Camp Gorebury

Chapter Seven

Landon

 I did not get any sleep the night before I leave, which isn't a surprise. I can't even sleep when I'm relaxed, and after Stephanie has dropped her bombshell about summer camp even the thought of closing my eyes was impossible. After lying in bed for three hours, I deduced that Stephanie had finally gone to bed for real and decided to get up and boil some water for pasta.

I was hungry for food that wasn't a Blizzard, and carbs seemed appropriately filling.  Afterwards, I sat on the couch in the living room and ate my lukewarm pasta without sauce or butter or even salt and looked out the floor-to-ceiling window at the glittering New York skyline with all its windows and cars and planes and felt perfectly terrible inside. The city looked like a model, or a diorama. I had never felt so far away. 

I've lived in a lot of different cities— Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles— but none of them resonated with me like Manhattan did. All those cities were all just stops along the way, never the final destination, never my home. I never missed them when I left.  It's funny, almost, that I didn't realize how much I'd miss New York until the day I was forced to leave it all behind.  

This morning I found myself sprawled out on the couch, absolutely bone-tired. I felt like one of the shuffling corpses from Day Of The Dead.

(I'm sure that I was grumbling like one, too.)

I was also more irritated than usual, which is saying something because annoyed is basically my natural state. In every cell in my body, I knew that it was not going to be a good day. 

Stephanie was looming me, her lips pinched together like little bow-ties of disappointment. "Get up," she told me.

"You have a lot of packing to do."  

For the next two days, my life was whittled down to three things: my suitcases, my mother, and my self-pity. I packed. Stephanie watched me pack. And I felt like s**t while I was packing and being watched by Stephanie. 

The omniscient presence of Stephanie didn't make me feel better. She never fails to make life more miserable, even when it seems like you've already hit rock-bottom.

Right now, she's watching me, impatiently, from the curb outside the apartment, not out of courtesy, but to make sure that I actually get into the cab that's supposed to drive me to the airport instead of doing something else duplicitous and criminal. The way she's looking at me with her narrowed eyes would make you think that I'm about to steal the taxi, too, which is a thousand degrees of insulting because I would never even think of stealing a car that wasn't specially imported from Europe, and especially not one without genuine leather seats.

Car theft is one crime, but so is settling for anything less expensive than a Lincoln.  

It's early in the morning and Stephanie is dressed to kill. Her black hair is pulled back into a slick ponytail and her dark pantsuit has been ironed into angles sharp enough to cut yourself on, not that she would let you even think about getting near her Armani in the first place. She looks like the evil alter-ego of a socialite businesswoman, and the slight curl to her firetruck-red lips says that she damn well could be one, too. 

Stephanie may be dressed impeccably, but you would sooner catch me dead than matching her nouveau riche wardrobe. My fashion style consists of whatever she hates. 

A list of what I'm wearing:  

1)     A black t-shirt with the cover art from the One Of These Nights album printed on the front. On the back: "Don't worry. Nothing will be O.K!"

 (In the eyes of Stephanie, rock music is a fad that should have ended in the 60's.)  

2)     The army jacket I found at a thrift store with Justin, who said that it would be such a f*****g sin if I didn't buy it.

(Stephanie's take on the jacket was not as positive; I believe that her words were take that disgrace off, you're not in the bloody military for God's sake.)

3)     A pair of grey sweatpants. Stephanie hates sweatpants. I can almost hear her voice in my head— over my dead body will my own son step outside looking like a homeless street panhandler.

(Sorry, mom. Bit too late for that.)

4)      My black, squeak-less Chucks. She also hates these, but that's because she knows what I use them for. (Hint, it's sneaking out.)

 I am the picture perfect representation of the worst son. She is the picture perfect representation of the tortured parent who has to put up with them.  

"I have a conference at three," Stephanie tells me pointedly.

She can be wonderfully subtle when she wants to (Stephanie is the master of backhanded compliments), but when she isn't trying to remain passive-aggressive, she's blunter than an over-used kitchen knife.

"Please try and hurry up."  

"It would be faster if you helped," I mutter, shoving another bag into the trunk of the cab.  "

What was that?"  

I roll my eyes and pick up another bag.

"Or not."  

Stephanie frowns at a woman walking by with a full tattoo sleeve.

"The youth these days are so incongruous," she comments. 

I wonder if she's purposefully trying to sound like a one-hundred and three year old miser or is trying to scold me by insulting an entire generation.  After giving the woman the evil eye until she turns the corner and disappears from view, Stephanie turns her disapproving gaze back towards me.

"I hope that you know the purpose of Gorebury is to fix your own poor behavior."  

"Of course," I say sarcastically, stuffing in another bag with extra malice.

All of my bags are so light; I barely packed anything. Bringing too much would make me feel like I'm leaving for good.

"How could I forget?"  

Stephanie eyes me with suspicion. Then she glances at her watch and sighs loudly. She clearly wants this whole ordeal to be over as much as I do, but in her case it's because she has a multitude of items to be checked of her to-do list more important than shipping her son off to the congratulations-you-f****d-up! camp.

 "I just want you to know that I will be very disappointing if you return with your current attitude," Stephanie says tightly.

"I want to see improvement."  

"In that case, you're wasting your money."  

"The cost of Gorebury is being covered by your bank account, so it will be your money that is being wasted."

