Camp Wildwoods. Just the thought of it still made her smile. Missy hadn’t been able to take it from her even though she had tried.
Gloria remembered the day Ellie told her about going to camp. It wasn’t the day camps she was used to, the ones her mother would sign her up for every summer. The ones the YMCA sponsored. Basically, just childcare when school was out for the break. But they were fun. Games and maybe a field trip to the zoo or a museum. A lot more fun than going to her Aunt Paula’s house where she was expected to help babysit her younger cousins and do chores for her aunt.
Camp Wildwoods was different. Ellie would be gone for three weeks. She’d live up at the camp. They had cabins for the campers to sleep in and they went on hikes and went swimming in the lake and learned how to do macrame. Which at the time sounded so incredible. Macrame. Ellie was excited about camp but she was trying not to act too excited about it so Gloria wouldn’t feel bad about not being able to go herself.
“It’s okay, there are a lot of things you do that I will never do. Even if I am a little jealous about it, I’m not mad at you.”
“Did you just admit you were jealous?” Ellie gasped and pretended to faint.
“I know! It’s surprising to me as well. I think it’s because we are going to middle school next year. I’ve matured.”
Ellie’s mom called up to them, “Girls, can you please come down here?”
“Are we in trouble?” Gloria was trying to think of the things they had done over the past few weeks and if any of them would be worth a lecture. Which was the main form of punishment from Ellie’s mother. That woman could lecture like nobody’s business. Her own mother would just sigh and tell her how disappointed she was and that was worse than anything else she could have done. So, when the girls turned the corner in to the living room and saw both of their mothers sitting there Gloria was preparing to be a disappointment and to get a lecture. She just didn’t know why.
“Sit down, ladies, we’d like to talk to you for a minute and get your opinion on something.”
They sat next to each other exchanging “What is going on?” looks and then reaching out to link pinkies.
“As you girls know, Ellie is going to go away to camp for a few weeks this summer. And we,” she gestured at Gloria’s mother, “were thinking it might be fun for you girls if Gloria went as well.”
“That would be great!” Ellie actually clapped her hands together she was so excited.
Gloria wasn’t quite there yet. “Isn’t it really expensive? I know I’m not supposed to talk about what other people spend their money on because it’s rude and not any of my business, but isn’t it really expensive?”
Ellie’s mother smiled, “You’d be going on scholarship. Your mother and I talked about it awhile ago and took care of everything. We just didn’t want to get your hopes up until we heard for sure. And now we know. So? Are you interested?”
Gloria looked at her mother, who looked a little uncomfortable, “Are you okay with me leaving for that long? Three weeks is a long time.”
“I think I can manage. I mean I managed to live quite a few years before you were born so I probably could manage three weeks on my own.”
Gloria laughed, “But that was before you knew how great I was.”
“That’s true, my love. But I think it would be fun for you.”
“And does the scholarship cover everything?” Gloria had already learned that some grants and scholarships didn’t cover all of the expenses for activities. There had been one time she got a grant for music lessons, but it didn’t cover the rental fees for the instruments, so it hadn’t really been worth anything after all.
“It does.” She still looked a little uncomfortable.
“And you really are okay with me leaving for three weeks? Because you look like maybe you aren’t.”
Her mother straightened her spine and shook her head a little, “I will miss you. But I will be fine, and you will have a great time.”
Ellie grabbed her hand, “Please say yes! I know I was talking about how great camp will be but the whole time I was thinking it would be so much more fun if you were going!”
And so, it was decided.
Gloria and Ellie spent two wonderful summers at Camp Wildwoods as junior campers. Gloria learned how to swim in the lake, Ellie got over her fear of heights on the rope swings. They did learn how to macrame. Which wasn’t as exotic as it sounded, but it was still kind of fun. They sang camp songs and made friends with girls from all over the state. And discussed the boys from the camp on the other side of the lake.
Then their third summer Missy came to camp. Normally the portion of the summer she spent with her father was after Ellie had been to camp. She came for a few weeks in August, long enough to get a new school wardrobe (even though her private school was uniforms only) and to let everyone know how disappointing it was that they still didn’t have a pool. But that year her mother booked an Alaskan cruise and decided to send Missy to her father early. But their father and Ellie’s mother already had plans of their own. It was either one of them cancelled their own vacation plans or Missy went to camp with Ellie.
Missy knew a lot of the older girls at camp from school and other social events, so she wasn’t really even upset about the switch. Which was weird because Missy was always upset about things. But at least the camp had a lake so she could swim and work on her tan.
