Summer Secrets
Cherri Red Book 1
JT Harding
Published by JT Harding at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 JT Harding
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Chapter 1
I sat on a rock blasted from the hillside pretending to play with my camera while I studied the blonde girl sitting across from me. She hunched over, knees pressed together to catch peel from a bright red apple, shavings curling to collect in her lap. The girl wore a short chiffon skirt, dusty blue with small red flowers, and a dark pink tank top. The straps of her top crossed and re-crossed the red straps of her bra, chasing each other to her shoulders. Her focus captivated me, her eyebrows pulled together, mouth pursed. The small penknife curled waxy red peel from the apple. The more she cut the more she wanted to finish without any breaking.
In the final stage she slowed right down. Her tongue appeared at the corner of her mouth, stripping five years from her age. All around us another sixty-odd eighteen year olds milled and chattered, but this girl and I were encased in a cocoon of silence. Might as well have been only the two of us on the side of this dusty road. The girl disturbed me, triggering emotions I wouldn’t understand until much later that summer.
The last sliver of peel fell away and her pretty mouth lifted into a grin showing white teeth, pink tongue sliding back inside as she glanced up to catch me staring and my face warmed. The girl’s grin broadened. She sliced a curve of apple and held it out.
“Want some?”
I shook my head. “After so much effort you deserve it all.”
“Tell the truth I’m not so hungry. I’m just trying to take my mind of needing to pee.” She laughed and withdrew the offered slice, popped it in her mouth and chewed. She cut another piece and this time I accepted.
“Me too,” I said.
“You need to pee?” Delighted, as though I’d deliberately planned this and the three cokes before we left Bakersfield had nothing to do with the pressure on my bladder.
“For the last hour,” I said.
“I’m going through the woods.”
“Me too.”
“I’m Cherri–with an i and two r’s.”
“I’m Dani. Also with an i but only one n. Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise. D’you think they’re ever gonna stop gassing and start walking, ’cause if they don’t I’m gonna have to pull my panties down right here and let rip.”
I giggled and ate the piece of apple, firm and sweet in my mouth, the taste making me think of the apple taste on Cherri’s lips as she chewed another slice. That thought, forming sudden and complete in my head, confused me. I looked past Cherri’s shoulder searching for distraction. The camp owner and his wife, talking together as they had for the last ten minutes, didn’t seem any closer to a decision. Two buses were pulled up on the road, one with a flat and no spare, the second with a spare, but the spare was flat, and the bus couldn’t get past the first on the narrow dirt track. According to the man we were three miles from Pinecrest Lake. Their discussion was about whether to walk us all down the road together, or if the man might take a group of us along a trail through the woods which would cut out two miles, but meant climbing a ridge between here and camp. I hoped he was taking us along the trail, for the same reason as Cherri with an i. I needed to pee so bad my eyes were starting to float out their sockets.
Cherri cut another piece of apple and waved it to attract my attention. I reached over and took it, bit into a corner.
“What you going to be doing here, Dani?”
“Photography,” I said. Obvious, I guess. A battered Nikon F2 hung around my neck, and I wore a fisherman’s vest with pockets full of spare film, light meters and two extra lenses.
“Yeah? Who’d have thought. Fuck, I’m gonna bust if they don’t get their act together soon.”
“What about you? What’re you doing here?”
“Music. My guitar’s on the bus.”
I nodded, finding it easy to picture her as a musician, standing on stage wowing a crowd. She was short, not much more than five feet with honey-blonde hair cut to her chin, curling in the breeze coming up the valley, catching the almost noon sun and flashing white. Her eyes were bright blue, brighter than the sky. The filmy skirt was cut short and showed a whole lot of exquisite thigh and leg all the way down to neat sandals. Her tank top hugged her small breasts and I had to stop thinking about her breasts, about the rest of her too. I didn’t know what was happening. I’d never had thoughts about another girl the way I was having thoughts about this Cherri Red.
“You any good?” She interrupted my thoughts, confusing me for a moment.
“With this?” I lifted the Nikon.
She nodded.
“I think so.”
She nodded again. “Me too. Singing, that is. You go to college to study pictures?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. In the fall. I graduated high school a week ago.”
“Me too. I thought you were older. Thought you must be in college already.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that, still young enough to be flattered she thought me more mature than my eighteen years, old enough to worry I might be starting to age. I wondered how I must appear to her. Too tall, too skinny, dressed in gray combat pants and cotton shirt and the fishing vest, dusty hiking boots, long black hair tied back in a ponytail. I wasn’t beautiful like Cherri, and the thought comforted me. She was going to be chased by all the guys and I wouldn’t need to worry about this stupid crush I’d developed out of nowhere.
Behind her the conversation was resolving toward a decision. Mr. Simmons–call me Jeff–waved his arms in the air.
“Okay, okay–everybody listen up. Chrissy will take those who want to go with her along the road. I’m cutting across the ridge. Anyone who hasn’t got suitable footwear or is worried about a small climb can go with Chrissy. Anyone who wants to experience real country follow me.” He grinned and turned away, not waiting to check how the groups split.
I glanced at Cherri. “You ready?”
“And willing.” She rose from her rocky bench and cut another slice of apple, cut a second and handed it to me and I accepted, my fingers sticky from the juice of the earlier piece. We walked across the road and into the woods where a wide trail twisted through trees. Off to one side tall sequoia rose high, but here the trail cut through Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine. Even as I identified the species I experienced a touch of guilt at recognizing them. I blamed my Dad, always pointing stuff out, always asking did I remember what this was called, what that was, difficult to blame him for anything too much because he’d made me who I was, and I liked myself well enough to be grateful.
