine. He looks like he wants to touch me. I feel myself blush – an unwelcome legacy of my long-absent dad, who’s a redhead.

“Where does it hurt?” says Josh.

“Can you move your toes?” says the counselor.

“Should we call an ambulance?” says Kirsten.

I manage to say no. The last thing that I want is the entire camp to see me being carted off in an ambulance.

I’m attempting to sit up when I hear a retching noise, then see Louise lean sideways and vomit into a clump of salal bushes. “The sight of blood makes me sick,” she says apologetically, after she’s finished puking.

It takes a moment for the import of Louise’s words to sink in. I touch my face. Sure enough, it feels sticky. I examine my fingertip and see red. I wonder if my nose is broken. All of a sudden I realize how I must look – a scrawny Asian girl sprawled in the dirt, her face like something out of a horror flick. I turn away from Josh’s gaze, cursing myself and my stupid clumsiness and my misplaced confidence.

Fearing tears, I scrunch up my eyes. How could I have thought that Josh’s look actually meant something? He hadn’t been admiring me, he’d been pitying me. What I’d thought was mutual attraction had been all in my head.

Maybe I really am brain-damaged.


--