The problem started with the opening night talent show. Some of the older girls and their younger sisters had clearly been working on their acts all year. As Missy watched her friends with their younger sisters, she kept stealing looks over to Ellie sitting with Gloria laughing and clapping and ignoring her completely. And it kept going like that. The younger sisters were at the right age where they wanted to be just like their older sisters. Even if their older sisters would pretend to hate them and not want them around.
“OH my god, she’s such a pest. Always trying to borrow my clothes and my jewelry! Mom says it’s just because she wants to be like me, but what a pain!”
Ellie had never wanted to be like Missy. And Missy had never cared. Until she saw all of her friends and their sisters. And some of them were half-sisters or stepsisters as well. But Ellie didn’t want to be like Missy, she wanted to be like Gloria.
Gloria, poor white trash Gloria. Gloria who leached off Missy’s and Ellie’s dad’s money all the time. Hanging out at her father’s house so much that they had put another bed in Ellie’s room just for her. And now she was here at camp. Where she didn’t belong.
And watching how comfortable Gloria was at camp, and around all of her friends made Missy madder and madder. She’d take a shot at her every time she could. Which, honestly, was normal. She did the same if Gloria had the misfortune of being at Ellie’s when Missy was visiting. She’d tell her to clean up a mess or get her something to drink. That she should be grateful to be able to hang around in their father’s house instead of the dump she lived in. So camp wasn’t any different. She’d point out her tennis shoes were out of style. Or that her t-shirt had a stain, and shouldn’t she get a new one? Oh, that’s right she couldn’t afford one.
Then finally about two weeks in Gloria had had enough. “Missy, just shut up. I don’t want to hear your opinion about anything I’m wearing or doing.”
“You can’t tell me to shut up. You shouldn’t even be here. It’s too expensive for people like you for a reason!”
“I’m on a scholarship. I’m not embarrassed by that.”
“You aren’t on scholarship. Camp Wildwoods doesn’t DO scholarships. My father is paying for you. Her mother felt badly that you would be left alone while Ellie was off in the woods, so she made him pay for you to come here. You’re nothing but a charity case.”
Looking back at it, it really shouldn’t have bothered her, but at the time being told that she was a charity case was devastating. And infuriating. And embarrassing.
But mostly infuriating.
“I’d rather be a charity case than a kid nobody wanted to spend their summer with. That’s why you are here, right? Your mother pawned you off so she could take a vacation from you. She didn’t want you to ruin their trip, so she sent you here. Just to get away from you. Because you’re a bitch and even your own mother doesn’t like you!”
And that’s when the counselor walked into the cabin. Missy saw her and burst into giant crocodile tears. Gloria had not yet seen her. “Oh, stop it. You’re faking. Because you’d have to actually have feelings to cry, and you have none! You’re a terrible person and NOBODY likes you!”
“Gloria! That’s enough.”
Parents were called. Gloria and Ellie drove home with Ellie’s mother and Missy went with their father. Ellie was furious when she found out that Missy was telling the truth. There had never been a scholarship. She wasn’t mad that her mother was paying for Gloria, she was mad that they had lied. Gloria was embarrassed to be called out for being a charity case. And really mad that Missy had known while she hadn’t. Ellie’s mother had tried to explain that they had decided to do it that way to try and keep Gloria from feeling like she felt right now but it hadn’t actually worked. And Gloria realized that’s why her mother had looked so uncomfortable that first year when they were telling the girls about the scholarship that wasn’t. That the waiting period hadn’t been seeing if she qualified it was the time it took Ellie’s mother to convince her mother to let them pay for camp.
Ellie’s mother had told them not to worry, that by the time the other girls got home they would have forgotten all about the drama between Missy and Gloria and Ellie. Which, of course, did not happen. It was the talk of a lot of dinner tables that first night home.
But the next summer Ellie and Gloria went back to Camp Wildwoods. And the summer after that and then as Senior Camp Counselors the next two summers as well. And Ellie’s mother used her influence on the board of directors to start an actual scholarship program to bring in kids from the city to get a chance to have a few weeks in the woods. And she made sure the scholarship covered everything, including swimsuits, sleeping bags and summer clothes.
Missy hadn’t been able to take her good memories away from her, and she’d actually inadvertently helped a lot of other kids get those same memories. As far as Gloria knew it was the only good deed Missy could ever count as her own.
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