Cherri put her hand on my arm and held me back.
“Let ‘em get ahead, Dani. I need to swing off and empty my bladder before it empties itself.”
I laughed, lifting my hand to muffle the noise. “Good idea. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much like I’m about to explode.”
She rolled her eyes as we slowed, allowing the other thirty or so kids in our group to draw ahead. As soon as they rounded a turn in the trail we stopped. Cherri looked to the right, me to the left, searching for some spot where we could slip aside and cut loose.
“How ’bout here?” Cherri stopped and pointed to a small clearing in the pines.
I glanced back, forward. “What if somebody comes along.”
“If we go here, yeah. But a kind of smaller track goes up the far side. We’ll be out of sight. Come on.”
We turned and strode up the track, narrow, overgrown, barely a track at all. I pushed past Cherri and kept moving up the slope. A good spot appeared behind a boulder that had broken loose and tumbled down the hillside. I turned off the path and practically ran to the side of the rock.
Cherri was still with me. I stopped.
“I’m gonna pee here,” I said.
“Sure. This is a good spot. I thought I’d pee here too. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Uh... I guess not.”
She laughed. “Come on, ain’t like I’ve got anything you haven’t seen before.” She stepped around me, turned away and squatted. She lifted her short chiffon skirt with the pretty red floral print and pulled her panties down to her knees. She obviously needed to pee as bad as me because the stream that emerged was violent. The sound of splash-ing made my bladder start letting go and I had no choice. Frantically I unzipped my cargo pants, pulled my panties down and squatted. Relief flooded my body while urine flooded the ground between my hiking boots.
In front of me Cherri finished. She tugged at a handful of grass to wipe herself.
“I hope this isn’t poison fuckin’ ivy.”
I laughed, relaxed now as my own stream continued. I could have set her mind at rest, knowing what poison ivy looked like, but it was too weird to carry out a conversation while squatting the way I was. I seemed to have been peeing for minutes. Cherri pulled her panties up and stood, letting her short skirt fall back to cover herself. As she turned I became aware how I was squatting in front of her, still loudly peeing. Cherri turned away, casual, as if she’d seen the sight a million times before.
Finally my stream became a trickle and stopped. I grabbed a handful of leaves and wiped, pulled myself together.
Cherri turned back when she heard me zipping.
“Well,” she said, “I guess we’ve been introduced now. I’m Cherri Red, but you know that.” She held her hand out and I stared at her fingers. She laughed. “Oops. Maybe we’ll leave the introductions till later.”
“I’m Dani Walker,” I said. We started back down the track. “Is your name really Cherri?” I glanced at her, glancing down because she was at least six inches shorter than me.
“Cheryl Redmond. That’s the name my folks gave me, but I prefer Cherri Red.”
“As in the fruit.”
“You got it.” She looked me up and down. “I guess you being a photographer explains the weird clothes.”
Weird clothes? “They’re practical.”
“That’s what I said. You’re pretty, Dani, but you don’t make much of yourself, do you?”
Right then Cherri confused me. As the summer went on I grew to realize she was incapable of holding back even the smallest emotion or thought, but this early I found her openness a little shocking.
I had no idea what to say, fumbled around and finally managed, “You’re pretty. I’m just ordinary.”
She laughed, delighted. “I am pretty fuckin’ hot, ain’t I? But so are you. Wear something short and sexy and you’d be a knockout, babe. You’re so tall, so elegant, and your hair…” She rolled her eyes and I laughed. I liked this Cherri Red. Not as much as I grew to like her later, but I liked her pretty fine from the start.
We reached the main track we seemed to have left an hour before and turned left. In reality we could only have been ten minutes, but now there was no sign of the others. We stood on the track and listened. Wind in the trees. Somewhere the sound of running water. Nothing else. No footsteps. No conversation. No shouts.
“D’you think this track goes all the way to camp?” Cherri asked.
“Dunno. I guess.”
“We could go back to the road, try and catch up with the others.”
“It must go to camp,” I said.
“Yeah. Surely does.” She went ahead. I watched her short skirt swing from side to side, the way her slim legs covered the ground. As we walked Cherri passed through occasional beams of sunlight which caught her honey-blonde hair. It seemed hotter in the woods than a moment before. I lifted the battered Nikon, released the lens cap and fired off three fast shots.
Cherri heard the shutter and turned, saw me with the camera raised. She grinned and I caught two more shots. Then she pushed her leg out and posed and I got three more and she laughed.
“Is there any film in that thing?”
“Sure.” I wound on ready for the next shot, replaced the lens cap. The camera swung between my boobs as I caught up with her. My fisherman’s vest chinked and tinkled with spare cans of film, two light meters, one pocket weighed down by a 200mm lens, another by a 35. The camera itself carried an 85mm lens, my favorite length, ideal for portraits and candid shots. I knew all about cameras, had known about them since I could walk.
Cherri waited for me to pass and I glanced back.
She waved me on and I frowned.
“Go on. I want to stare at your ass now.”
The way my mouth dropped open made her laugh wildly, the sound filling the forest and echoing back from a bluff.
Chapter 2
Ten minutes more walking and the path started getting seriously steep. We stopped, hands on knees as we caught our breath. Cherri leaned forward, the front of her blouse opening to reveal her red bra. She had small, neat breasts, not at all like mine, and I envied her their firmness.
“I can still hear that stream,” Cherri said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Isn’t the camp on a lake?”
I nodded.
“And water runs downhill.”
“Last time I looked.”
