Were- Read online

  “Yea, only without the supermodel part. So are you gonna take the dare, or you gonna be a virgin for the whole summer?” asked Eric.

  Jack stood up, wobbled a bit. He’d had more wine than he thought. “One, I am not a virgin. Two.” He pointed to Amanda. “When I come back I’m doin’ you.”

  “Oooooh,” chorused the group.

  “If you think you can handle all this,” said Amanda.

  “Oh, I can handle it.” He plucked two wine coolers from the Coleman cooler and staggered to the door, letting it slam shut. “I’ll be back.”

  “Yea, that’s my man, thanks for bangin’ the skanks,” said Eric.

  * * *

  Vespa turned the page, realized she hadn’t even read it, and turned it back.

  Today at lunch, she’d sat down at the table for the counselors and Jack had walked by her and put his hand on her shoulder as he passed, then sat down right next to her, rather than keeping one seat between them. He didn’t speak to her, but it had felt like acceptance.

  “Hey,” said Jack through the screen door.

  She sat up in bed, surprised. “Hey.”

  “We weren’t keeping you up, were we?

  “No. I was just reading.” Vespa held up her book. Her heart pounded. No one had ever visited before.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Yea, sure.”

  The screen door creaked when opened and slammed shut on its springs.

  “Sorry.”

  The wasps buzzed, flying short, agitated arcs, bouncing off the screen a few times, before settling back down on the paper nest.

  “I didn’t know what you liked, so I picked two. Pina Colada or Berry?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He sat on the bed next to her, twisted the cap off of the Pina Colada, and handed her the bottle. “Try this.”

  She took a sip. “It’s good.”

  “Yea.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because I think you’re nice, not like those phonies.”

  He put his arm around her, his face inches from her own, just as she’d imagined it would be. She felt awkward and self-conscious. Though in unfamiliar territory, she didn’t want it to stop. If she did something wrong or said something stupid, the moment would pop like a soap bubble and disappear. She took another sip of the wine cooler.

  He leaned over and kissed her the moment she brought the bottle down. His soft lips pressed against hers. He pulled back, but was still so close she could feel his breath on her skin. “You taste like Pina Colada.”

  She didn’t say anything. The perfect and fragile moment crystallized around her. His left hand rested on her leg.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You can kiss me back, you know? If you want.”

  She did.

  She’d kissed family, but never on the lips. Family smelled of old lady perfume, liquor, and cigarettes. Jack smelled like a boy and his kiss felt as wonderful and different from those kisses as anything could be. He tasted sweet and she wanted more. Electricity and warmth coursed through her veins. He leaned into her and pushed her back onto the bed and she let him. He touched her, and she thought that she should tell him to stop or slow down, but then he might go away and that would break her. The impulse towards caution, honed by years of disappointment, abandoned her. It had to happen sometime, didn’t it? Someone would come along to love her and make her feel special. Good things could happen to her.

  He slipped his hand under her shirt and she gasped.

  She was just as good as the other girls that got all the attention and all the kissing and touching and hand holding. Wasn’t she? She deserved to have the same sweet summer like the kind in the movies, even if it meant nothing in the long run.

  He kissed her again and she felt his tongue in her mouth. His other hand unzipped her pants and pushed them down around her hips.

  She didn’t feel like herself. She felt wonderful. He reached and turned off the light.

  When he entered her, she gasped at the delicious pain. He moved rhythmically and she wasn’t a slut like her father called her, because she loved Jack for the tiny kindnesses, like talking to her and sitting next to her.

  He shuddered and she felt warmth between her legs. No fireworks or magic. She just felt a bit of pain and a pleasant buzzing in her groin that was growing to something altogether different until he stopped.

  She held his face and pulled it down, taking the initiative, so she could kiss him. “I love you.”

  He jerked back.

  “What are you saying?”

  He rolled off, got out of the bed, and gathered his clothes.

  She lay still. Time buzzed in her ears. “I thought that...”

  “Thought what?”

