The seventh-grade boys did a Powerpoint on kickbutt women athletes, and the sixth-grade boys did a skit entitled “How Not to Be the Worst.” Apparently, it involved things like not mocking characteristics about people they can’t change—like their gender. And only paying compliments on things people could control, like their style, or their sense of humor, but not their looks.
The reason I or any of my cabin didn’t get to see this ourselves was because all the females in camp huddled for Mission: Payback.
My cabin got the pleasure of rigging the boys’ cabin, drowning them in “girliness.” They sprinkled glitter on all their sheets, doused their pillows with perfume one of the other counselors donated to the cause, and put red dye into all their toothpaste tubes so it would foam pink when they went to brush that night.
And even that wasn’t the end of it. After dinner, Sawyer stood at the front of the dining hall. “Ladies and gentlemen, Boys Cabin 11 would like to do a very special presentation with the permission of Girls Cabin 11.”
I knew what was coming, but I hadn’t told the girls. I looked at them all sitting on either side of our usual dinner table. “What do you think, ladies? Are you willing to give them a chance?”
The whole day had been healing for them, the indignation of the other boys making them feel understood, the hovering and sympathy of all the other girls soothing them. My girls all nodded. “We accept,” said my future PTA president, Mia.
Sawyer’s boys all filed to the front of the room, Max refusing to make eye contact with anyone. The first boy stepped forward. “Mia, will you please stand?”
Mia stood.
“Mia, I said you run like a girl. What I really meant is you play hard, run as fast as you can, and do your best, and that’s cool.”
“Thanks, Braden,” she said, and sat down.
Each boy stepped forward and did the same thing with each girl they had harassed, until it got to the second to last boy, Eli, who asked my shyest camper, Tess, to stand. But she shrank against the table and tried to make herself smaller.
Two eighth-grade girls came over to confer with her, and after a short, whispered conversation, they stood, Tess in the middle, flanked by the girls on either side of her, each with an arm around her shoulder.
Eli cleared his throat. “Tess, I said you cry like a little girl. What I meant is you express your emotions really well, and that’s healthy.”
Tess was very quiet, but we still heard her soft “Thank you, Eli.”
The only person we hadn’t heard from was Max. He’d kept his eyes down the whole time, and I wondered if that meant he wasn’t on board with any of this, but when Sawyer prompted him, he stepped forward and cleared his throat.
“Our cabin apologizes to you. It was mostly my idea, and I’m sorry. We learned important stuff about gir—uh, women, today.”
“Like?” Sawyer prompted him.
Max looked lost. “Like…oh.” His face brightened. “A woman invented Kevlar, which is pretty cool. And also, I’m sorry you guys have periods. That sounds like the worst.”
This got a cheer from all the girls, and Max’s cheeks turned red as he stepped back in line.
Sawyer cleared his throat. “You forgot something, Max.”
“Oh, yeah,” Max said, stepping forward again. “Our cabin would like to take over all of your cabin’s cleaning duties for the rest of the week.”
That won another cheer from our cabin. “We accept,” Mia said, smiling.
My girls were pretty happy when they went to bed that night, but truly, the icing on the cake was the next morning when Boys Cabin 11 filed into breakfast glinting of glitter and smelling like vanilla from their pillows.
Sawyer found me in the line for bacon. “Glitter, Tab. Seriously?” he said, a piece sparkling high on his cheekbone. “It’s never going to go away. I’m going to be finding glitter until December.”
I only smiled. “I told you last year, Sawyer. Payback is my specialty.”
Chapter 13
Present
“Youareonecold,calculating woman,” rosy-smelling Sawyer says. He’s sitting on the sofa, waiting for Ben and Natalie. I’d snuck a dry change of clothes for both of them to my cottage earlier, and they’re changing in my room.
“A cold woman wouldn’t have made sure they have a change of clothes or have dinner ready for everyone.” I keep my voice even as I salt the water and add the pasta. I’d have preferred to make it fresh but at least the Alfredo sauce will be from scratch. I slice the butter into the warmed pan and let it melt.
I’m glad for a reason to keep busy, or I might spend all my time staring at Sawyer’s face, cataloging all the changes. The stronger line of his jaw. The new scar near his hairline. How had he gotten it?
