It looks like it’s so full that it’s about to bust. Please, universe. Just let us get to the camp.
My shirt is still damp with coke, and my hands are black with grease. Getting back on the bus, the driver looks at me and does a double take. Her name is Mabel, and she’s been driving this bus since I was riding it. She’s the sweetest Southern woman you’ll ever meet in your life and has unparalleled sass to match. I can see her lips press together as she stifles a laugh at the sight of me.
I don’t even want to know what that means.
But after a moment she looks totally innocent. “Get that tire all sorted?”
I drop into the first seat nearly across from her. “I’m crossing my fingers it’ll last till we get there.”
“It will.” She pats the steering wheel. “Bessie won’t let me down after all this time.”
“How did I never know that you named the bus Bessie?”
Mabel smiles. “It’s something only the privileged know.”
“It’s a little cliché.”
“Yes, it is,” she says, turning the key. “But that’s all right. We all need a little cliché in our lives sometimes. There’s a nice predictability to it.”
I’m not sure that I agree, but I don’t have the energy to argue with her about it right now. “Try to drive gently.”
“I’ll get us to camp. You just relax.”
Small chance in hell of me relaxing. Not when I’m covered in drying sugar and my senses are waiting to hear the second telltale pop! of the day. I glance upward in the big mirror that shows me the entirety of the bus behind me as we slowly pull back onto the dirt road.
I flex my hands, trying to loosen up the tension in my arms. Then I massage some of it that’s still hiding in my neck. Mabel gives me a look from the driver’s seat. “You going to live over there?”
“Yeah,” I chuckle. “Manhandling a bus wasn’t on my list of things to do after my workout this morning.”
“You worked out before coming to camp with teens? I’m sure you know that that’s already a workout.”
I laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Though I don’t plan on stopping the habit anytime soon. I need to keep fit this summer. If everything goes to plan, I need to be in the best shape of my life when I get back to New York.
I glance over my shoulder at our passengers. For the most part, it doesn’t even look like any of the teens have realized that we were stopped or that we’re back on the road again. They’re chatting. But toward the back I see two teens leaning closer, and possibly kissing. I turn back over the seat. “Hey guys,” I call back. “Maybe at least wait until you’re not in front of the camp director to start making out, okay?”
The teens quickly separate, blushing, and there’s scattered laughter from the rest of the bus. I don’t imagine that I’ll be able to stop it from happening at the campground, but the official rules of the camp frown on teen sex. And as the new director, I have to enforce those rules, even if I’m not looking forward to the awkwardness that might happen because of it.
Mabel chuckles. “It’s a long summer. You should take it easy on them.”
“Rules are rules,” I mutter, trying to assess the damage to my shirt from the can of soda. I’ll have to work on the ‘no littering’ section of my opening speech tonight at dinner.
“You were like them once,” she says. “Young and in love, right? There are worse things.”
She’s right, even though I don’t say anything. I was young and in love once. There are memories that I’ve tried to push away from this very road and this very camp. A summer where I chased beautiful red hair through the woods and jumped after it into the lake. Curled together as the sun set, imagining nothing but the future with the hope only youth affords. Lost in each other, exploring everything, both minds and bodies.
I’m not that person anymore. That girl is not an option anymore. We both grew up and went our separate ways, even if I sometimes wish that we hadn’t. Wishing for things to be different doesn’t change anything.
That’s something I’ve already learned the hard way. Over and over again. And that’s the end of that story. It’s not worth falling into again.
Bless Mabel, even though she seems far more confident