“Come on then.” She turned and stepped off the trail, pushing through ferns.
“Cherri!”
She stopped. “What?”
“D’you have any idea where you’re going?”
“Sure. Saving us some serious sweat. Come on, sweet buns, stream’s this way.”
Sweet buns?
I waited until she was almost out of sight, fighting myself, knowing I should stay on the trail, then pushed my hair back from my face and started after her.
We found the stream at the bottom of the slope. The water ran wide and clear over rock, but no path existed, forcing us to climb over fallen trees and push through fern and bramble which grabbed at my legs, making me grateful for the canvas pants I wore. Somehow Cherri seemed to avoid the snags and her bare legs remained unmarked. I studied them pretty hard whenever I thought she wouldn’t notice.
Despite the lack of sunlight beneath the tree cover the air lay hot and close.
A second stream joined the first and we had to jump across, Cherri laughing as her foot slipped and she got her sandals wet. For sure she wasn’t dressed for hiking, and I wondered why she’d chosen to come cross-country instead of staying with the larger group on the road. She could have peed anywhere, forest or roadside.
It must have gone noon when the stream fell across a shelf of rock and dropped twenty feet into a pool.
“Wow!” Cherri stopped, hands on hips. We stood side by side at the top, staring down to where water tumbled into a wide pool. Fish darted through the current and a beam of sunlight framed the clearing which ran back from one side of the water. I lifted my camera and ran off a few shots, but I wanted to get down and shoot back up to where we now stood. I went to the side until I found a way down. I stood at the edge of the pool, working out the best angles, when Cherri came down after me. She came backwards, toes finding purchase, fingers gripping at holds, her light skirt failing to conceal tiny white panties. I concentrated on getting some good shots.
Cherri joined me on the edge of the pool, fanning her face with her hand. “Fuck, Dan, that water looks good.”
“Beautiful,” I said. No one had ever called me Dan. My Mom called me Danielle, never anything else. My Dad called me Dani, and so did my brother. I liked the way Dan sounded when Cherri said it, hoping she’d call me Dan again.
“I’m gonna go in. I’m so fuckin’ hot I’m melting here. You coming?”
“Um.”
She didn’t wait for a decision, unbuttoning her blouse and slipping it off. She undid the button on her skirt and let that drop too. Cherri bent over and picked both items up and hung them over a bush. I already had a notion of how attractive she was, but now this new reality took my breath away. Short and perfectly proportioned with long, lean legs, slim and hollowed inside. Hips flaring from a flat belly. Ass round and smooth, breasts perfectly sculpted. Blonde hair cut short, not quite reaching her silky shoulders. For once her face showed no amusement and I stared into her bright blue eyes set above a delicate nose and full mouth.
“Careful the wind don’t change, Dan, or your face might stay that way.”
I snapped my mouth shut. Cherri stared into the pool, down at herself, shrugged. She stepped into the water.
“Ah fuck it’s cold!”
I laughed and sat on a rock, lifted the camera, stopped.
“You gotta go in now,” I said. “You promised.”
“Did not.”
“You did. I heard you.”
She glanced back, caught the camera half raised.
“You gonna take a picture of me nekkid, Dan?”
I lifted the Nikon and fired off a single shot, knowing instantly it was good, Cherri framed against the water, the sun behind making blonde hair halo around her gorgeous face. I’d fix the backlighting in the darkroom.
“You’re not naked.”
“I could be.” She grinned.
It seemed we’d been friends for years, not an hour.
“Go swim, or frolic, or whatever you’re planning to do.”
“You’re not coming in too?”
“You told me the water’s freezing.”
She fell back, a huge splash scattering trout, some so startled they leapt clear of the surface. When she came up her hair stuck across her face. “Not so cold. Come on, Dan, try.”
I was shy now, not as open as Cherri, not used to showing myself. She backstroked into the pool, her bra and panties turned transparent, a shadow between her legs, round circles of aureolae inside her bra. The cold sharpened her nipples into small peaks, pressing against the lace.
“Dani’s a coward! Dani’s a coward!” Her chant taunted me.
“Am not!”
“Prove it.”
I stood, laid the Nikon on the rock. “I will.” I slipped out of the vest and unbuttoned my shirt fast before I changed my mind, sat again to untie my boots.
Cherri whistled. “Hey, great tits babe. Really great tits.”
I resisted the urge to cover myself. “They’re too big.”
Cherri laughed. “Not from where I am. Perfect, I’d say. Do they droop when you take your bra off?”
“What?” I stopped with the second boot half off.
“I said, do they droop? You know, do they hang on your belly when you let ’em loose?” She pulled a face. “Or do they flop even further? Oh, gross. Don’t show me, I don’t wanna know.”
“They do not!” I stood up and unzipped my cargo pants for the second time that day.
“No,” Cherri said, more serious. “I guess they don’t.” She stared openly at my body as I tiptoed to the edge of the pool. The urge to crouch over and cover myself almost overwhelmed me. I fought my instincts because Cherri was so relaxed about herself and I wanted to be the same.
I stepped into the water and gasped.
“You said it wasn’t cold.”
“Not cold, exactly. Bracing is the word.” She splashed water at me, making me jump back. “Come on, once you’re under you’ll be fine.”
“Move over then.”
She grinned, pulled a face and crossed her eyes. I took a breath and dove in beside her, deliberately making a big splash. Cherri’s hand touched me as she tried to slap my butt. I dived below the surface and opened my eyes, rock and weed beneath me in the depths of the pool. I kicked on, staying down until the force of the waterfall pushed against my body before kicking to the surface. Cherri still on the other side, watching as I surfaced.
