Her Kind Of Hero

“Helping out?” Sandro looked sharply at Dana, clearly taking in her designer boots and jeans. “Here?”

Matt caught the tone, and from the slight flush in her face, Dana did, too. Only days ago, he and Sandro had carefully gone over the staffing schedule for the camp’s dry-run weekends. That was before Dana’s call, so Matt hadn’t included her. “I’m going to give her a quick tour first. Maybe she can make up the beds in the cabins?”

Sandro shrugged. “Sure. Whatever you think.”

“Is Maria coming in today?”

“No. Her son’s sick so she may not make it tomorrow either. She’ll let us know later today.”

“Okay. By the way, Kristen is expecting us at about four o’clock to get ready for the board meeting.”

“Right. Well then, I’ll go rustle up the bedding stuff.” He nodded briefly at Dana and headed toward the two cabins on the far right of the lodge.

Matt looked at Dana. “Maria’s kind of an office manager. She does a lot of our administrative work part-time,” he explained. When she simply nodded, he said, “Guess we might as well start with the lodge, then.”

“Sure.”

Matt hadn’t expected enthusiasm, but mild interest would have been nice. He led the way inside, hoping the visual impact of what they called the Big Room might rouse something in her.

“As you can see, this entryway is really part of a hall that runs all along the front of the lodge. That side on the left leads to our offices and the staff washroom. To your right is the coat area.”

She looked at the rows of hooks and racks for boots and shoes without comment.

“The hall on that side continues to the staircase leading to the second story.”

“What’s up there?”

“Five bedrooms and two bathrooms. The staff who aren’t supervising in the kids’ cabins share a room, and I get my own, since staff shift around a bit but I’m always here.” He stopped, feeling a bit unsettled by her passive gaze.

Clearing his throat, he said, “Okay, and straight ahead is what we call the Big Room.” He turned around and walked ahead into the main part of the lodge. The central wood-paneled room with its massive stone fireplace flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows never failed to stir his pride. They’d all worked hard to make this room special. The Big Room always drew gasps of wonder from the kids, with its sprawling couches, chairs and cushions. Matt knew the room was bigger than some of the apartments the kids lived in.

Dana walked into the center, slowly taking it all in. “Nice. Did this furniture come with the place?”

“A lot of it was donated but we did find some bargains at thrift shops.” There was a slight twitch of her nose at that and Matt felt his face heat up. Sure, some of the pieces were obviously well used, but personally he thought they added to the charm of the room.

“Some of it was left behind,” he went on, determined to ignore her lack of interest, “like that sideboard on the far wall.” He pointed. “The door next to the sideboard leads to the dining hall and the kitchen is just off that. There’s a Ping-Pong table over there in the far corner.”

She followed his gesture with her eyes, then turned to face the opposite end of the room. “Is that a reading area?”

“Yeah. We call it the library. Those bookshelves made that section a done deal when we reconfigured the room. Much of this space had already been set up for multipurpose use.”

“How did the previous owners use this place?”

“I think it was a very large summer home for someone originally, but I heard that the couple who willed it to the town set it up as a lodge.”

“People came here for a vacation?”

Clearly not her kind of getaway place, Matt thought. “It’s smaller than most vacation lodges but yes. The offices down here were also used as bedrooms, I believe. Plus, there was one sleeping cabin and the outdoor washroom buildings.”

“So, people didn’t have their own bathrooms.”

“It was an affordable place for families. Everyone needs an escape from the big city in the summer,” he said, seeing her flush as she picked up on his implied gibe. “The tables across from the library are for quiet time or rainy-day activities. People have donated a number of board games and jigsaw puzzles.”

She gave it a cursory glance before saying, “The offices. Are they for all the staff?”

“Basically. Kristen, Sandro and I share the largest one. Then there’s one that the rest of the staff can use. It’s got a couple of desks, two computers and a landline. Maria uses it as her office, but anyone can check email on the second computer.”

“Though people probably use their cell phones. What’s the reception like here?”

“It’s good. We’re not far from the town, but we don’t have Wi-Fi. Besides those two rooms, we also have one we call the sick room.”

“Do you have medical personnel on staff?”

