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If he’d been given a choice, Frank never would have picked spending his summer at camp. Sixteen is totally old enough to stay home alone, except his mom doesn’t trust him to stay out of trouble for eight whole weeks while she’s in Virginia working. He could stay with his dad, except his dad is spending the summer living in a studio apartment with Frank’s uncle, and there’s literally not enough room for even a Frank-sized mattress on the floor. There’s a minute where Frank thinks he’s gonna stay with his grandparents, but they get invited on an Alaskan cruise for three of the eight weeks his mom will be gone, so that gets vetoed too. Which leaves Camp Lameass—or whatever it’s called—in the Adirondacks. His mom’s best friend from high school, Mrs. Andretti, runs it, and promises Frank will feel right at home. Since Frank planned to spend his summer sleeping in, playing his guitar in the basement, and smoking up with Matt behind the Stop-n-Shop, he’s not all that convinced by this argument. Canoeing and hiking aren’t his thing.
“It’s not that kind of camp,” his mom insists. “It’s for musicians and artists and stuff. You can play guitar all you want.”
Which is something, but the sleeping in and smoking were really the most important parts of Frank’s perfect summer, and now they’re shot to hell.
“I hate you,” Frank says. “So much.”
But his mom just wraps an arm around his shoulders and pats the side of his head. “I know, honey. But I’ll earn more on this job than I brought in all last year. It will be worth the sacrifice, I promise.”
He’d better get that new amp for his birthday is all he’s gonna say.
The drive up to camp is tense, but Frank gleans some satisfaction from the fact his mom has to make an eight-hour round-trip drive the day before she has to make the seven-hour trip down to Norfolk. She deserves the sore ass if he’s gonna have to sleep on a cot wake up to Reveille played by some band geek on the trumpet for the next eight weeks.
He does let her kiss him goodbye, and mumbles, “I love you too,” before trudging off with his guitar and suitcase to find “Brown Bear” cabin as instructed by the perky girl at the check-in table. Nothing’s gonna happen to his mom, he knows, but it would really suck if it did, or if he got fucking eaten by a brown bear or something, and she’d left him thinking he didn’t love her anymore.
The cabin is three rooms: a front room with three bunk beds and a single bed; a back room with four bunk beds, and a room off to the side with shelves and hooks and a mirror and sink with a toilet and shower opening off of it. The guy sitting on the single bed puts his book down when Frank comes in. He looks about twenty-five, and has dirty blond hair falling below his shoulders in tangled waves, matching his faded Mötley Crüe tee, and jeans that are more holes than denim over combat boots gray with wear. He does not look like any of the camp counselors Frank’s seen in movies.
“Hi,” he says, holding out a hand for Frank to shake. “I’m Steve.”
Because he wasn’t raised in a barn, Frank puts down his suitcase and shakes. “Frank,” he says.
Standing, Steve picks up Frank’s bag. “Great,” he says. “A guitar man. That’s totally my number one, though I’ve been working on the bass lately, too.” He’s heading for the back room with Frank’s shit, so Frank follows. “You’re pretty early, so you get your pick of beds. Who wants to share with the counselor, right? So I assume you’d rather be back here.”
“Uh, yeah,” Frank says. “Sure.” He’s never been faced with top and bottom bunks before, so he’s not sure which he prefers. Then he notices the ceiling looks like prime spider nest real estate, and figures there’s less chance of an eight-legged monster launching itself at his face if he’s got a mattress over his head. “Here’s good, I guess,” he says, pointing at the bottom bunk against the far wall.
“Excellent choice. I’ll let you get settled in while we wait for the other boys to arrive, then we can go to orientation and dinner.”
Steve doesn’t even get a chance to sit back on his bed before the cabin starts filling up with other kids. Four of them seem to know each other, but there are five like Frank who this is their first year. The kid who takes Frankie’s top bunk is one of those. He’s got an artist’s portfolio and a large sketch pad instead of an instrument case. He doesn’t say much, but he nods and gives Frank a half smile when he gestures inquisitively at the bunk like he’s checking if it’s taken, so Frank figures he’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. For now.
Orientation is in a huge lodge at the top of a hill. The fireplace alone is half the size of Frank’s bedroom at home, and there’s plenty of space for the hundred or so kids to sit on the floor and still leave room for a ten-by-thirty foot area in front of the hearth for the counselors to sit. Frank expects Steve to look out of place, but the perky girl from registration sticks out much more than he does. Even Mrs. Andretti is wearing jeans cut off mid-calf with raggedy frayed cuffs, and a t-shirt with—inexplicably—two My Little Ponies on it. When she stands to speak, she leaves her shoes under her chair.