“Wow,” she said.
“Wow what?”
She shook her head. “Just wow.”
The water was freezing. Gooseflesh stippled me all over, but it felt good to cool down after the heat of walking, although I couldn’t stand the cold long. I stroked back across the pool and pulled myself out.
“Is that all?”
“I’m cold now. But you were right, it was good.”
Cherri stared at me again and I imagined my own underwear, as transparent as hers. I wore a good sensible sports bra which didn’t show my nipples as much as hers, despite them being tight with cold, but my dark pubic hair would be on clear display through my white panties.
“You’d better come out, Cherri. They’ll be wondering where we are.”
“If they even miss us,” she said, but she emerged from the water and stood beside me. “I’m all wet now.”
“Me too.”
“Ah well, all my own fault, as usual.” She walked across to her blouse and skirt, reached back and unclipped her bra, bent and stripped her wet panties off. Her perfect ass bloomed before my eyes and I glimpsed her small breasts sway away from her body as she leaned over. As Cherri buttoned her blouse she turned back to me presenting a flash of her bush, more red than blonde, making no move to hide herself and I knew I’d have to do exactly the same thing in front of her if I wanted us to remain friends.
I unclipped my bra and let my breasts loose. Cherri stared at them. She shook her head as though I’d answered a question. They didn’t sag; but too big, I thought, the curve beneath too deep, but I’d known plenty of boys in school wanted to get their hands on them.
I leaned over and stripped my soaking panties off, stood and wrung them out, trembling inside but refusing to display shyness to Cherri. My pubic hair had matted flat against my crotch. I knew how it thinned and clung to me after a shower. The hair on my head was black shot through with natural streaks of chestnut, an inheritance from my Italian mother; down below was jet black, the hair so fine my bush turned to little more than a shadow when wet.
Cherri stepped into her skirt and buttoned up, so natural and self-assured I envied her confidence. I walked past her, pulled my own cotton shirt on and the fishing vest. I leaned to one side and squeezed water from my hair, trails of water dripping down to land on my naked hip. Cherri watched as I deliberately displayed for her. I didn’t know what was happening. I had never done anything like this before, but in that sun washed glade I felt different, wanton and aroused and wanting to display myself to her. Yes, I admitted, more than turned on, something deeper than mere arousal running through me. Cherri stared at me openly, her face expressionless, but a glitter inside those blue eyes.
Finally I stepped into my cargo pants and pulled on my socks and boots. I picked up my underwear and twisted water from it, reached back and tucked the damp undergarments into the wide pocket on the back of the vest intended for fish, but which did a pretty good job as a stash for all kinds of things. Cherri picked her own wet things up, letting them trail from her hand.
I reached out. “Give them to me.”
She stepped over, handed the wet things to me and I added them in with mine. We’d sort everything out later.
Cherri stood beside me. “That was fun.” Not being clear whether she meant the swim or the show.
“It was,” I said, meaning both.
She held her hand out. “I guess we can say hello now.”
I laughed and took her hand. A sudden wild thought came into my head that I wanted to kiss her too, but that would spoil everything so I stared away past her shoulder.
“I wish I had brown skin like yours. How d’you get so tanned?”
“Tanned? I’m not tanned.”
“Oh honey, you are.” Cherri laid her arm against mine, her skin alabaster against my caramel. “That’s not tanned?”
“I guess it’s my genes. I don’t sunbathe, but my Mom’s Italian. She’s the same color. Darker, if anything.”
“Sexy. You’re real sexy.”
“Huh.”
“Suit yourself. Doesn’t change what you are though.”
“We’d better see if we can find our way back.” Growing uneasy with the way the conversation was headed.
Cherri sighed. “I guess.”
Chapter 3
The stream offered false hope. After following the tumbling water for another ten minutes it curved back and ran the wrong way. We turned toward the sun and started to climb along the side of the ridge, needing to go south.
Cherri walked ahead of me, the sound of her steps coming back on the breeze as she dislodged small stones. I followed behind, dropping back without realizing until I paused to catch my breath. Or so I thought. I put my hands on my hips and looked up to watch Cherri climbing over a high ledge on the path. She reached up with both hands, lifted her right leg and jammed her foot onto the ledge. Her short skirt offered no protection from my eyes and I gazed up inside its gauzy material, gazed directly at Cherri’s naked ass, caught a glimpse of pinkness that could only be her pussy. My heart beat fast in my chest. I hadn’t meant to spy on Cherri this way. Or had I? The image of Cherri walking ahead in the short dress, no panties beneath, had been lodged in my mind since leaving the pool. Also intimately aware of my own nakedness beneath my cargo pants, of soft cotton brushing against my pussy, of my breasts swinging loose beneath my t-shirt. I wondered if Cherri knew what effect she was having. Did the breeze play beneath her skirt, caressing upward to touch soft pubic hair? I stared, unable to tear my gaze from the sight of her bush, fine and silky, nowhere near dense enough to hide the sweet, pink slit nestling between her legs.
“Hey, are you coming or not?”
Cherri startled me and I glanced away, my face hot, not just from the climb.
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
“I think we’ll see the camp from the top of this ridge.”
I glanced back at her, eyes skittering over her legs and away, afraid of the emotions filling me. Emotions? God no, stronger than any emotion I had ever known! This was already becoming passion. I needed to think of something else, think of boys instead of girls. I tried to remember the night a week earlier when I’d last gone out with my kind-of boyfriend Pete. We’d known each other for years, been friends the entire time until this Spring he asked me on a date. I’ve no idea what made me say yes, because though I liked him, I didn’t think I liked him in any boyfriend-girlfriend way I guess he wanted us to develop into. Sure, he was good looking, his body toned and he made me laugh. He’d always been able to make me laugh. I suppose I said yes because I’d never had a boyfriend. All my friends going out with boys for years, and I wanted them to stop teasing me.