“Unfortunately, the budget doesn’t extend that far. We do have a board member who’s also a nurse practitioner and she’s available for a few hours when the camp is running through the summer.”

“What kind of liability insurance do you have?”

This was the lawyer speaking now, Matt thought. “We’re covered—don’t worry.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow that he ignored.

“Okay, well, let’s put your backpack in my office and then we’ll check out the cabins and the grounds. You can change your shoes, too,” he added, hiding a quick smile.

By the time they’d made it to the new sleeping cabin, Matt guessed that Dana might bow out of her offer to help. If so, he’d go with his plan B and have the new worker at KidsFirst take over for Dana on the weekend. But he didn’t feel like letting her off the hook just yet.

Her smile when she took in the freshly painted girls’ cabin with its new windows and screens was refreshing, but it disappeared when he showed her the broom-closet-sized room that would be hers.

“Not much storage space,” she commented, staring bleakly at the two-drawer chest between the two cots.

Matt laughed, “You’ll only be here on weekends, Dana. And as I told you, this weekend is a short one. Just Saturday night, so you’ll be supervising on your own. Plus, there’ll be fewer girls.”

“I was thinking of the two people who’d be in here all summer,” she snapped.

He wanted to tell her that wasn’t her concern but had to admit she had a point. He surveyed the room. Maybe there’d be just enough space for one of those DIY wardrobe kits. “Well...I’ll get Maria to check into that.”

As irritating as her observations were, Matt knew he and the team hadn’t worked out much in the way of staffing for the summer. Then the cabins, each with a full complement of twenty kids, would need two night supervisors. The problem was, now that the town was reviewing the lease agreement, things were up in the air. It was a stressful situation, but Matt knew he needed to be patient.

“Shall we walk down to the lake, or would you rather do that after you’ve made up the beds?”

Dana glanced at the stack of clean linens on one of the new bunk beds. “A walk would be nice.”

Matt figured he could do that job himself if necessary. He paused outside the cabin, inhaling deeply.

“The air is different out here, isn’t it?” Dana said as she came up beside him.

He took another deep breath. “It is.” He waited a moment, then said, “I’ll show you the other cabins.”

He led the way to two other wood-frame buildings. “These were built a few years after the couple who owned the place bought it, so they’re at the top of our list of necessary repairs.” He thought he saw a slight shiver as she eyed them. “They’re not too bad inside. The newer cabin we were just in was for the girls, and that one there is for the boys. The washroom cabin behind them is divided into girls’ and boys’ sides. All the necessary conveniences but just—”

“Outside.”

“Well, it is a camp,” he pointed out.

“Shall we get to the lake?”

“Fine. Let’s get to the lake.” And get the day over with. He strode ahead, circled behind the lodge, trotted down the slope and stopped at the graveled edge of Maple Lake. The still, glistening water helped calm him. You can end this right now, he told himself. It was a dumb idea. Accept that and get on with things.

He waited for her to catch her breath when she caught up to him. “I was going to say that you don’t owe me anything,” he began, “because, to be honest, this whole idea of your helping out here was impulsive. I never really expected you to take me up on it and there’s no shame in simply telling me you’d rather not do this. We can call it a day right now and I’ll drive you back to the city. Okay?”

A band of red rose up from the base of her throat into her face. She turned away, but not before he saw her swallow hard, tightening her jaw and blinking. Matt bent down to pick up a couple of smooth pebbles and skimmed one across the water. He figured he ought to have told her all that earlier, on the way to the camp. But then he’d still had some hope that she’d rise to his challenge.

“That day,” she finally said, her voice settling into a steady coolness, “I was on my way to Oak Park to see our old house. The one I lived in until my mother died.”

Matt dropped the second stone.

“I’d just transferred to a new school and...and things weren’t going well. It was the third school in a year and my father... Well...he was running out of patience. There’d been an incident that morning. Some girls were spreading stories about me. I’d planned to confront them and tell them how mean they were. But one of them started to laugh and I cried instead.”

The naked emotion in her face made him look away. He suddenly thought of Rosie and the trouble she’d had at school years ago, when she’d been newly diagnosed.

“So I left school at lunchtime and wandered around the neighborhood for a bit. I couldn’t go home because I knew our housekeeper would ask a lot of questions that I didn’t feel like answering. Then I had the idea of going out to Oak Park to visit the place where I had been happy...” Her voice drifted off.

