Our campsite is the last in the row. This means we’re the farthest from the waterfront, but the closest to the bathrooms and showers. My mom keeps saying that as if it’s a good thing, but I’d rather be able to see the lake. The bathrooms and showers are in an ugly beige-colored building, so it’s not like it’s a pretty view we’re stuck with for the summer. And, sometimes, when the wind blows, it kind of smells.
The little red tent also leaks. We found that out last night. So Dad and Georgie took the car and went in search of a Walmart. Mom strung up a laundry line between two trees behind our tent and hung all of the sleeping bags on it. She and Dad laughed that our campsite looked like something out of The Beverly Hillbillies, then explained that it was an old TV show. I don’t know anything about it, but as I look around at the other campsites – many of which are filled with RVs – our setup looks shabby.
“This is what camping is all about!” Mom says, coming up to me and wrapping her arm around my shoulders. “Things going wrong, having to think on the fly, adventure…” She smiles and nods towards the lake. “Want to go find some while Dad and Georgie are away working?”
I grin and lift up my shirt to show my bathing suit underneath. “I changed while Dad was looking through the guidebook for the nearest Walmart.”
“‘Atta girl.” She grabs some bottles of water from the cooler and asks me to grab our towels and then we’re on our way. Even though it’s early morning, the path to the lake is already crowded with people lugging their stuff to the beach just like us. When we’re almost to the beach – just two campsites away – three boys come bounding out of a giant, pristine, blue and white RV. They’re carrying frisbees and a football and one of them – the youngest, who looks about my age – has a small cooler slung across his shoulders. It hangs down to the middle of his leg and hits him with every step he takes. The other boys race ahead and he falls into step with us.
“Are those your brothers?” Mom asks, making conversation, probably trying to make him feel less awkward about walking the rest of the way with two strangers.
He nods, then makes a face. “They always make me carry the heavy stuff because I’m the youngest.”
Mom laughs. “Funny. Riley here does the same thing to her little sister. How about that?”
Until now she’s been walking between us, but she smoothly steps out of line and around to the other side of me, so that now me and the boy are side by side. I look up at her, horrified and terrified as only an eleven-year-old girl who desperately wants no one to look at her but also wants cute boys to notice her can be.
The boy looks at me like he’s waiting on me to say something, but I’m not sure what he’s wanting, so instead I point at the cooler. “Do you want help?”
“Sure!” He lights up like no one has ever offered to help him before, and stops abruptly in the middle of the path and starts disentangling himself from the cooler strap. With a smile, my mom reaches out for our towels, then gives me a discreet thumbs up before she continues on to the beach. It can’t be more than fifty feet, but as she walks away, it feels like she’s left me stranded in the middle of an ocean, and I try not to panic and remember how to talk.
There are actually handles on either side of the cooler, which I hadn’t noticed before, and he picks one up and points to the other one for me. I pick it up and we start walking. “I’m Isaac.” Before I can say anything, like my name, he goes on, “And your mom said you’re Riley? That was your mom, right?”
I just nod in answer to all of his questions. He smiles a little, like he thinks that’s funny. “How long are you guys here?”
Unfortunately, he’s phrased this question in such a way that I can’t just nod. I don’t know if that was on purpose or not, but if it was, it’s kind of clever, and that makes me smile – just a little.
“We’re here all summer,” I tell him as we step onto the sandy lake beach. We stop for a second, looking around for our families. I spot my mom spreading our towels out near the pier, a respectable distance from where his brothers are standing at the water’s edge playing with the football. “How about you?”
“Same!” His response is enthusiastic and accompanied by a smile. I smile back, a little shyly. Something about his response makes me feel like this won’t be the last time I help him lug this cooler from the RV to the beach.
*****
Our campsite is six campsites from the end of the row this year. We’re farther from the bathrooms, but we can still see more of that building than we can see of the lake. Mom keeps saying we’re “moving on up” in a sing-song voice, and then her and Dad break out into some song about “moving on up to the East Side.” They never get further in the song than that though before they start laughing – or before Georgie and I hurriedly ask them to stop singing! before someone sees or hears them.
Someone like Isaac from last year. We’ve been here four days already and I haven’t seen him or his family’s RV yet. But there are still a few empty RV hook-up spots, so I’m holding out hope that I’ll see their blue and white RV or his cheerful grin popping out of somewhere soon.
Our tent is in much better shape than last year. It hasn’t rained at all yet, so we’ve been sleeping with the storm flap open every night, Dad pointing out stars and constellations, telling us their names and stories until we fall asleep. After last night I’m not sure how much of what he’s been telling us is true though, because when Georgie pointed to what he’d already told us was the North Star, he said it was also called Betsy, which is Mom’s name.
