Page 11 of His Curvy Distraction

I nodded, wondering how she did it. How did she figure out how to talk to people and make them want to help her bring her vision to life? I could barely string a sentence together most of the time, when talking to adults, and Amelia was already thinking ten steps ahead.

She pulled out of the parking lot and turned toward the edge of town, heading east to the campground. She drove in silence for a few minutes, letting me gather my thoughts.

“What would you have said when Mayor Knight asked what you wanted to do?”

Amelia glanced at me.

I chewed my lip and wrung my hands. I knew I said the wrong thing, and I wanted to understand why.

“Omar is worried about the expense. He’s going to be up for election in the fall, which means he’s thinking about what he needs to do to maintain the support of the people of MacKellar Cove. Spending a ton of money on a site for a summer camp is not going to win over the residents who are going to elect him.”

“But this is for kids. How can people say it’s not okay to do it?”

“Because not everyone who lives here has kids. You and I aren’t getting any benefit from having the summer camp open, besides employment. Neither of us have kids who would be helped by it.”

“But we know it will make a difference.”

“Yes, it will. I know that. And I support it. But if you’re a retired couple living on social security and your taxes go up to pay for a summer camp, your perspective is different. That couple might say they want a new mayor. One who isn’t going to spend a bunch of the town’s money on something that’s only going to benefit a small group of locals.”

“I just…” I let her words sink in and really listened to them. “Okay, you’re right. I only see where it’ll help, but yeah, I understand what you’re saying.”

“That’s why Omar pushed back.” Amelia turned off the main road onto a dirt path that was barely wide enough for her car. “He has to think of everyone. So if the town has ten thousand dollars, for example, he has to decide if it would be better to spend that money on this camp or if it would be better to use it on something like repairs to the River Walk or upgrades to Catherine Park or saving that money and cutting taxes a tiny bit for everyone.”

I got what she was saying, but I stopped listening when the road opened up to a clearing and I got my first look at the campground.

It was… Not what I was hoping. “Wow.”

“Holy crap,” Amelia breathed, putting the car in park.

We got out and stared.

A large tree laid across the basketball court. The surface looked okay, but until the tree was moved, we couldn’t be sure. The nets were missing. Weeds had taken over the edges of the court and made it impossible to see where the court stopped.

We walked closer and found what was supposed to be beach volleyball. There were more weeds than sand there, and again, the net was gone. One of the poles was bent, meaning it would need to be replaced.

The pool was covered but the amount of leaves on top of the cover told me more than I needed to know about the condition of the pool. The cover was definitely in water, but I didn’t want to think about the color of the water. And there was no fence around the pool. One old panel stood at the end, but the rest were completely gone.

Wires and old hookups stuck up all over the cleared area of the property. Thirty campsites. All in need of work. Conduit and connections had to be removed, and the entire property dug up from each site to wherever they went to the road.

“Well, the camper looks okay,” Amelia said. Her hands were on her hips, her focus on the camper parked not far from the pool. “Want to look at it?”

I shrugged. No words formed. I wasn’t sure whether I was excited or terrified. The space was beautiful. The Adirondack Mountains rose up in the distance. Trees swayed in the breeze. It was quiet and peaceful and a true gift.

But holy crap, it was a disaster. I couldn’t even begin to think about where to start. The pictures Daisy found online felt like a different property than the one Amelia and I were looking at.

Amelia opened the door to the camper and immediately stepped back. “Oh, God. It smells horrible in there.” She gagged and moved farther away, leaving the door open to air the place out.

The smell reached me, and I fought the urge to vomit. It was old food and possibly a dead animal mixed together. “There’s no way we can do this.”

“Yes, we can. The smell is already getting better,” Amelia said.

I shook my head. “I’m not just talking about that. The whole thing. How can you stand there and think there’s any way this is possible? All this work, all this property. It’s too much. It’s too big. What was I thinking when I imagined this? Why did I think this was possible?”

Amelia stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the camper. She grabbed my hands. “Natalie, stop. Listen to me. Are you listening?”

I nodded.

“Don’t panic. We take this on one thing at a time. It’s not going to be easy.”

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