“The cabins aren’t rodent-ridden. They aren’t presidential suites, but they’re not that bad.” I crossed my fingers, hoping she’d roll with the living-space topic detour, but I doubted it.
“And there’s that term again. ‘Not that bad…’ ” I could almost picture her tapping her chin. “You’re not turning into one of those hippies who want to live off the land and go join some wacky cult that makes them eat hemp and kale and brainwashing at every meal before chasing it down with a spiked cup of Kool-Aid, are you?”
I’d held back the other sighs, but not this one. “I don’t even like Kool-Aid.”
“They don’t really care if you like it so long as it goes down the hatch and shuts off all major internal organs.”
“Emerson…” I’d had a long day. Usually talking to her made the day better, but it was kind of swinging the other direction tonight.
“Phoenix,” she fired back, matching my tone. “Come on. Talk to me. That’s what best friends do.”
“I know,” I said, pulling a tiny flashlight from my pocket and turning it on. I didn’t want to take a wrong turn and spend the night lost in the woods. “It just feels like there’s so much to talk about I don’t even know where to begin. Or how to explain most of it.” I could feel my eyes thinking about getting watery when I thought about my family and the end of the summer. So much uncertainty.
“Is this about what’s going on with your parents?” This time, Emerson’s voice was gentle.
“What hasn’t been about my parents the past two years of my life?”
There was silence on the other end. “This might not be the right time to mention it, Phoenix, but I swore I’d tell you the next time I talked to you.” I braced myself as Emerson went quiet again. “My mom saw something in the paper a few days ago. You know how she is, has to be in everyone’s business all the time. She saw your parents’ names on a bankruptcy list….”
If Emerson’s parents had seen it, so would parents of my other friends. Parents of my not-so-much friends would, too. The whole school would know by the time I walked through the doors the first day of senior year that my family had zip in the bank and zip in most everything else.
“Are you still there?” Emerson asked when I stayed silent. “I know reception up there sucks.”
She was trying to make me smile, or at least give me a moment to lighten up. I managed a phony laugh. “I knew things weren’t going stellar in the money department for them. I just didn’t realize how rock bottom it had gotten.”
“So I’m guessing from your surprise they haven’t told you yet?” Emerson paused and sighed. “I’m a jerk for bringing it up. My parents said I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t keep something like that from you.”
“No, it’s okay. I appreciate you telling me. That’s why you’re my best friend.” I had to stop and lean against one of the trees lining the path. As angry as I tried to convince myself I was, all I wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry. My life was falling apart in front of my eyes, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. “I know it must have been hard telling me. Thank you, Emerson.”
“Oh crap, you’re crying, aren’t you?” Her voice took on a frantic edge.
I sniffed and stomped my sneaker into the soft earth to vent some emotion. It managed to keep my eyes from spilling over. “No, I’m good.”
From her pause, I knew what kind of expression was on her face.
“Okay, so maybe I’m not good, but I’m not crying. And I will be good once I let this all settle in.” I stomped the ground a few more times before shoving away from the tree.
“So enough with the heavy, then….Who’s this guy?”
I rolled my eyes and continued down the path. “Good night, Emerson.”
“Come on, just one teeny-tiny, juicy bit?”
“Next time. I’m about to hit my data limit for the month with my phone, and I wouldn’t want my parents to have to file for bankruptcy twice.”
“You don’t have to say a thing. Just snap a picture and send it my way.”
“A picture’s worth a thousand words?” I said just as the soft glow of lights came into view at the end of the path.
“A picture of a cute boy is worth a million.”
“Good night, Emerson,” I repeated.
“Good night. Have sweet, cute boy dreams.”
The line went dead, but I was pretty sure it had more to do with the spotty reception up here than Emerson hanging up.
I tucked my phone into my pocket and kept moving in the direction of the lights. I’d only visited this end of camp a few times and never at night. This was where the staff was housed, and even though it wasn’t off-limits, I didn’t really have a good reason to come here. Except tonight I did.
My backpack was heavy with study guides and books. My plans for studying in the cabin had been foiled by my parents’ impromptu fight, but I knew there were plenty of picnic tables and benches staggered around the staff cabins.
Of course, there were lots of tables and chairs and benches in the main part of the camp, too, but I didn’t want to chance being interrupted by Ben, who was a fan of long conversations, or kids itching to pull a prank on an unsuspecting victim. At least out here, I knew I’d be left alone.
At least I thought I’d be alone, until the first table I noticed was occupied by someone else who was leaned over a handful of open books, rapping a pencil against the table like he was playing a drum solo at a rock concert.
“So you’d rather let an imaginary tutor help you than me. What a compliment.” I moved toward the table.
Callum finished reading what it was he was studying, then slowly glanced up at me.
“The imaginary kind says nicer things. Strokes my ego instead of stomping on it.” Callum shuffled his stack of open books closer to his side of the table and motioned at the bench across from him.