We’re on our way to the beach and he and Mom are walking behind us, carrying a cooler between them, while I’ve got the towels and Georgie’s shouldering two camp chairs. The chairs are awkwardly big for her and she’s kind of struggling, but I’d already called dibs on the towels, so she’s stuck with them.
“Need some help?” a familiar voice behind us yells loudly over the rumble of an engine. As one, we all turn around — Mom, Dad, Georgie, and I — to see Isaac hanging out the window of his family’s RV, waving at us like a maniac. A second later he’s out of the RV and running towards us.
“Sure!” Mom jokes, and acts like she’s going to hand him her half of the cooler, but when he starts to actually take it, she laughs and waves him off.
But Georgie seizes her opportunity and hands not one but both the chairs to him. As soon as she’s free, she yells “Thanks, Isaac!” and takes off running towards the lake beach towards her own friends.
With zero hesitation, Isaac throws an arm around my neck in greeting. As he leans forward to hug me, the chairs swing around and hit me and cause me to drop the towels on the ground.
“Isaac!” I grumble, stepping back to pick them up.
“Serves you right,” he laughs, beating me to it. Now he has the chairs and the towels. “Making your little sister carry the heavy stuff.”
By this point, Mom and Dad have dropped back to talk to Isaac’s parents, who are still idling in the RV in the middle of the road, trying to get to their campsite. Isaac’s older brothers, Joshua and Matthew are evacuating the RV, too. They run past us in a rush, and one of them snidely whisper-yells something that sounds like “Have fun with your little girlfriend!”
I look at Isaac in horror and confusion and hope—the last of which is downright silly since I haven’t seen or talked to him since last summer.
Two bright red spots have appeared on his cheeks and the tips of his ears are red. But then he laughs — and there’s only a slight hint of nervousness to it — and does something that shocks me: sticks up his middle finger at his brother’s retreating back.
I immediately look over my shoulder to see if any of the adults caught his transgression. But they’re all still chatting. Isaac’s dad has even turned the RV off; it’s like they’ve settled in for a nice visit, right there in the middle of the road. Adults make no sense.
“I can’t believe you just did that!” I tell him as we start walking towards the beach.
He laughs. “We’re in middle school. You’ve never flipped someone the bird?”
“Absolutely not.”
Isaac turns thoughtful. “Maybe because you’re the oldest.”
I cock my head in confusion.
“Joshua taught me,” he explains as we get to the sand. His brothers are by the pier, standing on the edge of a group of girls in bikinis. They’re way older than me, like Isaac’s brothers’ ages, but they still make me feel uncool in my shapeless t-shirt and shorts. “Because Matthew’s always being a jerk to us because we’re younger.” He grins and shoves me with his shoulder, making me stumble a little on the sand. “Keep making Georgie carry the chairs, I bet she’ll flip you off eventually too.”
“Georgie’s nine,” I remind him and start walking away from the pier, towards the rocks by the forest instead. “Besides, I’ve never even done that. I doubt she has either.”
Isaac cocks one eyebrow, smirking disbelievingly. At what, I don’t know. “Maybe I’ll teach her then.”
“Don’t you dare!” I can’t tell if he’s joking or not, so I laugh to make it sound like I’m not actually yelling, just in case he is.
But he ignores me, still smirking. “Hey, Georgie!”
As soon as the words are out of his mouth I yell “No, Georgie! Don’t do it!”
My little sister, already way cooler than either of us, turns once, gives us the same stop look that she and I give Mom and Dad when they start singing, and turns back to her friends.
Isaac laughs off her disdain as he sets up my parents’ chairs. “Want me to teach you?”
He asks the question like it’s a super secret handshake. Like pointing my middle finger at someone isn’t something I could possibly figure out on my own, which is both insulting and silly.
I still think it’s rude. Mom would kill me if she caught me; and Georgie would run and tell her the second she saw if she caught me in the act. So after a few glances to make sure no one is looking, I roll my eyes and flick my middle finger up at him.
“There you go!” Isaac says with a belly laugh as he pats me on the shoulder. I imagine he lets his hand linger there for just a little bit longer than he should…or maybe it isn’t my imagination at all.
