III

When Lost

Tracy

1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975

She was afraid to use the word, to even think it, but sometimes Tracy felt like she was falling in love with Barbara Van Laar.

She was fascinated by the details of Barbara’s face and body, her eyes—long-lashed and perennially sleepy—and the shape of her strong legs, and the nails she bit down to nothing, and the very light hair of her forearms and thighs, which looked like spun gold in the sunlight, and which emphasized the artificial black of her hair. If she caught Tracy staring—which she must have—she said nothing, only smiled vaguely in her direction, as if accustomed to being the recipient of such gazes.

More important: Barbara was the first friend she’d ever had who seemed to like Tracy as much as Tracy liked her. She told Tracy she was funny, for one thing: she laughed loudly and often at things that Tracy said, drawing interested gazes from those around them. She told Tracy she was smart. She harbored a disdain for the mainstream without disdaining the people who partook in it. Indeed, she was the least judgmental person Tracy had ever met.

Barbara’s position at Camp Emerson was an interesting one: she had the glamour of an outsider, that summer being her first at camp, and yet she was also an insider in ways the rest of them could never be. She had frequented the grounds in the off-season; she had seen into closets and back rooms and kitchens that were off-limits to other campers.

Most intriguingly, she was apparently quite close with T.J. Hewitt, the camp director, who was essentially a mystery to every other camper on-site. Yes, she led them all in outdoorsmanship lessons; but even then she was serious and standoffish. The only things Tracy knew about her personal life centered on her history on the grounds. She was the daughter of the former longtime director of the camp, Vic Hewitt, a legend whose likeness hung in a place of prominence in the commissary. Said to be ill in some way. Other than this fact, they knew nothing at all about T.J.; the counselors revered her, never gossiped about her. She seemed more like a mascot than a living person: someone to be greatly respected, but never spoken to directly.

The first time, therefore, that Tracy passed T.J. while walking with Barbara, she was surprised to hear her new friend call out the director’s name brightly.

“What’s happening?” Barbara said.

Unlike everyone else on the premises, T.J. did not wear a uniform. Instead she wore cutoffs—corduroy or jean—and a T-shirt or a plaid flannel, and high socks, and brown Danner hiking boots laced tightly to the top. On her head was a hairstyle so laughably askew that on anyone else it would have been ridiculed. But on T.J., the cut seemed simply to indicate a lack of concern for earthly matters. It functioned, like a monk’s tonsure, to separate her from the laypeople at the camp.

She’d been kneeling before one of the small bridges that spanned the creek separating the boys’ cabins from the girls’. She was hammering a row of nails with frightening speed. Now she looked up and frowned.

“Where’re you supposed to be?” she said.

“Can’t remember!” said Barbara. Teasing. She turned to Tracy. “Can you, Tracy?”

“Lunch,” Tracy said quickly. “We’re walking to lunch right now.”

“Ah, that’s right. Sorry, T.J., I’m new here.” Barbara grinned. T.J. didn’t. But it was clear she was fighting a smile.

“Get out of my hair,” she said, and, raising her hammer in the air again, turned back to her work.

They continued on their way. At a certain point Barbara noticed Tracy’s expression: wide-eyed, waiting for an explanation.

“What?” she said.

Tracy glanced back over her shoulder.

“Oh, T.J.?” said Barbara. “She’s harmless. I don’t know why everyone’s so intimidated by her.”

“What does she do the rest of the year?” asked Tracy.

“Takes care of her dad. Takes care of the grounds. Comes to stay with me in Albany when my parents have to go someplace.”

Tracy looked at her. “She—babysits you?” She couldn’t imagine it. The long silences, she thought, would be unbearable.

Barbara laughed. “I wouldn’t call it that. She just stays with me, makes sure I stay out of trouble. The Hewitts are like family.”

Tracy shrugged. “If you say so,” she said.

•   •   •

When Tracy was not with Barbara, she was making attempts to learn about her. For one thing, she was becoming increasingly curious about her history. If her bunkmates knew the full story of Barbara’s brother’s disappearance, the arrival of Barbara herself had precipitated a sort of respectful silence on the matter.

Only once was Tracy privy to anything of substance.

Halfway through the summer, she was walking back from the washroom on a break when she came across Lowell Cargill, the other object of her affection, seated at a picnic table. His face was obscured by a newspaper.

Above the fold, the date: July 13, 1975. Below the date, a man’s face gazed toward the viewer: bespectacled, balding, unsmiling. This, she ascertained from the caption, was Jacob Sluiter—known to the campers as Slitter. She had heard whispers in the dark about him, knew there to be some rumored connection between Slitter and Bear Van Laar; but the details to that point had eluded Tracy.

As nonchalantly as possible, she sat at a different table, facing the paper. She squinted in the article’s direction, attempting to make out details. In moments like these, she regretted not wearing her glasses. SIGHTING REPORTED, said the headline. And beneath it, large words like dangerous and armed.

“Nervous?”

Tracy flinched.

Lowell Cargill was regarding her over the top of the paper in his hands.

“Says here he might be making his way northward, toward his old hunting grounds,” said Lowell, casually.

He folded the paper. Crossed one leg over the other, ankle to knee.

Then, seeing Tracy’s face, he added: “Don’t be scared. He was all the way down at Fishkill when he got out. If he’s walking, he wouldn’t be in this area yet. And I bet they find him before he gets here.”

He paused.

“Unless he hitchhiked,” he added, uncertainly. “But who would pick him up?”

“Where did you get that paper?” Tracy asked.

“From the canteen,” said Lowell. “They sell papers there every day. Most people just don’t want ’em.”

I do, thought Tracy. At home, she liked reading the daily paper with her mother. And she saw it as further evidence of her compatibility with Lowell Cargill that he, too, read the newspaper: a quality she considered unusual in a boy his age.

Abruptly, Lowell stood up and stretched his arms into the air, revealing a slice of midriff that thrilled her.

“You can have this if you want,” said Lowell. “I’m done with it.”

She took it into her hands—knowing without a doubt that she would keep it in her trunk for the rest of the session, a sort of holy relic, sanctified by Lowell Cargill’s touch.

The PA system crackled to life then, announcing the end of free hour, and Lowell turned away.

Then, as if remembering something, he turned. “Hey,” he said. “Barbara said you’re a good singer. Do you want to sing with me sometime?”

Tracy felt all the blood in her body leave her head.