the Forgotten Belle
Zed hadn’t had a real summer vacation in years. The accelerated Master’s program in business required the regular two semesters per year, plus one during both summer and winter breaks. Going to school across the country meant Zed rarely got to visit home for more than a week at a time, so he was grateful to be done with it all and back with his family. Although, not much seemed to have changed at home—the same old people frequenting the same old bars in the company of the same old cliques. Zed almost pitied these townies, but he realized a glint of green struck his eye whenever he saw the Facebook statuses of everyone tagged all together. Surely if he went, people would entertain the façade of former friendship, even though Zed was ostracized for years. Time is funny that way.
Near the end of May, an email arrived from the church looking for people to volunteer at camp; Zed, already bored with his summer, was quick to confirm his availability. He loved his family, but you can only spend so much time with them before cabin fever sets in. Camp lasted two weeks and began in the last week of June. After spending four years away from his extended church family, Zed thought it would be nice to go and give back to a new generation of kids. Zed’s childhood summers were spent at the same camp and he went every summer from age eight to eighteen.
Almost all the families at church sent their kids, but not all the kids liked it. Some would last two weeks and never go back, others would go strong for a while only to taper off after five summers. Sticking with camp depended on how much the camper got out of the experience while there. If they spent the whole time crying and being homesick, they would miss the true greatness of camp—Zed was never like that, but to each their own. When he was younger, Zed enjoyed watching the kids who cried when their parents drove away—camp’s official starting point—it made him feel strong. It wasn’t that he didn’t miss his parents, but that he was able to conceptualize the fact they would indeed return. And in that time, Zed raised as much hell as he could because after the age of thirteen, it was all about the girls.
Three weeks passed before Zed could be found driving through some mountainous region on the Appalachian Trail. Camp came back to him on that drive, even after four years—all the friends he lost touch with, all the two-week romances, all the hook-ups, all the crazy shit they did on a nightly basis, and most importantly how big of an impact camp made on all the kids who went. Zed had chaperoned before, when he was eighteen, but from what he remembered, there wasn’t much responsibility in it (don’t tell the parents).
“Camp is for the campers,” was always the senior staff’s overly reiterated motto; Zed wished he could believe it, but the campers were never really his motivation to go back. Camp, for Zed, had the best selection of girls from his religious and ethnic background. He couldn’t always focus on the campers—if he wasn’t having fun, then the kids had no reason to. “Whatever, I still did my job when I was supposed to,” and all of the kids loved him, so no guilt weighed on his conscience when he snuck out at night.
Four years is a long time though; the waves of people and personalities who attend and volunteer at camp from year to year change quite drastically. Zed lucked out though. Leona, a girl whom he was interested in all those years ago showed up in some sedan (its descriptive worth was none of his concern at the time). His target was acquired but he was uncertain where they left off last.
The memory of the first time they met was marred by years of repression on Zed's part. Every second spent looking at her was like an overzealous rain droplet descending in slow motion and bursting into countless smaller copies of itself on the windshield of his mind, revealing ever-increasing clarity of memory. Being apart so long made seeing her again like seeing her for the first time. The feelings of new, were old; the veil of time's cyclical nature erased the long-forgotten grudge.
A few things had changed about Leona, she had grown out her bangs and her hair was purple, she developed well into a young woman, and she seemed more natural. She dressed conservatively but still showed skin, which was a magnet for him. The one thing that had not changed was this undefined aura of pure sexiness about her. “It's hard to describe; it's like, a girl can be attractive and not be beautiful, and in the same light, a girl can be beautiful but not be sexy.” To him she was both, it wasn't in a classical sense really, but he didn't know how to place it from there.
His eyes drew the lines of her curves, and if someone caught him staring, he would have felt justified. Leona’s figure was slim and busty and with attention called to her chest. Zed seemed helpless against her divinity and knew he wanted her immediately. Not to objectify her though—she was better than that.