I slid my backpack off and dropped it onto the table. “That’s precious. But you’ve been avoiding me on this long enough, and I need a study partner.” I slid onto the bench and unzipped my bag. “And a light.”
“And a cup of coffee?” Callum tapped the ceramic cup in front of him.
“I don’t like the taste of it, and caffeine makes me all jumpy,” I said before shrugging. “So absolutely.”
He smiled and slid off the bench. “One minute,” he said, jogging toward the cabin behind us. So that was the one he lived in. The one he slept in.
Not that I cared.
He shoved through the screen door less than a minute later with another cup and the coffeepot. “Round two and three.” He lifted the metal pot in his hand before finding an empty spot on the table to set it. “Just in case we need it.” When he held out the cup he’d gotten for me, I reached for it, and our fingers brushed together. I don’t know if it was just me reading too much into everything, but it felt like he kept his fingers where they were longer than he needed to.
When he finally did let go of the cup, he cleared his throat, sat down, and got back to studying like nothing had happened.
“You’re studying SAT books.” I waved at all his books before pulling out my own.
“I’m trying to study SAT books.”
“So why has it taken you this long to ask me for the help I promised I’d give you a couple of weeks ago?”
“Technically, I’m not asking for your help right now. You just showed up and sat down, and you’re mooching off my coffee.” His pencil was in his mouth, but it couldn’t hide his smile.
I took a small sip from the cup and tried not to grimace. “Your coffee sucks, and technically”—I matched my tone to his when he’d said it—“I’m a part of the camp staff, so am hereby authorized to use this picnic table.”
He took a drink of his coffee and nodded at my bag. “What have you got in that thing? Did you steal the five-gallon tub of lard from the kitchen again?”
I curled my nose at the thought of a tub of lard that size. “I’ve got the same thing, actually, some of the exact same
books as these.” I started pulling one study guide after another until I had a tall stack in front of me.
Callum turned the stack so the spines were facing him. “I have or have had every single one of these.” He tapped his pencil eraser against a few he had spread around him. “They weren’t very helpful.”
“Yeah, well, they’re helpful to me.”
Callum flipped a page in the book he had right in front of him and got back to rapping his pencil against the book. “I’m surprised you haven’t already taken the SAT since you’re one of those ‘decided’ types.”
I grabbed a pencil from my bag and deliberated on which book to work on—the most challenging one I had. “I already did take the test, but since I can take it again to try to get a better score, why wouldn’t I want to?”
Callum glanced up at me like I’d lost it. “Because you value your time and mental health?”
I shook my head and opened my book to the last page I’d worked on. I had it bookmarked and worked out so I’d have gone through it all by the time I took the test in the fall. I wasn’t about to let anything like a lack of planning get in the way of what I wanted. “Not nearly as much as I value getting into the college I want to.”
Callum continued to pretend to go through his own book, but I could tell I was distracting him. The only reason I was able to tell that was because he was distracting me, too. Now that I was sitting here, across from him, I wasn’t so sure this study arrangement was going to work.
“Why have you been avoiding me?” I asked after reading the same problem for the third time.
“We’ve been working together every day. How is that avoiding you?”
“Other than work, why have you been avoiding me?” I pressed. We hadn’t “accidentally” run into each other on a morning run, and I swore that at least twice he’d turned and gone the opposite direction when he’d noticed me.
“I’ve been busy.” He leaned over his book a bit more.
“Yeah, busy avoiding me.”
“Not avoiding,” he said. “Thinking.”
“Thinking about what?” When I realized I was tapping my pencil like he was, I tucked it behind my ear.
“Thinking about if I really want to give you a front-row seat to the Callum the Test Bomber Show.” He looked up for a moment, and he almost looked embarrassed.
“Listen, if you’re uncomfortable with me helping you with this stuff, that’s cool. I promise I won’t play tutor if you don’t want me to. But I do need to study, and if you’re doing the same, maybe we can do it together.” I bit my lip and paused. Why did I feel so awkward suggesting we study together?
“Because misery loves company?”
I smiled down at my book. “Something like that.”
After that, we were quiet. Nothing but the soft hum of the lanterns and the buzz of crickets. I was just starting to work the problem I’d read a record number of five times when Callum groaned.
“Wow. So I never thought studying for this damn test could get any harder, and then you go and sit across from me….” He slammed his book closed.
“Usually one must have the books open in order to study.” I threw his book open again.
“If I thought it would help, I’d take your advice, but since nothing short of brain-replacement surgery would help my chances of scoring higher than a twelve hundred on the SAT, I’m not going to waste my time.” He slammed his book closed again and moved it out of my reach.
I made myself take a full breath before saying anything. “So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is a baboon has a better chance of scoring higher on this thing than I do,” he grumbled as he chewed at the end of the eraser. No wonder he had such a tough time with tests—by the time he actually calmed down enough to take it, he’d rapped and chewed his pencil to slivers.
“Come on, Callum. You’re smart. There’s something else going on besides your brain needing to be surgically replaced.” I ignored him when he huffed over the smart part.
