Page 30 of Lady and the Camp
Chapter 9
Lucas
Aftercheckingoffalist of maintenance tasks, I returned to the office mid-afternoon. Where I was supposed to be. For paperwork. Where I hated to be, every single day.
I woke up my office laptop and found myself typing a familiar website address. Why I did this to myself, I couldn’t figure out. It never helped.
Images of rocky cliffs and hikers loaded with packs and gear filled the screen. Tents pitched in the woods. My dream wilderness expedition job with my dream organization.
Colorado. The Rocky Mountains. I imagined the freedom. The fresh air. The eager students ready to learn survival skills and test their limits. The rivers, the trails.
Lost in thought, the ringing phone from the front desk cut into my fantasy.
Reality: a stifling office with knotty pine walls. Framed camp awards two decades old, and plastic binders of camp material yellowing with age.
One measly summer. Just get through it.
Because I was a glutton for pain and punishment, I scanned the open job positions anyway. Every single one required a completed college degree. As if outdoor adventure demanded a stamp of approval from a musty classroom.
Without thinking, I searched Camp Junebug.
The website wasn’t so bad, was it? All the necessary information appeared front and center. Address. Phone number. A photo of the lake where the big lodge across the water couldn’t be seen. Or maybe the photo was so old the new lodge hadn’t yet been built.
Funny, the new lodge was one of the features that drew me to the camp job in the first place, built with eco-friendly initiatives and some recycled and repurposed materials. Maybe not so funny since it was now off-limits.
I clicked around the website. The staff profiles page hadn’t been updated since the split. Nothing existed there except for the camp phone number. Fine by me, I didn’t want my face splashed across the internet.
I opened a new browser window and searched Camp Trail Blazers. Guitar rock burst through the speaker. I shot back in my roller chair, ramming into a box I didn’t know existed.
“What…” The sound was coming from the website. I bashed the keypad, searching for the speaker icon to mute.
“Ooh, sounds like a party in there!” Twila called from the front of the office. Footsteps sounded and the voice grew closer. “I used to blast Whitesnake in my Chevette and cruise around town with my crew.”
No response seemed adequate.
“I was a little wild in my early twenties,” she went on. “That’s how I found my Jim. We met in a heavy metal parking lot.”
I had to move on from the mental image of Twila’s hair as a 1980s pop metal fan. “It’s the website for the Trail Blazers. Look at this.”
She came around to view the screen. Images slid on their own. Close action shots of children posed like athletes. Trainers and counselors who belonged on TV selling sports drinks. A big fat button right at the top urging viewers toTake the Trail.
I hated it. Every bit of it.
Twila made a dismissive mouth noise. “Oh, they’re all flash. Don’t mind them. What’s got you curious about their website, anyhow?”
Hudson. Though I wouldn’t admit it. She’d seemed pretty excited about her ideas, even if I didn’t understand them. “Figured I’d take a look,” I said and left it at that.
“A look can’t hurt. You know, when I showed Hudson our social media accounts, I thought she might run out of the building.”
“We have social media accounts? No, wait. I knew that.” A Facebook page. Possibly something else. I assumed Twila made the updates. That’s what Hudson’s whole audit thing was about. Sounded ridiculous.
Seeming to read my thoughts, an infuriating realization, Twila continued. “She only scratched the surface with her audit since she’s had to be away from the office so much already. Once she has time to look, I think her advice will help.”
Only we didn’t need that sort of help. Sure, the camp didn’t have any real direction other than to retain the sort of values it began with. Seemed fine enough to me. Any larger vision belonged to whoever took over after me. I’d only been asked—begged—to keep the camp afloat for another summer. Not to reinvent the place and package it with an organic seal of approval. Which sounded like a lot of paperwork, to be honest.
I sat deeper in the seat, glaring at the shiny Trail Blazers’ images. “Now isn’t the right time to go bananas with advertising. We don’t have what it takes to follow through.”
Twila hovered, oddly quiet.
