That night, you can pick between a s’more-making station, a star-gazing area, and a screening of “Wet Hot American Summer.” I try to make a s’more, but everyone is using all the good sticks, so then I just drink three Jack and Cokes and lay in the stargazing area by myself. Around me, people are close and whispering. I look at the sky but don’t know what I’m looking at. Which dots are supposed to be the important ones? I don’t see Declan anywhere.
On our third date, I told Declan about my parents’ divorce. I talk about my parents’ divorce a lot, always in a jokey way. It usually makes people laugh. I told Declan about how I used to stay with my dad over the summers, and my dad kept moving to these states where we didn’t know anyone—Arkansas, Oklahoma, Utah—almost like he was picking them out of a hat. “Or maybe,” I said to Declan, “he was doing that thing where he throws darts at a map.”
“You must have been really lonely,” said Declan.
No one had ever said that to me before. “I was lonely,” I told him.
I finish my drink and decide to just go to bed. I don’t know how to start conversations with people who are stargazing, and besides, everyone here is with someone else.
Along the beach, there are a bunch of “love huts,” where you’re supposed to be able to get some privacy. There’s already a line for them. Some people in the line are making out.
I walk into my assigned cabin and the screen door slams behind me. Some dude goes, “Sh sh sh.” I walk over to the bunk where I’ve thrown all my stuff. There is a lump there, and the lump is two people fucking.
“Oh,” I say, and the girl bursts out laughing.
“Sh!” says the guy, and puts his hand over her mouth, which makes her laugh harder.
“I just want to brush my teeth,” I say, and reach up to grab my bag, which I have to sort of wiggle out from under her leg.
“Sorry, sorry,” says the guy, but he’s laughing too. They can’t stop laughing. They’re having a good time.
I wake up feeling bleary and sore because I tried sleeping on the beach. I thought it would be peaceful, but instead I was so cold I woke up every few minutes, and some kind of bug was biting my ankles. It was dumb. I should have just slept in a different bunk.
I look at my phone to see what time it is and I have ten texts from Nina. Nina wants to know if I’ve met anyone. Nina wishes she could do something like this. Dating is so exciting, says Nina.
I don’t respond. I also have a voicemail from my boss, asking me to call him right away, which I do.
“Lee,” he says. “I’m sorry to bother you during all this. We can’t find the revised contract for the Natural History Museum. I was hoping you remembered where you saved it.”
I do. I tell him.
He thanks me. “How are you holding up?” he asks.
“I’ve been better,” I say.
My boss sighs. “Yeah. It’s hard, losing people.”
“It is.”
“Were you close to your grandmother?”
“Pretty close,” I say. “I was her only grandchild, and she would watch me after school a lot when my mom had to work.”
“I’m so sorry,” says my boss. “I’m so, so sorry. I know what it’s like. My mom died last year. We each have so few people who really mean something to us, you know?”
One of the pigtailed girls is pacing the hill behind me with a megaphone. “Breakfast is ready in the mess hall!” she says. “Time for waffles and time to FIND LOVE.”
“Where are you?” asks my boss.
“Out in the parking lot of the hotel,” I say. “I should go,” I say. “Sorry,” I say.
“Hey!” someone says, and when I turn I see it’s Sarah from the bus. She doesn’t look like she slept on the ground. She’s wearing a black choker and a velvet shirt, like a popular girl from a 90s movie. “Lee, right?”
“Hey,” I say, and we fall in step walking toward the mess hall. “I take it you haven’t met the love of your life?”
“I have not. Have you?”
“Yeah, he’s meeting me inside.”
“Oh,” I say.
“I’m just kidding! I’m kidding. Geez, your face.”
“Some guy who got mad I didn’t want to go on more dates with him is here,” I say.
“Disgusting,” says Sarah.
“Morning, ladies!” A bro in a backwards baseball cap waves at us from across the grass. We wave back halfheartedly.
“Also,” I say, “a dude I really, really liked. Who broke up with me.”
“What?”
“Is here,” I say.
“Oh! Jesus, that sucks.”
“I saw him walking around with some other girl.”
We push open the door to the mess hall and get in the buffet line. The whole thing feels like a very crowded hotel continental breakfast, with more bears carved from wood.
“How long were you guys together?” asks Sarah. My chest gets hot. We grab plates.
“I mean, just a few months. It was nothing, really. I was just really into him.” I pinch a waffle between some tongs and spoon canned peaches over the top. “I mean, I thought it was going well. But he said I liked him more than he liked me.”
“Did you like him more than he liked you?” asks Sarah.
“So it would seem,” I say. “But I thought it was going well.”
“Hm,” says Sarah.
“I mean,” I clarify, “I guess I got anxious a lot because his signals were so mixed. Like if I didn’t text him for a week then I just wouldn’t hear from him.”
Sarah snorts and picks up a carafe of syrup. “That doesn’t sound mixed to me.”
“But also, he once bought me a bar of fancy chocolate.”
“Right…” says Sarah.
I try to make her understand. “He just got things about me. I really knew him. And he really knew me. He read as many novels as I did, and he liked to walk everywhere, which I do too. We’d just walk all over the city. I just have this feeling like I blew my chance and I’ll never find someone like that again.”
“Lots of people like to read and walk,” says Sarah. We stand at the end of the buffet, scanning the crowd. I don’t see him.
Sarah eats a strawberry off her plate. “I think I’m gonna go swimming today,” she says. “I’d love to just sink to the bottom of a lake where I can’t hear anyone.”
“I mean that in a non-depressed way,” she says.
“You’ve got some sand on your shoulder,” she says, and brushes it off.