  The buzz turned to a terrible blood-roar. Her heart raced out of control. Suddenly aware of her nakedness, she pulled up the sheets to cover herself. They made a thin defense against what was coming. The world lurched sidewise and forgot to take her with it. Despair bubbled to the surface with a strange chemical vengeance. Blind, stupid panic froze her limbs and narrowed her vision to a small gray cone. She needed a lifeline to pull her back from the deep water.

  “I thought that...”

  “God, you are dense, just like they said. It was just a thing.” He put on his pants, pulled his shirt over his head. “A dare. You know?”

  “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  He picked up his shoes and left her alone.

  Rage and humiliation flooded her body. She dressed with extreme deliberation. If just one more thing happened, she would fracture into a thousand pieces. How did she get to this instant? An abyss yawned in the pit of her stomach, an empty hollow feeling of betrayal and loss. She needed to run, flee into the night and leave the moment behind. Her cheap running shoes squeezed her feet tight. The screen door spring groaned as she pushed it open.

  They were waiting for her outside, prepared to pile on the pain and humiliation. They hoisted their beer bottles and wine coolers in celebration and cheered.

  “Oh sweetie, did you get your cherry popped?” purred Amanda.

  “More like her watermelon,” said LeeAnne.

  Tears blurred her tormentors into melted monsters. The camp lights starred and smeared her vision. The screen door slipped from her fingers and slammed shut, launching the paper wasps from their nest in search of the source of their disturbance.

  She searched for Jack in the crowd, but he blended into them, just another blurry monster.

  A wasp landed at the cusp of her neck and right shoulder and stung her. She slapped it away and the angry wasp lapped her head, the buzz of its membranous wings thick in her ears. It flew out of the light and into the enveloping darkness.

  “Two pricks in one night, huh, Vespa?” said Amanda.

  The pain in her heart and her shoulder flared. She leapt off the porch and ran, splitting the group right between Madison and Ashley, knocking them aside, following the wasp into darkness.

  “Watch it, whore,” said Madison.

  “Piggie,” said Ashley.

  “Wee, wee, wee, all the way home,” said Amanda.

  * * *

  Vespa ran. Humiliation and anger drove her over every rock and root hazarding the moonlit lake trail. Six miles of trail fell behind her slapping feet. The length of the lake lay between her and the camp and she was still too close. Their laughter and cruelty followed. She slowed, looking over her shoulder, but no one followed. Her breath hitched and her heart pounded loudly in her ears. The wasp stung flesh on her right shoulder felt soft and hot, like a liquid boil ready to burst.

  She tried to reconstruct what had happened in her head, but it made no sense. He came over, and took her in his arms, and made love to her, just the way she imagined it would be.

  She didn’t say no. She didn’t say stop.

  Did she have to?

  Did it matter?

  Each year she held out hope that the ca
mp would be a different, better place, but people carried their shittiness everywhere they went. Up until now, she’d taken every bit they dished out. What choice did she have?

  At the uninhabited end of the lake, at a sandy beach too small and remote for anyone to visit—especially in the depths of night—she stripped off her clothes, walked into the water, and scrubbed herself between her legs. Later, chilled to the bone, she came out of the water, collapsed on the sandy shore, and sobbed. Wasp venom burned her shoulder and crept through her veins.

  * * *

  Gray light washed the camp. Lake fog cast a hush over the pines. Vespa walked to the main building that housed the kitchen, each step a bit closer to the dirty looks, knowing whispers, and mocking laughter. The adults moved about sluggishly, recovering from their own partying in town and getting ready for the returning campers. She entered the back kitchen door and put on her apron. It felt too short and too loose, but her name was written on the pocket, so it had to be hers. She wrapped the strings around and cinched them tight.

  “Buenos dias,” said Louis the cook. “You must have got some good beauty sleep. Lookin’ good girl.”

  Louis, a forty-four year old Costa Rican grandfather, worked the kitchen preparing breakfast, lunch, and dinner with two of his cousins. The other two did not speak English and went about their jobs with silent efficiency. Louis sent most of his money home, keeping enough for cigarettes and the occasional beer. She liked him.

  “Morning, Lou,” said Vespa. With Jack’s true nature revealed, Louis felt like the only real person in the camp. “Stop making fun, I feel like hell and I got stung by a wasp.” There was no way she was going to tell him about what happened in her cabin.

