Party in the USA
Kelley’s mind registered the sound of blow dryer before it woke her up officially. She groaned and flipped over, shoving her head under her pillow and sighing into her sheets, which she found to her annoyance, were coming off of the bed by the corners. She heard the blow dryer shut off and counted to ten in her head, amping herself up to wake up and face other people.
“That’s gonna last like two days, tops” Kelley popped her head up and searched wildly around the cabin for Emily who was fresh from the shower in a clean pair of denim shorts and a tank top and flopped back on her bed with her freshly blow dried hair pulled to one side.
Emily scoffed “Please tell me that’s how long your snoring is going to last too?” she looked up at Kelley who was still laying flat on her stomach and stretching each of her limbs individually. Kelley finally registered the comment and flipped herself over, swinging her legs over the side of the bunk.
“I don’t snore. I breathe heavy when I sleep.” Kelley said with conviction, she pulled the sweaty strands of hair, stuck to her from a long sleep into a ponytail and then shakily climbed down from the top bunk. She heard Emily snicker as she landed on the ground and padded her way into the bathroom.
“And do all of your boyfriends buy that excuse?” Emily heckled from her bed.
“I’m going to ignore that comment and just respond by telling you that I’m using some of your toilet paper.” Kelley shouted from the bathroom, grinning at herself at her comment.
“Okay but seriously, between that and the teeth grinding you should see a doctor. Also, the camp provides the toilet paper so do better.” Emily was clearly pleased with herself, sitting all the way up in her bed applying sunscreen on her arms and legs.
“That was nothing compared to you scratching your bug bites all night. You ready to listen to the master?” Kelley gestured to Emily’s legs that were covered with tiny red mosquito bites. Emily rolled her eyes and Kelley let herself have a satisfied grin while she searched through her clothes to find the pair of shorts she was looking for.
“I’m gonna hit the showers, we’ll make our game plan in 15? Cool? Go team.” Kelley said all of this over her shoulder as she headed into the bathrooms with a towel swung over her shoulders.
“Aye Aye captain.” The sarcasm dripped from Emily’s voice, Kelley snickered and hoped that Emily’s early morning rise and shine momentum wouldn’t last all summer.
Always a woman of her word, Kelley emerged from the bathrooms 15 minutes later, her shoulders wet from her dripping hair that she lazily put half up in a towel. She plodded over and sat down on the bottom bunk across from Emily, eyeing the blonde, who had similar to yesterday had laid out all of the contents of the employee folder on her bed and was quickly scanning over all of them.
“You look like you’re thinking of backing out on me.” Kelley laughed lightly looking over at emily who had sighed and ran her hands through her blow-dried hair, which to Kelley’s amusement was already starting to frizz.
“Not backing out. But there’s a lot to get done, on top of the fact that we are also responsible for literal children in five days when they show up. We have to like make sure they eat and sleep and take showers.” Emily had started stacking the papers back and put them back into the folder and then leaned into her bunk looking over at Kelley.
“I mean yeah, but it’ll get done. Don’t stress, seriously. The children are hardly children, they’re pretty self sufficient for the most part. It’s way more like you’re just hanging out with 13 year olds and coming up with fun stuff for them to do.” Kelley had already planned this pep talk out in her head when she saw Emily’s resistance the day before. She shrugged her shoulders and pulled the towel out of her hair scrunching out any extra water.
“I know your aunt runs the place, but how did you end up here? You’re not really coming off as the camp counselor type.” Kelley searched Emily for a non verbal answer but instead she just got a curt nod.
“Everyone needs something to take up time over the summer, bonus points if it pays. Super bonus points if it gets you away from your crazy family. So here I am.” Emily shrugged again and fiddled with the folder inside of her hands.
“Is Christie part of the crazy family?” Kelley raises her eyebrows in a joking manner towards Emily who just laughs.
“Nah, her and her family are pretty amazing, so I’ll cut them some slack. Her daughters though can get extra crazy, I’m a little happy we aren’t in the tens cabin because Riley and Reece are the definition of high strung.” Kelley noticed that Emily had a bunch of small wrinkles around her eyes when she was genuinely smiling.
“You might wish we were with the tenners in the second week once you realize that 13 year olds never truly sleep.”
