“Calm down,” I say. “It’s just a haircut.”
“And no theater,” Ashleigh says.
“What are you going to do all summer?” George asks.
“Sports, I guess,” I say, not really sure which ones I mean. “Obstacle course stuff, arts and crafts.”
“Well, at least we’ll have that,” George says.
“I just don’t get this, Randy,” Ashleigh says. “Like, I get you have a crush on the guy, but—”
“It’s more than a crush,” I say. “He makes me feel … different. He’s special.”
Ashleigh sighs above me, and I see George stare up at her, exchanging a look.
“And call me Del now,” I add. “At least in public.”
“Del.” George tries it out. “I don’t hate it.”
“I do,” Ashleigh says. “It’s not your name.”
“It’s the other part of Randall,” I say, taking out my sheets—plain gray this year, not the rainbow unicorn sheets I usually bring—and making my bed. “It’s fine. I’m not forgetting who I am. I’m just changing the way other people see me.”
“To be more masculine.” Ashleigh says it with disgust. She hops down from her bunk and helps me tuck the corners of my sheet in. “As if that means anything. Gender essentialist nonsense.”
“It’s a type,” George says, shrugging.
“It’s what Hudson likes,” I say, sitting down on my made bed and smoothing out the gray sheets. They’re high thread count, at least. They may look different, but they feel the same.
“And you’re sure all this is worth it?” Ashleigh asks.
“Absolutely,” I say.
TWO
We gather around the flagpole in a semicircle, staring up at Joan, who’s looking at her clipboard and making that face she makes all the time, with her mouth twisted to one side. I sit next to George and Ashleigh. I can still be friends with them—that won’t hurt the plan. I decided if he didn’t like me being friends with them, then he wasn’t the guy I thought he was, the one who believes we’re all special and can do anything. He might not know how we’re old, close friends, but that’s not important. Besides, I’m going to need their help.
I spot Hudson on the other side of the circle and he waves at me. I smile. Next to him is his best friend, Brad—tall, lanky, shaved head, and dark skin. He’s like Hudson, in that he’s into sports and doesn’t wear nail polish, but strangely, Brad has never been one of Hudson’s conquests. No one is sure why—it’s one of the great mysteries of camp, like whether someone really died in cabin three, or why the cabins aren’t gender-exclusive but the changing rooms by the pool are.
“I’m going to need you to show me the tree later,” I tell George and Ashleigh.
“You’ve seen the tree,” Ashleigh says. She’s already been down to the arts and crafts cabin and raided it for string and is weaving a bracelet.
“Randy has,” I say. “Del hasn’t. Del needs to see the tree while Hudson is watching so I can say I’d never want to be with a playboy like that.”
“Playboy?” George says. “Darling, this isn’t the sixties. We don’t talk like that.”
“I’m more worried about how he talked about himself in the third person, and as two different people,” Ashleigh says.
“It helps me distinguish,” I say. “Del is like a role.”
“Method actors,” George says, his voice dripping disdain. “All right, all right, I’ll help you out—but I don’t know how you’re going to get him to eavesdrop on us.”
“Just take me to see the tree when I ask you to, okay?”
“Attention, please!” Joan is standing at the flagpole in the center of the cabins, holding her hand up. “When the hand goes up!” she says.
“The mouth goes shut!” shout about half the campers in response. Some people keep talking, but Joan keeps her hand raised and eventually everyone quiets down.
“Thank you,” Joan says. Joan always seems like she hasn’t gotten enough sleep. She’s maybe in her fifties, with short curly hair and big plastic glasses I swear she’s had since the seventies on a chain around her neck, always in the purple camp polo and cargo shorts. “Hello, and welcome to Camp Outland!” she says with half-hearted enthusiasm and a smile that would probably be big if she had the energy. “I’m Joan Ruiz, and I run the camp. I’ll be leading meetings here every morning at eight, and I handle our LGBTQIA+ history activities on Monday nights. Otherwise, you’re probably only going to be hearing my voice if you get in trouble, so let’s talk about how not to do that. First—no cell phones, no computers, no smart watches or belts or whatever they have these days. We have boom boxes in each cabin, if you need music, but otherwise, no technology. If we catch you with a phone or anything else, you’ll be put on kitchen cleanup for a week, and we will confiscate the phone. You won’t get it back until you go home. It’ll be dead by then, so you won’t be able to immediately get on the Internet, where I know you’ll want to be. That also means you have to write letters—Real Mail, I call it—if you want to talk to your friends or family back home. Next: food! You have to be at all three meals a day. If you’re vegan or vegetarian or kosher or halal, you should have told us already and we’re prepared for you, but if for some reason you didn’t, come see me after flagpole. You eat what you’re given. It’s not so bad, I promise. Yes, you can be sent candy and snacks from home, but only things that follow the rules—nothing with peanuts or sesame seeds or anything anyone is deathly allergic to—your counselors have a list. When you get food from home, your cabin counselor will go through it to make sure it meets the rules. Don’t leave food out! That’s how you get ants. More ants. And if you’re going to gamble with candy, just do it over cards. No betting on who’s going throw up after eating too much or who’s going to drop the egg during the egg race. That’s just mean. No drinking! If we catch you with drugs or alcohol, you’ll be kicked out. Same if you’re caught outside your cabin after curfew.”
I pluck the grass as Joan goes on, stealing glances at Hudson, who I’m pleased to see is stealing glances at me. We lock eyes once and I grin. This might be going too smoothly. The issue now is making sure he knows I’m not just going to be another conquest. That’s what he does. A different boy every two weeks at camp. A week of wooing, a week of holding hands and sneaking out to the Peanut Butter Pit, and then, inevitably, a breakup with some tears.
They always stay friends, though. Hudson is the master of staying friends—and that makes sense. He’s nice about it, he never cheats on them, they always just … consciously uncouple.
But I’m going to knock all those other bitches out of the water. ’Cause Hudson is going to stay with me all summer. And beyond that, too. We’re going to be boyfriends and share a tent on the canoe trip the second-to-last weekend of camp.
When Joan is done talking, she introduces the nurse, Cosmo, a skeletal man in his sixties with long gray hair to his shoulders.