That’s right, I went to band camp. I was one of those losers who could only find popularity and love tucked away in the woods of Maine, far from the jocks of my small, New Jersey suburb who couldn’t understand the difference between piano (the instrument) and piano (the dynamic). I arrived on the first day, twelve-years-old, 400 miles away from home, and vomiting. The night before, my parents and I stayed at the home of some family friends in Connecticut, where I had spent the entire evening upright in bed, wide awake and wheezing. This was pretty common — whenever I had a sleep-over, or got excited for an event, my asthma kicked in (which I didn’t realize, since I would not be diagnosed until years later). So instead of an inhaler, I took an antibiotic for bronchitis, and it wound up making me sick the entire five hour ride to camp.
While every other camper unpacked in their respective cabins, I moved into the infirmary. The place smelled of rubbing alcohol, and the sheets were stiff, but it was one of the few buildings that had air conditioning. I got a pretty good view from my bed of all the kids, since they were required to check-in with the nurse upon arrival. I soon discovered I was among the youngest (the majority of them were between the ages of fourteen and seventeen), and therefore, one of the most undeveloped physically. In my hometown, I was already the skinniest and most flat-chested girl in my grade. I immediately wanted to go home. My parents, who stayed in a nearby motel while I recovered, denied my request, even after I gave them a “You’re the best parents in the world” speech (which would come back to haunt me years later, contradicting my “You’re the worst parents in the world” one).
I made a full recovery by the third day of camp so I was checked out of the infirmary, and my parents began their nine hour drive home. Already I had missed out on many of the rules, the explanation of schedules, the cabin bonding, and the cute boys. I headed over to the evening’s activity — a campfire with my cabin’s male counterpart. We learned how to start a fire in the stone pit using bark from some nearby birch trees, and our counselors grilled us dinner — hamburgers and hot dogs. As we fell in line with our paper plates and plastic utensils, I noticed there was one boy who stayed seated. This was Stan.*
Stan had blond hair and large green eyes. He was small, as most prepubescent boys are, with skinny legs shoved into brown leather Birkenstocks, the ugliest sandals I’d ever seen. He wore a “Pink Floyd — The Wall” T-shirt with khaki shorts and sat on a tree stump next to the fire. From the view I had of him on the food line, I would never have guessed that I would spend the next three years of my life completely obsessed with this boy.
Stan was a vegetarian, so he made a meal out of some potato chips and the s’mores provided as desert. While we gathered around the campfire, figuring out how to melt chocolate and marshmallows without looking uncouth, a guitar strummed and the musical portion of the evening started. Obviously, at band camp, music is always on the itinerary. Sheet music was passed around, songs I knew from long car trips with my parents — Simon and Garfunkel; The Beatles; Peter, Paul, and Mary. As fate would have it, I found myself sharing my sheet music (and tree stump) with Stan.
You can find out a lot about a person by singing next to them. I’d been singing professionally since I was five-years-old, but for some reason, I was always shy about “singing well” in front of strangers. I didn’t want them to think I was a show-off, or that I was trying to overpower the group with my expertise in diaphragm control. But this was band camp — the decorum was totally different. Stan’s voice hadn’t fully matured, so we sang in the same octave. I could tell that he was confident — he wasn’t always on key, but he was loud anyway. I also learned he had no regard for authority — he replaced some lyrics with his own clever ones (mostly curses), which I found both shocking and thrilling. As I held the music for “Puff the Magic Dragon” out in front of us, I became well aware of our harmonizing voices — our true souls communicating with one another through our vocal cords. And our knees were touching, too.
The campfire ended. Our counselors rounded us up for the five-minute walk back to our cabin. After Stan and I had said our goodnights, my girl friends whisked me away. “Do you like Stan?” one of them asked, to which I replied “Ewww!” This was my clever way of throwing suspicious people off track whenever the subject of a possible crush came up — I feigned utter disgust.
“Too bad,” another one said, “because he told me he thinks you’re pretty.”
The words were earth-shattering to me. Life-changing. Nobody (aside from my parents) had ever commented that I was pretty, or beautiful, or cute — I would’ve settled for cute. Nobody back home thought of me that way, and whenever I assured myself that I was just being paranoid — that at least one boy must secretly find me attractive — my older brother would confirm my insecurities by telling me that I was, indeed, ugly.
With those words, Stan was bumped up from one of a dozen boys I’d had harmless crushes on to a full-fledged infatuation. Not that I knew what to do with my new-found feelings. The only experience I’d had with relationships consisted of a vehement denial of any attraction. So whenever I saw Stan, I’d ignore him. Whenever I found myself in a group with him, I would flirt outrageously with the nearest non-intimidating male figure (usually a counselor). On the night of the “Ice Cream Extravaganza” event (Neapolitan ice cream served outdoors on a field) I found myself sitting in a small circle next to Stan, shoving chocolate ice cream down my throat to avoid conversation.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Stan’s talking to me. “What?”