Daddy’s girl, they called me. And no, not that way. I worshiped my dad, always talking about him, what he’d done, the places he’d been, newspapers and magazines that printed his photographs, awards he’d won. I inherited my hair and looks from Mom and my love of photography from Dad. Everyone said I looked like Mom, expecting the inner me to reflect her as well. When they compared me to her I didn’t believe them, because Mom was beautiful; classic Italian dark features, honeyed skin and dark, dark eyes. I guess I had the same color hair, almost the same skin, but no way could I be like Mom. I was like my dad, thinking the way I imagined he did. I wanted to be him, wanted to follow in the path he’d made for himself from scratch, believing myself lucky he’d made a path I could follow.
I tried to think about Pete, tried to think about home, about anything other than Cherri’s naked ass wiggling up the path ahead of me, flashing pale every time I looked. When she stopped and sat on a rock I kept going and pushed past her roughly, wanting to get ahead, wanting to put space between us because the thoughts blooming in my head scared me. I wasn’t aware I’d ever had any kind of thing for girls, now Cherri all of a sudden making me doubt myself, to question the lack of boyfriends until Pete. Although there’d been one other, here at summer camp, two years before. I didn’t want to think about him, not ever, not after what he’d done to me.
The final date before I came away I’d let Pete touch my boobs, afraid. Afraid he might be like Greg, afraid things would go too far again and even if I said no he wouldn’t believe me. But Pete wasn’t like Greg, which I suppose is why I let him ask me out. After I allowed his hands to explore my breasts outside my sweatshirt for a while, his fingers feeling good stroking me, I almost let him do more. We both knew we wouldn’t see each other for ten weeks while I was at camp–this time as a counselor rather than a kid–and after we’d been kissing for a while in the back of his car and he started pressing his obvious hard-on into my side I turned away, afraid. Greg had made me afraid of all men. I’d hoped I might be able to forget, but Pete’s arousal triggered a growing sense of panic.
Pete made it obvious what he wanted. I wasn’t as innocent as I pretended, and girls talked. Jane Peters told me what she did with her boyfriend, claiming they’d gone all the way a year ago and I believed her. Jane was hot, and her boyfriend played on the soccer team and had a killer body and great butt. She told me they’d fucked, and she’d let him put his cock inside her mouth until he came, and she liked the feeling, liked the taste when he spurted in her mouth. She told me he did the same to her, licked her pussy and made her come, making me jealous because Jane so obviously enjoyed it. Sex was supposed to be that way, something wondrous, not something to fear.
When my turn came I was for damn sure not going to put Pete’s cock in my mouth, or anywhere else. I was aroused, wanted something, not sure what, or how, or where. Pete too much the young gentleman to press me.
“Mom said I got to be home by ten,” was all I said.
Pete nodded. “I’m gonna miss you, Dani.”
“I’m going to miss you too, Pete.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go. We could be doing all kinds of stuff this summer.” I understood what he meant, but it just wasn’t going to happen.
“I have to go to camp.”
I don’t know if Pete thought we were going to last, but I was realistic. He was a good friend, fun to be with, but I was going to study photojournalism at USC, and Pete to work for his dad. This might be the last time we went out on a date, and I was glad I didn’t let him do what he obviously wanted to in the car. A lot of girls would’ve offered a farewell gift. Let them. Not me.
Pete wasn’t like Greg. He nodded and climbed in front and drove me home. At my door I let him kiss me again, but he made no further attempt to touch me and after he’d driven away I felt bad. Bad for Pete, for myself too. I needed to get over this fear. What happened had been a long time ago. I couldn’t allow those events to ruin my life. Time created distance, made me think perhaps it hadn’t been as bad as I originally thought. I’d been an unwilling partner to what happened at the end of camp two years before, but I had gone along with Greg up to a point, guilty, probably giving the wrong signals, more than half believing it had all been my fault.
The sound of Cherri breathing hard faded as I pushed on up the hillside, the top of the ridge close. Clothes stuck to me where I dripp-ed sweat and when I reached the real top after the three false tops we’d climbed so far I stopped and let the breeze coming over the far side catch under my hair and cool me. I pulled my shirt loose and flapped so air went up inside, cool against the underside of my breasts, my nipples growing stiff. I thought I might need to avoid Cherri as much as possible the next ten weeks, something about her so enchanting that if I let even a little of my emotions show I’d get kicked out of camp.
“Hey, Dan, anything there?” Cherri came and stood beside me, her shoulder almost touching my arm. I looked down at her, the top of her head level with my shoulder.
I pointed to where a group of buildings sat on the edge of a lake. “I guess that’s camp.”
She took a few steps and looked down the slope. “It’s not so steep this side. I think we can get down easy.”
I stayed on top of the ridge, watching her, hating myself for watching her but incapable of preventing myself. The breeze plucked at her short little skirt, the light material billowing and lifting and the top of her thighs flashed into view until she idly brushed her skirt back down.
She glanced back at me and grinned. “You think they’re gonna be mad at us for being late?”
“I guess.”
She nodded. “Race you down.” She laughed and took long strides down the slope, each foot kicking up a plume of dust to be tugged away by the breeze. I watched her, so confident, small feet moving sure and precise across the rough hillside. I gritted my teeth and followed, awkward and clumsy and unlovely.
