Summer Dream

Chapter 5

The first section of camp had come to an end. Aspen and Calum were assigned to sending kids off to their parents. They sat at the lodge, bins of medications and leftover canteen money in front of them. Calum determined that he would be in charge of giving back money, if Aspen would be in charge of medications. "Bye, have a great rest of your summer!" Aspen waved as the child and her parents walked away.

"The kids here all love you. Every single one of them." Calum laughed. "You're their hero."

"I don't know why kids love me so much. It's been like this since I was, like, 15." Aspen giggled. "I love the kids, too, so it makes camp fun for me."

"Do you do this every summer?" Calum asked as a kid walked up their table. "Hi, love, what's your name?"

"Cathy Jacobs." She smiled at him. He searched through the envelopes for her name.

"Ah, you've got a whole $20 left over. You must not have spent much at the canteen." He smiled at her.

"My momma said if I don't spend all my money, I can keep what's left. So, I didn't spend any at all. Now I have $20." She giggled.

"Very smart of you. Have a wonderful summer, Cathy." Calum smiled at her as she ran off to her mother.

"Yeah, I do this every summer. As long as I'm not touring." Aspen shrugged.

"I didn't know country artists toured as many places as you do." Calum admitted. "I thought you'd only do the Southern states in America."

"That's a common misconception. I've toured more places than Audrey, and she claims she's the most popular popstar." Aspen rolled her eyes.

"What's up with you and Audrey anyways?" Calum asked. "Alex told us that you guys have a huge rivalry, but no one knows why."

"It's kind of a long story." Aspen sighed.

"We're gonna be sitting here all day, you might as well tell me." Calum chuckled.

"Alright, fine." Aspen sighed. "It all started when we were in middle school. We both attended this camp. I lived here with my brothers and my grandpa, so I got to attend camp. She and I went to school together, so I told her to convince her parents to let her come here. It wasn't hard for her to do, because she's a spoiled only child. Anyways, one summer we decided we wanted to form a duo group. We spent about 3 years writing songs and recording demos. We sent our demos to a few labels, but only one seemed to like what they heard. So, we had a meeting with them. They decided they couldn't afford a group and would only sign one of us. They knew I had written all the songs we recorded and that I played the instruments on them, too. So, they signed me as a solo artist. They needed a country artist to help with branding, but they didn't want Audrey. They didn't think she could do country music, and she didn't like it as much as I do. So, they told her they couldn't sign her, but they'd send her demos to their sister labels.

"One of their sister labels signed her, but she didn't have any songs. My new producers had licensed all of our songs, because I wrote them and they wanted me to have the credit for them. Audrey was then dropped from that label, because she isn't a songwriter and she didn't have any songs to license. She's been bitter about it ever since. She acts like she's so talented, but she can hardly play guitar and she has no writing credits to her name. She's never toured out of the US and she's bitter that I've been all over the world for country music." Aspen explained.

"Sounds like she's jealous of your success." Calum said, looking at her. "She looked pretty angry the other day when the kids wanted to sing your songs during craft time."

"She hates me now. We went from being inseparable best friends to enemies. At first, I didn't even know she was mad. Our first summer as counselors, she tried to make all the other counselors think I was getting special privileges for being part of the camp ownership." Aspen rolled her eyes. "She must have convinced Rena and Nia that I'm evil, or something. They both blocked me on all social media and they'll say stupid shit to me every time they walk past me."

"Rena and Nia are demons. You know what they did to Julia, right?" Calum asked.

"Yeah, I do. It's awful. Julia was the sweetest girl in the world. She worked one summer here and then Rena and Nia showed up and Julia never came back." Aspen sighed. "She's terrified of what they're capable of."

"She should be. I told you, they're demons." Calum shook his head. "I wish we had never signed them. I've had to spend too long with them, and now Nia thinks I like her. She thinks we're dating." Calum shuddered at the thought.

"Well, this camp is a place for romance." Aspen giggled. "Luke's been spending quite a bit of time with Carly. She says they even hooked up in the rec center."

"Lucky for Luke." Calum chuckled. "He needs some action. And, you might get some, too. Michael's been all googly eyed for you since he met you."

"Has he really?" Aspen squealed a little.

"Why, do you like him too?" Calum wiggled his eyebrows at her.

"I'll admit, he's incredibly attractive." She giggled. "I definitely wouldn't mind getting down and dirty with Michael."

"Don't be gross." Calum laughed. "But, no, you two would be cute together."