Not helping the end of my freshman year was the fact that my father had decided to offset his lack of in-person parenting by shelling out cash for me to go to sleepaway camp. Instead of spending the summer in Boston with him, he was sending me to an art-based sleepaway camp in the middle-of-nowhere Connecticut, where I could be among other weirdos. My father had moved from Queens to Boston when I was nine, so I spent summers with him to make up for the other three seasons. Unlike my mother and I, my dad and I got along like two peas in a pod. He taught me tricks on the guitar, let me jam in the living room until 1 a.m., took me to concerts, and made me cackle. I adored everything about him, when I was with him. When I wasn’t, I felt like there was a hole in my heart where a parent should be. He was always just an arm’s length away, but never in my company long enough for me to grip on to him with both hands. When he put me on the bus to camp, I was instantly homesick for the time we wouldn’t get together, and my chest ached with the possibility that he didn’t feel the same way.
I stepped off the bus into Buck’s Rock Camp with tears in my throat, but all at once, they disappeared. My wide eyes found lanky kids with guitars slung around their backs, with colorful paint under their nails, and cameras in their hands. Every part of me lit up—this was belonging. Instead of putting on headphones and walking with my head down, my body felt like it was outstretched: opened wide to the world. This was how Maggie Vine was meant to live.
* * *
MY COUNSELOR SAID IT WAS an unusual heat wave, but it was only the second day of camp, so I had almost nothing to compare it to. All I knew was that the June air was so stifling that the tiniest breeze did more harm than good, pooling winds of fresh-cut grass and wildflowers from the surrounding Connecticut fields into the back of my throat until my eyes stung. The heat soaked the front of my red floral dress and effortlessly upended my efforts at taming my untamable hair—beachy curls framing my face. I sat on the stage of the open-air arena, looking out at a grassy field surrounded by a purple lupine meadow. My bony legs swung back and forth as I aimlessly plucked my guitar. There was one song I hadn’t been able to stop singing, and goddamnit, it wasn’t mine. Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” had taken over my universe and frozen me in a state of writer’s block. I was unable to come up with anything better. I was jealous of every yearning verse and the sweeping melody. I longed to write a love song like it—one that tasted like dark chocolate. And then I found out it wasn’t actually a love song, which made me envy the words even more. Before leaving for camp that summer, I listened to an interview on the radio with Train’s lead singer, Pat Monahan. “Drops of Jupiter” was about his mother, who had died of cancer. He imagined her returning from all the joys of heaven, only to reveal that we shouldn’t take the little things on earth for granted. I was desperate to find someone else in my atmosphere to make this premonition come true. I wanted nothing more than to have feelings so strong that even the idea of heaven would feel “overrated.” I was tired of thinking of soulmates as a hypothetical.
Yeah. At fourteen, I was a lot.
I edged at a jumbled-up verse inside a song I couldn’t untangle, and I pivoted to hum “Drops of Jupiter” instead. Suddenly, I heard a soft voice speaking in the distance—the kind of voice that floated through the air like a beautiful feather. I frowned up from my guitar, eager to stare away any human who would dare invade my writing-procrastination zone. My expression softened, eyes widening.
Oh.
I sat still, but my body was in a free fall, losing control as it soaked in a stranger. This guy stood tall in a white T-shirt with a plaid flannel shirt tied around his waist. He was lanky, like he hadn’t had a chance to grow into his new growth spurt. There were headphones over his ears, and his eyes were glued to a crumpled sheet of paper in his hands. I could see an iPod poking out of his black skinny jeans. He was every emo fantasy come to life—instantly the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen. Severe jawline, olive skin, puka shell necklace, thick black hair, and cheekbones that he—a male—had no right to be gifted with.
This mystery guy had no idea he was walking into my space, nor that I was committing his entire being to memory, just in case I needed to close my eyes and relive him until my dying day. He walked right past me, and I made a point to breathe him in with the breeze. Sunblock and a hint of musky citrus, most likely Abercrombie and Fitch’s Woods.
“Sit by my side, and let the world slip. We shall never be younger,” he muttered under his breath.
I knew this one. It was Shakespeare. He spun on the toes of his All Stars with an air of confidence that I envied, walking right past me again, repeating the line.
“Sit by my side, and let the world slip. We shall never be younger.” He said the last line emphatically, with so much conviction that the hair on my arms stood up. And then, his copper eyes locked on to mine.
I sat frozen in his stare, with my entire body slanted to the side and my guitar limp in my hands. His eyes softened as they searched mine, twisting my insides up into knots. There was a vulnerability in the way he looked at me—like his default was to lead with compassion. Finally, he took the headphones off his ears and sucked in his reddening cheeks.
“I didn’t see you there.”
The way words danced on his tongue…I wanted to dance there, too. He crossed his arms and raised his cheekbones into a warm grin, melting the knot inside me and sending a wave of heat toward every inch of my body.
“Well, I guess it’s only fair that you show me yours,” he said, nodding to my guitar.
He wanted me to sing for him. Oh, fuck NO. I felt my cheeks burn, and I tried to open my jaw, but it was suddenly wired shut.
Open your goddamn mouth, Maggie. Use it to form a sentence.
“I—I don’t sing for other people,” I said, trying hard not to trip over every vowel.
“What’s the point of that?” His eyebrow danced upward in amusement, waiting for my answer.
It was a good question, one I had wrestled with for years. Music was my lifeline, but music was mine alone. My voice was not for sharing. I was best behind a closed door where I could live in the fantasy of being talented without someone telling me that I was maybe, just super average. The possibility of disappointment—of being told that I didn’t have the talent to do the only thing in the world that I wanted to—was stifling. “I hope I’m good” was safer than “tell me if I’m bad.” “I hope my dad shows up to my guitar recital” was safer than “you know he’ll never show, Maggie.” Hope’s reality had mostly let me down, but the sliver of possibilities pushed me through all the same. Head in the clouds, false safety net at my feet.
I took in the beautiful boy standing in front of me, waiting for me to sing. I hugged my guitar closer to my body. Maybe he couldn’t see through me if I had an armful of carved mahogany covering my heaving chest.
“It’s okay for people to have things that are just for them,” I said, barely believing my words.
He chewed at the inside of his cheek, clearly in disagreement, but wanting to be gentle about it.
“I think art should be shared,” he said.