“I doubt that, they’re outside all day, they’ll get exhausted eventually.” The way Emily sounded so sure of herself made Kelley stifle a giggle, she knew that this girl won’t know what hit her in a few days.
“Okay boss whatever you say. Now, I’m hungry and you keep talking about everything we have to do. So are you ready to get to work or do you want to keep looking at that to do list all day?” Kelley jumped up and swung her towel onto the corner of her bunk. She slid her feet into flip flops and pulled sunglasses onto the top of her head waiting for Emily to head out with her.
When they arrived in the Dining Hall they were greeted with the sound of what appeared to be really bad rap music and Ashlyn dancing around with a whisk lazily mixing a bowl of eggs that looked as though it could tip over at any point. Sydney and Ali appeared to be in a challenge over who could chop an onion the fastest and Crystal had her head down on the table and still looked half asleep.
“My brothers mix-tape!” Ashlyn screamed above the music jerking her head towards the stereo. Kelley hoped her grimace looked a lot like a smile but she knew it didn’t pass when Ali and Sydney laughed at her.
“Don’t worry, we hate it too.” Sydney yelled. She wiped the onion off of her hands and walked over to the stereo and turned it off. She blew a kiss to Ashlyn who shook her head and muttered something about people not understanding her life.
Kelley walked back into the kitchen of the dining hall and opened up the fridge, pulling out a fresh apple and taking a huge bite. She laughed when she saw that she almost hit Emily with the fridge door not realizing she was following so close behind her.
“Meals are more or less on your own unless Christie or the girls plan something different. There’s a little bit of everything here.” Kelley gestured around the kitchen before locking eyes with a box of Lucky Charms and grabbing it quickly smiling widely. She emerged from the kitchen as Ashlyn was entering arguing with Sydney over who can make a better omelette followed by Ali who had a tray of chopped veggies in her hands.
Kelley went and sat on the bench next to the sleeping Crystal and started stacking Lucky Charms on her arm, trying to see how many she can get before waking Crystal up. By the time Emily slid in the seat across from Kelley, Crystal’s right arm was almost covered in the dry cereal, Kelley putting all of the marshmallows in her mouth.
“She’s gonna murder you” Emily said as she mixed granola into a bowl of yogurt, gesturing at Crystal with a strawberry in her hand.
“Well, if she wanted to sleep she should’ve stayed in her bunk. This is one of the lessons that you will learn from the campers very quickly.” Kelley had switched into pouring the cereal in a bowl and eating huge spoonfuls and slurping the milk loudly.
“Ew.” Emily was laughing but also made a disgusted face as she saw Kelley messily eat her breakfast. “I’ve seen frat boys eat cleaner than that.”
“I told you I was hungry.” Kelley said alternating back to her apple. She noted that Emily was taking polite bites of her yogurt and berries and still looked out of place in the big camp, with her blow-dried hair and spotless appearance.
“Wake up. I made you eggs” Sydney yelled in Crystal’s ear shoving a plate of eggs into Crystal’s arms, causing her to jerk awake and scatter cereal all over the table, causing uproarious laughter from all of the girls.
“I’m awake okay.” Crystal muttered looking confused at the scattered cereal at the table. “Damnit Kelley every year!” She said grumpily picking up a fork and stabbing her eggs like they were the ones who woke her up. “Ashlyn’s are better” she grumbled after taking a few bites.
Kelley snorted so hard she milk almost came out of her nose when Sydney made the most offended face and snatched the plate away from Crystal and added the eggs to her own plate. Kelley noted Emily’s wide eyed amusement at the entire exchange.
“So Emily, how was your first night. Did you sweat through your sheets yet?” Ali poked at her eggs with a fork, Kelley noted that her eggs appeared to be rubbery and a little brown but knew that Ali was eating them out of solidarity to Ashlyn.
“Other than this one snoring and whoever it was that was howling at the moon at around 2 am, it’s so far so good.” Emily shrugged licking some extra yogurt off of her spoon before carefully digging out a blackberry.
“Ugh. I’m glad I’m not the only one who heard Steph and Kristie being the worst last night.” Crystal groaned, she was reaching her fork over to Sydney’s plate and taking bites off of egg and grinning widely at Sydney.
“It’s their thing. They’re like a female wolf pack or something so they howl. Wait until they get their 15’s in on it. It’s going to be the most.” Sydney rolled her eyes at the idea and at Crystal who was now greedily eating off of her plate.