Chapter 4
I guess we deserved the bawling out we got when we arrived. As we walked into camp Jeff Simmons was driving away in a jeep, probably to fix the blown tire on the bus, and Chrissy Simmons stood on the office porch waving him off. If she hadn’t been there we might have sneaked in under the radar, but she saw us coming out of the woods and called out. She stood us below the porch and stared down with her arms folded before saying we were totally irresponsible for wand-ering off the way we had, and we should have kept up, and in any case if we couldn’t follow a simple trail we should have gone along the road with her.
When the bawling out ended she glared at us a moment longer before her face relaxed, and I realized the anger had been a pretense. “You can go get cleaned up, Cheryl, but I want a word with you, Dani.”
I glanced at Cherri and she said, “See you later.” I felt bereft as she left, as though we had been friends for years, not hours. Camp was full of other kids–though I’d need to stop thinking of us as kids–many I’d met in previous years, plenty I got on well with, but some-thing about Cherri touched me in a place no-one ever had before. I wanted to hang on to that, even if it did confuse and scare the hell out of me.
“Come inside a moment, Dani.”
I followed Chrissy into the small camp office. Two desks took up over half the floor space, but instead of sitting behind one Chrissy leaned against the edge of the desk.
“Is something wrong, Mrs Simmons?”
She smiled. “Nothing, Dani, you’re not in any trouble. Well, no more than you already are.” She tried to put on a frown but that moment had passed. “I’ve got a favor to ask.”
“Uh-huh?” I perched on the other desk. Behind Chrissy Simmons most of the plank wall was covered in a huge chart colored to indicate the different games, sports and activities taking place over the next ten weeks. The schedule looked busy. I knew from previous years how busy.
“You remember Alan Peters who ran the photography class when you were here, don’t you?”
“Sure.” Alan was a retired schoolteacher who’d organized the teaching and darkroom ever since I’d been coming. He’d been running the classes for over twenty years, a good guy even if he hadn’t been able to teach me anything I didn’t already know, but then I’m not the kind of kid the classes are aimed at.
“His wife called last week. Alan’s been taken ill. He doesn’t sound too good. She says…” Chrissy tailed off, perhaps realizing she might be about to tell me more than I wanted or needed. “Anyway... we’ve tried to find a substitute, but at such short notice we’ve had no luck. Then Jeff said why not ask you.”
“Ask me what, Chrissy?”
“If you’d be our photography coordinator this year.”
“Me?”
“It’s a lot to ask, but you and I are both aware you know more about taking pictures than Alan ever did. The only thing we’re not sure about is can you cut the teaching. You’re only a little older than some of the campers. Can you help us out, Dani?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”
“We’d appreciate you trying. And we’ll keep looking for someone while you’re filling in. And you’ll be a coordinator rather than a counselor so the pay’s better, and you won’t have to stay in a cabin. Say yes, Dani, please?”
“I… I guess I can try. But I want to go into a cabin like everyone else.” I figured I could cut the teaching. My Dad would definitely tell me I could manage being in charge, but I wasn’t yet ready to be treated like the older coordinators yet.
“We can do that.” Chrissy grinned. “In fact, it would be great otherwise I’d need to change someone else around to cover your cabin. Thanks Dani. Thanks a lot.”
Chrissy rose off the edge of the desk, the interview over. I hesitated a moment, on the point of asking if I could buddy up with Cherri. I figured I might be able to swing it if I asked, but something held me back.
When I came out the office Cherri had already fetched her stuff from the bus and waited for me, reading the counselor assignments on the notice board.
“Look, Dan. You’re in number seven.” Cherri’s finger pointed out my name. She’d found it before me.
“You mean Eagle,” I said. The girl’s cabin were named after native birds, the boys after animals. Cherri rolled her eyes. Not into the spirit of summer camp, obviously.
I scanned the sheets of paper stapled to the cork board, frantically trying to find her name, but she moved her hand. “And I’m in fourteen. Sorry, Cardinal. That’s a Bummer. I hoped we’d be in the same dorm.”
“Yeah.” I wondered how she meant that, wondered if she’d discovered the same instant friendship I had.
“You got anything like paper in one of those gazillion pockets, Dan?”
“Sure.” I knew exactly where, pulled out a small notebook with a hard black card cover. “You want a pen too?”
“Duh.”
I found the pen as well, handed both to Cherri.
She opened the book up, reading for a moment at what I’d written inside and glanced at me. “Is this some kind of code? Where’re the juicy revelations about your love life? All I got is fuckin’ numbers.”
I pointed to the top of the page she held open. “Date, time, f-stop, shutter speed, film speed. Anything else I need when I develop a film. I do it all the time.”
She gave me a look like I had a screw loose, turned the pages until she found a fresh sheet and started writing down the names of the other counselors in her dorm and mine.
“What are you doing?”
Her tongue once more poked prettily from the corner of her mouth as she wrote. “We’re gonna go find out if any of these girls want to swap places. Then me and you can bunk together.”
“You can’t do that, Cherri,” I said. “This is your first time, isn’t it?”
“First time for what?”
“At camp.” I was an old hand, already been three times as a student, this my first time as counselor but the rules were clear enough. “You can’t just change places with someone. It’s not allowed. The managers have placed us all based on our specialisms.”
“Shit.” Cherri kept writing names, working her way through the other counselors on the list.
“I’m going to find my stuff,” I said, moving away. Much as I liked Cherri from the first, I was uneasy about her willingness to break the rules. I’ve always been big on rules.