If she’d been a friend, Matt would have hugged her. But he knew that she needed to tell her story and that he wanted to hear it.

“Anyway, I didn’t know any of those kids on the platform. But when I was going through the turnstile, I accidentally stepped on a girl’s foot. I tried to apologize, but she kept yelling that I was disrespectful.”

“Showing off for her friends,” Matt put in.

“I guess.” Dana looked his way. “I thought if I just ignored her, she’d figure out I was no threat and leave me alone. But when I got down to the platform, she gave me a hard push.”

“She couldn’t afford to lose face with her buddies.”

“I can see you know teenagers.”

“Well, I was one myself once.”

“But not like those kids.”

Matt stared out across the lake. Maybe not quite like them.

“Anyway, you know the rest of that story. But the whole way home, I was thinking about what happened and especially about what might have happened,” she went on.

You and me both.

“I decided I was never going to let myself be bullied again, even if it meant I was doomed to be a complete loner at school. And I was for the rest of my high school years. I made myself toughen up. I finally did just what my father had been wanting me to do.”

Now he really wanted to hug her, but instead he said, “I didn’t mean to sound angry back there. I’m a bit sensitive when it comes to Camp Hope. It was my dream for a long time and now that I’ve finally managed to make it happen...well...hearing anything that seems like skepticism makes me overreact sometimes.” He paused, watching her take this in, then added, “But seriously, I’m letting you off the hook.”

“No. What I’m trying to say is that I know sometimes I can be... That...sometimes I come across as...”

“Dana,” he said, reaching out for her hand, “be kind to yourself. You had an awful experience—a life-threatening one. You no longer have to prove anything to anyone, least of all me. It’s all right. I’m happy to have met you and... Well...I can take you home.”

She shook her head, slipping her hand out of his. “No, Matt. I need to do this. I will rise to the challenge. You’ll see.”

His held her gaze, unable to think of a single thing to say. But he felt a lightness flare briefly inside. “Then I guess we should get back to the cabins...and those bunk beds.”

DANA SANK BENEATH the billowy foam in her bath, leaned against the end of the tub and let out a long sigh. But her fatigue wasn’t physical. Hiking and running had been part of her life since high school. Her father had encouraged a full regimen of athletics, part of his “get tough” campaign. And after that day on the subway, Dana had accepted the challenge with determination.

No, her exhaustion was a result of her inner turmoil, rather than making up twenty-two beds. She wondered who’d be in charge of the boys’ cabin. Matt? She felt an unexpected pleasure at the thought of him mere yards away.

The whole time she was working, she was thinking of him and the way he didn’t interrupt her or dole out meaningless phrases of sympathy. He simply let her talk, and although that day had played like a horrifying video in her head for years, she’d never actually talked about it to anyone. It was fitting that the first person to hear her pathetic story was Matt. His hand wrapped around hers had given her the courage to go on. The strength and reassurance of that grasp stayed with her the rest of the day at Camp Hope.

After she’d made up the beds, he’d helped her sweep, then mop the floors in both cabins. She’d thought he might open up while they were working and tell her something of that day from his perspective, or even about his life afterward. But the talk had been mainly outlining the agenda for the next day’s meeting at the camp. Something was obviously on his mind during the ride back to the city, and he’d fallen into a long silence.

She sat up and rinsed off the puffs of foam on her arms and chest. She’d noticed that Sandro hadn’t been happy about her volunteering, though she couldn’t be certain if his upset had been directed at her or Matt. Not that she cared. Many people made assumptions about her abilities or character merely based on appearance. She understood how and why those opinions were formed. After that day, she’d learned to dismiss those people the way they dismissed her. She didn’t need them in her life anyway.

Matt was different, though she couldn’t explain why. When he was showing her around the camp, she saw that his pride blinded him to the negative aspects she couldn’t help pointing out. Her attempt to help had been interpreted as nit-picking. But for twenty years he’d been her hero and though he obviously drew the same conclusions about her that Sandro had, she needed to prove him wrong.

Rising up, Dana released the tub stopper and reached for the thick white towel draped over the stool next to the vanity. How hard could it be to spend a couple of days with some kids?

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