“Smart people don’t set record lows on every test that gets slapped down in front of them.”
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t used to him being so defeatist, and I didn’t like it. I liked the confident, I-can-save-the-world-and-navigate-class-five-rapids-at-the-same-time version. “What’s the equation for the surface area of a cube?” I threw out randomly.
His eyes narrowed in confusion. “What?”
I didn’t blink as I repeated, “The surface area of a cube. What is it?”
He didn’t blink as he answered, “Six s squared.”
“What’s the area of a circle?”
He didn’t pause. “Pi r squared.”
“What’s the order of operations?”
“PEMDAS,” he fired off with a shrug.
“Huh?”
He exhaled. “Parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction.”
I was ready to pop off another list of questions, but I stopped. He knew this stuff. He clearly knew it. So what was the deal with the test flopping?
“I know,” he said like he was reading my mind. “It doesn’t make sense. If I know the stuff I’m being tested on, the actual test should be pretty easy, right?”
I answered with a shrug to be polite.
“But it’s like when I get in front of a test, I get this tunnel vision or something, and I can’t focus on the problems in front of me. Instead, my mind wants to work out everything else besides the problems on the test.” He dropped his pencil and scrubbed at his face. “I read the same problem a dozen times and I still can’t figure out what it’s asking me to do. Sometimes I feel like I’m taking a test written in a different language. Most of the time I just feel like my brain’s packed its bags and taken an extended vacation.”
I nodded as I listened to him, thinking. “So you know the stuff—you just can’t prove that on a test.” I paused, not knowing what to do. When I’d offered to help him, I thought it would be by pounding equations into his memory and working through some reading comprehension sections together. I wasn’t sure how to help with something like this. “Do you think it’s more an issue with you being distracted when you take a test or like just being totally test-phobic or something?”
Callum spread his arms at the stacks of books around him. They were all broken in and worn at the edges from overuse. “Do I look like I’ve had much success answering that riddle?”
I kept nodding as my brain fired, searching for solutions or, if nothing else, something helpful. “Have you ever tried any deep-breathing techniques?”
“I’ve never even heard of deep-breathing techniques.”
I filed that away as something that might be helpful…somewhat. “What about positive affirmations when you find yourself getting stuck? Have you ever tried that before?”
“If I knew what”—he crinkled his nose like I’d just suggested dissecting a seal pup—“positive affirmations were, maybe I could have given them a shot.”
“Okay, okay.” I tapped my pencil against my temple slowly, the wheels inside still turning. “Why don’t we run through a quick practice test together and see how it goes?”
“I already know how mine will go.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Down. In a blaze of no glory.”
I groaned in frustration. “We really need to get you on the positive-affirmation bandwagon before you get trapped in downer land for the rest of your life.”
“I hate bandwagons.”
“Yeah, because I hadn’t already figured that out from your playlists and hairstyle.”
He slid his baseball cap off and shook his head. Half of it was still wet from what I guessed was a shower, and the other half was sticking out in every direction except down. “I don’t have a hairstyle.”
I clucked my tongue. “Exactly.”
After that, I pretended to get back to my practice test. For a minute and a half, at least.
“So that’s it? Deep breathing and p
ositive affirmations? That’s your answer to me going from an eight hundred to a twelve hundred?”
I sighed to myself and, keeping my eyes on my book, I opened his and slapped my hand down on it. “For now, yeah. I’ll look into it when I’m able to get in front of a computer screen, but in the meantime, give deep breathing a try.”
Across the table, Callum started inhaling and exhaling so loudly it was like he was in labor.
When he realized I wasn’t going to be distracted, he got back to his book. He shifted on the bench thirteen times, sighed seven times, and groaned four times, then rapped his pencil God knows how many hundred times.
“Stop with the spastic pencil drumming, already,” I said, snapping my hand down on his pencil. No wonder he couldn’t focus—I sure as hell couldn’t with that noise.
“It calms me,” he said defensively.
“Really?” I set my pencil neatly into the seam of the book. “And this is why you’ve nailed all your tests?”
His forehead lined. “You’re mean.”
“Hey, I’m not here to be nice to you. I’m here to help you.” I gave him a big smile.
He didn’t buy it, though. “And this ‘help’ requires you to use tough love?”
I tried not to laugh at the irony of him giving me a hard time for tough love. He was the tough love master. I had the emotional wounds to prove it, too. “Do you think Helen Keller learned sign language because Anne Sullivan was all gentle and nice?”
His mouth dropped open. Then he blinked. “Are you comparing me to Helen Keller?”
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “No, you are.”
He continued to stare at me. “I have no words.”
“Well, if you think of any, you can always sign them into my hand.”
He shook his head. “No. Words.”
“Hey, less talking, more studying.” I whacked his book with my hand and took my own advice. If I continued to let him distract me the way I already had, we’d both be bombing the SATs this fall.
He shrugged, giving me a look that suggested I was the one to blame for the talking.