Chapter 22

When I got back to the grill, both Dad and Grandpa were nowhere to be found. I looked around, suddenly panicked, but I couldn’t see them anywhere. I looked at the ribs. They looked okay and I could start to smell the tell-tale scent of grilled pork, which made my mouth water. I checked one more time to see if they were close, nope. I grabbed our tongs and picked up the front edge of the ribs to see how they looked. There was a good amount of color, and I could see a crust starting to form. Perfect.

I flipped all three slabs over and the sizzle of the hot grate on the meat sounded wonderful. Then I remembered the grate they were resting on and my stomach soured almost immediately. Just because I wasn’t going to eat the food, didn’t mean I was going to ruin it because I wasn’t paying attention, like the last time I tried to grill chicken legs, and the pork chops before that. I checked the mesquite, seeing if it was still burning or not. It looked like the coals were going down, so I added a few more pieces just in case. That done, I sat down on one of the benches and waited for Dad and Grandpa to get back.

It felt like it had been hours before someone showed up to help me. It wasn’t Dad or Grandpa, though, it was Sara. She brought the corn on the cob, wrapped in tin foil and ready to be grilled.

“Hey, where’s Dad?” She asked, looking around and not seeing him.

“I have no clue,” I answered with a touch more attitude than I intended.

“What do you mean,” Sara asked, hands on hips. “Where did he go?”

“I haven’t seen him or Grandpa since I came and told you we put the ribs on the grill.”

“Oh,” Sara replied, giving me a sympathetic look. “Do you need any help?”

“Yes, I have no idea what I am doing.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not that hard to grill food.”

“You do it then!” I spat.

“Don’t get all bent out of shape with me, it’s not my fault you are the one cooking.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Well, I am supposed to go back and help with the beans and potatoes. If I see Dad, I will tell him you are looking for him, okay?”

“Yes, thank you!” I offered her a weak, apologetic smile, hoping she forgave me for my little outburst a moment before.

I stood there, hovering around the grill for another hour before Dad finally came back. I had been angry that he had left me all alone but now, I was just thankful he came back.

“How are the ribs looking?” Dad asked.

“I don’t know, the one side is a lot darker than the other,” I complained, my frustration was obvious from the look on my face. “I keep flipping them over and over, but I think one side is burned.”

“Give me the tongs and let’s take a look,” Dad answered, taking the proffered silver tongs. “These look great. Now we just need to get this side as dark as the other side.”

“Why?” I asked sarcastically. “So they will be burned evenly?”

Dad just laughed but didn’t respond to that comment. Instead, he said, “Go tell Mom the chicken is going on the grill.”

Whatever the signal of putting the chicken on the grill was supposed to mean didn’t seem to change what the girls were doing in the cabin. The only real difference now was the kitchen area was a disaster. It looked like a bomb had gone off and none of the four had been able to avoid being hit in the explosion.

Not wanting to get stuck cleaning that mess up, I slipped out of the cabin and started wandering around. I didn’t want to man the grill any longer. I hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place, so now was the perfect chance for me to disappear for a strategic amount of time. If I was lucky, I might run into someone I knew, maybe even Jenny. That probably wasn’t going to happen. As surprisingly happy as I was to see her, I wasn’t sure how good of an idea that would be. Mary probably wouldn’t like it if I suddenly had Jenny hanging around.

I hadn’t seen Mina and Mona yet. I couldn’t remember if they said they were coming back this year or not. More than likely, they weren’t coming, which was a shame. At least Tom wasn’t here, the idiot. Jenny’s older brother was the epitome of an asshole. If there was one person I would never want to see again, it was him.

“Sam!” I heard my name called from a voice I knew right away ... Mom. I turned and saw her beautiful form striding towards me. “Where have you been, your dad’s been looking for you?”

“I was just walking around,” I answered shyly, worried I was about to get a talking to for not going straight back to the grill to help.

“Come on, Sam. The food’s done. If we don’t hurry, it will all be gone before we get there,” Mom said and I rolled my eyes. The small smile on her face that told me she knew what I was doing and wasn’t going to chastise me over it.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with food—all kinds of food, more food than any one group, even one as large as the whole side of our camp of people, could reasonably eat. As Mom had said, there were lines already forming at many of the grills, even ours. Not all of it was good, but that didn’t stop everyone from trying all the different options provided. I didn’t try ours. Knowing how it was made, or more importantly, what it was cooked on was bad enough. I couldn’t eat hot dogs anymore after it was explained to me how those were made. Gross!

There was a secret ballot to decide the winner. Everyone wrote down who they thought had the best food on a piece of paper and stuffed it into an old coffee can. When it was all said and done, we didn’t win. Surprise, surprise. We did, however, get second place. I was floored by that. Even worse, it seemed no one else cared that we used the community grill. Hell, most people were actually impressed. I just couldn’t wrap my head around that.

The fireworks weren’t supposed to start until dark, which was about five hours away, so that left plenty of time for the girls and me to hang out in the pool and hot tub. We could even go to the hot spring, but that was quickly dismissed as an option.

With everyone set up around the pool area, it was no shock that the diving boards and hot tub were the popular places for people to hang out. Mary and I thought we could take advantage of the diving boards, but we weren’t the only ones and quickly got tired of waiting in what felt like an endless line of humanity.

When we came to that realization, Sara and Amy had come to the same conclusion about the hot tub and pool. So, we decided as a foursome that we would try the hot spring. Surely it would be a lot less crowded. As it turns out, we were correct.

There were only a handful of people at the springs, and one of them I recognized instantly.

“Are you sure you want to go hang out in the hot spring?” I asked, stopping short of the water. “We could go back to the cabin and have fun there.”

“Sam, what’s the big deal?” Sara asked, giving me a look that screamed she knew something was up but not quite sure what.

I tried to signal her with my eyes to the person who was wading about halfway into the water. Sara though, didn’t take her eyes off me.

“Jenny!” I heard Mary call out and it felt like someone had just poured a bucket of freezing cold water over my head. Mary called out again, waving her arms over her head trying to get Jenny’s attention. “Jenny, over here! Look Sam, it’s Jenny.” The proud smile on Mary’s face as she looked at me seemed to tear my very being in half.