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CHAPTER1
Soul
I am excited to get back to camp this year, to get away for the summer and see him again, Gabriel, or as I call him, Gabe. We met our first year at camp when I was eight, and he was nine, and every year we have met up at camp, and when camp was over, I wished the year away so I could be with him again. We got stuck together for a Bible trivia, and we clicked. From that point on, we were always together. We have a lot in common, especially with us both being pastor’s kids and loving to sing. We would both complain about all the obligations we had to deal with and all the things “regular” kids got to do that we didn’t, like going to birthday parties or just about any school extracurricular activities. But we couldn’t because we had to go to church for church, prepare for church, or have a fundraiser for the church. Gabe had a harder time than I did because his father is one of the few white men in a predominately black church denomination. He was often picked on in school because he had black friends and a little more swag than the average white boy, that is, until he turned about fifteen years old. The foot he grew and the extra weight he gained made everyone who tried to bully or talk trash to him shut right on up.
On the other hand, I was always bony, built like a bed slat, as my sisters called me. They were all built like the black versions of Jessica Rabbit, and I was built like Olive Oil. Not only were my sisters built like walking wet dreams, but even my friends were built better than me. While other people were praying for jobs, cars, cures for diseases, and ending world hunger, I was praying for boobs, hips, and ass. Selfish? Yes, it was, but did I still pray for it? Yes, I did, and nothing happened. One thing I did have was hair, lips, and skin, all of them perfection. But Gabe never treated me like I was ugly, but also didn’t treat me like I was attractive either until he did. At first, we were both young, and it didn’t matter, hell it didn’t even occur to us, but year after year, going back, things began to change. Things that weren’t important before started becoming important, and things that seemed important before no longer mattered. I am not sure at what age it went from friend to more, all I can be sure of is it did, if I had any doubts, the letters that began coming were proof. At least once a week, I got a letter, I would hide it away like a miser so my mom and sisters couldn’t get it and read it, I learned that lesson the hard way. I would wait until it was the middle of the night when I was sure everyone was asleep, and I would carefully open the envelope not wanting to rip it, he would write little notes all over the inside, and I wanted to read them all storing them away like a squirrel hides its nuts in preparation for winter. I would rush to the mailbox every day in hopes that the mailbox held one of his letters safely until I would come to retrieve it.
“Soul!” My mom yells for me from downstairs, we are running late getting on the road to camp. This is my first year being there without any of my sisters. They have aged out, Serenity went an extra year as a counselor, but she refused to go this year, and she made sure to get a job so that our parents would not try to force her to go. At nineteen, she was technically an adult, but to our parents, she was still “their child” and, therefore, subject to their rules. She got hired as a Community Development Assistant and literally stumbled upon a good job where she made good money and had great benefits. Her job is paying for her to go to college even though she was adamant college was not for her, but she’ll be starting part-time in the spring. All she needs is an associate degree and she can be promoted to Community Development Manager after working three years, just about the time she will need to get her degree. Our parents put her on the 50/30/20 savings plan which meant fifty percent goes to needs, thirty percent goes to wants, and twenty percent goes towards savings. She is required to pay rent, and one bill, the smallest bill in the house, and pay her own car insurance other than that, her money is hers. Since our other two sisters have gone to college, gotten married, and are on their own, she and I both have our own rooms. Our parents had the rooms remodeled after Sevyn got married and turned the small seven-bedroom house into a four-bedroom house with an office by knocking down the walls between the rooms and making two bedrooms into one. My room was so large I had a full-size sofa, desk with chair, and TV along with my full-size bedroom set with room left over, and my room was still the smallest.
“Coming, Mom!” I yell back as I zip my backpack up after making sure it has my notebooks in it, sling it across my shoulder, grab my suitcase, and rush out of my room taking the stairs down, skipping every other step.
“My goodness, you would think you were moving to camp the time it took for you to pack,” my mother says as my dad comes in from the back door, grabbing my suitcase to put in the trunk.
“Sorry, Momma. I just want to make sure I have everything I need. I’ll be too far away from home if I forget something,” I explain, looking at my mother, who looks like she is ready to go out to a fancy dinner with her beautiful gold, teal, and brown dress, high heels, jewelry, and a full face of make-up and all she is doing is driving me to camp. I asked her one time why she is always dressed up, and she replied,I can remember when I was homeless, sleeping on the street in church doorways and wearing the same clothes day in and day out. I would pray to God to get me off of the streets and out of this situation, those nights, while I was huddled in the corner, cold and trying to make myself as small as possible so I could go unnoticed I promised myself I would always dress my best. I would not take anything for granted anymore.After that explanation, I never questioned her again.