“You’re not serious?” Emily’s eyebrows shot up but there was laughter in her eyes that Kelley noted.
“I’m so serious. They are nuts the two of them.” Sydney scoffed
“Okay like you and Crystal are so chill yourselves. Miss Midnight Dance Party” Ali looked over and rolled her eyes at Sydney who just shrugged.
“You can beat them or you can join them.” Crystal said as a matter of fact grinning as she finished the eggs of of Sydney’s plate.
“Whats up my bitches!” All six heads turned at the same time to see Steph walking in wearing running shorts and a sports bra, followed directly by Kristie, Christen, Moe, Tobin and an exhausted looking Sam. All six were glistening with sweat and looked properly energized, except for Sam who looked dead on her feet.
“Did they really get up and run this morning?” Emily asks staring at the girls who are either making their way into the kitchen to grab breakfast items or dramatically collapsing to the floor in Sam and Moe’s case.
“Yeah, they're all D1 athletes or something, soccer and tennis mostly. The running isn't every morning but Steph gets a kick out of dragging the campers out to run with her at six in the morning so she keeps it up for most of the summer.” Kelley shrugged and laughed at Kristie who was dangling a banana just out of Sam’s reach while Sam laid on the floor and groaned in protest.
“It was so nice of you to make me breakfast!” Tobin muses and wiggles her way between Ashlyn and Ali, taking Ali’s fork and eating a huge bite of eggs. “Actually on second thought. Keep those to yourself. I'll make my own breakfast.” Tobin chokes out after forcibly swallowing the bite of omelette she stole. Ashlyn looked offended while Crystal and Ali openly giggled.
“How was your first night? Did the wolfpack wake you up?” Christen asks as she slides into the bench next to Emily, her breakfast of yogurt and granola is almost identical to hers.
“So that's a real thing huh?” Emily asks, pulling her hair into a half ponytail off her face.
“Get used to it. They're insane.” Sam sat down on the other side of Kelley, tearing into a banana and putting large chunks in her mouth at a time. “Kristie is my real life sister and I love her and all that, but she's also a psychopath.” Sam pretended to whisper the last part with her mouth full of banana. It was answered by a blueberry being thrown at her head by a smiling Kristie. “Like I said psychopath” Sam whispered. Emily just smiled and looked down into her empty bowl.
“So what happens now?” Emily asked looking around the room of the relaxed women all eating and chatting just as easily as they were the night before.
“Same as yesterday mostly. We just have to keep setting up before the campers come. Prepare cabins, clean up around here, do all the stuff that's needed for outdoor activities. Pretty usual camp stuff.” Christen shrugged and grinned digging into her bowl for more yogurt. “It's going to be pretty chill for the next few days. Lauren and Amy will be around some, so will Christie, but really it's just making sure we get camp ready and have fun.” Christen’s overly white smile was offset by her olive skin, she smiled openly and warmly to Emily, which made Kelley feel more comfortable altogether.
“Dishes first, then let's finish nametags.” Kelley nodded at Emily who stood up at the same time so they could both empty dishes in the kitchen.
“When camp starts we have this really amazing cook named Jill and she and her staff make amazing meals for the campers. All of that high protein and healthy stuff that still convinces the campers they are eating junk food.” Kelley answers the blank look on Emily’s face as she observes the industrial sized kitchen and appliances. “It’s pretty much all access for us as long as you aren’t like Tobin and decide you need to take an entire crate of peaches with you to keep in your cabin so you can barter them for goods and services.” Kelley laughs at the memory of Tobin and her 14’s a few years ago who used peaches as a trading system in order to get what they wanted all throughout camp.
“So really, you all come here just as an excuse to act like giant kids yourself.” It was an observation by Emily not necessarily a question, but her wide eyes the the crinkles in the corner showed Kelley that she was kidding mostly.
The two walked back into the dining space and spread out their work much like they did the night before. Kelley worked on cutting and pasting while Emily worked on assembling the name tags. All of the girls had partnered up once they finished their breakfast and continued their work from the night before, working on decorations, name tags and any little thing to decorate their cabin. They were all so absorbed in their world of poster board and highlighter colored markers they didn’t notice Amy and Lauren walking in and looking at the girls adoringly.
