He leaves. His wife follows.
Judy sits for a moment, alone in the large kitchen. It looks as if a party took place the night before. Containers of food are open on the counter, things that should have been refrigerated. Cold salads, chocolaty desserts.
Judy looks down at her notepad. She crosses out the word tense.
Demeanor: hostile, she writes.
A stack of flatware in the sink, precariously arranged, shifts suddenly, and the noise bounces sharply off the walls.
Judy doesn’t flinch. The noise of kitchens generally comforts her.
She’s thinking about Mr. Van Laar’s disproportionate reaction to her mention of his grandson. The hate in his eyes, the flash of his yellowing teeth. She’d seen that same expression on someone else.
Now it returns to her: Mrs. Charles Hanover, she thinks. At a Christmas party at the golf club several years ago, she had rounded a quiet corner to find Mrs. Hanover methodically going through the pockets of furs in the coatroom. Now and then she produced something, examined it, and put it into her own purse. Judy watched, stunned, until Mrs. Hanover turned and caught her eye. Then she smiled, found her own coat, put it on, and walked out.
Judy had rushed to the kitchen to find Chick Janowicz, the GM, who raked his hands over his cheeks and stood looking at the floor for a few beats. Then he nodded, departed, resigned to his fate.
From the kitchen, Judy had heard the howls of indignation all the way down the hall. Then the swinging door flew open and there were the Hanovers, the wife in the lead, an angry finger pointing in Judy’s direction, the expression on her face exactly the same as Mr. Van Laar’s had been at the mention of his grandson.
“You have no idea what the hell you saw,” Mrs. Hanover was saying to Judy. “You little—”
“Paulette,” her husband said warningly.
Mr. Janowicz had to threaten to call the police before Mrs. Hanover finally turned out the contents of her purse. Inside it were five wallets and two cigarette cases. Though the Hanovers were banished from the club, Paulette Hanover was never reported to the law.
Rich people, thought Judy—she thought this then, and she thinks it now—generally become most enraged when they sense they’re about to be held accountable for their wrongs.
Tracy
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975: Day One
She learns, that day, the answer to the question she has had since the start of camp.
What are they actually supposed to yell when lost? Their instructions stopped short of the answer.
As it turns out, Tracy yells: I’M LOST.
She yells this continuously, in a kind of hysterical chant; and then, remembering that she is supposed to conserve her voice, she pauses for longer intervals.
At first, shouting this ridiculous phrase, she seethes with self-loathing and embarrassment, certain that she’s only a stone’s throw from the edge of the woods, certain that some ten-year-old camper will at any moment come wandering over in his uniform, looking scornful, pointing in the direction of the camp. Still, she continues to shout it, resigned to her fate. Better to get it over with, she thinks.
• • •
She’s been thirsty for a while. Now she’s growing hungry. This alone convinces her that perhaps too much time has passed. And is the light around her growing dimmer? Impossible, she thinks. It was early morning when she struck out. But in the woods, time seems to move strangely. She’s entered a different reality from the one she knew.
“I’m lost,” Tracy yells, again and again.
The world around her is blurry and green. She curses herself for her vanity, for being too proud to wear the glasses she was prescribed this year.
This is no longer an adventure. Real fear has settled in, finally, and she screams without words. Now, she does not say “I’m lost” or “Help”; instead she simply hollers, guttural primal howls that are punctuated, every so often, with “Mom, Dad”—a surprise to her. Tracy thinks of herself as independent, even at her age. But here she is, thirsty, hungry, crying, screaming for her parents, who don’t even speak to one another anymore.
• • •
After a while of carrying on like this, Tracy freezes in the middle of a howl to listen with her whole body. She holds her breath. Hears what sounds like footsteps.
She waits for a bit.
“Hello?” she says.
For a moment, nothing; and then she hears the noise again.
“Hello?”
Tracy stands up from her spot on the ground. She turns slowly. Notices, at last, a face peering back at her from behind a tree.
Then someone steps into view.
Louise
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975: Day One
Behind the stage in the Great Hall are three makeshift dressing rooms, a wardrobe, and a doorway to the outside. For the time being, the state troopers who arrived first on the scene have made the whole hall their command post, with the backstage area apparently serving as interrogation rooms.
Inside the first dressing room—the smallest—Louise sits alone in a vinyl chair.
• • •
One hour ago, her CIT—having abruptly noticed the absence of yet another camper of theirs—tore wild-eyed through the grounds of the camp, hollering for Louise, finding her on her walk back to the Director’s Cabin from Staff Quarters.
