How Hard Can Love Be? Read online

  “So this is camp?” I threw my hands up to the night-time activities on the beach, the glow of the fire, the reflection of the moon off the hardly-there ripples of the lake…and to the mosquito-bite already on my leg.

  “It’s pretty darn American, isn’t it?” Kyle said.

  “Why do Americans hate their children so much that they ship them off into the mountains all summer?”

  Kyle grinned, taking a sip of his beer and looking at me sideways as he did.

  “Don’t you British people just hire nannies to look after your children?”

  I shook my head. “Only in Mary Poppins. Or in the aristocracy.”

  “Well, I guess it’s sort of the same here. Well, this camp, anyway. It’s a private one. There’s no way my parents could afford to send my younger brother and sisters here. We just went to day camp down the road from our house.”

  I held my hand up. “Wait. It costs money to send your children here?”

  Kyle nodded. “Hell yeah. Thousands of dollars. And I’m telling you, that money does not go much on our wages.”

  I shook my head, tutting. It made my brain start a tsunami of beer haze from one side to the other. “Unbelievable. They’re unbelievable.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just my mum and Kevin…they’re such…” I trailed off and finished the last of my beer instead of my sentence. Such what? Phonies, I guess? Hypocrites? She and Bumface Kevin never told me this camp was a business. I’d assumed it was, like, a charity thing. When Kevin bought it, she emailed implying as much. I thought it was for disadvantaged kids or whoever, especially as he’d been a supervisor at Mum’s rehab place. He and Mum acted like they were serving the community or something, not taking thousands of dollars so Donald-dearest could learn how to waterski ready for his summers on the French Riviera…or whatever it is rich people do. But then I remembered overhearing Dad and Penny whispering one night in the kitchen, talking about how Kevin had been forbidden from working at centres after they found out about him and Mum getting together, so maybe charity gigs were a complete no-go now.

  I changed the subject to curb my anger. “So, you’re the eldest?” I asked. I don’t know if it was the beer, or what, but Kyle was very good-looking.

  “Yep. Of four. My family all live in this podunk town in the California mountains.”

  I made a face. “What’s podunk?”

  He laughed. “Do you not have that word in England? It means small, I guess, like ‘going-nowhere’.”

  “Podunk,” I repeated it to myself. “Do you still live there?”

  “Not really.” Maybe he looked sad? I couldn’t tell. Tans make faces look happier. “I’m at college at Brown,” he said.

  I blinked at him.

  “It’s a college. On the other side of America.”

  “Oh, okay.” A hazy memory pinged into my fuzzy brain. “Hang on. I’ve heard of Brown. Isn’t it one of those colleges where all the rich people go?”

  He laughed. Again. I seemed to make Americans laugh a lot. “It’s Ivy League, I guess. Yeah.”

  “So your town can’t be too poo-dank if you’re attending an Ivy League school?”

  Kyle scratched his neck and didn’t correct me. “I got a scholarship.”

  “A football one or something? Like Forrest Gump?”

  More laughter. “No, just a regular smart one.”

  I sat back on the log and wobbled. “Wow. You must be REALLY smart.” I pointed at him again. And almost took his eye out again.

  He shrugged, all modest. “They offer one in my old high school per year group. It’s, like, the only way to get out of my poo-dank town.” He smiled, his teeth reflecting all the moonlight. “So I studied really hard…” He paused, took another sip of beer. “That said, I am on Brown’s college basketball team.”

  I snorted. “Basketball team? Who even plays basketball? What are you, the captain or something?”

  He nodded, grinned uncomfortably. “You got it.”

  I pushed his arm playfully because beer had made me brave.

  “You really are, categorically, the most American guy in the universe,” I said. “Next you’ll be telling me you were Prom King. And you drive a red pick-up truck.”

  He pushed my arm back. “Prom King and Homecoming King. And my jeep is parked in the camp parking lot.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah right…” I started. Then I looked at him. He wasn’t laughing. “… Wait, you’re not kidding?” I dropped my mouth open, so much I probably ate double my daily protein recommendation in bugs. “You were a Prom King? I’m sitting next to an all American actual real-life Prom King.”

