Give Me a Sign(19)

After twenty minutes of everyone getting ready, we gather inside the dining hall, where all the furniture has been pushed against the wall. On the floor are a few different stations with first aid and CPR practice gear. The lifeguards quickly stop in to grab breakfast from the cereal bar, and I wave hello.

Ethan calls out, waving his arms. “Everyone, pair up!”

Simone and Bobby are already together. So are Natasha and Jaden . . . which means Isaac still needs a partner. I turn and make eye contact with him, and he gives me a sweet smile, but then Mackenzie taps his shoulder, asking him to work with her. He turns away to join her, leaving me all alone.

“How do you sign B-a-n-d-A-i-d?” Mackenzie says and signs to Isaac.

He demonstrates the word for “bandage,” which Mackenzie repeats, moving her hand in the wrong direction. It’s a small relief to me that Isaac demonstrates the sign himself, rather than taking hold of her hand to guide the correction, the way he did with me. Maybe the way he helped me last night means . . . he likes me? I’m not completely imagining everything that happened last night at the lake, right? I’m really overanalyzing this now.

“Um, so . . .” I say, walking up to the front where Ethan and Gary are standing with the camp nurse. “I guess I’m the odd one out.”

“Nope,” Ethan says, stepping toward me. “You’re the lucky one who gets to be my partner!”

And it turns out, I am the luckiest, because Ethan knows his stuff. While everyone else is struggling with the first aid kit, Ethan has fitted my arm into the perfect sling. It’s almost enough to help me ignore the fact that Mackenzie gets to spend all day sitting close to Isaac and wrapping him in bandages.

“This is, like, professional,” I say, admiring his snug technique.

He beams. “I’m an educator. I’ve done so many of these.” He holds up two old reusable training bandages. “Want a wrist one, too?”

I hold out my hand eagerly. “Should I be nervous? Did anything bad happen last summer?”

“Oh, I just meant how many training sessions I’ve done. I hope to God I never have to use all these skills in real life. Honestly, at camp it’s usually just splinters and scratches. Nothing that tweezers and a Band-Aid can’t fix, but it’s nice to be prepared.” The wrapping is cool across my palm and a nice break from all the work my wrist has been doing since my signing has ramped up. “Oh, and one little kid lost a tooth. Like, lost it lost it. Probably swallowed it.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah, and it was hard to convince them that the tooth fairy didn’t make camp visits but would have a surprise for them when they got back home.”

I’ve been so worried about being able to communicate with campers or having them like me that I forgot about things like injuries and homesickness. It’s not just language skills I need to work on but being a reassuring and authoritative figure for the little kids.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mackenzie shouts and signs to Isaac upon realizing that he can’t communicate with both of his hands wrapped and bandaged. He shrugs and lies down on the ground, crossing his arms across his chest like a mummy, and closing his eyes to take a nap for the remainder of practice time.

* * *

“Still got that imprint of third base across your face, Lilah?” Bobby teases as we settle into the dining hall for dinner before we watch the last remaining first aid training videos of the day.

“You can stop reminding her,” Simone says.

We got an afternoon break to play beeper baseball. I definitely cheated and pulled my blindfold up to see the ball and get a hit, but my vision was still obstructed. The way to score is to make contact with a tall inflatable bag at either third or first base. I scored a face-first collision run, but at what cost? Any harder, and I might have actually needed first aid from Ethan.

“It does sting still,” I admit. I unwrap my sandwich and take a huge bite. “Hmm . . .” I say, thinking out loud.

“What?” Bobby’s always eager for a scoop.

“I was wondering if I should ask you something.” Simone, Bobby, and I are the only ones sitting at the table yet. Everyone else is still grabbing food, refilling their water from the orange Gatorade jug, or making a trip to the bathroom. “You like gossip, right?”

“It’s my middle name,” he says, mouth full of Italian bread. “Well?” he asks impatiently.

I try to think of the most casual way to ask this question, even though it’s been in the back of my mind all day. “Is Natasha . . .” I whisper.

“Not dating Isaac,” he says, a little too loud for my liking.

“What? That’s not—”

“Sure it is. Even when I can’t see, I see all. Remember that.” He pauses for dramatic effect. Simone nods for emphasis. “Pretty sure she’s into Jaden. He had a girlfriend last summer, but they broke up. Now Natasha will be starting at his college this fall, so . . .”

“How do you know all this?” I ask. “You couldn’t have overheard anything, because they mostly sign.”

“A little birdie told me.”

Simone rolls her eyes. “It’s Ethan. He always blurts things out loud during intense ASL conversations.”

“Plus, Natasha was only a junior counselor last summer, and Jaden was already eighteen and a senior counselor,” Bobby continues. “So that might be a thing, but who cares? Break the rules.”