Tests 
Chapter 12
Tests
Hours later, Justin gripped the steering wheel of his Jeep in one hand as he navigated away from Jackson City. He ran a hand through his hair.
“So … that got intense.”
We’d waited until Gary’s daughter, Mylee, had driven up to stay with him in the hospital. After a successful heart stent in the cath lab—and several months of cardiac rehab—
Gary was expected to make a full recovery.
I blew out a breath that made my hair dance.
“Heart attacks usually are.”
We sped down a long stretch of highway toward the canyon. The sun shone through the windshield in long white rays, making the dust motes shimmer in the air. A text message popped up on my phone.
Just heard, Mom said. So proud of you. That’s my girl!
I slipped my phone back into my pocket.
“You did awesome, though. Like, no hesitation.” Justin sliced a hand through the air. “Just boom! Saved his life. I’m way impressed. So now I’m thinking that I should actually make you a cake.”
He wore his old baseball cap. The muscles along his forearm flexed and relaxed, as if he were tightening and releasing his fist on purpose. After our little confrontation at the lake, I couldn’t stop staring at his arms.
“A lot of people saved his life. The ambulance driver. Wanda. You. The cath lab doctor. It’s hardly ever just one person.”
Justin lifted an eyebrow. “But you were the main person. You took over at camp when Mark and I wouldn’t have known what to do. And let’s be honest: Troy probably wouldn’t have either. He’s great. But young.”
“Thanks for following the ambulance,” I said, tucking my hands under my thighs. “And bringing me back to Adventura.”
“No problem. I’ve been texting Mark updates. Apparently his lunch tasted so bad that the staff is revolting and asking for you back.”
“I doubt that.”
His brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Oh, I just haven’t been the best lunch lady, I think.”
I studied him from the corner of my eye but couldn’t get a good read. I’d been serving different variations of sandwiches for weeks now at lunch. No doubt they were about to organize a walk-out. Justin’s lips drooped, but he said nothing more.
I closed my eyes, replaying the moments in the ER. The whir of activity. Shouting voices. As the nurse, coordination of the room often fell to me. I loved it. I loved being so integral to the process. Most of all, I loved knowing that Gary lived.
Several minutes had passed before I pulled myself out of my haze. The emotional high of the past several hours had started to fade. I felt like an overcooked noodle. I wanted to nap, dance, scream, and laugh all at the same time.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Justin said after a long stretch of silence.
“I miss it.” The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I miss it so much I feel homesick.”
“Your job?”
“Yes.”
The smooth granite walls of the canyon flashed by. Justin listened while I rambled about how wonderful it felt to be part of a team, to know what I was doing, to feel confident in my decisions. I wasn’t sure I made sense, even as the steam died out.
“You belong to a team at Adventura,” he said.
I snorted. “A team that’s indifferent, at best.”
He frowned. “That’s not fair. You haven’t given us a chance.”
My mouth bobbed open and closed for a second. A tinge of defensiveness had crept into his voice. I couldn’t help but notice the us in his comment.
“The staff doesn't say much,” I said.
“You don’t either.”
My mouth dropped. “Yes, I do!”
He held up a finger. “You never eat with us.” A second finger joined the first. “On weekends, you hang out with your brothers. You hardly ever leave the kitchen.”
A cold feeling washed down my arms. “I leave the kitchen,” I mumbled.
“You’ve never joined any of the staff game nights or activities, right? Or weekend poker games? Night hikes? Not once that I remember.”
I reviewed the past weeks at Adventura with a growing pit in my stomach. The heat of shame accompanied it. I really hadn’t made much of an effort, had I? I fell into my thoughts, turning the idea over and over again. The span of silence grew heavy. He alternated staring at the road and staring at me, cutting smooth arcs along the road as we followed the winding river.
“Are you going to leave Adventura?” he asked. His jaw had tightened. I couldn’t help but wonder what he thought of me.
“No.” I drew my knees up to my chest. “I wouldn’t do that to Mark.”
He let out a long breath. “Good. That would destroy him, and not just because it would really mess up Adventura.”
