“Philip.”
“I mean it. I want to marry you. I’m giving you this little hunk of silver now. After this is all straightened out, it’ll be a diamond ring.”
Her eyes sparkled up at him as she dropped the cuff link into her handbag. “I’ll hold you to that, too. In fact, I’ve got my dream ring all picked out.”
“At Palmquist’s, where you work?”
“Very funny. At Tiffany’s.”
“Ha. I can’t afford Tiffany’s.”
“Sure you can. Your parents are loaded.”
“But I’m not. In this family, we make our own way in the world.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
He laughed and skimmed her dress down over her shoulders, watching it pool on the floor. Then he reached around and unfastened her bra. “You’re going to be the bride of a poor but noble public defender.”
“Okay, now you’re scaring me.”
He caught his breath as the bra came away; then he found his voice again. “The only thing that scares me is leaving you tomorrow.”
CAMP KIOGA SONGBOOK
The bear went over the mountain,
The bear went over the mountain,
The bear went over the mountain,
And what do you think he saw?
Five
“Why do I keep flashing on scenes from The Shining?” asked Freddy Delgado. He hummed an ominous sound track as Olivia drove their leased SUV up the narrow, patchwork-paved country road toward the town of Avalon.
“Believe me,” she said, “that’s not as horrific as the flashbacks I’m having. I spent a lot of excruciating summers here.” She still couldn’t quite believe she was doing this. The simple act of driving felt foreign to her, since she never drove in the city. Right up to the last minute, her mother had tried to talk her out of the renovation project, but Olivia was determined. Her father had been more supportive. When she’d told him goodbye the previous night, he’d held her close and wished her luck.
“Why excruciating?” asked Freddy. “It looks like the perfect place for summer.”
She eased up on the accelerator as a chipmunk darted across the road. There were things she’d never told Freddy—or anyone—about her life. “I was sort of a misfit.”
“You?” He snorted with a disbelief that made her feel flattered. “What is this, a camp for freaks and geeks?”
She gestured at the photo album, which lay on the seat between them. The thought of him getting a glimpse of her past was discomfiting, but she had to trust him. Who besides Freddy would drop everything and agree to spend the summer at a remote Catskills camp, trying to bring back the charm of a bygone time? Of course, being jobless and homeless was a clear incentive, but now it was too late. He was already flipping through the old photos.
“Find the group shot from 1993. Saratoga Cabin, Eagle Lodge,” she instructed him.
He flipped it open and scanned the collection of photos. “Looks like a breeding program for the Aryan nation. Geez, did everybody have to be tall, blond and hot to go to camp here?”
“Look closer. Back row, on the end,” she said.
“Oh.” The tone of Freddy’s voice indicated that he had spotted her. “Went through an awkward phase, did you?”
“I wouldn’t call it a phase, I’d call it my entire adolescence. And I wasn’t awkward. I was fat. The Coke-bottle glasses and braces were just kind of a bonus.”
Freddy let out a low whistle. “And look at you now. The ugly duckling became a swan.”
“The ugly duckling got contacts, went blond and did year-round intramural swimming in college. The ugly duckling worked for two years to get to her ideal weight. And you don’t have to be polite. I was horrible. I was an unhappy kid and I took it out on myself. Once I figured out how to be happy, everything got better.”
“Kids aren’t supposed to have to figure out how to be happy. They just are.”
“Some families are different,” she told him. “And that’s all I’m going to say about the Bellamys, so don’t bother to pry.”
“Ha. I’ve got you to myself the entire summer. I’ll learn all your secrets.”
“I have no secrets.”
“Bullshit. I think you’re keeping secrets even from yourself.”
“It’s going to be a real picnic, spending the summer with Dr. Freud.”
“Well, I’m glad we’re doing this project. And I’m glad Rand Whitney is history now.”
“Thanks,” she said, her voice sharp with sarcasm. “That means a lot, coming from you, Freddy. You wanted me to fail.”
“Olivia. You set yourself up for failure every time. Ever wonder why that is?”
Ouch.
“You have a habit of picking the wrong guy,” he went on. “I think it’s because you wouldn’t know what to do if you actually found the right guy. You say you figured out how to be happy. Why don’t I believe that?” She didn’t want to discuss this. “I think Barkis needs a bathroom break.”
“No, he doesn’t. He just peed in Kingston. According to the map, we’re almost there. I’ll shut up, I promise.” True to his word, Freddy fell silent and went back to studying the photos. Olivia had already done so, poring over the old Kodachromes and black-and-white photographs in order to remind herself what the place used to look like. Fortunately, her grandmother kept a concise history of the camp, from its humble beginnings in the 1930s to its heyday in the late 1950s, which was the time period she wanted to replicate in honor of the golden anniversary. She hoped to evoke the simple pleasures of summers past, to make Camp Kioga look like the sort of place people used to go—or wish they had.
Freddy flipped the book shut. “Seeing you as a kid explains a little more about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a master of the art of transforming things. No wonder you’re so good at what you do.”
She’d certainly had plenty of practice. As a child, she had been obsessed with changing things—her room in her mother’s Fifth Avenue apartment, her locker at the Dalton School, even her cabin at Camp Kioga each summer. At camp, it was the one thing she was good at. One year, she’d raided a storeroom above the dining hall and found a stash of old linens. Her cabinmates had returned from a hike to find the bunks covered in handmade quilts, soft and faded with age. The windows were draped with calico curtains, the sills decked with freshly picked wildflowers in jelly jars.
“We’ll see how good,” she cautioned Freddy. “I’ve never staged an entire wilderness camp before.”
“Your grandmother gave you a big fat budget and the whole summer to get the job done. It’ll be an adventure in itself.”
“I hope you’re right. And thanks for agreeing to do this with me. You’re a godsend, Freddy.”
“Trust me, honey, I needed this gig,” he said with self-deprecating candor. “You’re going to need more than me on this renovation, though. Who are you going to use for labor?”