Page 12 of Nerdplay
What was I thinking? I won’t last two weeks in a place like that. I’ll simply have to find what I need as quickly as possible and jet. No time for s’mores, or whatever they do when they’re trying to recapture the glory of their misspent youth.
Jeannie bolts into my office and shuts the door behind her. “Did I hear you volunteer to attend summer camp for the next two weeks?”
“You heard correctly, which means you were eavesdropping right outside the door.”
She doesn’t look the least bit apologetic. “Are you sure you can do this?”
I chuckle. “I’m pretty sure I can handle canoeing on a lake, Jeannie.”
“I’m not talking about the activities. I’m talking about slithering around the camp like a traitorous snake.”
“LandStar is one of our most important clients.”
“Yes, yes, and if you get them what they want, you get to be partner. I heard Joel.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s impossible not to hear him. He has the confident voice of a mediocre white man.”
“A promotion is good, Jeannie. It’s what we want.”
“As much as I appreciate that you said ‘we,’ you know perfectly well they won’t promote me with you. You’ll share Cindy with Joel, and I’ll get some green-eared junior associate who doesn’t know how to wipe his nose without being handed a tissue.”
She’s right, at least about not promoting Jeannie with me. “You know I’ll go to bat for you.”
She offers an indulgent smile that would seem condescending on anyone else. “You’re a good guy, Charlie. Better than this firm deserves. I wish you could see that.”
“This is Melvin, O’Reilly, and Gaines. There’s no better firm in the city.” I nod at the files on my desk. “Can you please make sure these files get to where they need to go? Joel said he’ll divvy up the work while I’m gone, but you know how easily distracted he gets.”
“I’ll take care of it, Charlie. You don’t need to worry about a thing while you’re gone.” Is it my imagination or does she sound almost sad about it?
“Thanks, Jeannie. You’re the best.”
“That’s why they pay me an insufficient amount to compensate me for the amount of bullshit I put up with.” She starts to sort through the files. “Keep me updated. I want to hear all the camp gossip. Doesn’t matter that they’re strangers. I’m invested.”
“I’ll do what I can to keep you entertained.” I wait until she leaves to let the reality of my situation sink in. A single thought plays on a loop in my head—what have I gotten myself into?
Chapter Three
No matter how many times I’ve gone through it, the first day of camp is always a whirlwind. With my owner and operator hat on, I barely have time to enjoy the reunions with everyone. I spend most of the day in crisis management mode and cleaning up the paperwork in my office that I never got around to organizing. And by ‘cleaning up,’ I mean stuffed into the bottom drawer in the filing cabinet and promptly forgotten.
As always, Adam was the first to arrive, wearing his customary glossy black helmet, sweeping cape, and chest panel—it’s as if the Sith Lord himself decided to take a break from the empire and see all that camp life had to offer. His beloved canine companion was by his side, a Yorkshire terrier named Chewy. The five-pound dog is every bit as anxious as Buffy, which is why Adam insists on bringing him every year. He tried a kennel once and Chewy left with two weeks of nervous diarrhea and an intense fear of ducks. Fortunately, there are no ducks on our lake.
As twilight descends upon the camp, thirty campers gather around the firepit to toast marshmallows and catch up. This is my happy place, seated on a stump beside a glowing fire with my favorite people in the whole world. I wait all year for this moment, and I fully intend to suck the marrow out of it.
We kick off the first evening of camp as we always do, with each person sharing the high and low of their year since the last time we were all together. No one’s suffered too horribly, I’m pleased to hear. Although we have a group chat that runs throughout the year, introverts aren’t the best about sharing what’s really going on in our lives—the feed is mostly memes and TV or movie recommendations—so these two weeks are the best shot we have for real communication.
“What about you, Cricket?” Laura asks. The petite white-haired dog groomer is one of the OGs of Comic-Camp, having attended every year for the past five years.
“No highs or lows to speak of,” I reply. I slice my hand through the air. “One long straight line.”
Angela’s look is disapproving. “You haven’t used any of the apps I recommended, have you?”
“I live in the Poconos. How many eligible men do you think there are within range of my house?” Everyone at camp has at least one area of expertise. Sixty-year-old Angela’s are older men and Prohibition cocktails.
“You won’t learn the answer to that by spending every night at home with fictional men,” Angela says.
“Why not? Fictional men are the best. They appear when you summon them and they never, ever disappoint you.”
“Well, they disappoint you partway through the story,” Stefan corrects me, “but then they more than make up for it by the end.”
“See? Stefan gets it,” I say. I love rewatching my favorite fictional heroes because I know what to expect, and therefore I am never upset or distressed. Without fail, Aragorn will always ascend the throne as the King of Gondor and marry Arwen. The Avengers and their allies will always defeat Thanos at the pivotal moment. If the story doesn’t have a happy ending, I have no desire to invest. As far as I’m concerned, the real world is one long dark night of the soul, except the bright spot that includes these two weeks.
