Page 61 of Lady and the Camp
Our practice ended as nightfall set in, and we dispersed. The teen counselors remained on full watch over the campers. We’d invited the campers to watch us, but apparently, they determined we were boring.
I walked my friends out to the camp lot. Said our goodbyes until the weekend, our next practice. I turned to find Hudson waiting on the office steps. She had her phone out, so maybe not waiting on me.
“Have you checked our accounts today?” she asked, seamlessly as if we’d been in a discussion already.
“Bank accounts?”
She let her head fall pointedly to one side. “The social accounts. For the camp. Look.” She faced her phone screen at me.
I walked closer. The profile showed Camp Junebug with a picture of the camp logo, a description and website link. Beneath that, a bunch of pictures that looked like what I’d seen on other camps’ websites. “You better have permission to use those photos. You can’t pull stuff off the internet and post them like they’re yours. Especially for a business.”
“Are you mansplaining image copyright to me? To someone who earns actual money from their online content?”
I bristled. I hated that term.Mansplaining. Like explaining anything as a man was bad. But also, I’d just explained image copyright to someone who worked daily with digital images. “Then where did you get the money for those photos?”
“I took the photos. Look closer. This is our camp.”
Sure enough, on closer inspection, I noticed our rain shelter in the distance of a photo featuring a water bottle with the camp’s name. Another with kids silhouetted against the lake. Our lake. And the wildflowers. “These are good. You took these pictures with a phone?”
She nodded. “I know the kids’ faces and identifying information can’t be shown. I did some editing on this one here to blur the background. The caption for each post covers a point from the mission statement. That’s the theme this week—to educate on the mission of the camp. Every post directs to the link in the profile which goes to the camp website. And I created daily Stories content and followed a bunch of local businesses. We’re already up one hundred followers!”
Okay, she obviously knew far more than I did about how to do this stuff. “Sorry for ragging on you about the photos. This looks great. But don’t make it too great or we won’t be able to keep up.”
“Why are you so afraid of succeeding?”
“Me, or the camp?”
She didn’t respond and the empty beat made the question hit deeper. I wanted to succeed. That wasn’t the problem. Icouldn’tsucceed. Not here. Period.
But that sounded like a crummy thing to say about a kid’s camp, so I didn’t. “I don’t want to make a bunch of work for the next person.”
“Is someone taking over after you?”
If only it were so easy to have someone lined up. “I’m just trying to get through the summer.” I dug my keys out of my pocket. “It’s late. I’m going to hit the road.” She was doing that lingering thing like she had in the office the other day. “Want me to walk you to your cottage?”
She grinned. “Don’t you mean cabin?”
I gave her a playful smile back. “Sure. Same thing, really.”
She started walking and I fell into step beside her. “You did good today at practice. Did you have fun?”
“You know…Idid.” She said it like she had the realization right now. “Do camps for adults exist? I feel like they should. This is all so much more fun than running around in gym class.”
“Or a stuffy workout studio.”
“That’s what I’m used to.” She shrugged. “Do we have a shot at winning? Really, truthfully?”
I liked that she saidwe. She’d been all-in with camp almost from the start, now that I’d thought about it. Made friends easily, the kids loved her, and she’d worked hard in our practice both nights. Now that we had some momentum, I even looked forward to game day. “I think we have a shot.”
She veered right to the path toward her cabin. “What do we win?”
“Bragging rights. Dominance.”
“Ego stuff.”
“Yup.” We made it in sight of the cabin and I lowered my voice. Bedtime for the campers and all. “Uh, so, see you tomorrow.”
She sighed and stretched her arms in front of her. “Trouble is, I’m not tired.”
