Four Weeks Five People Read online

  Let’s just say that I cannot relate.

  * * *

  Josh, who apparently has materialized straight out of a Coen Brothers film, continues to grin encouragingly at us.

  BEN (V.O.)

  The thing is, there are days when I would think that every single stupid joke that Josh is making right now is absolutely hilarious. Days when I’m the kind of person who thinks that every single thing period is hilarious. And I wish that today could be one of those days, if only to make this situation a little less unbearably awkward. But it’s not one of those days, and I’m not that kind of guy right now, so I guess all I have to be thankful for in this moment is that it’s not one of those other days—when it feels like the world is collapsing in on my chest no matter what I do or where I go, when no joke would get me to laugh no matter how funny it was.

  JOSH

  No? No? All right, I got one more for you guys. This one’s about pizza. Everyone loves pizza! But maybe I shouldn’t tell it. It’s pretty chees—

  CAMPER

  (over)

  For Christ’s sake, Josh. Does that shit ever work?

  * * *

  Everyone turns around to look at the ANGRY GIRL who’s just interrupted—including the two counselors.

  JESSIE

  Watch your language, Stella.

  STELLA

  Ugh, are you serious? What are we, in kindergarten?

  JESSIE

  No foul language. Camp rule #4. You should know that, Stella, we’ve been over this.

  * * *

  Stella looks like she wants to argue, but—

  STELLA

  All right, fine.

  * * *

  She turns back to Josh.

  STELLA

  Does that stuff ever work, Josh? Seriously, those jokes haven’t gotten funnier since you used the exact same ones last year.

  JOSH

  Ah, Stella. If only I could have your wit.

  STELLA

  Yeah? I’ll trade you for emotional health.

  * * *

  Josh seems legitimately unfazed. If anything, he looks thrilled that someone’s actually talking to him. Stella stares back evenly, clearly unimpressed by the compliment.

  BEN (V.O.)

  Having seen every camp movie made since 1950, including the entirety of Wet Hot American Summer, I feel fairly qualified to make the assessment that Stella is the girl that every guy here falls in love with by the end of camp. First off, she’s apparently already been at camp before, so she actually knows what’s going on. And second, she’s kind of a bitch, which, according to every rom-com ever made, is the number-one way to attract people with emotional problems and low self-esteem.

  I resolve to spend as little time with her as possible.

  JOSH

  Well, anyway. All of this is just to say—WELCOME, friends! It is so, so good to see all of you. And on such a beautiful day, too—isn’t it? Nothing gets the positive energy flowing like fresh air filling your lungs on a beautiful day. Except maybe some good old-fashioned classic rock. The Doors, anyone? Jethro Tull?

  * * *

  Josh looks around the circle hopefully, but no one says anything. I start to feel like we’re being hazed. I mean, I’ve never actually been hazed, but I have seen Animal House, and I’m assuming that movie wasn’t added to the National Film Registry for nothing.

  JOSH

  Oh, well. Regardless, I could not be more excited to be beginning our journey together. I can only hope it will be as rewarding, as wondrous, as transformative, as my journey has been since starting at Camp Ugunduzi its first summer four years ago. Today, my spiritually embattled campers, we begin anew.

  * * *

  Josh beams and turns to face Jessie. I look around and am relieved to find that no one else appears to have any idea what he’s talking about, either.

  JOSH

  And now—Jessie? Would you care to bestow some of your wisdom upon our campers?

  * * *

  Jessie—short brown hair, glasses—ignores Josh’s wink and steps forward, smiling tightly. It’s the kind of smile that’s only one ill-advised statement away from becoming a frown. Jessie, it’s pretty obvious, is not going to start her opening remarks with a lineup of corny jokes.

  JESSIE

  Thank you, Josh. And thank you for your, ah, encouraging words.

  * * *

  She pauses for a minute. If Josh can sense any irony behind her words, his face doesn’t show it.

  JESSIE

  Like Josh, I am thrilled to welcome you to Camp Ugunduzi. I am confident that you will find the next weeks to be productive and supportive, and that when we part four weeks from today, we will all be better for our time here.

  I encourage you to use Josh and myself as resources in whatever way you need. We are here to help. We are here to educate. We are here to be a support system. Please never feel afraid to use it.

  * * *

  Jessie pauses, readjusts her glasses.

  JESSIE

  On the other hand, we are not here to be your best friends. We will not turn a blind eye to misbehavior or any dangerous, illicit activity. We are here to keep you safe and healthy. Is that clear?

  * * *

  No response. Jessie tries again, the question sounding considerably more like a demand this time.

  JESSIE

  Is that clear?