She glanced at me, still writing. “Wait five, Dan. Your bus hasn’t come in yet anyway. I’ll come with you when I’ve got ‘em all down.”
I leaned against the plank wall and crossed my ankles, watched her turn back to her task.
“Why are you bothering if you can’t swap?”
“I like to know who’s who.”
“You’ll know everyone well enough in a couple of weeks. How come you’ve never been to camp before?”
She shot me a glance, her eyes skittering away from mine, the first time I’d seen her anything other than self-assured.
“Wasn’t really an option until now.” Her voice cool and I wondered what I’d stirred up. I was stupid sometimes. Stupid and lucky. My family were well off and I never thought about how much camp had cost. Thousands, big money for most people, but we’d always had money.
Cherri went back to her task and I looked away, watching some of the other counselors walking from cabins down to the low flat block where the staff lounge and refectory were based. No sign yet of the other bus.
Roughly hewn wood cabins sprawled up the slopes either side of a small river running into the lake. All the staff and eating facilities lay alongside the river. Two wooden bridges crossed over, one almost at the lakeshore, a second higher up. The boys were housed on the north slope, the girls on the south. A mix of native trees grew between each of the cabins. Out on the lake empty pontoons waited for canoes and sailing boats. Later in the week when the kids arrived they would be thick with a multitude of craft. My stomach rumbled and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since a very early breakfast. Other than the pieces of apple Cherri had fed me.
“OK. Done. We can go now.”
“I’m hungry. Want to see if we can find something to eat?”
“Lead on–you’re the expert. Shame we can’t bunk up together, but you don’t get away from me that easy.”
I smiled. That sounded fine with me.
I thought about making our way to the refectory just as the bus, flat repaired, drove in and I detoured to fetch my stuff.
“Aw, Dan, I’m hungry,” Cherri complained.
“I’ve got to do this. You go ahead. I’ll catch you later.”
“I’m not going without you.” Cherri rolled her eyes and I wondered how much of her confidence was a front. “Get your things and come back down. I’ll go look at the lake and wait for you.”
Other counselors–I needed to stop thinking of them as kids, even if that’s how I still thought of myself–came out the dining hall and we milled around, talking and catching up while Jeff and the driver tugged sacs and cases from the cavernous trunk. I saw my two rucksacks get thrown out, in opposite directions of course. I grabbed the Karrimor by a strap and dragged it through the melee, went back for the ARVN sac that Dad had handed down to me. It looked bedraggled and coarse but still my pride and joy. He’d spent eighteen months in Vietnam following the troops, recording their lives and deaths with his Nikon. The ARVN was an American made sac supplied to the south Vietnamese troops, but frequently used by ours because it was superior to their standard kit. Dad had been presented with his two months in, after the troop he’d been assigned to got caught in a firefight. Dad didn’t tell me much more than that, although he had shown me some of the pictures he took that day. The sac had been given him after the boy wearing it was killed. Most people might think that bad luck, an omen, or creepy. Dad considered it an honor the soldiers respected him enough to pass on something of value from a fallen comrade. The sac still had a ragged hole where the bullet passed through which nobody was going to attempt to repair. I didn’t have to imagine how Dad felt when he’d been given the rucksack because I experienced exactly the same emotions when he casually handed it to me two years back and said, “You might as well use this now, Dani, my hiking days are past.”
Chapter 5
I dropped my things in the cabin and walked back to the lakeshore. No sign of Cherri, so I stood for a while watching a breeze work the surface. I had my camera, of course, and framed some shots without pressing the shutter. I had plenty of film, but ten weeks is a long time and I didn’t want to use everything the first week. Back in my room I had an aluminum can holding raw film stock, the same my Dad used and he’d made me a present of the can holding the equivalent of 100 standard film spools. He’d taught me years ago how to load film without exposing it, and I had a small store of empty spools ready to use. In addition I’d brought ten rolls of Kodachrome high quality transparency film I was saving for when I needed or found something that needed color. I would’ve liked to bring a second camera body so one could always be loaded with each film stock, but I had enough stuff already and Dad persuaded me I didn’t need more. His advice had always been good. It ought to be, he’d been a professional photographer since age nineteen and I listened to everything he told me. I’d learned more from him than all my other teachers put together. I know it isn’t cool to think your dad’s brilliant, but mine is–he’s not like my friend’s dads at all, they all act like parents, but I can talk to mine like a best friend. Mom gives him hell, tells him he spoils me, but he never changes, always there for me. Mom’s a sweetie too, but my brother Gordon is her favorite, and that’s okay with me because I’m my Dad’s. Don’t get me wrong, Mom loves me too, just not as much. Perhaps there’s truth in what they say, dads and daughters, moms and sons, I don’t know, but I guess in our family that’s the way it is.
After a while I walked back from the shore, pretending I wasn’t looking for Cherri. I met at least ten kids from previous camp and we stopped and caught up, but all the time my eyes were scanning the figures wandering the site until finally I recognized her unmistakable bounce, the swing of her skirt, and I excused myself and went across. She caught sight of me coming and grinned and something relaxed inside me. I’d never been quite as comfortable with anyone as fast as I was with Cherri.
“Hey, Dan, I been looking for you everywhere. Where’d you go?”
“You were looking for me?”
“Sure.” Her face fell like she was about to burst into tears. “You don’t wanna be my friend anymore?”
“Course I do.” My stomach started making flips.
“Ha!” Cherri doubled over, laughing. “You thought I was serious. I got ya!”
I grinned, relief flooding me. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?”
I shook my head and fell into step beside her. “Where we going?”