“That.” He pointed at my shorts.
There, near the crotch of my white-and-teal-striped cutoffs, was a small, brown stain.
“Chocolate.” It was meant to sound nonchalant, but the words came out like Duh, you stupid idiot. What’d you think it was? instead.
My heart was pounding. Both Stan and I knew this was not the work of some ice cream gone overboard. What the hell could it be? Oh my God, I thought, did I shit in my pants and not even know it? I excused myself immediately and ran to the nearest bathroom.
It took me a second to figure out what had happened. I’d read “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” enough times to concoct numerous fantasies of what my momentous experience would be like. In all those times, not once did it involve boys or ice cream. I had also been expecting it to start a few years later — my mother didn’t get hers until she was fifteen, and since I was already a late bloomer, I assumed my body was in no hurry to begin the ovulation process.
I made my way through the now-dark woods to my first camp home, the infirmary. The nurse (my best friend) congratulated me, then armed me with a supply of sanitary pads. That evening, I lay in my top bunk, thinking, “I am a woman now.” I woke up the next morning, thinking, “I am a woman now.” I took a piano lesson, thinking, “I am a woman now.” The strength of these thoughts was overwhelming, empowering. I am a woman now! I am not the same girl who arrived at this camp, puking and undeveloped! I can do anything! I decided I was going to ask Stan to be my date for the banquet.
The banquet was a big, end-of-the-summer formal dinner and dance. I’d heard Stan was thinking of asking me a week ago. A week ago (when I wasn’t a woman) I had laughed in the face of his friend who informed me of this. Now I knew I couldn’t deal with my emotions this way. I had to be mature, and let him know what was really going on inside of me. But I was too late — it turned out he already had a date — my cabin-mate, Esther.* Luckily, I found out before I could even ask, so I was spared the humiliation of having my heart shatter into a million pieces before his eyes. I wound up going to the banquet with another boy in his cabin, but just “as friends.” Later that evening, watching Stan and Esther slow dance to Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” I vowed that I would never make the same mistake again. I was not going to hide my true feelings from him.
If Stan didn’t know I was crazy about him that summer, he sure knew it that school year, and the two years that followed. I called him (long distance) so much that my parents banned me from the house phone. They claimed that I was being distracted, headed for trouble — this boy was dangerous. But nothing could stop me — I spent my afternoons pumping quarters (saved-up milk money) into the school pay phone to get my fix. I gave up meat. I painted my room pink. (Yes, for “Pink Floyd.”) I took up the guitar (Stan’s instrument). I wrote letter after letter, professing my love.
Yes, love. At the time, I truly thought this was it — true love. Stan had introduced me to a new world — of music, tie-dyed shirts, and Birkenstocks (which I now recognized as function over fashion). None of the boys in my school were like him — they listened to “Milli Vanilli” and “Fine Young Cannibals.” They wore “Co-Ed Naked” T-shirts and hi-top Reeboks. I felt like I had found my true self — a (poseur) hippie — and Stan was the only one I could make sense with. Unfortunately, he didn’t respond to my actions the way I would’ve liked him to. When he told me he didn’t have the money to return my phone calls, I mailed him a twenty dollar bill, tucked into a leftover Valentine’s Day card. When I didn’t hear from him for over two months, his family told me he was in rehab. Whether or not this was true is still a mystery — he was quite the substance abuser, or so he claimed. But, looking back, the boy was only twelve — two months of rehab? Suspicious.
We did end up hooking up. Two summers later, we made out in the hallway of the camp amphitheater between orchestra and chorus practice. Later that evening, I sat on his lap on the ledge of the dining hall porch — for the whole camp to see. Someone snapped a picture — I looked horrible, my face in mid-sneeze — but it was my only proof that we had been romantically involved. I kept that photo by my bed, as a reminder that he once liked me back. We kissed one more time — for the last time — the next spring, when I visited a camp friend who lived near him. After a long day of watching him smoke pot and play Phish covers with his friends, we went to his house and fooled around. I wrote all the dirty details in my diary, which my mother later found, and read. When Stan called me a few weeks later, she intercepted and proceeded to tell him what a bad boy he was for taking advantage of her daughter. I never heard from him again.
That summer, my parents refused to let me return to camp — they were not going to aid and abet my obsession. Stan, however, did go back, and, found a new girlfriend. It was then that I too, finally decided to move on. When I look back, it feels like I had gotten over him overnight. But how could that be — how could someone who occupied my thoughts and dreams every second of every day for three years slip away so quickly, and effortlessly? I returned to the camp for two more summers, years later — as a counselor — replacing all my confused, painful memories of heartbreak with new, positive ones. I even helped my campers with their own little Stans.
I still love Pink Floyd. And I married a vegetarian.
*Names have been changed.