“Look at them, all grown up and working on brainwashing their own campers.” Amy said loudly nudging Lauren in the ribs, who just responded by laughing.
“Uhoh” Kelley whispered. Emily looked up at her with questioning eyes. “Don’t ask, just keep your head down and keep working.” Kelley smiled and continued writing a campers name in block letters on the splat shaped paper.
“Alright ladies, you know the drill. I need four of you to help me stripe the fields. I am not afraid to pick names out of a hat or sit on you until you forcibly surrender.” Lauren looked Sydney in the eye, who just sighed and went over and stood by her.
“What’s striping the fields?” Emily asked quietly to Kelley who was already shaking her head no.
“If you thought you were hot yesterday, you do not want to be in one hundred degree heat for hours while Lauren measures each playing field with a yard stick making sure that they are regulation size.” Kelley hurriedly whispers while Lauren makes her way around the tables, leaning over and grinning widely at girls until they submit and agree to help.
“I need five people to help me powerwash the dock and the pool, clean lifeguard chairs, you know the works. Afterwards when we fill up the pool you all can have the first swim!” Amy sounded so cheerful that Kelley couldn’t help but smile. “Also the three of you that don’t come with us are going to be answering phone calls all day in the office with Christie from worried parents. And you will have to use your professional voice.” Amy lowered her voice as if she was saying a real threat and Kelley saw Emily’s eyes twinkle.
“Come on, power washing is fun and even so at least being near the water is better than being in the middle of a field sweating our asses off.” Kelley stood up and offered a hand to Emily who accepted and came to her feet to join Moe, Sam and Ashlyn all by Amy. Lauren after wrangling Sydney had also cornered Steph, Kristie and Tobin into helping. Crystal, Christen and Ali all said they would stay behind and serve as the errand girls for Christie.
Amy lead the girls out of the Dining Hall and towards the outskirts of the camp towards the lake. Kelley tried not to watch too closely as Emily observed all parts of the camp, clearly never exploring it this far.
“I wasn’t just being an ass when I told you that blow drying your hair wasn’t going to last long.” Kelley mused, watching Emily huff and put her hair into a ponytail. “But look, isn’t Amy so adorable?” Amy was bouncing around from counselor to counselor talking about all of the ideas that she had for the summer, how she had officially stopped that one filter in the pool from breaking and how she thinks she hired some of her best life guards yet. “A lot of the girls when they get too old to be campers, but are still too young to be counselors end up coming and being lifeguards or other helpers over the summer.” Kelley explained to Emily who had just asked who the lifeguards were. “I’m pretty sure they get paid less than minimum wage, but when I was 17 I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.” Kelley laughed as Emily silently nodded.
“Okay, Emily and Kelley, you get to power wash the pool and clean off all the lifeguard stands. When you’re done we can start filling it up.” Amy pointed towards the direction of the pool and waved Kelley and Emily in that direction. “Moe and Ashlyn, go into the lifeguard hut and sort out all of the supplies for swim tests and beyond. Sam, follow me, there’s some dock repairs that have your name written all over it!”
“I highly doubt my name is actually written all over it. How come the dock never writes Kristie’s name on it. Or Moe’s?” It was funny to Kelley how Sam, who stood over a foot taller than Amy was whining and groaning while Amy marched forward and ignored her.
Kelley and Ashlyn chatted while Emily and Moe followed behind towards the gated pool area, the early afternoon sun was already warm above them and creating a haze in the distance. Ashlyn opened the gate and all the girls filed in. Kelley couldn’t help but think how sad the camp always looked before the campers arrived, before everything was ready and filled with life. They walked to the back of the area where there was a small broken looking shed that had everything they needed in there. Ashlyn found the power washer and held out the hose making very predictable “say hello to my little friend” jokes before Kelley wrangled it out of her hands.
Emily and Kelley got to work. Kelley handed Emily the hose and went to go connect the washer to the water.
“How does this thing work?” Emily asked, she was pressing a few switches on the hose impatiently while Kelley went to go turn on the water.
“Hold on and I’ll come over there and show you.” Kelley said as she reached the water line and turned it on. The shriek that followed told her that Emily had figured out how to get the water started and Kelley let out a huge laugh when she saw a random clean spot in the middle of the pool where Emily had aimed the washer. “I see you figured it out.” Kelley’s comment was met with cold eyes as Emily handed her the hose.
