Family + Camp (working title)

Chapter 26: Camp Names

She thought about The Kiss. What had she been thinking? She wasn't attracted to Len, at least, she didn't think she was. He was like a brother or cousin. Yuck! Despite having devoured the Flowers in the Attic books at the inappropriate age of eleven like all of her other book-reading, horny junior high friends, Nell did not agree that incest was best. Len was like Jamie. Wasn't he?

"I'm going to lie down for a while. I'm tired," she told her mom.

"Okay, honey." Sandy gave her daughter's hand a squeeze.

Nell stretched out on her bed and surprisingly fell asleep. She was not a natural napper. It seemed like only a few minutes had passed before she drifted awake. Her digital clock told her it was almost time to head back to the dining hall. She stared at the ceiling for a few moments, mind catching up. Finally, Nell pulled herself up and got ready. She changed from her shorts into jeans and grabbed a sweatshirt. She put on hiking socks. By the front door, she strapped her Tevas back on.

"I'll go with you," Nell's mom said, slipping on her Birkenstocks. "No sense in eating alone here."

 "Yes. Let the masses see the camp queen!"

"If I'm the queen, doesn't that make you the princess?"

"Ugh, no thank you," Nell said. "Let them see the First Lady of Camp! No, that isn't good either. The Spousal Equal of the Camp Manager! The Boss of the Boss!"

"Oh, I like that one."

Nell's mother had a job lined up in town at a clinic beginning in July. But for the first few weeks, she would be on staff as the camp nurse. They had already hired someone else for the rest of the summer who would charge a lot less than Sandy. An EMT who wanted to have a "chill summer" as Morrie had had said in air quotes.

Dinner was fine. Nell ate with her mom, who chose to sit with the naturalists. Nell did notice that Cash was already sitting with the arts and craft team. She tried to be all nonchalant, but was gratified, when later he came up to her as they were bussing their trays and said, "There you are. I didn't see you when I came in. Where were you?"

She pointed. "Over with my mom and your team. I mean, one of your teams. Did you know that all of them have camp names except for you? Star, Quail, and Timber?"

He looked a little taken aback. "Well, Cash could be a camp name. I might really like money."

"And what does money have to do with the great outdoors?" Nell countered.

"It makes the world go around? And the great outdoors are part of the world?"

"That is a very lame reason."

Dishes turned in, they both headed back out.

"Hi, Cashel," Nell's mom said. She and Morrie stood off to the side with Rob and the other team leaders.

"Good evening, Mrs. Harte."

"Mrs. Harte is Morrie's mother. Call me Sandy."

"And," Nell added. "Her last hame is Wu. She didn't take Dad's last name because she's a rockstar feminist!"

"And lazy. And Chinese. Harte is not a Chinese name," Sandy added.

Cash ducked his head in acknowledgment. "Got it. Sandy. Feminist."

"Chinese feminist," Nell corrected.

"Okay." Cash coughed. "Should we head out?"

Nell's dad and Rob had not stopped talking during this exchange, but Nell caught Rob clocking them even as he kept nodding at everything Morrie said, responding with, "Right. Exactly. Right," now and then at appropriate pausing points.

"Let's go," Nell said. She put her hand on Cash's arm for a moment, just to get their forward momentum going, and noticed, almost without thinking, that he had a strong tricep. Funny, because he was kind of on the string-bean side. But that didn't mean he couldn't be strong, she supposed.

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Wattpad readers: I'm dating myself (again), but have y'all read Flowers in the Attic? Finding this cover led me to a rabbit hole, and now I must go watch the 2014 movie version--the 1987 one was kind of a disappointment, since it cut *that* part of the story line...