“I’m Heather,” she says, once she’s waved the campers quiet. “I’m the director here at Camp Lahne-Ca-Ca.” There’s a ripple of laughter from the audience, like this is an old joke. “I’d like to point out that I didn’t name the place—it was christened in the forties—but you would not believe the paperwork to get a place renamed around here, so go ahead, laugh. I call it Camp Lahne, but I don’t have the potty-mouths half of you kids have.”
Frank can’t really get over the difference between Mrs. Andretti who’s come over to pick his mom up a few times to go out to lunch, and Heather, camp director. She doesn’t seem like a mom at all.
“Unfortunately,” she continues, “four of our counselors are missing tonight, stuck in town with a cracked radiator in the truck we use for supply runs. You’ll have to meet them later. But for now, let’s start with Marietta!” With a sweeping bow, she indicates the girl on the far end of the row.
One by one the counselors stand and introduce themselves, giving their names, cabins, how many years they’ve been at the camp, and what they play, or write, or what kind of art they do. Steve turns out to be a fifteen-year veteran—ten as a camper and five as a counselor. Frank’s not sure if that means he’ll be awesome and share all the tricks and hiding spots, or sneaky and know all the tricks and hiding spots so his campers can’t get away with anything. Frank’s counting on the Crüe shirt indicating the former.
After the introductions, Mrs. Andretti—Heather—gets up again and talks about how the summer’s going to go, schedule of the day, what to expect at meal times, rules, all that kind of stuff. It sounds like there’s a lot more choice about how they spend their days than Frank expected, and he feels a little less grumpy about the whole thing. Then they file out to eat, and the food’s really good.
They sit with their cabin groups, the counselors waiting on them—just this first night, after that they’re gonna have to take turns on serving and clearing duty—bringing a big bowl of baked beans, another of coleslaw, and a plate piled high with cornbread to go with the barbecued chicken stacked on a platter. Frank hopes that he’ll be able to eat as well on sides every night. He hadn’t even thought about how tough it might be to eat at summer camp if you’re a veggie.
Every Saturday night, there’s a talent show. You have to sign up for at least one, but other than that it’s pretty flexible. The first night’s sign-up sheet is mostly counselors and kids who’ve been coming for years, and Frank is sitting about half-way back, relaxing against his bunkmate’s knees despite Aaron’s grumbling that he’s not a sofa, ready to see some people having fun and making fools out of themselves. First up is three girls and two guys lip-synching to Single Ladies. They’ve obviously been practicing the dance, but one of the guys gets off time half-way through, and they all dissolve into giggles. The audience whoops and cheers for them anyway, and Frank almost wishes he’d signed up to do something.
There’s a comedy routine, three guys covering a Dixie Chick’s song on their guitars, a less-than-stellar dramatic poetry reading, and a puppet show that’s way better than it should be, but doesn’t quite make up for the fact that Frank’s sitting on a hardwood floor and they’ve been promised s’mores after the show, so it could get over any time now.
But Heather stands up to introduce yet another act once the puppet theater is cleared off the stage. Frank’s guitar teacher, Ray, walks out with his guitar, followed by a kid Frank’s seen at meals, and a guy Frank somehow hasn’t seen yet at all.
The stamping and cheering starts up before they’ve even plugged in Ray’s guitar and the kid’s bass, and Frank has to sit up on his knees to see over the no-longer slouching crowd. Frank’s heard Ray play guitar, and he’s fucking amazing, but this is a talent show, not a rock concert, so he’s not sure what’s up with the excitement. Then Ray starts plucking the opening notes to Wanted Dead or Alive, and a hush comes over the room. Frank’s watching Ray’s fingers, because that shit’s not easy—Frank’s tried—when the guy he hasn’t seen before steps a little closer to the mic and starts to sing.
A couple girls near the front scream like they’re at a fucking Beatles concert, and the singer crooks a half smile at them and runs a hand down his chest. It’s over the top and cheesy and it should make Frank want to laugh, but it’s all he can do not to squeeze his dick. And that’s just the start. Like he’s Jon Bon Jovi, Axl Rose, and Madonna all wrapped up in one scrawny camp counselor, the singer wriggles and grinds and fondles his way through the song, posing and voguing and shaking his ass until Frank completely understands the screaming girls.
“Who the fuck was that?” Frank asks Aaron, slumping against him again once the cheers have finally died down several minutes after Ray and his friends have disappeared into the ‘green room’.