*****
Our campsite this year is solidly in the middle of the row. You can’t see the bathrooms at all from where we’re at. You still can’t see the lake, but it still counts as an upgrade in my book. The primitive camping campsites — tent campers, like us — are on a first come, first served basis. You reserve the spot at some point in the year, but you don’t get your assignment until you arrive. Mom keeps saying the fact we got this spot is a miracle considering how late we were getting to the lake this year. The season started two weeks ago. Every time she says it, Dad shoots her a pained look. They’re bent over and driving in the final stakes of the tent – both of them, even though it’s definitely just a one person job – when I hear Dad say in a low, strained voice, “Stop talking about miracles, Betsy.”
A lump suddenly forms in my throat. I’ve spent the morning laying with my sleeping bag spread out on the grassy area beside our tent, wanting to be near my parents, in their sphere, but not hovering. But now I just want to get away.
I start walking at a fast clip towards the lake, when a familiar but also different – deeper, somehow – voice to my left stops me and makes me turn towards it. “I was beginning to think you guys might not show up this year.”
Isaac’s sitting at a card table underneath the awning of the RV, sorting what looks like Magic The Gathering cards, and grinning at me like he always does. That smile is the same, but so much is different. His hair, which has always been neatly cut and styled, is a little longer, curling gently around his ears. There’s a small piece of toilet paper stuck to his chin; I’m not sure why. He’s wearing a tank top and it’s weird to see that Isaac’s shoulders and arms look, if not defined, at least more defined than I remember them looking last year. He started high school this year, and he suddenly just seems so much older than me, even though the difference is only a year.
Before I can say anything, the door to the RV opens and his oldest brother, Matthew, who’s in college now, comes out, followed by a girl. Matthew leans over and plucks the piece of toilet paper from Isaac’s face, laughing. “You don’t need that.” He balls it up and flicks it at Isaac, hitting him square in his very bare and hairless jaw. “Hey, Riley.”
I wave in greeting. Matthew and his girlfriend announce they’re going to the beach to meet up with their parents. I wait until they’re gone before I deadpan ask, “So what’s wrong with your hair?”
He reaches up and runs a hand through it, mussing it. “You don’t like it?”
I quirk my head at him. “I think you kind of look like that guy from Lost.” Mom and I have been obsessed with Lost since it started a few years ago. “Sawyer.”
“I’ll take that.” He actually looks quite pleased with that comparison. He reaches under the table for a tin box and pushes the cards into it, even the ones he’s already organized. “And I’ll just finish these later.”
When he stands, I realize he’s already in swim trunks. I smile a little while he puts his card box back in the RV and grabs us each a towel. “Why are you just hanging out in your swim trunks?”
“Why aren’t you in your bathing suit?” He counters as he locks the RV and then we start walking towards the beach. “We’re at the lake! It’s summer!”
The idea of putting on a bathing suit is extremely unappealing. I feel like nothing fits me right these days. My chest and hips have gotten bigger, which Mom keeps telling me is good, but it doesn’t feel good. It just feels like everything I wear doesn’t fit.
I don’t explain any of this to Isaac though; I just shrug instead. “It doesn’t really feel like summer,” I admit after we’ve walked most of the way in silence.
Isaac frowns, and I realize that’s an expression I’m unused to seeing on his face, even though we’ve been summer friends now for three years. He leads us over to the area near the rocks, where it’s quieter, and spreads out the towels. I look around and see that my parents and Georgie have made it down to the beach, and they’re setting up camp near the pier, not far from Isaac’s family.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, sitting down and looking up at me. I’m still standing, and I shake my head. “Okay…” He rubs the back of his neck, a little nervously, like he’s trying to come up with something else to say. “Do you want to hear how Joshua’s an asshole and trashcanned me on my first day of high school?”
That makes me laugh out loud, which he takes as a yes. At some point in his story, I find myself sitting down and scooting closer. He asks me what I’m looking forward to most about starting high school this fall, and as I’m trying to figure out my answer, he leans back and casually puts his arm behind my back and on the other side of me, just barely touching my back, like he’s loosely and subtly trying to put his arm around me, but not sure if I’m okay with that.
I lean into it, closing the small distance between our bodies. If only summers could always be just like this.
*****
Our campsite this year isn't the lakefront. We’re back to having a great view of the bathroom, but that’s because the bathroom is just a smaller room ten feet from the bed. Mom’s room is at the very end of the hallway. It’s one of the farthest from the nurse’s station, but that also means it’s the closest to the elevator, so it’s easy to slip in and out of without attracting too much attention. For the first few weeks of summer, there’s a steady stream of visitors and the room is always busy and bustling, full of laughter, stories, and life.
By the end, it’s just Dad and Georgie and me.