  He shrugged, like it was nothing. NOTHING. But hello!?! Prom King?! All my life I’ve been watching movies about Prom Kings. I never thought they were real, and not Zac Efron.

  For some reason, I stood up, swaying a little. This information bothered me but I was full of too many conflicting emotions and digesting too many new experiences to understand why. Suddenly I felt lost and homesick. And really bloody sad.

  “Where you going?” he asked.

  I swayed and adjusted my feet so I didn’t fall over.

  “It was lovely meeting you.” I could hear myself slurring my words. “But I’m going to go to bed now. I’m scared that if I stay sitting next to you much longer, I may start sweating out apple pie and guns.”

  He looked confused. “What?”

  Just as I was trying to explain what I meant, even though I didn’t really know myself, Russ and Whinnie walked up. The volleyball game had finished.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Russ asked. His olive skin was all shiny with sweat.

  Kyle gestured to me. “Amber’s wigging out about being in America.”

  I huffed and crossed my arms. “Only because you are too American. Like genetically modified American or something,” I argued.

  “She can’t believe I was a Prom King,” Kyle said.

  Russ pulled a face. “Dude, you were?”

  “You were?” Whinnie echoed. “Ha ha. You’ve kept that quiet.”

  “Yeah, you did. Ha. Can’t say I’m surprised though.” Russ steadied me as I was in the process of falling over. “Amber? You all right? How many beers have you had?”

  “Hey!” I straightened myself out and got ready to point again. “I am British. BRITISH! And there’s one thing I’ll have you know about British people. We’re very good at drinking and very good at holding our drink. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  And that’s when I fell over the log.

  SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:

  Creeping into a cabin of squeaky floorboards

  +

  Drunk

  +

  A mother waiting up for you

  Six

  Kyle offered to walk me home.

  By “home”, I mean the cabin of doom where my photograph is kept in the guest bedroom.

  “Bye, Amber.” Russ slapped my hand in a high-five way – another American thing I needed to catch up with. “It was great meeting you. I hope you feel okay at training tomorrow.”

  Training. All day tomorrow. Shite…

  I hugged Whinnie goodbye, already feeling like we were the best of friends. “I love your Winnie the Pooh fleece,” I told her honestly.

  She beamed back at me. “So lovely to meet you, Amber. I can’t wait to hang out tomorrow.”

  “I still don’t see why I can’t take myself home,” I grumbled, as Kyle and I left the fire behind us.

  “Just wait until we get into the trees,” he said.

  “So? Trees are trees.” I shrugged and stumbled.

  But, as we stepped under the canopy, the moonlight was swallowed whole and I couldn’t see a thing.

  “Kyle, I don’t like it in here.”

  He laughed and put his arm around my shoulder. Not in a creepy way, in a protective-American way.

  “LUMOS,” I yelled, pointing my arm into the air. “EXPECTO PATRONUMMMMMM.”

 
“Umm, you know Harry Potter isn’t real, right?” Kyle said, as I looked disappointedly at the lack of my magical ability.

  “Mudblood,” I muttered, and he laughed again.

  “Are all British girls as funny as you?” he asked, steering me in what I supposed was the right direction.

  “I’m funny?”

  I felt him nod in the dark. “You are. The way you pulled faces when Melody asked you all that dumb stuff.”

  “I wasn’t pulling faces.” I’d been trying so hard not to anyway. “That’s just what my face is like.”

  He laughed again. “See, hilarious! Sometimes people here piss me off so much. Like, how can they not know more than one member of the British Royal Family?”

  I thought about it. “To be fair,” I said, “I didn’t even know we had a Prince Andrew until he turned up at our college. Lots of people in England are ignorant too. There’s this one bloke, in my Art class, who said he had a photogenic memory.”

  More laughing. “Maybe your cute accent makes you sound more intellectual?”

