“Fine,” Marc says with another sigh. “Plan your camping trip. Try to get some answers. Come back ready to paint.”

As we say our good-nights, I get a glimpse of my first painting of the girls. No. 1, offering its scant views of Vivian, Natalie, and Allison. I approach it, looking for flashes of hair, bits of dress.

Even though a branch covers their eyes, I know they’re staring back at me. It’s as if they’ve understood all along that I’d one day return to Camp Nightingale. Only I can’t tell if they’re urging me to go or begging me to stay away.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

“Wake up, sunshine.”

It was just past eight when my mother crept into my bedroom, her eyes already glazed from her morning Bloody Mary. Her lips were curled into the same smile she always wore when she was about to do something momentous. I called it her Mother of the Year smile. Seeing it never failed to make me nervous, mostly because there was usually a gaping chasm between her intentions and the end result. On that morning, I tightened into a ball beneath the covers, bracing myself for hours of forced mother-daughter bonding.

“You all ready to go?” she said.

“Go where?”

My mother stared at me, her hand fumbling with the collar of her chiffon robe. “Camp, of course.”

“What camp?”

“Summer camp,” my mother said, stressing the first word, letting me know that wherever I was headed, it was going to be for more than just a day or two.

I sat up, flinging aside the covers. “You never told me about any camp.”

“I did, Emma. I told you weeks ago. It’s the same place me and your aunt Julie went. Jesus, don’t tell me you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget.”

Being told I was going to be ripped away from my friends for the entire summer was something I would have remembered. It was more likely my mother had only thought about telling me. In her world, thinking about something was close enough to doing it. Yet knowing that didn’t lessen the feeling of being ambushed. It reminded me of those extreme interventions in which parents hired rehab centers to abduct their junkie children.

“Then I’m telling you now,” my mother said. “Where’s your suitcase? We need to be on the road in an hour.”

“An hour?” My stomach clenched as I thought of all my summer plans being snatched away from me. No lazing around with Heather and Marissa. No secret, unchaperoned train ride to Coney Island like we had planned in study hall. No flirting with Nolan Cunningham from next door, who wasn’t quite as cute as Justin Timberlake but still had the same swaggering confidence. Plus, he was finally starting to notice me, now that my braces had come off. “Where are we going?”

“Camp Nightingale.”

Camp Rich Bitch. Talk about a surprise on top of a surprise.

That changed things.

For two years I had begged my parents to send me, only to be told no. Now, after having given up hope, I was suddenly going. In an hour. That totally explained the Mother of the Year smile. For once, it was justified.

Still, I refused to show my mother how pleased I was. Doing that would have only encouraged her, subjecting me to more attempts at making up for lost time. High tea at the Plaza. A shopping spree at Saks. Anything to make her feel better about having zero interest in me for the first twelve years of my life.

“I’m not going,” I announced as I laid back down and pulled the covers over my head.

My mother ignored me as she started to root through my closet, her voice muffled. “You’ll love it there. It’ll be a summer you’ll remember for the rest of your life.”

Under the covers, an anticipatory shiver ran through me. Camp Nightingale. Six weeks of swimming and reading and hiking. Six weeks away from this stuffy apartment and my mother’s disinterest and my father’s eye rolls when she poured herself a third glass of Chardonnay. Heather and Marissa were going to be so jealous. After pretending to be pissed at me for abandoning them the whole summer, of course.

“Whatever,” I say, following it up with an indignant huff. “I’ll go, even though I don’t want to.”

It was a lie.

My first in a summer filled with them.

4

The drive to Camp Nightingale takes up most of the afternoon. Almost five hours when counting in rest stops. Most of it a straight shot north along truck-clogged I-87.

The length of the trip is something I’d forgotten from my first visit, when I had spent the drive huddled in the back seat while my parents blamed each other for not telling me I was going to camp. This time, I’m once again in the back, although the driver of the private town car Franny hired for me hardly says a word. But my nervousness is the same. That butterfly-trapped-in-the-chest feeling. Back then, it was because I didn’t quite know what the camp would be like.

Now I know exactly where I’m going.

And who I’ll see while I’m there.

In the months leading to my departure, I didn’t have time to be nervous. I was too consumed with applying for a temporary leave of absence from the ad agency and finding someone to sublet the loft while I’m gone. The leave was approved, and I eventually found an artist acquaintance to stay in the loft. She paints trippy starscapes with wax melted in scalding-hot aluminum pots. I’ve seen her at work, each colorful pot bubbling like a witch’s cauldron. I hope she doesn’t burn the place down.