I let out a mirthless laugh.

"You're right, the two grand I'm paying for this camp will really put a dent in my savings."  

"This is the kind of impertinence that I want to be gone by the end of the summer," Stephanie snaps.  

"Impertinence? It was only a joke."  

"I am aware of that."  

"Are you also aware that there's a difference between the two?"  

A cloud passes over Stephanie's face, darkening her features.

"If this is your way of acting out, I do not find it endearing."  

"Good. I only act out when I want to be unendearingly."  

I chuck my last bag into the trunk and slam it shut. The driver honks his horn at me, indicating that he wants me to hurry up and get in.  But I still have unfinished business with my mother. I turn to her and say, point-blank,

"Sending me to this camp isn't going to make me forget about Alice."  

Stephanie's face is a stony warning.

"That's enough, Landon."  

"Enough of what? Honesty?"  

"You know that we made a deal."

"Actually, I don't. Usually, to make a deal, two parties have to agree on the same thing. I never agreed to this. You just blackmailed me. Therefore, it was not a deal. Are you aware of that, too? Or do you need to be reminded of the difference between coercion and agreement, too?"

 "Landon," Stephanie says sharply,

"I won't tolerate this callowness."  

"You say that I need an attitude change, but have you ever considered that you're the one that needs a serious course in ethics? Your company is a f*****g Ponzi scheme."  

Stephanie gives a dramatic sigh, one that says, what did I ever do to deserve this unruly child that says I need to learn basic human empathy?

"Enough arguing. Your father wants to say goodbye."

"Really? I'm flattered. Send him my regards."  

"Don't be so impudent. He's upstairs waiting for you— you should go and visit him before you leave for the summer."  

"If he wanted to say goodbye," I tell her,

"He would've come outside to do it."  

If you couldn't tell, I don't know my father very well. He's a lawyer and he travels a lot, sometimes even more than Stephanie, so I rarely ever see him at home. We never had those classic father-son bonding experiences when I was younger— there were no baseballs thrown back and forth across the front lawn, no stressful lessons on how to drive a stick-shift from the passenger seat of the family car, not even a cautionary talk about the dangers of alcohol and drugs and teenage s*x or whatever else the youth are getting themselves into trouble with lately. We keep our distance from each other in a professional manner that I don't look on with a sense of bitterness or fondness. It's just the way things are.  

"You aren't going to see him again for the next three months."

"His loss," I say, doubting that my father would be missing my absence in the slightest. 

Stephanie plucks a strand of black hair off the shoulder of her suit.

She sniffs.

"Very well, then. I'll inform him of your departure."

"I'm sure you will."  

The taxi driver honks his horn at me again.  

"I get it!" I shout back. 

I open the car door and turn to give Stephanie one last sardonic wave. That's when I see she's got a Look on her face. Not a good look, either. It's the look she wears when she knows something that I don't. And when Stephanie knows things that I don't, it never ends well for me.

"What is it now?" I ask warily.

"Two of your friends stopped by earlier," Stephanie says, her voice deceptively carefree.

"You were busy, so I turned them away. I believe their names were Justin and Madison?"  

My blood runs cold.

"Justin came by and you didn't tell me?" I demand.  

"I didn't want you to lose focus while packing," Stephanie replies.

Her voice is innocent— perfectly so. Probably because she's had years of practice pretending to be.

"I told them you were going to summer camp and were leaving today. What more could you want?"  

"I want to say goodbye to my friends," I say, between clenched teeth.

The idea of Justin coming to the apartment to say goodbye and Stephanie ushering him away is almost painful, and it takes all of my self-restraint not to explode at her again like I did last night.  Stephanie waves my words away with a silky hand.

"You'll see them in three months," she answers nonchalantly.

"It's not that long. You'll all survive."  

"They're my friends! I have the right to see them!"  

"No," Stephanie says.

"You lost that right when you drove my colleague's car into a telephone pole. There are consequences to your actions, Landon. I hope that you are beginning to understand that."

"They were your actions. Not mine."  

"Was I behind the wheel that day? No. You made that choice. It was entirely your decision to steal Mr. Bruce’s—"

I can't stand listening to Stephanie lie anymore, and I turn my back on her and throw myself inside the cab. I don't think I've ever felt so angry in my life. My whole body feels like it was plugged into an electrical outlet and is bristling with the charge. 

My eye is twitching again. I clamp my hand over it, determined not to let Stephanie see. I can't let her know that she's gotten to me. I can't give her that satisfaction. My eyelids flicker even more aggressively, and I press my fingers in the socket until I see stars. I will not lose control again in front of her. I will not—

Stephanie places her hand on the cab door and leans toward me, so that we're face to face. When she speaks, her voice is measured and calm, leaving no room for uncertainty.  

"If you get into any more trouble at camp," Stephanie tells me,

"I'll disown you."  

My mouth slackens, and for the next few agonizing seconds, I can only glare feebly at her out of my one functioning eye. I've always been good at detecting lies, but now, I can't find anything on Stephanie's face that gives her away.

She must really be telling the truth this time.  Stephanie smiles at me. I'm sure she knows what I'm thinking; she's always been able to read me like an open book. Her black eyes glint at me in triumph.

Stephanie, 1, Landon, 0.

"Have a nice summer," Stephanie says smoothly. 

And she closes the door for me.