“Not one of them wants Fashion Design or Interior Design?” Yori asked, smoothing down her mini denim skirt that matched with her pale pink top that had little bows on the end of the lacy sleeves. Yori walked down the line of booths with information on each course, her pink-beaded wedge sandals, clomping gracefully along with her.
“Nope. Tegan and Mallory want Water Sports and Kristina and Sapphire want Crafting and Cooking. We can pick three courses for them and then book up their Activities schedule with 12 choices from the Activities booth over there,” Velvet said, pointing to a lone booth with sign-up sheets and a faltering poster board with lists of daytime activities.
“Fine, but have you seen you-know-who lately?” Yori questioned, fingering her hair that she had dried and twisted up into a French braid, seeking out Brody amongst the other few dozen teen counselors.
“No, why don’t you sign us up for Water Sports and I’ll look around for another course based on their interest application after I register for Crafting and Cooking, okay?” Velvet replied.
The two girls went in opposite directions, Velvet looking for her designated booth, Yori looking for Brody. Halfway down the row of booths, Yori spotted a head of tangled thready hair and assumed Brody would be near that creepy spool. Tucking the extra hairs behind her triple-pierced ears, Yori strode up to the booth on the end where the boys might have been.
“Hi, Yori!” Matt exclaimed, grinning a saliva-coated toothy smile. Yori couldn’t help but focus in on the huge zit that Matt was unfortunately hosting. Yori averted her addicted eyes to beside Matt to see if Brody was anywhere near.
“Listen, Yori. I’m really sorry about yesterday; I wasn’t the one who splashed you. In fact, it was…” Yori started to zone out the more Matt continued to rattle on, looking this way and that for any sight of the vaguely brown buzz cut and, fingers crossed, a muscle shirt.
“Are you gonna sign up or what? Hellooo? Anyway in the attic?!” a voice suddenly snapped, the familiar voice prodding at Yori’s sinuses. Yori twirled around like she was cracking a whip and sucked in a sharp breath, taking in perfume that smelled like 99 cent drugstore product. The chubby girl from the shower, earlier that morning, was waiting impatiently behind her. Her burnt Cheetos colored hair was frizzy at the scalp and at the tips, looking as if she hadn’t conditioned or something.
“Oh, it’s you,” Yori said flatly, propping her hands on her hips.
“Sign up already,” the girl barked, looking nervously to the side, fidgeting with the bottom of her peppermint-tinted T-shirt.
“As long as it doesn’t snow again,” Yori snarled. The girl reddened, glancing over at Matt, hoping he didn’t hear. Matt looked away in sympathy, pretending to be engrossed in a brochure on the table.
Eager to find Brody, Yori turned around, signed her name and cabin on the last available line on the sign-up sheet and let the other girl pass.
“Sorry, we’re full,” the person behind the booth said to the chubby girl, taking in the sign-up sheet and brochures.
“Aw, great. Thanks a lot,” the chubby girl complained and lumbered away.
“Matt. Where can I find Brody?”
“Uh, probably at the Water Sports booth. But, why?” Matt replied.
“Wait, what booth is this?” Yori inquired, looking for the poster with the name.
“This is On Wheels. Skateboarding, biking, in-line skating. Interesting that girls would be into all that. But there was a study in 2005, about the rate of girl interests leaning toward…” Matt babbled on once more.
“This isn’t Water Sports?! Wait, wait, wait!” Yori turned to the person at the booth to see them just going into the main office with all of her supplies.
“Yori. What are you doing over here? Water Sports is over at the other end. I hope you signed up for it already, I think I just saw it close up,” Velvet said, approaching the two.
“I thought the campers might like inside skating,” Yori responded, pointing to the booth.
“In-line skating? But they wanted Water Sports and we agreed…” Velvet started, wrinkling her overly hairy eyebrows.
“Matt, here, talked me into it,” Yori lied, nudging Velvet and winking.
“Yori! This isn’t what we agreed—“ Velvet started to cry out, but Yori interrupted her by grabbing Velvet by the elbow and pulling her away from Matt.
“Excuse us a second, Matt,” Yori called from their spot a few feet away. Matt smiled and waved his hand as if to say ‘no big deal.’
“Yori, the campers aren’t going to be happy.”
“They’ll be fine. Water Sports, On Wheels, same difference. The main thing is, is that you help me with Brody and I’ll help you with Matt.”
“Okay, but I could have helped you with Brody if we had been in Water Sports because I saw Brody signing up for that right before they closed up. Now, you’ll see more of Matt and less of Brody when you could’ve seen a lot more of Brody…with his shirt off,” Velvet egged her on, raising her squirrel tail eyebrows at her. Yori was silent for a moment, thinking over the situation.
“I’ll get it fixed. For sure, I’ll get it fixed,” Yori replied, smiling at Velvet’s relieved expression.
“Good. By the way, I signed us up for Cooking and Crafting and Pottery,” Velvet added.
“Wow, we sure have interesting campers,” Yori said sarcastically, glancing over at Matt who was rocking back and forth on his heels, his red zit catching a reflection in his mud-colored eyes.
“I’ll go fix it if you get Brody to go swimming with us,” Yori said, turning to go up to the main office.
“Deal. Good luck!” Yori trotted past Matt, barely acknowledging his somber wave and sloppy, drooping smile. Entering the main office, Yori felt a blast of air conditioned draft. She walked up to the secretary at the nearby desk.
“Hi,” Yori said, candy-coating her smile and tone. “Who can I speak to about changing the courses for my campers?” The office worker at her paisley blue counter top stared dumbly back at Yori, scratching the underside of her freckled chin.
“You can’t. Registry isn’t even done, yet,” the worker, with the nameplate, Mrs. Jane Webster, responded.
“What if I were CupCakery’s, the material sponsor’s, daughter?” Yori asked, leaning on her elbows, mock-smiling at Jane.
“I’ll call into Katie and see what she can do,” Mrs. Webster replied, slowly moving toward the beige phone in the corner of her empty desk. As Mrs. Webster got through to Katie and had a long, drawn-out conversation, Yori scanned the main office. She had been there once before to call her mom about going home, before she had found her main purpose in her young teen life (where everything little is huge and everything huge is little), but never really noticed the details of the room like she usually wished to do.
There were passionate red borders around sunset yellow bulletin boards with papers tactfully stabbed to the insides with titles like Don’t Walk This Summer Alone, Walk It on a Trail with Friends! and S'mores Instead of Chores! Mossy green chairs sat to one side of the office with a flee market end table with outdated People and Velonews magazines. The floors were blue and speckled white tile, matching the gray-ish walls with white trim. Glass cases encompassed Camp Sing-Song trophies, with crooked photos of girls and boys having fun outdoors taped to the wall. The pictures looked so old that the edges were yellowing and the colors were smearing together. As Yori squinted at one of the photos to see if one of the smeared faces was a girl or a boy, she heard Jane put down her beige phone with a click.
“Katie will take you now, but don’t get your hopes up; she didn’t seem too happy about it,” Jane reported tonelessly, pointing to the door across from her desk.
Yori took a deep yoga breath and headed towards the towering door. Her hand turning the doorknob, Yori muttered to herself, “Here goes nothing.”
“What’d you say?” Jane asked from across the room, but Yori simply slammed the door behind her, hoping for the best.
Thanks for reading!
And remember guys: "A metaphor is like a simile." -Anon :)
My favorite lines: squirrel tail eyebrows. and the remark about teens...where everything little is huge and everything huge is little. Very insightful.
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