I stared out the window, catching a glimpse of my reflection. Thoughts of Jodie flickered through my mind, and I wished I could take my words back. Maybe I would leave. I thought of Mom outside the hospital, happy in the sunshine of her job but swimming through a failed marriage. My stomach tightened.
No, I decided. People are more important than jobs.
With Justin’s advice ringing in my head the next morning, I stood in the kitchen and stared out at the dining hall. A typical Tuesday morning. The smell of coffee beans circled through the lodge, melting into the saccharine scent of warm syrup. Four towering stacks of pancakes had dwindled into only one short stack. I flipped two onto my plate, shoveled a spoonful of eggs and two sausages after it, and headed into the lodge.
The program staff filled a long table near the fire and its tentative heat. Their bleary eyes and half-hearted yawns mimicked my own fatigue. The adventure of sleeping on a cot in a cabin had started to wear off. If given the chance, I’d sleep on a real mattress for two days without stopping.
Justin’s gaze tracked me from the other side of the room where he sat nearest the fire, sipping a steaming mug of coffee. Mark had eaten early and left to deal with a possible bear sighting. JJ jerked his head in greeting when he spotted me. I smiled. My legs propelled me in that direction, but I slowed halfway there.
You never eat with us, Justin had said in the Jeep. On weekends, you hang out with your brothers.
JJ and Mark had become a kind of haven I’d been retreating to in the aftermath of losing my job, Nathan, and financial freedom. I swallowed. Perhaps it was time to fix my self-orientation.
With a quick turn to the right, I sat down next to Sione, the burly Tongan who oversaw the waterfront. Despite the nip of the chilly morning, he wore his usual pair of swimming trunks with a loose t-shirt and flip-flops. Next to him, Hollis, a blond, long-haired Californian, tossed pancakes into his mouth by the forkful. Troy sat across from me. At first he stared, and then he averted his eyes, swallowing heavily.
Once I settled in, I reached for a bottle of syrup and tried to ignore the now-quiet conversations. As nonchalantly as possible, I dashed syrup across my plate and set it back, as if I did this every day. Were they staring at me? I couldn’t tell. Certainly felt like it.
“Hey, Megan,” Emmett called from down the table. I perked up. “Are pancakes with syrup the latest breakfast fad?”
A few of them snickered. Ah. So they want to test me. After growing up with Mark and JJ, I knew enough about the male world to get by. Oh, no. You won’t get the best of me. I rolled a sausage into a pancake, chomping a bite from it with a smirk.
“Nope. But freshly made pigs in blankets are back in, fellas.”
“At least the pancakes were cooked all the way,” said someone from the end. Another voice piped up after him.
“Not even burned!”
“My taste buds had seizures when they saw we weren’t having cereal.”
Although they nudged each other, laughing at their own jokes, I saw the careful attention in their expressions. Would I banter back? Or take it personally?
“Keep it up,” I called back. “I can burn or undercook anything anytime I want!”
To my surprise, they laughed. The fervor died down until Sione elbowed me in the arm.
“So, Megan,” he drawled, eyes flickering briefly to Troy. “I hear you’re single.”
A snigger came from down the table. Troy choked. My cheeks flared with sudden heat. A teasing, challenging note thickened in Sione’s voice. Down the row, staff members turned away, lips pressed together to keep from laughing.
“Yes,” I drawled, slicing into a pancake with the edge of my fork. “The last one told me to get into the kitchen and fix him a sandwich.”
Sione tilted his head back and released a rolling belly laugh. Troy smiled. Hollis snorted. A few others down the table chortled, releasing their suppressed mirth. Across the way, I could feel Justin’s eyes on my back.
Conversation continued down the table as if I weren’t there, resuming its usual comfortable prattle. Apparently, I had passed. Troy’s eyes darted to mine and then back to his plate.
“How’s medical going, Troy?” I asked.
“Good.” He nodded, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “Thanks for, uh, your help yesterday. Someone had a laceration at the waterfront. I’m glad Gary’s okay.”