  “Bad news, bad news,” said Louis. “In Costa Rica wasps grow a foot long.”

  She mustered a weak smile. Her shoulder hurt and her heart pounded in a dreary broken manner. After her return from her midnight run, she’d tossed and turned all night. She’d awoken feverish, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets with aching bones and half-remembered dreams. She’d kicked off her sheets and lay curled and shivering on a bare mattress. The ceiling fan had wobbled and squeaked, pushing cool night air around the cabin.

  With the slightest movement, pain flared in her shoulder. The sting had hardened to an itchy knot, but she had work to do so she ignored it. Louis and his cousins spat rapid fire Spanish at each other as they cooked. She set out the hash browns, scrambled eggs, and bacon in the water tray warmers, arranged baskets of silverware, plastic trays, and fruit yogurt and little boxes of cereal. Louis’s cousins helped her fill the big coolers with milk, orange juice, and ice water. For the moment, the cafeteria and its cooking smells felt safe and comfortable. She tried to eat a light breakfast of fruit and yogurt, but her stomach rebelled on her.

  She unlocked the front doors. The counselors, her tormentors, had gathered in front of the building so they could enter at the same time in a show of force.

  She walked back behind the serving counter to take her station and waited for it to begin. Most mornings, they just ignored her, but today she was sure it would be different and the thought of the inevitable taunting and humiliation made her angry.

  “I tell you,” said Louis. He leaned in and whispered into her ear. “You should poke that little puta, Amanda. You do it, and I see nothing.”

  The girls came in first, laughing and speaking behind cupped hands. They lined up in reverse rank order, with Amanda at the end.

  “Hey, Vespa, did you have a good time?” asked Nicole.

  LeeAnne leaned in close, “Vespa, you little slut. What did you get up to last night?”

  She slopped food on their trays and stayed quiet, dampening their enthusiasm for insult. Amanda drew closer, like a matador prepared to deliver the killing strike after the less adept at cruelty prepped the bull for slaughter.

  “Two sausages,” said Amanda.

  Vespa speared two sausages with the tines of the fork and scraped them off on Amanda’s plate.

  “And some bacon. I love to have some meat, don’t you?” Amanda picked up a sausage with two fingers and nibbled on it with her perfect white teeth. “Oooh, so good. Remind you of anything?”

  Vespa tightened her grip on the twin pronged fork and before she could think, she stabbed Amanda in the webbing of her hand between her thumb and finger. Blood welled from the punctures in bright red bubbles. Amanda dropped the tray to clatter on the floor. The cafeteria silenced. “You bitch. You slutty, little bitch,” said Amanda.

  Vespa came around the counter with a towel, seized Amanda’s bleeding hand, and wrapped it up. She squeezed hard, feeling the bones of Amanda’s hand grinding together. “We have to keep pressure on it.”

  “Let go of me. I said, let go! You’re hurting me.”

  “You should be more careful.”

  “Careful? You stabbed me, you idiot. My hand. Let go.”

  “I did, didn’t I? What I meant to say is that you should be more careful around me.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  Vespa pulled Amanda close and whispered, “Yes, I am. I am threatening you. I’ll stab you over and over. We should keep this between us. Don’t you think?” She let go.

  Amanda stepped away, her eyes wide with unaccustomed fear. She spun about and stormed out the door, in the direction of the dispensary. The boys, just entering, caught the tail end of the drama.

  “I’m sorry, Amanda. I didn’t mean to,” called Vespa.

  The boys queued up to the counter.

  “Hey, I’ll have a sausage,” said Jared. “Or is that what you want?”

  “That is definitely what I want, but you don’t have enough for me,” said Vespa

  She picked up a sausage, bit it in half, and tossed it onto his tray.

  “Oh, oh, man, burn,” said Bobby.

  “Serve yourself boys. I got a whole tray of little dicks for little dicks.” She took off her apron, dropped it to the floor, and strode to the back door of the kitchen.

  “You feeling okay?” asked Louis.

  “Bueno, Louis. Muy bueno.”