“That is true, but all you have to do is call me, and I will have your father drive me up there to bring you anything that you need,” she says, pulling me into her arms, her perfume making its way in my nose and filling me with comfort only she can give. She is beautiful, and my sisters are built just like her, I can see why my father pursued her for a year before she would consent to a date. One year after that, they were married, and nine months later, Shiloh was born.
“I wouldn’t ask you and Daddy to do that Ma, that’s why I took a bit longer to make sure I have everything I needed.”
“Are you ladies ready to go? Or are you going to stand there hugging all day?” my dad says from the doorway. As much as my mom gave my dad a hard time, he is a handsome man, tall, and with a nice light brown complexion, a gift from his Native American and White father and Black mother, and a naturally muscled build that only working on a farm can provide.
“We’re ready, Meechie,” my mom says, calling my dad the nickname only she can use, Meechie, short for Demetrius.
“Yeah, we’re ready, Daddy,” I say, trying not to rush out of the house.
“Well, let's go then,” he says, and we make our way to the car. Dad is driving, Mom is in the passenger seat, and I have the entire back seat to myself. I have a pillow and blanket, so I make the backseat up the way I like it, grab my MP3 player, put the headphones on, lay down, and fall asleep before we can get to the corner. It is a two to three-hour drive, depending on traffic, and I plan to sleep the whole way there if I can help it. When I wake up again, I will be at Little Shepard’s Camp and with him.
CHAPTER2
Gabe
“Hurry up, Gabriel,” my dad calls for me. “You need to be there early, you have been going to this camp since you were old enough to go, so they can help prepare you to be a leader in the church and take up the mantel when I retire, or God forbid something happens to me,” he says, and I refrain from rolling my eyes because I have been hearing this same speech for as long as I can remember. I am an only child, and it has been drummed in my mind since I was old enough to read the scripture, that my path lead to the pulpit. The only problem with that is no one asked me. No one asked what I wanted or if I had dreams of my own. My father is a pastor, his father was a pastor, and his father was a pastor, and so on, so I guess no one even considered that I would be anything other than a pastor. Well, someone should have considered it.
“I’m ready, Dad, my bags are already in the car,” I tell him with my voice as deep as his, and thanks to the growth spurt I am a few inches taller than his own six-foot height.
“Well, where is your mother?” he says, irritated that I didn’t give him a reason to fuss at me.
“I am right here,” my mom, Jenny, says, walking into the living room. “You do this every year. It is less than an hour drive, and we are three hours early. We are going to be sitting in the car waiting again.
“First Samuel, twenty-nine chapter and the tenth verse says, Now then rise early in the morning with the servants of your lord who came with you, and start early in the morning, and depart as soon as you have light,” he says and this time I do roll my eyes because my dad has a scripture for everything.
“That scripture was God talking to David, not telling you to get us to camp hours before it is time,” my mom says, shaking her head. Just like my father, my mother comes from a long line of church-family involvement. Her mother was a first lady, her aunts were all married to deacons, ministers, or elders, and her grandmother was a bishop's wife. It was Jenny who pulled my father from Baptist to WCR or Worldwide Church of the Redeemer, one of the biggest Christian Pentecostal churches in the world. Her grandmother Mary Emma wanted to know what all that singing and stuff that was going on when her friend Pearl would go to church. Pearl was a Black woman who worked as a maid, and during a time when White people and Black people weren’t typically open friends, but no one messed with her because no one wanted to mess with her father, Mack. At six-foot-five and over two hundred pounds, he was an intimidating man, but he was also crazy as hell and just as soon shoot you as talk to you. So one Sunday, Mary Emma went to church with Pearl, and the rest, as they say, is history.
“Just come on, maybe we’ll stop and get some food,” he said, irritated, he’s always that way when my mom shows her considerable knowledge of the Bible when he tries to use scripture against her. We load up in the car and head to camp, honestly, the only reason I am going is so that I can see her. I have missed her, missed being able to talk to her. I enjoy getting her letters, but nothing beats hearing her voice or watching her face light up when we talk. If it wasn’t for that, I would be working somewhere and making some money. So yeah, I took a page from my father and was ready extra early because I was anxious to be with her. I have been packed since last night but I wouldn’t dare tell him that. I put my headphones on to tune out the gospel music my parents are playing and settle in for the ride.