“Ray? Gerard? Mikey?” Aaron joggles his knees so Frank slips to the floor. “Which who?”
“Not fucking Ray.” Aaron knows Frank knows Ray; Frank spent a whole hour gushing about his guitar skills after their first lesson. “The singer.”
“Ohhhhh,” Aaron says, because he’s a fucking dick. “The sinnnnger.” He prods Frank’s shoulder with his foot. “That’s Gerard. He’s my art teacher.” Aaron is a smug fucking bastard.
Sundays they don’t have workshops or classes or anything, but all the studios are open for free time if they want to practice or work on anything. Frank was going to go swimming, then maybe work on his fingerpicking for a while, but after breakfast, Aaron announces that Gerard had promised to help him stretch a canvas today, and Frank decides Sundays should be the day of expanding his artistic horizons. “I’ve been meaning to see what you do in the art shack,” Frank says, all casual like.
“You say that like your hard on for my art instructor isn’t visible from space.”
“I don’t!” Frank protests, but it sounds even less convincing out loud than it did in his head.
“Uh huh.” Aaron doesn’t even bother rolling his eyes, just hitches his ever-present sketch pad higher under his arm and scoops up his pencil case. “Just don’t expect me to bust in on your classes. Unless you’re taking up piano with that chick from River Trout.”
“Bonnie,” Frank says. “She’s like thirty-five.” She has got a hell of a rack though, he’s gotta admit.
“Exactly,” Aaron says, eyes going dreamy for a moment.
“Okay, Romeo. Good luck with that.” Frank pushes Aaron out the door.
The art shack isn’t really a shack, despite the branding-iron-embossed plank hanging over the door declaring it so. From the path it’s just a cabin like the ones they bunk in, but inside it opens out with twelve-foot-tall windows facing south over the lake view. It’s a totally fucking spectacular view. Frank would still rather look at Gerard.
He didn’t expect him to look like a rockstar while he taught art, but he didn’t expect this either. Frank might even like it better. He looks like he rolled right out of bed into a frenzy of— Frank isn’t even sure what. He doesn’t know much about art supplies, but Gerard’s hair is sticking up in a wild crimson-tipped tuft on one side, its black strands tangled close to his head on the other, and he’s got more of the red smeared on one wrist and embedded around his fingernails. There’s a dark smudge of something on his cheek that matches the multiple black fingerprint smudges on his white Camp Lahne t-shirt, and also—oh god—on the pale, pale thighs visible under the neon-green piping on his small, tight gym shorts. Frank gurgles. But he’s pretty sure no one heard him over Aaron saying hi and he can’t wait to get started.
“This is Frank,” Aaron says when Gerard looks Frank’s direction quizzically. “He came to—“
“I heard you can teach anyone to draw,” Frank interrupts before Aaron can say he came to try to get in Gerard’s pants or something. Not that Frank isn’t planning on getting in Gerard’s pants, but he’s got his own moves. He doesn’t need Aaron trying to play his fucking wingman.
“I don’t know about that,” Gerard says, “but I can definitely teach anyone to stretch a canvas. Isn’t that what you wanted to do today, Aaron?”
Even better. Because Frank really isn’t that great at drawing, but he’s pretty sure he can hammer together a few pieces of wood.
Except they don’t do any hammering. The wood’s already cut to slot together, and the most hard-core tool they use is a staple gun, but Frank does get Gerard to give him some hands-on help using the pinchy thing that pulls the canvas tight. Gerard’s fingers are rough with little cuts and callouses and dried paint, but the skin on the inside of his arm is so soft it’s all Frank can do not to lean down and rub his cheek against it. He doesn't want to scare Gerard off though, so he just strokes it with the back of his own arm as many times as he can get away with before Gerard decides Frank's grip is acceptable.
Aaron and Frank each make three canvases. All of Aaron’s look the same—he plans to paint on them so when his first one was loose he took out the staples and started over—but Frank’s show marked improvement from the first to the last. This gets Gerard’s attention, praise for Frank’s improvement, and best of all, Gerard’s hands on Frank’s, moving over the first frame, showing him where the fabric needs to be stretched more tightly around the wood.
Frank can’t tell if Gerard notices Frank flirting. He doesn’t linger, but he doesn’t jerk away when Frank touches the paint on his wrist, either. Then when the bell rings for lunch and Aaron puts his things away, Gerard says to him, “Do you mind if I have a quick word with Frank? We’ll see you up there.”
“Sure,” Aaron says, and as soon as he’s behind Gerard, he sticks his tongue out at Frank and gives him two thumbs up.
This was so much easier than Frank expected. Summer camp is awesome.
