The Names They Gave Us(45)

“Yeah?” It’s nice to hear, even as I think of my mom patching me up—cartoon Band-Aids and Neosporin, kisses to make it better—and it aches to my core. “Thanks.”

I should go to sleep at lights-out, but the piano beckons me. I’ll give myself a half hour of alone time with the keys and call it a night.

But when I get to the rec room, Jones is on the couch with a paperback in his busted hands.

“Oh, hey. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were in here. I’ll just . . .”

He sits up. “No, I . . . Uh, Anna told me you practice in here some nights. Would it bother you if I stay?”

“Oh. No. If you don’t mind a little plunking.”

“Not a bit.”

And plunk I do, revisiting a Debussy that I could never get the hang of. I’m starting to smooth it out when I glance back at Jones.

He’s fast asleep, cheek smooshed against taped hands. Do all guys look like little boys when they sleep? As a counselor, he’s so capable—so together. But today, I can see him as the ten-year-old he was once, mourning his sister at a camp away from home.

I sit on the coffee table, considering. I mean, I can’t leave him, right? I have to wake him up.

“Hey,” I whisper, nudging his arm. “Pssst.”

“Hey.” He blinks hard a few times. “Sorry. Wow. That was so good . . . it lulled me away. Like singing lullabies to a baby.”

“Guess the book wasn’t a page-turner.”

“It’s pretty solid, actually.” He turns it so I can see the cover, which features Einstein and his wild hair. “I’m a sucker for biographies. Rhea always pulls them from donation boxes for me.”

“What’s your favorite? Like . . . say I’ve never read a biography. Which one would you—”

“Oh my God. Have you never read a biography? ”

I glance around guiltily. “Well, better get to bed.”

When I start to get up, he tugs me back down. “No, wait! I have so many recommendations. Most of the founding fathers, Henrietta Lacks, Steve Jobs—obviously.”

The next night, he’s already on the couch when I show up.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I reply.

Somehow, I wind up teaching him the melody line of “Heart and Soul.” He picks it up quickly for someone who’s never played piano.

“This is maddening,” I tell him with a laugh. “You’re such a fast learner!”

“Well, you’re good at explaining it. Plus, I can already read music. But also . . .” He finds a half-step interval and plays it, a trill. He sounds out the first measure of Für Elise—slowly, and in the wrong key. Still. “I am Beethoven.”

The night after, he brings his trumpet.

“You have to try it,” he insists, holding it out to me.

“I’ve never even touched a brass instrument.” But I take it from him, cool metal smooth beneath my fingers.

“Well, now you have! And I didn’t say you had to be good. Just try it.”

“Are you sure?” I hold the silver mouthpiece near my lips. It feels strangely intimate, to use another musician’s instrument. “You don’t mind my germs?”

Oh, cute, self. Honestly.

“We’re camp counselors, Luce. I think we’ve got all the same germs at this point.” I glance down, surprised that he’d call me that. It’s nice, the familiarity. “Okay, so you want to take a big breath, from deep down, and buzz your lips.”

When I try this, the trumpet makes no sound. “I’m a prodigy! Don’t be jealous.”

“Lips tighter.” He demonstrates, away from the mouthpiece. I attempt to do the same, my lips vibrating. We’re sitting across from each other—him on the edge of the coffee table, me on the couch—basically just making middle-school fart noises. It hits us both at the same time, and we nearly fall over laughing.

By week’s end, I get some sounds out. And not just laughter.

***

On Friday night, Jones holds the bottle in one hand. He’s sitting on a fallen log, elbows propped on his knees. Anna leans against his leg from her spot on the red tartan blanket. I wish I could see Jones’s eyes, but his gaze is focused, glasses reflecting the bonfire.

“Low.” There is no laughter in his voice. “JJ’s bio mom pulling him out of camp.”

We add murmurs of agreement and grunts of anger as he takes a long swig. His heavy sigh carries across the circle, over the snapping flames.

“High.” He lifts the bottle and his eyes to me. It’s not the grin that crosses his mouth but something quieter—unspoken and shared. “Lucy.”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN

On Monday, instead of a morning chore, the 3A girls congregate around the bags of clean, folded laundry in our cabin.

“Once you’re in sixth grade, you do your own laundry,” Nadia informs the other girls. All three of us counselors are gently pulling out stacks, trying not to mess them up. “Jones told me. There’s a launder-mat in town, and you get to go, and while it’s washing your clothes, you hang out at the park or go look in the shops.”

Simmons and I exchange glances, too stricken with her cute enthusiasm to tell her it’s “Laundromat.”