Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(30)

“I did not chicken out!”

“You did too, Eliot!”

“Guys,” Greer said. “I don’t know if—”

“Wait! Before you say anything, we got our chores done early. And there’s going to be a cake! Well, kind of. And presents! Kind of. We’re going to have a dance party! Is it okay? Say it’s okay!”

Greer and I exchanged a look.

“Listen,” I said, lowering my voice. “This is all really great, but I don’t think she’s going to be in the mood for a dance party right now. Maybe we should—”

“Why wouldn’t I be in the mood for a dance party?”

We all turned. The girl was standing at the top of the trail, hands in her pockets, the late-day sunlight washing over her. The tension that had hardened her shoulders and made her hands into fists had dropped away all at once. She barely even resembled the person we’d seen on the bridge just minutes before.

“Well, I just thought, you know, since—”

She marched right past Greer and me. “Don’t listen to them, Astrid. I’d love a party!”

“Oh—yay!” Astrid grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the rest of the kids. “I’ll introduce you to everybody! Oh! Wait! Did you find out your name?”

“We didn’t. Not yet.”

“No problem!” Astrid chirped. “Pick a letter!”

“Pick a letter?” The girl looked back at us. Greer nodded encouragingly. “Uh . . . H?”

“Perfect! Wait right here!”

Astrid sprinted back to the others. “Guys! She picked H!”

The kids held a conference, and then Astrid came racing back.

“We have options!” she said. “Hester, Helen, Hailee, or Hermione.”

“Wow. Those are some really good choices. Um . . .”

Benny appeared by Astrid’s side and tugged at her skirt. She bent down, and he whispered something in her ear.

“Oh. Okay. Sure. I’ll tell her.” Astrid stood back up. “Benny says he also likes Hannah.”

The green-haired girl smiled at Benny. “You know what? I think I do too.”

Astrid grabbed the newly minted Hannah by the hand and swept her away to join the rest of the kids. “Guys! Her name is Hannah!”

Isaac emerged from the boys’ cabin with our radio. The kids screamed as a thump and crash reverberated through the camp.

“Uh-oh!” Greer exclaimed as he ran off to join them. “This is it! This is my jam! Isaac’s playing my jam!”

He dove into the crowd, and the dancing spread out from him in waves. Hannah kept to the sidelines with Benny and the younger kids until Ren pulled them all into the swirl of bodies. It was chaos at first, but then the kids linked arms and turned as one. Someone always seemed to be a half step off, though, so they were perpetually falling into huge, giggling pileups and then climbing out of them to start again.

I watched from the growing shadows by the boys’ cabin. Over the next couple of hours, dozens of camp dramas, most of which I’d only heard about, emerged from the confusion. Carrie’s tomboyish jostling of a noticeably uncomfortable Greer. Eliot dancing with Astrid and then dancing with Makela and then collapsing in a heap with Ren and Cash, where they whispered to one another and laughed. Isaac and Tomiko off by the supply shed, their arms wrapped around each other, their lips pressed together.

The longer I watched, the more it seemed like the space between us expanded. Even though I never moved, the twenty feet between the cabin and the dance soon felt like thirty feet, then forty. By the time the sun started slipping behind the trees, it was a hundred.

Then Hannah burst from the jumble, out of breath and laughing. Greer and Ren called for her to come back, but she waved them off, then wiped the sweat from her forehead with a lazy stroke of her arm. She’d tied her sweatshirt around her waist and a flush of pink had spread across her chest. The falling sun laid a streak of gold across her cheek.

When she saw me standing by the boys’ cabin, she smiled and waved me toward her. The music fell away, and everyone behind her blurred into a wall of spinning bodies. I imagined myself stripping off my mask and gloves and crossing the space between us. I’d take her hand and sweep her back into the dance, where we’d turn with all the rest of them, laughing, falling into each other again and again, skin on skin, our breath mingling.

She took a step toward me, and just like that, reality snapped into place. I backed away, moving into the shadows. She called out my name, and Greer did too, I think, but I kept going toward the trail that led to my camp. I hurried through the woods until the music and the lights faded away.



The three of us soared across the Brooklyn Bridge and into Manhattan. Me and you and Dad, awkward in our rented tuxes. When the cab pulled up in front of the theater, you and I tumbled out of the car into a crowd of gowned and tuxedoed Manhattanites. Every man was Bruce Wayne. Every woman was Selina Kyle. Dad took us by our shoulders and guided us toward the entrance. The last thing I saw before we swept into the lobby were the words ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER spelled out in steel above the door.

Then we were in our seats, surrounded by that pre-performance murmur until the houselights flashed and everyone found their places and quieted. Dad was sitting between us. He took your hand and then mine and squeezed. Three links in a chain. The houselights went out, and the empty stage slowly filled with a canary yellow light, like a gradual dawn. The woman behind me leaned forward. I could smell the spice of her perfume and feel the warmth of her breath on the back of my neck.