I throw my bag on the bed in my room, as a camp counselor, I get my own accommodations, it’s one of the best perks of becoming a counselor. It is a mini cabin that boils down to an open room with a bed in one corner, a small sofa, a kitchenette, and a bathroom, but it’s all mine. Soul is a counselor this year, too but her cabin will be on the other side of the lake with the girls, but it will still make it easier to meet her by the lake at night. We have been meeting by the lake since we became friends, almost getting caught several times. I unpack my bags, hang them in the closet and put the rest in the dresser. My mom made sure to stop by the grocery store seeing as we were extra early, so after I finished with my clothes I moved to put up the food. After all of that is done, I make up my bed, grab my towel, soap, shampoo and conditioner, and my washcloth, and go to take a shower. It is hot up here, and it was even hotter in the car since my father refused to turn on the air conditioning, saying it burns gas faster. I was sweating buckets in the backseat. I smile when I place the washcloth on top of my body wash bottle. Soul lost it when I confessed to not using a washcloth, only my hand when I wash. “That’s disgusting, Gabe! How are you exfoliating without at least a washcloth?”The next time we met at the lake, she brought a brand new washcloth telling me, “You better use it!”I promised I would, and I don’t lie or break my promises to her, so I did, and I haven’t gone back since. It takes forever for the water to get warm, and I am almost done washing by the time it gets lukewarm. I hop out, wrapping the towel around me, I jam my feet in my slides, and pad to my bed, where another smile creeps across my face when I grab the lotion bottle and begin slathering it all over my body. She has influenced my life so much, and in so many ways, and even if we never saw each other again, I would never forget her. I throw on this ugly camp uniform, grab my cabin keys, and head out to roast in the heat as we wait for everyone to show up. The sun immediately tries to fry my face off as soon as I take a step outside, but I don’t even feel it because there she is, my Soul.
Soul
Oh my goodness! My knees almost give out when he walks up to the welcome area, and he looks a million times better than he does in the pictures he’s sent me. At least six-foot-four inches tall, he’s let his hair grow, and my fingers itch to run my fingers through the riot of curls. He looks like a grown man and not a young man that is less than six months shy of eighteen. And then his eyes swing and level on me and I fight not to stumble over my feet and make a fool out of myself. The smile splits his face, and his eyes twinkle with happiness when he looks at me. The blush starts at the sole of my feet and rushes up my body until the tips of my ears feel like they are burning. I avert my eyes so I can function like a normal human being, but I notice that I am not the only person who has noticed his looks, and then I begin to worry that he will be swayed to one of the other female counselors who is more his speed. Someone like a White, blond-haired counselor who looked like Pam Anderson instead of a skinny Black one who still is built like a board despite her many prayers for God to fill her out. When I look back at him, I notice him frowning at me, but neither of us has a chance to contemplate why when the first car turns into the drop-off circle and the next few hours fly by. We are tasked to help the kids find their sleeping quarters, get them settled, give them a map and tour of the grounds, and lead them to the fellowship hall for dinner. Pastor Sullivan gives his customary speech, the same exact speech he gives every single year, I literally said every word in my head as he said it out loud. By the time we are done eating, it is time for bed, but not for me. For me, it’s time to finally go see Gabe at our spot by the lake. I shower, change clothes, spray on my Off, even on my clothes, pull my hair up in a ponytail, and sneak out of my cabin, being extra careful to not get caught or followed. It is pure muscle memory as I make my way to our spot, my mind on seeing him and not on where I am going.
“Finally,” his baritone slices through the stillness of the night.
“Gabe,” I breathe out suddenly, shy and unsure, that is, until he cuts the distance between us in two long steps and engulfs me in a hug. The butterflies that had begun to take flight in my stomach immediately disappear, and I melt into him, feeling safe in his arms.
“I missed you,” he says, reaching up, popping my rubber band, releasing my long locks, and digging his hands in it as he somehow impossibly pulls me even closer into him.
“I missed you, too,” I say, my hands finding their way up under his shirt and caressing his bare back.Oh God, I am in trouble.