  * * *

  She walked across the grass-bare ground to her cabin. She felt strong and purposeful and weird, as if the events of the night had no meaning. Pounds of doubt and anxiety sloughed off her. Jealousy and anger evaporated in the slanting sun. She kicked off her cheap sneakers and left them behind. The ground felt cool and sensual and she wanted to strip off her other clothes and feel the air on her skin. At her cabin, the wasp nest hung empty, save for the capped over cells that harbored the next generation. The adults foraged for prey.

  She would not have to work half as hard. The cabin was surrounded by prey. Inside her cabin, the morning light, warm and gold, pushed back the dreariness that typically infested the small room the rest of the day. The heaviness of the room disgusted her. Her cloths itched terribly so she stripped them off and dropped them to the floor. In the shower, she turned the water to hot until the small bathroom billowed with moist steam. Under the scalding water, layers of her old self washed away, gurgling down the drain. When she was all gone, she turned the water off and waited in front of the fogged over mirror. Rivulets of condensation flowed down the mirror, clearing it away so that it reflected her brighter self, just like she wanted it to.

  * * *

  Someone knocked on the door and she wrapped a towel around herself and exited the bathroom.

  “Vespa, it’s Mr. Barnes.”

  “Come in.”

  Mr. Barnes, the camp administrator, stepped in without looking up. He ruled the camp with malign indifference, only caring when he had to write a report about someone’s little darling getting hurt. She imagined stabbing Amanda in the hand qualified. His mouth formed a little “O” of surprise when he saw her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I can come back.”

  “It’s okay Mr. Barnes. I don’t mind.”

  She walked closer to him, driven by instinct and desire.

  “Vespa, did you stab Am
anda on purpose? She came to me and I…I know you…you and the other girls don’t get along. She needed stitches.”

  “No, Mr. Barnes I would never do that. Stitches? That’s terrible. She held her tray out and then…I just don’t know...”

  The slick lie, crocodile tears, and the trembling lip convinced him.

  “Well, I didn’t think…you…Uh…did it on purpose.”

  She put her hand on his chest, slipping a finger beneath his button-down shirt to touch bare skin and feel the race of blood and the burn of neurons. She could taste him with her fingertips.

  Her towel slipped away.

  “Mr. Barnes, you’re my friend, aren’t you?”

  She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

  * * *

  Mr. Barnes would have screamed if he could have, but he didn’t. When she was done with him, he wasn’t even Mr. Barnes any more, but something else, something obedient: a drone. After he left, Vespa fidgeted, collapsed into her chair, confused as to what she’d done and how she even knew how to do it. Old patterns were comforting, so she picked up her book. The worm-like words squirmed across the page, blurry and pointless. She ripped a page free and crammed the tasteless paper into her mouth. More pages followed, until the book was gone. She reached for the next, chewing and swallowing, until gray masticated pulp dribbled down her chin. The eaten books sat in her gut like a stone.

  She seized the Bible, the last book—all the cabins had one—and tore the gilt-edged, onion-skinned Word. Slowly at first, and then with greater urgency, she ate the Bible, making it part of herself.

  Her stomach rumbled and she pressed her hand against the hard bulge of her belly. She left her cabin, entering into the chaos of yellow school busses disgorging returning campers. The children dispersed to their bunkhouses to meet with their counselors and begin the day’s activities. They hollered and screamed and the pointless noise and disordered conduct annoyed her. She escaped behind the kitchen building into relative quiet. Louis was nowhere in sight and she was grateful. When he wasn’t working, he napped and smoked in a hammock strung up in the woods. She pulled up the building’s wooden storm cellar door and stepped down into the spider-infested gloom. The lower door had a rusted padlock that she twisted off with her bare hand. In the far corner, behind boxes of unknown items, she dropped to her knees and vomited up the chewed up books into a pulpy steaming mass. Her hands reached into the warm pile, feeling the heat and moist slickness. She padded and stretched and carved the digested pulp into graceful hexagonal cells just large enough to fit a child or small person. When finished, she had an array of sixteen cells of translucent, thin paper as strong as sheet aluminum. She stood back, satisfied with her initial effort, and then shimmied off her jeans to lay her eggs.