“I’m . . .” He looked at Stevie, as if she held the secret to his true identity, the one he had never been able to share with the world. “。 . . David?”
“David who? How did you get here?”
“Kayak?”
“You need to go, now.”
Nicole waited for him to get up and straighten his shirt.
“I’ll walk you back to your kayak,” she said. “You shouldn’t be out on the lake after dark. Do you have a flashlight?”
“I, um . . .”
“Stevie, give him a flashlight.”
Stevie did so, and David took it with a nervous smile. The two of them were about to leave, when Nicole drew her head back and looked above the door.
“Is that a camera?”
“I’m recording birds,” Stevie said.
She had no idea why she said that. It’s just what came out.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. We need to talk.”
She was back a short time later, alone. Stevie had tidied the cabin in her absence, as if the situation might improve if her shower caddy was in better order.
“I want to be very clear about something,” Nicole said. “I know you are here as Carson’s guest, but if I catch you bringing people into the camp at any time unauthorized, you will be gone, Carson or no Carson. This is a camp. For children. Which means we have a duty of care. I’m responsible for every single person on these grounds. No strangers around the kids. No people kayaking at night on the lake. That lake can be dangerous. This is the one and only time I am going to say this.”
This was all delivered in such a tone of serious, grinding
finality that Stevie was humiliated to her bone marrow.
“Yep,” she said. “Got it. Yep.”
As Nicole left, Janelle came in. Stevie could tell that Janelle had heard everything that had gone down, and she looked at Stevie wide-eyed as she shut the door.
“Fun night?” she asked.
“Kind of got busted with David.”
“I know,” she said, sounding maybe a little irritated. “I came back before. You didn’t even hear me. I shut the door and backed out. I saw Nicole coming, but she was ahead of me and I couldn’t get to the door in time. I texted you, but . . .”
Stevie looked over and saw that there were seven texts from Janelle waiting to be read. “Sorry.”
“Can you . . . ask next time? Or tell me? Except, I don’t think there will be a next time, because she just handed you your ass. But you know what I mean. If it were me and Vi, I’d tell you.”
“Sorry,” Stevie said again, and she was.
“It’s okay.” Janelle went to her bureau and started going through her various creams and washes to get ready for the night. Her tone indicated that it wasn’t entirely okay yet, but it would be. After a few minutes, she turned to Stevie.
“Vietnam is far,” Janelle said. “We don’t all have people to sneak into our cabins at night.”
Stevie nodded sympathetically.
“Any chance you have two thousand dollars I can borrow for a plane ticket?” Janelle asked.
“I’ve got a punch card for a free coffee that’s almost full.”
Janelle let out a long sigh.
“Only a little while until we’re back at school,” Stevie said.
“Now I know how Nate feels,” Janelle replied. “Nothing is longer than a little while.”