“Yeah, something like that. I feel like this thing could take off my toes if someone isn’t careful.” Kelley couldn’t help but laugh again at Emily’s annoyance.
“That’s why you have to handle it carefully, here let me show you.” The girls loaded the washer into the pool and took turns cleaning the dirt off in small streaks, occasionally commenting on the grossness of the dirt or writing curse words in the grime with the washer and cackling at their genius.
Over an hour later they had the large pool about halfway done before Kelley suggested that they take a break. As if on cue Ali and Christen walked into the pool area with a small cooler, both of their faces sporting big smiles and bigger sunglasses. Ashlyn and moe walked out of the shack and Ashlyn dramatically fell to the ground much like Sam did earlier that morning. Ali responded by opening up a bottle of cold water and dumping some on Ashlyn.
“I swear to God it’s like nine thousand degrees in that tiny shack” Moe whined. She was covered in sweat, her forehead shining in the sunlight and the front neck of her shirt completely wet.
“I’ve answered at least 30 phone calls this morning from parents and all questions were answered in the welcome packet. The camp has a lake and a pool, yes your kid needs a swimsuit and sunscreen for that matter. Yes we provide three meals a day.” Ali sat down next to Ashlyn who was now pretending to pant.
“It’s not that bad, it’s just all in the name of the game.” Kelley shrugged, to be honest her arms were a bit sore from the pressure hose but she didn’t mind. Christen had opened up the cooler and pulled out sandwiches that she had packed for the four girls working.
“Aren’t you missing half of the pool?” Ali said with a bite of a PB&J sandwich in her mouth, she was gesturing towards the half filthy pool that had yet to be pressure washed. Kelley rolled her eyes and threw a cheeto puff at Ali.
“It’s on our todo list, then around the pool and the lifeguard chairs.” Emily said, her voice was even, not necessarily complaining, just listing what their todo list looked like
“And afterwards we have to mow all of the grass and bake each person here an individual cake and clean the floors with a toothbrush.” Ashlyn whined, she rolled over and propped her head on Ali’s leg and took a bite out of a sandwich. The girls had a quick lunch, throughout most Emily remained silent, pensive eating her turkey and swiss, thanking the girls when they left and heading back to the pool to finish their job.
It took most of the afternoon for the four girls to get the pool area in order. By early evening the deck was spotless, the clean pool had started filling with water, the entire area was tidy and ready for a hundred girls to come in the next week. Ashlyn and Moe had organized the entire lifeguard shack and were proud to show their efforts of organized swim test bracelets, a repaired window, fully stocked first aid kits and 12 life guard manuals assembled. They also bragged about how they cleared a hornets nest with minimal crying and even might have seen a dead rat or an old rag, it was undetermined what the item could’ve been and was quickly removed by Ashlyn screaming. The four girls all exhausted and sweaty headed to their cabin to change into relatively cleaner clothes and take a breather before getting back to work on their cabins.
Kelley walked into the cabin and straight into the shower, only pausing to deposit her flip flops by the door. She didn’t even bother to take off her sweaty clothes. She stood under the cold stream and let out an exasperated sigh. Emily curiously followed her into bathroom and burst out laughing when she saw a fully clothed Kelley standing in the shower with her head against the questionably clean shower wall.
“I told you that it was going to be hot all summer.” Kelley said finally feeling significantly less gross. Emily had pulled her hair into a bun at the top of her head and had a washcloth and was dabbing her face and her neck attempting to cool off. Emily shrugged and headed back into the main cabin, already reaching her tank top over her head in search for a new, less sweaty one. Kelley felt her temperature spike again when she glanced over at Emily supporting herself on the dresser but shook her head and relished in the cool water again. “Grab a swimsuit, the pool will be filled by tonight!” Kelley shouted out, turning on the water and stripping off her soaked clothes. She grabbed a towel from earlier and tied it around her chest and went in search of clean clothes herself.
Ali, Christen and Crystal surprised everyone pleasantly by making spaghetti for everyone. Kelley was pleased to see that most of the other girls were comically exhausted and overheated just as she had been. She looked over and saw Emily silently sitting by their name tags, working on coloring in a few of the ones that hadn’t been finished yet and eating her spaghetti alone.