Zed developed a mindset that whatever he did with her wouldn’t continue beyond the camp’s grounds. Leona was, however, a “dateable” girl, but she lived fairly far away, and Zed, as a young professional trying to develop a strong career, believed distance was hard to overcome. She knew this too, as she had before. Regardless, they both felt an unyielding connection of sexual tension, kept taut by the fear of one hurting the other. At least that’s how he felt, because Leona’s dating status laid in an ambiguous limbo, and to ask could possibly ruin his chances.
Often while sitting in his room alone, Zed couldn't help but let his mind wander to her, creating and replaying scenarios where they were free to explore each other. He couldn't even talk to her during the day because her lips provoked him, she wore the dark lipstick he loved and could think of nothing but kissing them. The last time they were destined to kiss haunted Zed, thwarted by a viral infection of the eye, which he wouldn't let happen again.
Things were different though, his confidence was almost non-existent, and every attempt to pursue her felt uncomfortable so he kept his distance. The Sirens’ song laid dormant in Leona’s eyes, carefully ebbing and flowing to keep Zed safely in peril just outside the harbor of jagged crags. She would slightly bend over, as if to watch every word drip from Zed’s mouth. And maybe she truly was interested, which would make it coincidental that her cleavage would peak at these times. Zed faced the truest test of a man, refusing the opportunities of lust and flesh to stay the gentleman in her eyes. There isn't a time that Zed doesn't dream of seeing her naked, almost mocking him at times.
Again, Zed was too scared to try, unable to decide what Leona wanted with him besides flirtatious banter. She's probably not that type of girl anyway, but he hoped that was merely a charade she played well. Zed practices controlled promiscuity, and hoped Leona did too, she’d be perfect if she did.
On Leona’s last night (she stayed a shorter time than everyone else), Zed made sure he volunteered as night security, expecting to eke out time alone with her. They both worried about the discovery of their tryst, even though there was no threat of being caught, and argued over where to meet. Eventually, Zed conceded to a place she was comfortable with, unwilling to let her leave without trying at least once. The spot was a dimly lit porch which, surprisingly, was void of mosquitoes.
Their conversation became incessant, letting the body of their commonalities grow greater with each minute that passed and each smile she flashed. The sense of time running out created a canopy about them as Leona vented about guys who had unpleasantly fallen for her just because she was nice to them. Zed remembered her complaint oddly juxtaposing the previous topic, implying he was grouped into that category, “like, as if it was a warning or something.” Zed took the hint, coerced into inaction by some chivalrous morality, and resented the allure of Leona’s lips each time she grew silent.
Zed was disheartened, sapped of the excitement aroused in his imagination when Leona first walked out to the front porch in sexy-for-camp pajamas. Her top was a low-cut tank top accentuating her chest, and her velvet-esque pants showcased each of her cheeks—a show he presumptuously believed she put on for him. Time disappeared, the fireflies greedily accepted seconds and minutes from the avaricious eyes persistent in guessing the location of the next, tiny flare of light.
With reluctance, it was time for them to say goodbye, and the scene molded into something almost too storybook. Leona stood one stair higher than Zed and hugged him at eye level, and “it was one of the most calming hugs I’ve had.” When she loosened the embrace, the final look into Leona’s eyes paralyzed Zed with what they implied—she wanted a kiss. The tides swelled so high that Zed’s ship drifted inland from the nestling bosom of the bay. It’s unclear which of them went first, the chicken or the egg, because the vibration of their harmony is the only memory that shines brightly—the tell of a kiss’s measure—yet there was no place for anything else beyond that.
The light from Zed’s phone, indicating a new text, assailed the night air while the new morning dew helplessly watched from behind blades of grass. Zed saw it was from Leona and let it sit on the screen, hoping its message would be different if he waited. Zed got ready to go to sleep; he washed his face, brushed his teeth, stripped down to his boxers, and only after he was cocooned in his bed’s protective sheets, did he open it. His memory failed him when he tried to remember it verbatim, but the message was clear: "There can't be anything between us; just know that there are other interested girls out there."