Chapter 27

I remember how quickly it turned cold. Overnight, It seemed. One day it was sweltering, the sun dripping all over the green roofs and cotton trees. It was a wet heat. The next morning when I woke up in the spare bed in the infirmary, it was gray and cold. In august. Vermont is an odd place.

It was a fluke and a random coincidence that I had even gotten that job; it all started when I met Maureen. It was during the time when I worked “veg prep”, on BYU campus. It was just as boring and monotonous as it sounds. We chopped vegetables and fruit for 3 hours every morning. We had to be there at 6:00 am. Some mornings, there was extra fruit. Some mornings, my boss would whip up some cream for us, so that we could have a treat. Pineapple, strawberries, grapes. Conversation in the morning would come in waves. Heaving itself from the depth of sleeplessness, of repetitive slicing and mixing. It would heave itself, exhausted and laborious, onto the floor, washing up memories and thoughts and laughter. Splashing up our pant legs. Sometimes, there was a lull. Sometimes the wave would be enormous and powerful.

The first day Maureen was there, I remember being annoyed by her. A pattern that hasn’t changed to this day, I assure you. And even now, she just appears places. But I digress. She was assigned to wash and destem the grapes. She confidently asked where everything was, and how to do it. Only at 6 in the morning would confidence and curiosity become annoying qualities. I soon learned that Maureen is many things in one. She is rebellion and quiet contrition stirred together. Marbled. Like one of those cheesecakes with chocolate and vanilla wrapped around each other, tendrils of taste. Sometimes you would get the vanilla, the obedience. Reciting what she had be told by blind instructors, living their lives in the upper left part of their brains rather than in the world itself. She would talk about the common things she wanted, the mediocrity she craved. Other times you would get the rebellion, the chocolate. That she had funded herself to go to south Africa, and had broken the rules and started a relationship with a Black south African. That she missed him. That they had to keep their relationship a secret. That she was from Vermont, and that there were very few mormons there. That she worked every summer at an all boys summer camp. On North Hero, in Lake Champlain, Vermont.

It seemed to bizarre and random. In high school, my government teacher had told us to ignore all the states that only had 3 electoral votes. By educative mandate, I had ignored Vermont for my entire life. And yet there it was, calling to me from across a nation, 3 time zones away. Calling to me from a rainbow of leaves, sweating out the summer.

The morning in Los Angeles was like most summer mornings in Los Angeles; perfect and brilliant. I heaved my army-issue duffel bags through security, my last name branded on each in permanent marker. I thought I had packed light. I remember seeing a businessman board the flight. I thought he was attractive. Three months later we rode the same plane back home.

All I remember about Newark was the storage containers. Rows and rows of metal rectangles, painted the colors of the rainbow. That is if someone had eaten and vomited it. Rows of rusty vomit colored containers. Who knows what was in them. I don’t think I even wondered. All I know is that I devoured a pizza and that the plane I took from Newark, NJ was the smallest, most adorable airplane I had ever seen. Two seats on one side, one on the other. I think it was called a shuttle. I thought the sky could rip it apart, the way it screamed and rattled in the air. I remember how majestic the clouds looked; purple, pink, orange and yellow, all swirled together. Rainbow sherbet.

When I landed, I realized that the Burlington airport is even smaller than the Salt Lake airport, I didn’t think that was possible. I was wrong. One of the first things Maureen said to me when she picked me up was “wow. I had no idea you were so high maintenance.” Because apparently 2 suitcases for 3 months was considered excessive. The truth is, that I could have been the most rustic person alive and would still have earned the nickname “princess”, just because I came from California.

Before we left BYU in april to go home, Maureen said goodbye to Tina and I. She hugged Tina and said “I’ll miss you.” She hugged me and said “I won’t miss you because I’m going to see you in 2 months.” I remember that hurt my feelings. Maureen ended up being a curse disguised as a blessing. I don’t wish to talk bad about her, and I’m sure she could condemn me as easily as I could her for the things that happened that summer. What I will say is this; it was all a giant misunderstanding that never got resolved. She thought I was morally debase and there for the wrong reasons. I thought she was a self righteous bitch. Neither is true.

I lived in a cabin called Windmill. It was on a hill, so the southern part of it was held up by cinderblocks. A stack of them. It had a main room and a small room with a doorless entrance. I lived there comfortably and happily. I made it my own, and I kept it tidy. Except for the yellow stain on the window where Liptack crushed a spider. Too many memories. They come back first as a trickle; a slight crack in the dam of my past. And the further I dig, the wider the crack becomes. Until it becomes a deluge. Drowning me in emotions, in visions, in stories.

There’s Rhett, supervising the laying of the carpet, a mini pitcher in his hand filled to the brim with fruit punch. His Australian accent turning everything rusty yellow. He had a hammock by his cabin. His cabin faced the lake. Next door to the arts and crafts building. Lindsey, hilarious and understanding, generous and kind. There’s Dean, towering above me, inviting us to his house. His mom made waffles for us in the morning. And there’s Gari.

The first week there, it rained cotton. I had never seen anything like it in my life. I couldn’t identify it at the time, but the air felt rich. Who knows with what. Emotion maybe. History. Turns out it was water. Humidity. I had never felt anything quite like it. And I fell in love with it. As a little girl, I would wish that I could have my own personal cloud, raining warm water on me. Keeping me wet and warm all the time. In Vermont, I discovered that the air could do that alone. That I didn’t need a cloud. Sitting in the game room off of the mess hall, I heard the lull of words, but all I could comprehend was the fluffy white rain, moving diagonally across the camp. It only lasted a week.

The second week, all the counselors came. At 19, I was about the average age. There were locals, who were born and bred in Vermont, as well as foreigners. Arthur, from france. Michael, from Germany. He was shy. Jorge from Venezuela, Juan from Colombia, James Peacock from England, Gari from Wales. All thrown together in the melting pot of Camp Abnaki. I wonder if this is what America was like back in the day; a savage mixing of cultures and foods and religions. Maybe that’s why Americans’ just ended up as an amplification of the rest of the world. There were meetings and meals and more flirting than I had encountered in a long time. You see, when you are one of 5 girls total at an isolated summer camp filled with 60 men so filled with hormones you can smell it and taste it, you get a lot of attention. Add the fact that I was blonde and new, and I became their shiny new toy/.

The summer was surreal. I cannot actually come up with any other adjectives, and as that one is fitting, I don’t see the point in trying. I felt like I was living in a dream; from summer thunderstorms to camper drama to late nights with the counselors, my life had become a movie. And just like any summer flick, this one had to climax in the oddest of ways.

It turns out that stress can violently and drastically affect your health. And as I became more and more stressed and felt more and more isolated, I realized that fact. A case of mere sore throat soon escalated to a pustule so large that I couldn’t swallow my own saliva. When I went to the doctor, he prescribed me a set of powerful antibiotics… powerful enough to make me violently ill. Add the acidic burning to the mix and it became a crisis.

Mostly I remember how everyone else seemed to think I was a probolem. How I stopped being a human being, and started becoming a liability. I remember standing in the kitchen, after almost everyone had left, and a familiar song came on the radio. Something I hadn’t expected, and something which surprised me as the lyrics poured balm into my stinging wounds.

When you find yourself in times of trouble

Mother Mary calls to me

Speaking words of wisdom:

Let it be.

I closed my eyes and let hot, bitter tears burn my face. Tricling down to my chin, pooling in the notch between my collarbones. I pushed the pain into my stomach, through my legs and out through my toes. When I boarded the plane a few days later, I never looked back.