“No problem. Are you enjoying Adventura?”
“Yep.”
“Where are you from?”
“Massachusetts.” He stood up, gathering his plate and forks. “Thanks for breakfast, Megan. Tasted really good.”
He dashed off. I watched him go, bemused. Maybe it hadn’t been everyone that had been awkward at the beginning. Just Troy. Sione leaned over, his burly arm brushing mine.
“He’s young. We’re trying to teach him to be a man. Problem is, he has a mad crush on you, palangi.”
My lips twitched. “Just like the rest of you?”
Sione roared with laughter again, slamming me on the back with a meaty fist. “I like her!”
From the corner of my eye, I saw JJ crack a grin. Justin stared at his plate, frowning, and didn’t look my way again. I leaned back against my chair, relieved. Maybe I could worm my way into their hearts.
One meal at a time.
The hot days of late June whipped by on dry winds and afternoon thunderstorms. We passed through the third week of camp with the crackle of oil on a hot grill.
After I finished prepping a sheet cake for poker night dessert on Saturday afternoon, I wandered outside to find JJ and Emmett. We had a date with the canoes and the lake for the rest of the day. The collective sound of shouts from the waterfront drew me in. My flip-flops echoed off the commissary walls as I passed it.
Most of the staff stood at the end of the pier, which had started to sink low in the water. Three of them sat on the outer edge, legs dangling in the lake, holding something white in their laps. Hollis, his long blond hair fanning out around his face in wild disarray, stood at the end of the dock, arms bent and fists clenched. Everyone chanted his name. He closed his eyes. With a mighty leap, he threw himself into the water.
Belly-flop style.
He landed with a resounding smack on the surface of the lake. A pathetic wave followed him, splashing the staff lining the dock.
“Holy balls!” he screamed when he surfaced. Sione fell back, laughing hysterically when Hollis emerged from the lake with red arms and shoulders. The three men sitting down leaned in, whispering.
Amongst the chaos, Atticus spotted me and trotted down the dock. He stuck his wet nose in my hand in greeting.
“Hey, boy,” I murmured, running a hand over his silky fur. He led me to the group, black coat shining in the late afternoon sunshine. I sidled up next to Justin.
“What’s going on?”
A ratty ball cap sat backward on top of his head above his gray-blue eyes. He motioned with a nod to the group.
“Belly flop contest. We’re trying to find someone who can beat Sione. JJ and I think it’s impossible.”
I eyed the massive Tongan man. In chest width and shoulder span alone he had a major advantage. But that thick, strong belly would probably slap the very molecules of water apart.
Three white signs shot into the air. Hollis flipped the judges off, rubbing his sore arms. Justin laughed, wiping tears from his eyes. The amusement rolled out of his chest, deep and beautiful.
“The judges only scored Hollis a three, a negative four, and a one. That’s terrible. With that slap, he earned at least a seven.”
“What are their scores based on?”
“Nothing. They just like to see Hollis lose his temper.”
Hollis’s face had flared bright crimson while he argued. The three judges bent over, guffawing. Hollis shoved one of them into the water, and the other two fell apart, howling. Emmett stepped up to the edge next, staring at the murky water.
“No shirt!” JJ called. “You can’t wear a shirt and win!”
While the rest of them heckled Emmett for leaving his shirt on, Justin leaned in toward me. A hint of vetiver filled my nose.
“There’s a technique to belly flops,” he said. “Watch.”
Emmett tossed his body off the dock but bent at the waist just before he hit the water. A spray of water misted the air without a smack. Justin shook his head.
“No good.”
The judges awarded Emmett negative one, zero, and negative twenty-four points.
“What will they win?” I asked.
Justin snorted. “Eternal respect. I mean … look at Sione. He’s pure Tongan brawn. In surface area alone he wins.”
Jameson, a counselor, stepped up next. He turned the jump into a dive at the last minute and surfaced to hisses and boos. Sione strutted around the dock, smug. Most of them were jeopardizing their own attempts.