“Check out the talent. There are boys here.” She laughed and I joined in, our shoulders bumping as we made our way to the refectory, stopping at the office on the way past because Chrissy Simmons had posted the staff allocations up. It was weird seeing my name in the short column of coordinators and Cherri raised an eyebrow at me.
“I’ll tell you over dinner.” Something about the fresh air, something about the excitement, but I needed food.
As we walked into the refectory they were starting to close up. Most of the other counselors had already eaten and gone. The kitchen staff were clearing the last trays of food, but took pity on us and piled pasta and chicken in a cream sauce on our plates. We took them and sat at a long table which looked out over the lake. The sun had moved across and shadows from the high ridge on the far side stretched toward us. As we ate and talked the shadow crept slowly across the water.
“So fill me in, Dan. What happens next?”
“You’ve never done this before, have you?”
Cherri shook her head, delicately placed a morsel of food in her mouth and chewed. The sun still showed above the jagged ridge across the lake and caught her blonde hair, trapped itself in her long lashes, highlighting the fine down on her cheeks and upper lip and I caught myself staring and looked away.
“I told you. This is my first ever time.”
“So what made you want to do it? I know what camp’s like, but you have no idea.”
“You make it sound like a made a mistake.” Cherri sorted through the pasta and chicken pieces, selecting another small fork full.
“Not a mistake. But you might find some things a bit of a shock. You’re not going to get any time to yourself. Camp’s pretty full on.”
She nodded. “They told me that when I applied. But I guessed they were trying to put off the wimps.”
I shook my head, picking at my own food. Typical camp food–carbohydrate heavy, tasty in a vague way, but inside ten days I’d be heartily sick of pasta and chicken.
“You’re not going to get enough sleep,” I said. “Some of the kids will be real cuties and some will be little shits. You’re not going to be able to shower every day and after a while you’ll probably stop noticing how bad you smell. It’s tough, but fun.”
“Fun?” She looked at me.
“Yeah, fun.” I looked back.
“Shit–doesn’t sound like fun.”
“It will be. Go with the flow. Kick back and enjoy and you’ll be fine.”
“You’re gonna help me out, Dan?”
“Sure. I’d like that.”
“Me too. I bet you know most of the others here, don’t you?”
I nodded, pushing my still mostly full plate away. If I ate everything put in front of me, even with all the games and exercise, I’d go back home forty pounds heavier.
“At least half. I met most of them when we were campers. Some of the older ones have been counselors from the start.”
“And you’re really going to be a–what–a coordinator?”
“Seems like.”
“Is that a big deal?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think so. I get a bit more money, but to be honest I was practically running the photography course last year anyway. I don’t think–oh shit!” I cut myself off as a tall figure entered the refectory. He hesitated, looking around at the scattering of people left and I hunched my shoulders down hoping he wouldn’t notice me. A vain hope.
Cherri caught me staring and started to turn.
“No, don’t, he’ll see you,” I hissed.
“Who. Why?” And of course, she turned right round and stared at Greg Hansen. Good looking, charming, evil Greg Hansen.
He raised a hand and waved, strolled across to our table and sat down across from me, right next to Cherri, close enough for their shoulders to touch. A surge of jealousy ran sharp through me. Cherri was my friend. Cherri gazed at him, interest in her eyes. I’d worn that look once, before I discovered the real Greg.
“Dani. I thought you wouldn’t be back this year.” His tone soft, failing to betray the venom that lay beneath the surface. Greg went around telling everyone how much I’d hurt him. The truth was different, but I kept the truth to myself.
“Get lost, Greg.” I wasn’t going to stand for him thinking everything was fine, but he laughed as though I’d made a joke, leaned over the table. He was good looking, bright hazel eyes and dark hair lending him a slightly exotic air as though he came from a mélange of mixed races, his skin a light coffee color, fingers long on the table top.
“I thought we could be friends again this year, Dani.”
“Wrong.”
He smiled, cocking his head at Cherri. “You believe this girl? Has she told you what we shared?”
“We shared nothing, Greg. Nothing at all.”
He sat back with a sigh and leaned in toward Cherri, favoring her with one of his seductive smiles. I recognized the expression, the self-same one I’d fallen for myself.
“I think Dani’s in some kind of denial… sorry, we’ve not been introduced. I’m Greg Hansen.” He offered his hand and I knew Cherri was about to be taken in, like everyone else.
“Cherri Red,” she said, her fingers pale and small inside his, Greg holding on longer than politeness allowed but Cherri didn’t pull away.
“Cool name.”
“It’s not my real name, but I like it.”
“I should think so.”
I couldn’t stay. I picked up my tray and mumbled something about needing to check on the classroom. I walked from the table without looking back, dumped my tray in the dirty stack and left. I was cold inside, cold with an anger that filled me, making my fingers tremble. I shouldn’t have left Cherri on her own with Greg, but I’d been unable to stay any longer. I’d catch her later. Warn her off.
***
As I walked up the hill to my cabin the sun had dropped below the western peaks but light continued to fill the sky. Down on the lakeshore some of the other counselors had gathered deadwood from under the trees and a fire struggled to catch, white smoke drifting across the lake. Inside the cabin I began pulling clothes from my sac, hanging shirts and pants on the row of hangers swinging from a bare rail, piled panties and socks and tee’s on the slatted shelf above the rail. I’d left my door open and as I started to calm down heard voices from the room across the corridor. I stood and listened, trying to make out the conversation, but the voices were soft, only noise with no sense reaching me.
I padded across to the door and knocked. The conversation stopped and a moment later a tall black girl opened the door and grinned at me.