This was an old routine every counselor knew, one we did during the second week of camp. By then, we had the kids’ trust enough to thrill them with a campfire story about an escaped convict in the woods without sending any of them into a breakdown before the “convict” revealed themselves and gave them all highly coveted pudding cups.
But when the gigglers stumbled into the clearing, I clapped my hand over my mouth. It was Director Warren and Nurse Debbie! Face-sucking sounds began, and I exchanged horrified looks with Sawyer. Please let my moan have sounded cute and not like…whatever noise Nurse Debbie had just made.
“Oh, Warren,” she said. “You’re so bad.”
I was thankful for the dark so Sawyer couldn’t see how bright red her words had turned my face. A choked laugh came from Sawyer, but they didn’t hear him over the sound of their own make out.
“We’re practically married, Debbie. Nothing bad about it.”
“I can’t wait until Thanksgiving,” she murmured.
“We should announce it. I don’t want to sneak around with you.”
Her voice sounded less addled this time. “No way, Warren. The last thing I want to do is put up with a camp full of little pukes making kissy faces or singing kissing songs all summer. We get married at Thanksgiving, and when everyone shows up next summer, it’ll be a done deal and not even worth talking about.”
“Aw, sugar, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Director Warren said in a voice so syrupy it made me want to barf. “It’s just hard for me to hide how I feel about you.”
“Oh, honey, I know,” she said, followed by loud slurping.
Next to me, Sawyer shook with laughter, and I yanked him by the sleeve to get him out of there before he set me off too. We had to slink through the trees and back to the trail several yards down the hill.
It was a poor display of our ninja skills as we navigated the loud underbrush in the dark, but the camp director and the camp nurse were way too wrapped up in each other to notice.
At the bottom of the trail, Sawyer slipped his small Maglite from his pocket and shone it in my face. Whatever he saw on it made him lose it again, and soon we were both laughing so hard we were bent double.
“I can’t breathe,” he gasped. “Make it stop.”
“Oh, Warren,” I said in my Sexy Nurse Debbie voice, and set him off again. We staggered over to a nearby picnic table and did our Director and Nurse impressions—made worse because we flipped roles and I played Warren while he played Debbie—until I was crying, and I got an actual stitch in my side.
“Ow, okay, cramp. We have to stop,” I begged. “I swear if you say ‘Warren’ one more time, you’re dead to me.”
He was quiet for a full five seconds, then, breathily, “Oh, Warren.”
When we finally pulled ourselves together, he grinned at me across the picnic table. The lights running through the grounds cast a dim yellow light over us, but his eyes still shone. “They literally went up there for the exact same reason we did, so why was that so gross?”
“I don’t know, but it isssss,” I wailed, which set him off again.
“Is it because they’re old? That must be it.”
“That’s definitely it,” I agreed. “Nurse Debbie is at least forty, and I bet Director Warren is even older. Ew.”
“So gross,” he agreed. “Old people need to not make out. Or kiss. Why are they even getting married? Weddings are for young people.”
“Definitely. If I’m not married by thirty, then…” I trailed off, not able to think of anything drastic enough to finish the sentence.
“You’ll get married by the time you’re thirty. You’re too awesome not to.”
Coming on the heels of the best kiss of my life, it made me flush with happiness. “Maybe I’ll have the opposite problem. Maybe people will want to marry me, but I won’t want to marry them.”
He nodded as if I had a good point. “It’s true. We may never find people awesome enough to marry. But I’d marry you if I was old enough to get married.”
“You are old enough, dummy. We’re old enough to vote, go to war, almost old enough to drink. We are definitely old enough to get married. Not that I want to!” I rushed to make thatrealclear.
He shrugged. “That’s what it says on paper, but I don’t believe it.”
“When is old enough to get married?”
He thought about it. “Twenty-seven. You should definitely not be able to get married if you aren’t old enough to rent a car.”