“What’s her story?” Sydney whispered sliding in next to Kelley. She was covered in white powder from striping the fields and smelled strongly of summertime sweat and grass.
“She’s probably just tired. It’s been a lot to take in.” Kelley shrugged, wiping red sauce off her face and stabbing her fork into her salad.
“Kells. How full was the pool? As in can I go swimming right this second?” Tobin yelled from across the dining hall, causing everyone to laugh.
“If you want to go check, be my guest. But it was a little more than halfway full when we left about an hour ago.” Kelley shrugged. Everyone laughed again when Tobin all but sprinted out of the Dining Hall. The air was light as everyone chatted about their days and things they have marked off their to-do list and things that were still on there. Everyone took turns filling Emily in on summers past and telling her that today was the hardest day of camp set up and everything else was mostly just making sure things looked nice. She nodded and agreed in the right places and smiled at the appropriate times, never adding much to the conversation.
Tobin had come back and announced that the pool was almost full and Amy was in the process of putting in and measuring chemicals so they should be able to go out soon. The girls all cheered and made their way into the dishes washing process. Kristie put on what she called her “absolutely best playlist that will get anyone turnt” playlist and did not accept any complaints or eye rolls when Party in the USA was the first song that came blaring through the speakers.
The sun was starting to set when the parade of girls headed down to the pool everyone laughing and tired. Kelley was in between Sam and Steph where the two of them were comparing their Boston accents when she felt her elbow being pulled. She turned around and saw it was Emily.
“I’m gonna head back to the cabin and hang out for a little while. Tell everyone I’ll see them tomorrow.” Emily’s short non apology was all she said before giving a small wave and turning back toward the cabin. Kelley thought about trying to convince her to stay and hang out, but she knew that she didn’t know Emily well enough to be able to come up with a convincing argument for why she should go drink okay beer in an over chlorinated pool with people she didn’t know very well. Kelley didn’t give it another thought and skipped away towards the pool listening to Ali and Ashlyn heckle each other over who had the more productive day.
A few hours later Kelley walked into the cabin and had to blink back at the sudden bright light of the fluorescents in the cabin. She realized that everything had moved, all the beds, the dressers, even all of her stuff had been moved. Kelley was torn between confused and angry until she saw a sweaty and grunting Emily who was in the middle of the room with her back to a bunk, pushing it as hard as she can by scooting her feet. Kelley let out a laugh until Emily looked up and saw her.
“You just went HGTV in our cabin? Do you need help?” Kelley stumbled out. Emily just sighed and laughed as an explanation and raised her arms up.
“I came here to like chill out and then I thought about what you said about how this place has to feel a home for all the campers and I couldn’t really get my head straight so I decided instead to do some, uh, rearranging.” Emily had the genuine smile again with wrinkles around her eyes, she was still leaning against a bunk with her legs stretched out, her back holding most of her weight.
“This stuff is so heavy! Emily you should’ve asked for help.” Kelley walked around the room and saw that the room had been organized with all of the beds against the walls creating a square around the room. There were two bunks right in the middle of the room pushed together, the top bunk of one had Kelley’s bedding on top of it, and Kelley noticed that Emily had moved her stuff to the bunk directly below hers. “Okay but what is this set up?” Kelley asked. Emily just laughed and placed her hands on her knees taking a deep breath before standing up straight.
“Okay remember how you said the kids play pranks? Well this way we can see everything that happens around us, so we are always on alert! Get it?” Emily was laughing at her own idea and Kelley cracked a smile in response before openly laughing herself.
“I can't tell if that is the worst or best idea I have ever heard. And why are the two bunks pushed together? So you can have a bigger bed?” Kelley teased Emily.
“Duh, I have a queen in my apartment and going back to a twin would've been rough. Also you can remove the bars on the top bunk so that you can make a double for yourself.” Emily explained, she had one eyebrow raised looking at Kelley as if to say “see, this is genius.”
“So you didn't want to hang out but instead you rearranged two thousand pounds of furniture?” Kelley mused
“Hey now, we got a long summer. I have to get my me time when I can.” Emily explained.
Kelley looked around their bed set up and noticed that Emily looked more “moved in” in this set up than she had in the other one. Kelley decided that a bed was a bed and she was going to make sure that she got enough sleep even if she was sleeping in the middle of the room.