  * * *

  This time, we all get the memo. A chorus of dutiful yeses fills the air. But no one looks particularly happy about it. Jessie’s an obvious reminder that as hard as we might try to pretend, this isn’t exactly the kind of camp you go to when you want to have a summer of fun and games.

  JESSIE

  Excellent. Now we can proceed to the introductions that matter—yours. Stella, will you start us off?

  * * *

  Not really a question. Stella glares at Jessie, who looks back calmly. There’s clearly history there. A beat. Two beats. Three beats.

  STELLA

  (“fuck you”)

  I’d love to. What exactly do you want me to say?

  JESSIE

  Oh, nothing out of the ordinary. Why don’t we do—name, age, hometown, what brings you to Camp Ugunduzi. Anything else I’m missing, Josh?

  JOSH

  Mmm. Happy place.

  * * *

  Confusion flickers briefly over Jessie’s stern expression. Stella buries her face in her hands.

  JESSIE

  Sorry?

  JOSH

  Happy place. Where is your happy place? The place where you feel most at home. At one with yourself. In line with the rest of the universe. At peace—

  JESSIE

  Right. Happy place. Of course. Go ahead, Stella.

  STELLA

  I’m Stella. Seventeen. From Wethersfield, Connecticut. My happy place is... Well, it’s definitely not here, I can tell you guys that much.

  JESSIE / JOSH

  Stella! / Hmm.

  JESSIE

  Is this really the note you want to start camp on, Stella?

  STELLA

  Well, I didn’t really want to start camp on any sort of note, thanks very much. Or at all. But since no one asked me, I guess this is the note we’re all stuck—

  JOSH

  Hmmmmmm.

  * * *

  Josh’s voice is so deep and mellow and pleasant that both Stella and Jessie stop arguing.

  JOSH

  If you could be anywhere else right now in the universe—feel free not to limit yourself to this world!—where would it be?

  STELLA

  Running. Well, that’s not a place, but—On the road
, I guess. On the road, running.

  * * *

  Josh looks at Stella very seriously.

  JOSH

  Hmm.

  JESSIE

  And why you’re here.

  STELLA

  And why I’m here.

  * * *

  Deep breath.

  STELLA

  I don’t know. I used to be this normal, happy-go-lucky kid. But then at some point I couldn’t remember the last time I felt normal or happy-go-lucky. I couldn’t remember the last time I even wanted to get out of bed.

  * * *

  For a moment, Stella looks surprised at her own honesty. Then she pulls it together and makes the bitchiest face imaginable to compensate.

  STELLA

  The point is, I couldn’t bullsh—oops, I mean BS—about feeling fine well enough to get my psychologist to believe me. Whatever. You go.

  * * *

  Stella turns to the BLOND GUY next to her, who is tall and blue-eyed and tan in a way that makes me hate him instantly.

  ANNOYINGLY ATTRACTIVE TEEN

  Mason. I’m seventeen, and I’m from Bethesda, Maryland. My parents are idiots, is basically why I’m here. My happy place is...a land...governed...by rationality.

  * * *

  He pauses every few words, an obvious (not to mention incredibly irritating) effect meant to demonstrate how profound he is. I watch Stella’s eyes get narrower and narrower until they’re barely even slits.

  MASON

  Somewhere where people use logic instead of succumbing to blind emotion.

  * * *

  Mason sighs, as if the burden of being the lone rational agent in a dumb, emotional world is heavy on his shoulders indeed.

  MASON

  So, sure as hell not in that world. Oops, sorry, that might have been a little aggressive.

  BEN (V.O.)

  Mason is so into himself that it’s terrifying. Mason is Patrick Bateman in training. Oh, and if cinematic precedence means anything in the real world, it’s that Mason is so going to hook up with Stella by the end of Week 3.

  * * *

  Mason shrugs, then looks over at me, expectant. I realize, suddenly, that I am standing next to Mason, that the camera has panned left and I am on-screen with absolutely zero lines written and a captive audience. I take a deep breath and swallow hard.

  * * *

  Here is the anticlimax:

  BEN

  I’m Ben. Sixteen. From the suburbs of New York. I guess I would say that my happy place is...being in a movie theater. You know, like, the minute the opening credits roll. Which is, uh, which is kind of like the moment you disappear from this world, into another, if you think of it that way...

  And why I’m here. Uh.

  BEN (V.O.)

  And just like that, I’m panicking. What other personality traits do you have, Ben? Intimately acquainted only with fictional characters? Literally incapable of human interaction? Caught between an endless string of down days and up days and days when you don’t feel anything at all?

  * * *

  Josh strokes his beard thoughtfully. Jessie raises an eyebrow. Mason looks terribly, terribly above it all. Stella makes an “And...?” face.

  BEN (V.O.)

  Say something say something say something—

  BEN

  I’m horribly emotionally unstable.