*****
Our campsite this year is prime real estate. I didn’t even know they allowed primitive camping this close to the RVs, but apparently they do. I don’t know how he managed to do it with everything else going on, but Dad managed to book our campsite the second they opened for the summer. He said he just wanted this summer to be better than last. So he made sure that the first thing we see every single morning is the teal blue of the lake, the rocky beach, the pier. No RVs blocking the view, no beige outbuildings. Just nature. Just summer.
As amazing as this spot is, it somehow still has its drawbacks. We might not be able to smell the bathrooms, but we’re downwind from a lot of the RVs, and I’m willing to bet that there’s a reason the campground discourages tent campers from camping next to the Winnebagos and Airstreams.
“Mom would love it,” Georgie says when I bring this up to her one day. We’re sitting at the edge of the pier, swinging our legs, people watching. Neither of us have been very social this summer. Georgie has distanced herself from her usual group of friends, while my only summer friend and his entire family have been conspicuously absent.
“What’s that?” I ask, still hoping that one of these days I’ll see Isaac, even though we’re only here for another week. I would never admit it to anyone, but his absence this summer somehow feels like more of a gaping hole than Mom’s does.
“The irony of it all.” Georgie just learned about irony at the end of the school year, and she’s been ascribing it to literally any situation she can since then. “That this is the year we finally got the good campsite.”
I laugh and imitate her warm, cheery voice. “‘The first year without me and they camp like royalty!’”
Georgie laughs so hard she snorts. “If only she knew the tent was still leaking.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulders, holding her tight, as we laugh some more.
*****
Our campsite this summer is back amongst the plebeians. I doubt our location really has anything to do with it – or at least it isn’t the only factor – but we all seem happier this year. Georgie is back in with her friends, which means she gets up at the crack of dawn and heads down to the beach. Dad and I hardly see her, except for dinner, which we eat together every night as a family, something we didn’t even do with Mom, but that we started last summer.
“That’s what you girls should be doing,” Dad tells me as he gets ready to go on a bike ride. Without Mom to guide him, he floated listlessly for a little while, but now he’s picked up some good, solid hobbies he can do solo, which makes his next words funny. “Summer’s all about friends.”
I give him an exasperated look at his implication that I either don’t have friends or need to spend more time with my friends and less by myself. He holds his hands up in mock surrender.
Georgie has her gaggle of little friends – all of whom have like a million times more confidence and comfort in their bodies than I do, despite being three years younger than me – and Dad has his bicycle and I have…well, I’m not really sure what I have. But I’ve already spent three days just hanging around the campsite, reading and listening to my Discman, and I’m kind of bored.
So, I pack it all up, grab a towel and a bottle of water from the cooler, and head to the water.
Not that I expect to see it, but I still keep an eye out for the familiar blue and white RV. No luck though. Halfway to the beach I see an oversized black and red RV that looks like it’s sitting way too close to the ground. There’s someone sitting at a table under the awning, but they’re looking down at their lap, so as I get closer, I look down too. I’m honestly not all that interested in making pleasantries with a stranger.
I’m barely a foot past the monstrosity of an RV when I hear, “Two summers is all it takes to forget about me, huh?”
Heart beating fast, hope swelling in my chest, I spin around on my heel.
“Isaac!” Only after I’ve squealed and started running towards him do I realize my reaction was probably over the top and immature. But it’s too late now. Besides, he’s smiling, though it isn’t as bright as I remember it being, so maybe he didn’t think it was as corny as it felt to me.
He’s almost completely unchanged. His hair is still on the longer side and he still has no traces of facial hair. But his chest has filled out, and it looks like his shoulders have broadened or become more defined or something. He has that same look that all the jocks at school have, vaguely athletic and fit without trying too hard.
But there is one noticeable difference. It brings me up short when I’m right in front of him, about to throw my arms around his neck and give him a hug, but freeze. It’s rude. I know it’s rude to stare. But I just can’t help but stare at the empty space where his left leg should be.
He looks down too and rubs the stump of his leg, which ends just above the knee, and is partially visible in mesh basketball shorts. It looks strangely squishy as he rubs it. When he looks back up, smiling wryly, trying to seem unbothered, the tips of his ears are red and two bright spots have appeared on his cheeks.
“Is this why you weren’t here last summer?” If the situation were reversed, I have no doubt that Isaac would have asked it gently. But I lack his finesse. My question is blunt.
He nods. “It happened like two days before we were supposed to drive up here.”
We’re silent for a moment, neither of us sure how to proceed. I’m still standing really close to him, and when I realize that, I bend down to give him the hug I originally intended to. “Want to talk about it?”
