“Hey, junior counselor!” Ethan waves for my attention. I’m relieved, hoping I’m about to be included on some plans for tonight, but then I notice the bucket of soapy water beside him. “I got a first job for you to do,” he says. “Time to put you to work.”
“Guess that’s what I’m here for,” I say, mimicking the sign he did. “Work. Work. Work.”
Ethan slides his hand down his face as I walk up to him and grab the bucket. “Lilah . . .”
I raise my hands, exasperated. “What now?”
“This is ‘work.’ ” He demonstrates the sign. The right fist taps over the left, forming a small X shape. “This”—he repeats the sign the way I’d done it, a bigger, more vertical X with the wrists clashing together—“is ‘make out.’ ”
Great. I made another embarrassing mistake. Ethan taps his foot and continues to do the sign, moving around in a ridiculous fashion loosely based on TikTok moves. I don’t know if I’m ready for this much summer camp counselor enthusiasm.
But Isaac is.
He comes out of nowhere to join Ethan. So do the friends Isaac was eating dinner with, even though they have no idea why Ethan started dancing in the first place. There’s so much energy, emotion, and personality that goes into ASL, and it clearly translates to their approach to this job. The way they move around, eager to take up space. It’s not just vocabulary and grammar that I need to learn, but also how to set my expressions and movements free.
I laugh to hide my awkwardness, and hurry to clear any remaining trash on the table so I don’t get roped into dancing. I’ve already embarrassed myself in front of Isaac today. He doesn’t need to witness my incoordination, too.
Stepping aside, I’m about to plunge my hand into the bucket to fish for the cleaning rag, when someone taps my shoulder.
It’s Isaac. He takes off his baseball cap and runs a hand through his loose curls, then gives a cute little wave hello and points toward the door. Some of the others are heading out, probably back to the cabins, except Isaac’s two friends who are waiting by the entrance for him. Isaac signs something to me, but it’s too fast.
“Sorry, slow, please,” I sign.
He nods and signs again, slower. He’s switched around the order of what he’s trying to convey as well. But still, I only get one word.
“Lake?” I ask, repeating the sign. But I still can’t piece together the rest, which he assumes from my concentrated stare.
He switches over to fingerspelling. “B-r—e.”
Crap. I know each letter as I see it, but I’m so focused on identifying each one that once he reaches the end, I can’t remember what I just saw so that I can string it all together into a word. So instead, I smile, nod, and step away.
But Isaac is persistent. He waves at me, shaking his head with narrowed eyes. I immediately regret what I just did. He’s calling me out on it, and rightfully so. I can’t believe I tried the “smile and nod” move here, of all places. I’m used to doing this to hearing people—shutting down conversations I can’t follow—but I’m positive that hearing people must do this to Isaac all the time when they can’t figure out what he’s trying to communicate, like I just did.
“Sorry,” I say and sign. “I’m tired. A lot of signing today. I’m still learning.”
He shakes his head reassuringly. “It’s fine.” He spells the word again, but now I’m frustrated and upset at myself because Isaac has to work this hard to try to talk to me. He’s so cute and sweet, but I can only talk to him with, like, a kindergarten-level comprehension.
“Ahh,” I say, theatrically shaking my head and staring at the ceiling. If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t be flustered. But I so badly want to communicate with Isaac better than I am right now. “I’m sorry. I will practice all night. I’m awful.”
But Isaac’s laughing. Not at me, but with me. He holds up a hand. Not in a stern way, because his fingers are relaxed and slightly curved. He’s simply motioning for me to wait.
He waves his arms, trying to get his friends’ attention, but they’re facing the other way. So Isaac lifts his foot high and stomps the floor, which gets them to look up. Isaac beckons them to walk over.
The white girl has one light-blue cochlear implant that sits behind her ear and is affixed to the side of her sleek blond ponytail. The Black guy, wearing a White Sox hat, nods hello. He most likely has a similar hearing loss to Isaac, since he’s voice-off and not using any devices.
“This is L-i-l-a-h,” Isaac signs to his friends. “Bug.”
He signs something else too fast to follow, and fortunately the girl steps in to interpret. “I’m Natasha,” she says with a strong deaf accent. “And this is Jaden.”
“Flower and Bat,” Isaac chimes in with their camp sign names. He quickly tells Natasha something to relay to me. “We have a ‘first day of training week’ tradition,” she says, “where we hang out at the lake at night.”
“That’s fun,” I say.
Isaac and Jaden nod eagerly. Jaden signs something that I kind of catch, but Natasha is already interpreting for me anyway. “Not until it gets dark out. Are you coming?”
“Okay, maybe,” I say and sign. I’m sure it’ll be a good time, but what’s so exciting about it?
“It’s great,” Isaac signs. “There’s a fun surprise, I promise.”
Natasha starts to repeat, but I’m eager to reply and show Isaac I knew what he was signing. “Really, a surprise?” I smile. “Okay-okay.”
“We’ll just —— for now,” Isaac signs.
“Chill,” Natasha says, observantly picking up on what I understood and what I need clarification on. But her voice is flat, like she really doesn’t care to be interpreting right now. Some Deaf people choose to “turn off their voice” and primarily sign, even if they still speak occasionally. If this is Natasha’s preference, it is a little unfair that she’s acting as our go-between right now because she has the implant. I wish we could all just be signing.
The three of them start to walk to the door, signing together about something and not looping me in. I doubt Natasha is excluding me on purpose, but it’s hard not to feel left out.
“I need to finish cleaning first. I’ll catch up,” I shout after Natasha, my hands hanging helplessly at my sides.
“Cool,” she says, indifferent.
When Isaac turns to see why I’m not following them, she signs to him. Part of me hopes he’ll offer to stay behind with me. Yet how would that go without an interpreter nearby? Isaac waves back but walks on with his friends.
I’d just slow down their conversation anyway. I can tell that Isaac switches over to a more English-based sentence construction when communicating with me, which is easier to follow since I’m still unfamiliar with ASL grammar. But when Isaac, Natasha, and Jaden all use true ASL, I’m lost—picking up words here and there, but not truly comprehending yet. I want to get to their level as fast as I can.
I hurry to wipe the table, my head down and arm stretching as far as I can to reach the opposite side. I don’t hear the side door open, but I catch a glimpse of its movement out of the corner of my eye. Some guy who looks to be a few years older than me walks in and starts rummaging through the leftover sandwiches. He wasn’t at our staff meeting earlier. Gary or Ethan would’ve mentioned if someone was arriving late.