But perhaps if I could get it just right…
I slid out of my flip-flops and peeled my t-shirt off, revealing a dark olive tankini beneath. Justin glanced over, then quickly looked away.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I want to try.”
His mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
I left my shirt folded on top of my flip-flops and walked down the pier. Another splash preceded raucous laughter. Toby, a counselor, surfaced with a cough.
“Disqualified,” said a judge. “No visible redness or audible smack.”
The hilarity bubbled down as I closed in.
“She’s gonna do it.”
“No way!”
“Go Iron Chef!”
Their diffuse whispers at my back gave me courage. Mark stepped up behind me. “Blister,” he sang, clutching my shoulders. “You wanna try?”
“Yep.”
The whispers of the crowd increased.
“She’s going up against Sione!”
“He’d eat her for breakfast!”
“No way she’ll do it. Ten on Sione.”
“I’ll take that.”
Sione regarded me through tapered eyes. His lips perked up in a half-smile. “You think you can beat me?” he asked, his voice rumbling. His muscular pecs danced as he folded his arms across his chest.
“Yep.”
“Little girl,” he drawled, a burr of an accent in his voice. “I was born on an island in Tonga. We live on the water. It obeys me.”
I grinned. “We’ll see about that.”
“All right, gentleman,” JJ called over the simmering conversation. “We have a new contestant!”
Rampant applause rang over the lake. I couldn’t tell if they were rooting for me or saw me as the underdog.
“All right, little Miss Thang,” Sione said, slapping his hands together. “Let’s see you command that water like a palangi princess.”
I stood at the edge of the pier, my toes curled over the edge. The warm, wet, splintered wood felt rough against my feet. Most of the guys had just fallen off, arms spread wide. But I’d try something different. I closed my eyes and prayed I wouldn’t scream.
Silence descended on the crowd. The anticipation pulsed like a strobe light. I crouched low, drew in a breath, and sprang into the air like a released coil. Midflight, I straightened, pressed my stomach out, held my arms and legs high, and closed my eyes.
The moment I hit the water, a wave of pain raced from my stomach to my chest, arms, and the side of my face. I barely sank. Based on the slap burning through my skin, it had been a perfect drop.
The sounds of wild yelling and hysterics worked through the water in my ears. I bit back a moan as I surfaced, pushing hair out of my face. The staff stomped and clapped, screaming my name. My legs, stomach, left ear, and left cheek burned like a forest fire.
JJ reached down and pulled me out of the water. He shook his head. “Good grief, Meg. Nice work!”
“She’s bright red!”
“Look at her arms.”
“She fell like a bag of cement.”
Sione blinked, hands on his hips, as he stared at the spot where I’d landed in the water. I felt like throwing up.
“Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “The girl wins.”
Elated—and a little nauseated—I held up a dripping fist.
“I am girl power!” I cried.
As one, all three judges held up 89.34, 10, and 1,000. The ballistic cheers turned into chanting. I forced a grin, waved, and bit back a surge of vomit. Mark elbowed through the crowd.
“You all right? You’re bright red! I’ve never been so proud.”
My skin tingled. I didn’t dare look. Hands clapped my shoulders and pounded me on the back in congratulations as I worked through them, headed for my flip-flops.
And then somewhere to retch.
“Seriously, Meg,” JJ said, following just behind. “You all right?”
“I just need to sit down.”
“Let her through,” Mark said, scattering the crowd. “She needs to get a drink of water or scotch or something.”
Justin waited at the edge of the crowd with my shirt and flip-flops. When I approached, Atticus whimpered and licked my hand. I pulled my shirt on, grateful to cover up. Justin dropped my shoes in front of my feet. They slapped the deck, and I winced in sympathy.
“That was the loudest sound I’ve ever heard,” Justin said.
Once I slid into the flip-flops, I straightened my wet, crooked shirt. My stomach rumbled. Justin put a hand on the back of my neck and spun me around to face the group of men chanting my name.
“Welcome to the club, Megan Bailey,” he said. “I think you’re in.”
After waving, I doubled over and vomited all over Justin’s shoes.
Breakfast Requests from Program Staff