Outside Your Window

The Reflection

The kids were circled up around me, bumping shoulders and elbows in excitement. We were standing on the bank of the Delaware River in the late part of the summer. The sky was bright and free of clouds. It was a perfect day to float.

"Partner up!" I yelled.

When I gave the order, the kids ran to their predetermined partners, something they figured out over the Camp Pine lunch tables. Within a moment, the circle became a dozen pairings. All except for one girl.

Zoey joined camp the morning of the canoe trip.

"I'm new," she said, shaking my hand in the parking lot.

I looked around for her Mom or Dad, but they had already driven off. It wasn't strange for kids to join halfway through camp, but we were already in the last week. And as hard as it would be for anyone to make friends in that situation, she wasn't exactly approachable. Her hair was greasy (almost wet-looking) and combed straight over her eyes, making her head look like a big, black mop. She didn't talk to anyone on the van, or in the circle.

When everyone found their partners and Zoey was left standing alone, I reacted quickly. I knew what it was like to be picked last, or not picked at all. I walked over to her and spoke softly, so the other kids wouldn't notice.

"Zoey, you can take a kayak," I said, "You don't need a partner for that."

Zoey nodded, looking neither happy nor sad. Her mouth was a perfect line.

As Jack, the other canoe instructor, got the kids in their boats, I walked over to Charles to confirm the pick-up time. Charles was the oldest person to work at Camp Pine. His stomach slouched over his belt and his mouth was filled with grey teeth. His job was to drive the canoe van, then wait for us at the end of the trip.

Even though he was as old as my parents, he liked to gossip about the kids. He'd tell me about what he heard on the route over, or how kids needed to get beat so they'd stop cursing so much. When I walked over to him though, he had a strange look of excitement on his face. His arms were crossed over his chest.

"Keep a look out today," he said.

"A look out?" I asked.

He flashed a plaque-filled smile as he leaned in closer to me.

"So, my brother's an EMT and texted me that a 12 year old girl drowned about 20 minutes north of here last night. Apparently her Mom found a handwritten note on the boating dock and, what looked like, muddy footsteps leading right into the water. The mom said her daughter was one of those depressives, so probably dark clothes and makeup and all that, if the water didn't strip her of that by now. Look out for the body. Any dead body is probably her."

Charles paused to wipe the spit from his mouth. He hadn't taken a breath that whole time.

"She was probably lonely too," he went on, "If she wanted to do something as dumb as off herself, she probably didn't have any friends. You can never predict what loneliness does to a person."

I nodded. I knew what he meant. Even though I'd worked at Camp Pine for three years, I didn't really talk to the other counselors. I would eat lunch in my car as I watched them gossip and laugh and wrap their arms around each other at the tables. Charles's gossip was the only kind I was included in.

But, for as much as Charles liked gossip, his rumors never involved dead girls floating in the river. I turned back to look at the water. The trees were swaying softly; the Delaware was bluer than usual. In the distance, I could see a group of tubers drifting in a big, yellow clump. They were singing a song I didn't recognize. It seemed strange that a dead girl would be somewhere below all of that.