This year, Conrad isn’t allowed to come. He’s been grounded for a week. He begs his father not to leave him behind. Even Mum tries to convince Leo to change his mind, but he won’t budge.
“God knows he has been extremely difficult lately,” Mum says. They are getting out of the pond after a swim.
Anna and I are sitting on the porch eating strawberry ice cream.
“And must his room smell of feet at all times? Isn’t there something he can do for that? That athlete’s foot remedy they sell might help, don’t you think? I gave him a bottle of talcum powder, but he says it makes him itchy. You need to talk to him.”
I watch Leo dry himself off with a towel as if he’s buffing a large white car. His bathing suit is saggy, and his belly jiggles as the towel moves back and forth. He looks like a big toddler. Leo isn’t much of a swimmer, but my mother has him on a new exercise regime.
“It can’t be easy for him in this house, Leo. All these women. You’ve been away nearly half the summer. It’s hard belonging to a family that isn’t your own. He needs you to take his side.”
“What he needs is to understand the consequences of his actions.”
“What you’re doing is alienating him even more. It just makes it harder on all of us.”
“This isn’t about you and the girls, Wallace. It’s about my son.”
“Let him come. It makes him so happy to do the Bear Hunt with you. It’s a tradition.”
“No son of mine gets away with hitting a girl,” Leo says.
“She probably deserved it,” Mum says.
* * *
—
I lie in bed the next morning looking up at the skylight. A misting of yellow pollen has collected at the edges. We need a good rain to clear it. It’s been blue skies for days. I watch a spider fiddling around in its web. A desiccated moth hangs from a single loose filament, swaying with each bit of breeze. My hair smells of bonfire smoke and ketchup. Someone is taking a shower. A rush of water splatters on dry leaves. The water groans to a stop. Conrad curses as he steps on a catbrier. I pick up my book and open to the dog-ear. It will take a few minutes for the hot water tank to refill.
Our camp only has the one shower, attached to a smallish tree outside the bathroom house and enclosed by a weathered stockade fence that’s always crawling with daddy longlegs. No one uses the rotting shaker pegs to hang their towels. We hang them over the lower branches of the tree. A stream of soapy water runs directly from your body onto the leaves and out to the path, pine needles swirling in its wake, so we have a strict no-peeing-in-the-shower rule. Otherwise, the path to the bathroom starts to smell like the back of a Greyhound bus.
After ten minutes, I grab my towel and my Wella Balsam conditioner. There’s a soapy puddle in my way, slowly seeping into the ground. I jump across it and land with a splatter on its far edge, covering myself in what I instantly realize is pee water. I storm back down the path and bang on my mother’s cabin door.
She appears a few seconds later, pulling on her bathrobe, looking exhausted. “Leo is sleeping,” she whispers.
“Do you smell that?” I hold out my leg.
“Eleanor, I’m not in the mood to smell you,” she says. “It was a late night. One too many gin and tonics.”
“Conrad peed in the shower.”
“Well, at least he’s bathing. That’s a plus.”
“Mom. It’s disgusting. I stepped in it.”
“I’ll talk to him. But he’s already being punished, so God knows what good it will do.”
“Why does he even have to be here?”
My mother comes outside, closing the cabin door behind her. “You know, maybe if you and Anna were nicer to Conrad, he wouldn’t behave this way.” She rubs her temples. “Can you go to the kitchen and bring me water and an aspirin?”
“Why is he our problem? Why can’t he go back to Memphis to live with his own family?”
“We are his family.”
“I’m not.”
“Just try, Elle. For Leo.” She looks back into the room to make sure Leo is asleep. “Invite him for a swim occasionally. Ask him to play Parcheesi. It won’t kill you.”
“He cheats. And he can’t even make it to the middle of the pond.”
“Try. For me.”
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll ask him to come to the beach today. But if he acts like a jerk, you owe me a hundred dollars.”
“I might as well pay you now.” My mother sighs. “But thank you.”