  I stopped in the darkness. “Did you just sexualize an accent?”

  Kyle stopped beside me. “Oh, because girls don’t do that?” he asked, and he put on a high squeaky voice. “Oooo, I just lurrrve the Italian accent on men. It’s so sexy.”

  “I’ve had too much beer to argue with you right now.”

  “That means I’m right.”

  “No, that means I’m drunk and tired. It’s like midday tomorrow my time.”

  “I still think that means I’m right.”

  I smiled, knowing it was too dark for him to see.

  It wasn’t just dark actually, it was jet black – like the plug had been pulled on the world. Without Kyle, I would’ve ended up lost and eaten by coyotes. Whatever coyotes are…

  “How do you know your way in the dark?” I asked. “I can’t see anything.”

  “I told you, I grew up in the middle of nowhere. I’m used to it, that’s all.”

  When slivers of moonlight started sneaking their way through the overhead layer of trees, I guessed we were nearly back. I hoped the door wasn’t locked. It wasn’t like Mum would be waiting up for me.

  She’d never once waited up for me…

  … I dragged my duvet down to the sofa, tucking its edges around me to stop the cold sneaking onto my skin. Dad sat wearily in his chair, his finished newspaper wilting on his armrest, his reading glasses slipping down his face.

  “What are you doing down here, poppet?” he asked. “You should be asleep.”

  “I want to wait up for Mum too.” I paused and fiddled with a loose thread on my duvet. “Dad, she is coming back, isn’t she?”

  All sorts of expressions crossed his face before he replied – expressions children shouldn’t see on their parents’ faces if they can possibly help it.

  “Of course she’s coming back,” he said. Even then, aged twelve, I could tell in his voice he wasn’t sure. “She’s just out with friends, that’s all, having fun. Your mum’s allowed to have fun, you know?”

  I turned over and used the armrest as a pillow, knocking Dad’s paper to the floor.

  “She’s always out with friends,” I grumbled.

  The cold air from the front door woke me. Someone had left it open.

  Oh, and the shouting. The shouting woke me too.

  Kyle and I emerged into the clearing, blinking at the light of the cabin. The kitchen light was still on, so bright it burned into my retinas, making me see fuzzy purple shapes.

  “I’m so jealous you’re in a proper cabin,” he whispered, so as not to wake the Bumface lurking inside. “You should see the state of mine. All bunks, a chemical toilet, and in two days it will be full of hyper children.”

  I kicked my foot in the dust of the forest floor.

  “Yeah, but at least you don’t have to share a house with your boss.”

  “That’s a point.”

  We stood, awkwardly, both drawing spirals in the dropped pine-needles with our feet. I realized I didn’t know this guy. I didn’t really know anyone here. Not even the woman inside who shared half my DNA. The sadness hit my guts – I was sobering up.

  “Thanks for walking me back.” I was suddenly too nervous to look him in the eye. Further proof I was sobering up. “It was very gentlemanly and American of you.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, it was nothing. And it was cool meeting you. You’ll get used to camp. And America too, I’m sure. I’ve always wanted to come to England, so I’ll bombard you with questions tomorrow as payback…” He saw the look on my face “… Don’t worry, I know the basics already. There is more to England than London and you don’t all hang out with the Queen.”

  I grinned and made myself make eye-contact.

  “Only on Sundays. She’s busy the rest of the week – saying ‘one’ a lot and mainlining cucumber sandwiches.”

  He laughed so loud I had to “shh” him.

  “You all right getting back to the party?” I asked.

  “I’m all good. Podunk night vision, remember?”

  “I’m so confused by your words.”

  He stood a moment more, then softly punched my shoulder, like I’ve seen fraternity brothers do in movies.

  “Night, Amber.”

  “Night.”

  Only when he was fully submerged in the darkness did I let myself smile…

  Maybe Americans weren’t so bad after all.

  Maybe this summer would be fun.

  I carefully nudged the front door open.

