Sunday—the morning after the morning after—the earth stubbornly continues to spin, and my buzzing phone forces me to give up fighting the daylight.
I heard. Quelle tristesse. R u ok? I can’t text or call as much as I’d like to—you know camp rules.
Becca. Quelle tristesse is like saying “How sad,” only more so. French really is better at some things than English, and Becca likes to sprinkle French into her speech. And into her texts. She was in super-duper-advanced-AP-plus-plus French last year when we were freshmen. They’ve already run out of French classes for her to take. She adores French.
This summer Becca’s been at camp, the camp I used to go to, and love, as well. She’s a CIT. I didn’t want to go back as a counselor-in-training and be a babysitter for a whole bunkful of little babysittees. I didn’t think I’d be good at it.
It’s more than that. It’s more than whether I’d be good or bad at being a CIT. CITs have to be leaders—song leaders, cheerleaders, dance leaders, team leaders. Not my thing. So I stayed home for the first summer in six years and was a babysitter for just one little babysittee.
I’m okay. Thanks.
The phone buzzes again:
Vraiment?
That means “really,” in case you’re not as française as Becca and me.
Oui.
I take French, too. I’m not as fluent as Becca, but I can keep up with her in our texts.
Vraiment vraiment?
I was holding him. He might have died in my arms.
I am so sorry.
You must be in pain.
How awful for you.
Danielle?
Three unanswered texts; she’s wondering if I’m still here.
Yes, thank you. I am. It is.
Mon amie, it’s the wake-up gong. Must go. Talk later.
I know that using your cell phone is basically forbidden at camp. I remember that if you’re a counselor, you’re allowed to have your phone in your possession—which isn’t permitted if you’re a mere camper—for use when you’re off work. I don’t know what the rule is for CITs, but I’m sure Becca won’t be getting to her phone much.
I wonder if she’s already turned it off and put it away. I did want to say one more thing. Quickly, I type:
He was such a great kid.
I send and wait. No response. She’s moved on. Which may be a metaphor, anyway, for where our friendship is going.
Our “friendship.” I’m not sure why I feel the need to put quotation marks around that. Becca just called me “mon amie”—friend—in her text. We have been friends forever. But sometimes I’m afraid it’s becoming more a matter of habit than of feeling, at least on her part.
Becca Sherman and I have known each other since elementary school. She’s older than me—almost everyone in my grade at school has always been older than me. I have a late December birthday, and my parents sent me to school with the older kids rather than hold me back a year. Believe me, it was all about height, not brains or maturity. I was taller than nearly everybody my own age, and looked like I belonged with the older kids. I still am taller than nearly everybody my own age; to be precise, now I’m taller than nearly everybody of every age. When people meet me for the first time, they always expect me to be a basketball player.
“No?” an adult will say. “Western’s girls could use a center like you. You’d be awesome!”
Adrian, by the way, thinks people over forty should be barred from using the word “awesome.”
Or, if it’s not that I owe it to society and Western High School to become a basketball player, it’s that I owe it to my family:
“You could save your parents a boatload of money in a few years by getting yourself a nice athletic scholarship, heh-heh.”
Is it so terrible that I just use my body to move myself around the planet?
Becca and I not only went to regular school together, we also used to go to Sunday religious school together, and then Tuesday–Thursday Hebrew school, before our Bat Mitzvahs. We would demolish the boys in Ping-Pong matches in the synagogue’s youth lounge before class. Height, I’m happy to report, is an unsung advantage in table tennis. In class, we used to pass games of hangman back and forth when the Hebrew teacher wasn’t looking—Hebrew hangman, since we figured that it would look better, and be more forgivable, if we were caught.
Now, though, our pointless Ping-Pong matches and Hebrew hangmen are history. Becca doesn’t do pointless anymore; the two words—p words, coincidentally—that describe her these days are “purposeful” and “passionate.” She’s doing all kinds of school activities. In the fall, she’s going to be one of the editors of the school newspaper, a huge deal for a sophomore. And she’ll be an officer on the student council. And she’ll join a bunch of other clubs and groups, and about two minutes later she’ll be their treasurer or vice president.
Becca has tried to get me involved, but I’ve always declined. She tried to get me to come back to camp as a CIT. I declined. I think this has made her impatient with me. I think she thinks I’ve become apathetic, and apathy is annoying to Becca. Of all people, she must know it’s not apathy. But she can’t help herself from pushing and encouraging me; she’s just such a go-getter.
“Tall people have a huge advantage when it comes to leadership,” she told me last year. “People just naturally look up to them. No pun intended.”
“And you know this how?” I asked. Becca is five two.
“I read it somewhere. Studies have been done.”
“Becca—”
“I know, I know,” she said. “All I’m saying is I know how good you would be if you came out of your shell. If you could get over your—thing. You’d sweep everyone off their feet, and you’d have more fun.”
“I’m having tons of fun already, thank you very much,” I said in a prim voice meant to get her to laugh and stop being so earnest. “Tons. Metric tons—the big ones.”
It worked. She laughed.
I love Becca, but I don’t want to get elected to Student Council or be a student journalist or go out for the French club or be a center on the girls’ basketball team. We can’t all be leaders and overachievers. Deep down—actually, not so deep, but pretty much right on the surface—I’d still rather be playing Ping-Pong in a basement. Becca and I on the same team, crushing the boys in a meaningless competition before settling into a dozen or so harmless games of hangman while the Hebrew teacher droned on. That was a metric ton of fun.