“Eugh…” He sounds like he might take me up on it, then stops at the last second and shakes his head. “Not yet.”
I nod and stand back up. “I was going down to the beach.”
That’s obvious by what I’m carrying, but I’m not really sure what else to say. Truthfully, I’m not used to having to make conversation with Isaac. It usually just happened. It always felt effortless and natural. But the two summers between us are like a chasm.
A strange look flashes across his face–a mixture of hesitation, indecision, and uncertainty–but a moment later it’s gone and he’s nodding to himself, like he’s convincing himself that he’s doing the right thing.
“Hang on a second, and I’ll come too.” He smiles, although it’s a little tight, and I return it, and step back out of his way. I expect him to reach for crutches and stand up, but then he reaches between the table and the RV and drags a sporty looking wheelchair around to in front of him.
I’m confused for a moment until he uses his hands to push his hips and butt up and scoot to the edge of his seat, then puts a fist in the seat of the wheelchair and the other on the edge of the chair he’s sitting on, and lifts his body into the air. The stump of his left leg hangs and swings limply once it loses contact with the chair, then lands on the seat of his chair with a plop as he finishes the transfer. His right leg is stretched out in front of him, the ankle turned in on its side. He uses his hands to pull that leg up, pulling back at the knee to make sure his foot is positioned just right on the footrest.
When he finishes, he looks up at me, and his face is carefully blank. I realize that he’s waiting on me to say something first.
“Wow.” At the moment, that’s the best I can come up with. As soon as I say it, I can tell it’s not exactly the right response, because he smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. So I quickly add, “What a shitty couple of summers we’ve had.”
That makes him laugh–like actually laugh. “Whoa. Did Riley Green just curse?”
Without missing a beat, I flick my middle finger up at him. I try to keep a straight face, but after about two seconds, I fail, and start laughing. Then Isaac’s laughing too, and it feels so good to be laughing together again, that I don’t notice he’s reaching for my hand until he’s holding it.
Despite everything, I think this may be the best summer yet.
*****
Our campsite is the same as it always is. There’s a recurring event on my Google calendar that pops up every April 1 – the date the campground starts to accept reservations and hand out permits – to book the campsite. It isn’t the best spot. There’s no view of the water. It’s not even in the same area of the campground that we used to stay as kids. But it’s easy to pull the RV into and it’s right beside the paved trail that eventually leads to the lake.
Dad and Georgie and her family came up two days ago. He brought that old red tent and announced he planned to pitch it in the miniscule patch of grass behind our RV and have a real camp out with all his grandkids. The kids are all about it. Of course, it hasn’t rained yet, but that would probably only add to the adventure. With any luck, they’ll want to camp in the tent for the rest of their lives. The entire RV left to me and Isaac? Now that’s an idea I could get used to.
It’s early in the day. The campground is still mostly silent, save for the hum of generators. Isaac and I are walking down the paved path to the beach. I’ve got five camp chairs criss-crossing my back and his lap is loaded down with the Yeti cooler and a shit ton of towels.
“I feel like people got up earlier when we were kids,” I remark as we get to the beach. It’s the Fourth of July today, so we’re here extra early to stake our claim on a spot. But there’s nary a soul on the beach. We were clearly overzealous.
“Yeah, and I feel like I don’t remember my parents carrying any of this shit for us when we were kids,” he answers from behind me as he pushes slowly across the sand.
“No, your brothers made you carry it all,” I laugh as I drop the camp chairs and then go back and take the cooler from him. With the lightened load, he’s able to move easier and faster. His right leg bounces from the uneven terrain of the sandy beach, but the stump of his left is still covered by the mound of towels. “I can still see it right now: Matthew and Joshua racing ahead, Isaac left behind with the chairs and coolers.”
“Good thing you and Betsy came along when you did.” He smiles and leans forward, bracing himself by grabbing the pushrim of one of his wheels, and grabs two of the camp chairs, then sits back up and starts taking them out of the bags to set up.
I snort. “I know! What would you have done without me there to help lug all the stuff to the beach everyday that summer?”
Isaac looks up at me and smiles, looking at me tenderly. He’s kept his hair long, although it’s streaked with gray and it’s starting to thin. There are new lines on his forehead, and I’d never tell him, but some of the old wrinkles look deeper. Looking down at him has long since become normal, but I remember the first few summers we knew each other, how I had to look up at him because I’ve always been short and he’s always been lanky. So much has changed since that day, but the boy I’ve crushed on since the summer I was eleven is still there.
I smile back, then lean down for a kiss as he says, “The best part of every summer has always been you.”
