Read Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet (9781940192567) for Free Online Page B

the two thousand eight hundred and forty-four miles I’d just traveled. The air was cool and damp—nothing like Maryland air. Even the trees looked different here. The classroom buildings were mission-style, old, and very impressive, if you were into that kind of thing, which I wasn’t. The campus was quiet and a thick fog rolled around like a special effect. MontClaire Hall rose in front of me, a white building about three stories high. There were four long rows of windows, many of which were open, so that old curtains sailed out. Directly behind me a fountain gurgled. It was a busty mermaid with a stream of water curving from her tail and pooling along the blue-tiled bottom.
    â€œHave fun,” Jackie said through her clenched teeth.
    â€œA blast,” I offered and tried to smile.
    When she patted me on the head and said, “Just call me if it’s unbearable,” I had the sudden urge to bite her hand. Her eyes narrowed. “But I know you’ll love it here. Right?”
    Right.
    This chilly morning my sister wore a white-pocket T-shirt and khaki shorts, both of which she’d pressed on the travel ironing board she’d brought along for that purpose. Goosebumps trailed her arms and legs. Obviously she was prepared for the California with peach flamingos and year-round surfing, not this foggy and cold imposter.
    â€œIt’ll get better,” she said, looking down at her clogs. I didn’t know if she meant fat camp would improve or life generally. Perhaps she was suggesting she would get better. Either way, I knew now would be the moment for apologizing.
    â€œAbout that stuff I wrote,” I started, but Jackie held her hand up.
    â€œYou were right about some of it,” she said. “About Mom, for one.” She lowered her voice. “And Doug.” She looked back at the minivan, where Doug sat, then returned her eyes to me. “He does bring me down.”
    I smiled too soon, mistaking this attempt at conversation as forgiveness. “But it’s not your job to point that out.”
    I should have continued with I hadn’t meant for you to see those papers. The commercial insisted I write down everyone’s secrets and forgive them. I’m sorry for spilling yours, Jackie. Though the words were balanced on the tip of my tongue, my mouth would not open. Something coiled around our feet as insistently as that fog. Something that I might call hatred, but won’t. Whatever it was had changed things between us. I never felt further from my sister than I did at that moment standing on the threshold of fat camp.
    â€œSee you in eight weeks,” she said.
    I watched her drive off into a vaporous cloud. Neither of them waved goodbye. Hell, neither of them turned around. Before she peeled out of the university’s gate, Jackie tapped the horn twice, which instigated an eerie echo that to my ears said, WEEP! WEEP!

10
    WHAT BLOWS IN UTOPIA
    I SAT OUTSIDE and listened to the mermaid fountain drip water behind me and watched a family of ducks fluff up their feathers. Beyond the quad, golden-yellow hills humped like mounds of Country Crock. Paths wound around everything, neat and orderly. A few geniuses walked on them, heads down, backpacks clunky with books, sandaled feet aimed forward. Even the quivering birds in the trees seemed to sing out ACT scores. Well, well, well, I thought. So this is college .
    Sitting on the edge of that fountain, the curled edges of fog starting to burn, I sipped the mocha with extra whipped cream I’d just purchased from a coffee shack. I must’ve looked like a freshman because the first person to speak to me needed directions.
    â€œExcuse me, but I’m looking for Utopia,” a guy screamed over his truck’s engine that rattled like emphysema. “Ever heard of it? Utopia?” His rusted-out hoopty had the inconspicuous conspicuousness of a vehicle smuggling drugs, fruit, or immigrants into the country.