  Maybe Bumface Kevin will get a tick in his bumchin and have to go to hospital so Mum and I will be left to look after the whole camp together.

  Maybe…

  Mum sat on the couch in the living room and I jumped out of my freckled skin.

  “Mum? What are you still doing up?”

  She put down the magazine she’d been reading – Mind and Spirit – and pointed to the closed bedroom door. She made a “shh” face.

  “Amber, have you been drinking?” she whispered.

  I shook my head, closing my mouth so she couldn’t smell my breath.

  “You look all sweaty.”

  “I’m in California, and I’m ginger. Sweat is what happens.”

  She patted a bit of the sofa next to her and I hesitated. I stank of beer, I was sure of it. Maybe if I talked with my mouth closed?

  I gingerly perched next to her and, without warning, she pulled me in for a hug. I sank into her body and let the feeling it gave me fill up my gut.

  “So, was everyone friendly?” She kissed the top of my head.

  I nodded into her. “Yep, Americans are known for that though, aren’t they?”

  She pulled away as abruptly as she’d hugged me. “You need to apologize to Kevin. I can’t believe you just stormed out like that. He was pretty upset, Amber; he’s really been looking forward to you coming.”

  The feeling in my tummy deflated. Why wasn’t she upset? Why just him? He wasn’t anything to me, and I wasn’t anything to him. I was just the annoying “extra” he had to put up with to stay with the love of his life. He was just the jerk who seduced my mother at the most vulnerable time in her life and shipped her back to his country. Mum was my mum, and I was her daughter – yet Kevin was the one who was upset?

  I sighed, not saying what I was thinking. Never really saying what I was thinking. “I’m here to work, aren’t I? I needed to meet all my co-workers.”

  “He’d cooked you a nice welcome dinner! And you just came bursting out with that ridiculous wedding question.”

  It wasn’t ridiculous…

  I shrugged. “You could’ve followed me and told me this then…but you didn’t.” It was the closest I could get to saying how I felt.

  “He was too upset to follow you.”

  Kevin was upset…Kevin… Not her.

  I stood up.

  “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

  Mum sat still for a moment and I waited for her to say something –
anything. To answer my questions about the wedding. Or maybe just to ask if I was okay. Because I so obviously wasn’t okay. She just picked up her magazine and started reading again. My eyes stung and I told myself it was from campfire smoke.

  Just as I opened the door to my pokey guest room, she said: “I can smell beer on you. I can’t believe you’ve been drinking.”

  I stopped. “Are you going to tell Kevin?” He’d love that – any reason to put me on a plane back home again so he could keep Mum all to himself…

  She shook her head. “No. But don’t do it again, Amber. You’re here to work.”

  A thousand replies ran through my head.

  You’d know all about drinking, wouldn’t you, Mum?

  I’m not here to work, I’m here to see you.

  I stretched my arms up, not wanting a fight – just wanting us to feel okay, like I’d imagined it on the flight over. I was ruining it…but maybe she was too.

  “I only had one,” I lied. “And it was a light beer, anyway. Whatever the hell that means.”

  Mum smiled a little.

  “Well, still, be careful…you know…” She trailed off and her eyes glazed over with sadness.

  “I know…”

  SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:

  Hangovers

  +

  First-aid training

  Seven

  With a hangover, I found Melody even more annoying.

  “Ooo, no, not my boobs, stupid,” she squealed, as Watersports openly groped her chest.

  I had a headache. It was over twenty-eight degrees, though everyone kept talking in Fahrenheit. And Melody had volunteered herself as a model for artificial resuscitation, despite the TOTALLY AVAILABLE PURPOSE-BUILT DOLL the camp had for this activity. It hadn’t helped that she’d spent the last twenty minutes, telling anyone who would listen about the time she’d “totally kissed some girls” at cheer camp.

  Watersports boy faux apologized and pumped Melody’s ribs.

  “Like this?” he called to Kevin, who was using an actual doll with the other half of the group.

  Kevin turned and laughed.