Except Gerard doesn’t kiss him. Or touch him in any way. He sits down so the corner of the table is between them, laces his fingers together, and gives Frank the kind of earnest, caring look Ms. Hoffsteader, Frank’s guidance counselor, always gives him just before she starts telling Frank how smart she knows he is and how if he’d just go to all his classes he could turn those B plusses into As. Since Frank isn’t even here to do art, he doesn’t know what Gerard has to lecture him about.
“What,” Frank says. “I was pretty good by that last frame, you even said so yourself.”
“No,” Gerard says. “I mean, yes. It’s great. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I just wanted to let you know— It’s hard. It can be confusing, being a teenager, all your hormones and everything, and people telling you what’s okay and what’s not okay, and I just wanted you to know if you need someone to talk to, I won’t judge you. Or tell you you’re wrong.”
Frank doesn’t mean to laugh, but come on. Gerard’s got to be nineteen, because that’s the minimum age for counselors for the senior camp, but he can’t be much older than that. He’s talking to Frank like he has decades of wisdom or something.
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Gerard says.
“You didn’t. You just, you sound like you think you’re forty or something. Aren’t you still a teenager yourself?”
“I’m twenty,” Gerard says, lips pursed like Frank’s just insulted him.
“Ah, yes. The magical age of wisdom.” Gerard’s lips pinch tighter and he narrows his eyes. “Sorry,” Frank says. “Sorry. But, I’m not confused. I like boys. And girls. And sex, just in general. And you’re hot.”
“I’m not hot. I’m a counselor.”
Frank laughs again. “Dude, those things are not mutually exclusive.”
“We should get to lunch,” Gerard says, pushing his chair back and standing up.
He’s careful not to get to close as they head up the hill. So okay. Not as easy as Frank thought. That’s okay. He likes a challenge.
During his guitar lessons the following week, Frank tries to subtly ask Ray about Gerard. Just like how long they’ve known each other, if Gerard sings with Ray outside of camp, maybe if Gerard’s into boys. On Tuesday, he manages to find out that they’ve been friends since they were sixteen, off and on, but Wednesday it’s all group lessons. Thursday Frank gets Ray to himself, but when he tries to slip a question about Gerard’s singing in while Ray’s explaining the fingering on a tricky chord change, Ray says, “Counselors can’t date campers.”
“Who said anything about dating?” Frank tries, but Ray gives him a look. The look says that Frank isn’t as subtle as he thought.
“Your middle finger needs to—“
“He’s great up on stage, but he only seems to teach art,” Frank says. He totally didn’t say anything about dating.
“He’s in art school,” Ray says. “And you nearly knocked down one of my campers at dinner last night trying to walk and stare at Gerard at the same time.”
Gerard came to dinner in cutoffs with a hole on the inside of his thigh. And neon green paint in the hole. Half a table of girls swooned as he walked past. Frank barely even bumped the kid from Ray’s cabin. “I never said anything about dating.”
“Okay,” Ray says. “How about you say something about this G-minor?”
Frank puts his fingers back on the strings.
That night they have a campfire on the beach. A lake is nothing like as good as the shore, but there are about twenty-five bags of marshmallows and a whole pile of sticks, and graham crackers and chocolate, and it doesn’t quite make up for the total lack of weed, but it’s pretty awesome. Supplies in hand, Frank settles himself in toasting distance and has his marshmallow in the flames when Gerard appears out of nowhere to sit down on the other side of the two girls arguing about the best s’mores making method next to Frank. He’s talking to Mikey and Ray, waving a stick with three marshmallows on the end in emphasis. Frank wants to know what he’s saying, but between the girls talking and the crackling of the fire, nothing is clear, so he has to settle for watching.
Gerard is clearly a guy with marshmallow-toasting history. He keeps an eye on what he’s doing, moving his stick to keep it out of range of the flickering tongues of flame, turning it so the sugar takes on an even golden-brown crust. Once the three marshmallows have melted into one, Gerard pulls it out of the fire. Instead of mashing it between two crackers, he pulls the browned casing off, trailing sticky white threads behind it, and puts the whole thing into his mouth.
“Hey,” the girl next to Frank says. “You’re on fire.”
Frank checks his lap, and then his shoes before he realizes she means his dessert. He looks at his own stick just in time to see his marshmallow drop into the coals. Whatever. He could totally just lick the trail of sweetness off Gerard’s chin. Except, oh. Gerard seems to be taking care of that himself, contorting his whole mouth to get his tongue to poke out far enough to get it all. Is he fucking made of porn? Jesus.