  * * *

  I stop.

  Everyone is still looking at me.

  BEN

  Except for when I, like, don’t feel anything at all.

  * * *

  Continuing expectant silence.

  BEN (V.O.)

  Here is a list of things I do not say:

  I do not say: I am sorry. I am sorry that introduction was pointless and I am sorry I couldn’t come up with anything more interesting to say because it is one of those times when I don’t feel anything at all.

  And I do not say: It’s not always like this; I’m not always so far away. Sometimes life is real to me, and I’m sorry this isn’t one of those days.

  And I do not say: But the truth is I’m not sorry. The truth is that sometimes it is easier to not feel, to pretend we’re all just actors waiting for the credits to roll and disappear forever, than to be a cocktail of feelings waiting to burst into flames. The truth is that this is one of those times.

  BEN

  That’s it.

  * * *

  Here is the falling action:

  BEN (V.O.)

  I am trying to stay with the moment, but I am rapidly losing focus. The camera pans from one person to the next and I just can’t will myself into believing that it’s any different from an on-screen fight that falls flat, or a miscued pseudoromantic beat. I rewrite the lines I’ve already said six, seven, eight times in my head, as if the director will shout, “Cut,” at any moment and I will get the chance to say them again, but better this time.

  This is the moment everyone always worries about, because I could do anything—because anyone could do anything—and it would all feel equally trivial to me. Stella could punch me, I could slice my wrists open, the Asian girl currently talking could melt into the ground and disappear, and I just wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t care, because—

  * * *

  Here is the denouement:

  BEN (V.O.)

  I am waiting for the screen to fade to black.

  STELLA

  I’VE ALWAYS BEEN awful at this first-day-of-camp business.

  Even in middle school, way back when “camp” was still synonymous with rope swings and tennis courts and swimming pools, I was always the girl scowling through introductions and rolling my eyes every time anyone said anything particularly stupid—which, because this was middle school and middle schoolers are uniformly idiotic, was pretty much the entire time. Now camp is synonymous with being cut off from the rest of the known universe and being yelled at by therapists who won’t even let us swear, and it’s even worse. The problem with the first day of camp, see, is that I’m always the only one who’s realized how utterly miserable camp is going to be, and done the logical thing and just given up. Everyone else is all bright-eyed and hopeful as we introduce ourselves and get to know each other and learn about our next four weeks at camp! We’re supposed to put in a good-faith effort to be positive and friendly, which is sort of a problem for me on account of the fact that I am not very good at positive and downright terrible at friendly.

  Needless to say, I’m pretty relieved when we finally finish introductions. “Does everyone remember each other’s names, or do we need to go over them again?” Jessie asks, and I have to resist the roll of my eyes and get myself yelled at again. Clarisa is the one who stammers through most of her introduction and has to be asked to speak up five times, Andrew is so skeletal that it’s not exactly a mystery what his issue is, Mason has the most punchable facial expressions I’ve ever seen in my life, and Ben looks so zoned out it’s like he’s on a permanent acid trip. There’s five of us. It’s not exactly rocket science.

  After Jessie is done extorting deadpan yeses from all of us, she and Josh walk us all to The Hull, which is what everyone calls the residential building. “The Hull” sounds like a really, really stupid nickname for a building, I know—but once you see it, everything makes sense. For starters, it’s literally shaped like a ship’s hull: only five floors tall, but seems to extend on and on forever from one side to the other. Second, the entire thing got painted over in a really tacky wood stain when they started Ugunduzi so that it would fit in with the whole “camp” theme, but whoever was in charge of painting the building over didn’t do a very good job: the paint is completely uneven, and there are patches where it’s peeling off completely to reveal the gray, occasionally m
ossy, occasionally moldy blocks of concrete behind it. Needless to say, the building is fucking hideous.

  Each floor of The Hull is designated a number and divided into a left wing and a right wing. Our group name, 1L, means that we’re housed on the first floor, on the left side. Like I said: the Ugunduzi founders may have been kindhearted and well-meaning and all that bullshit, but they sure as hell weren’t very creative.

  Jessie and Josh lead us into our common lounge—where there’s a pool table, a bunch of sofas, and a kitchen area—and tell us that we can hang out until dinner and “bond.” I, of course, would rather impale myself on the pool stick they’ve left unwisely unattended, but my plan to spend the time sitting by myself and making a comprehensive list of all the ways I might be able to escape is ruined when Andrew plops down on the couch next to me.

  “Hey,” he says, as if we’re two old friends hanging out in someone’s living room and catching up. It takes me a minute to realize that I am not, in fact, hallucinating.

  “Hi,” I say flatly.

  “So...” Andrew says. He bites his lip nervously. I’m starting to get the idea that Andrew is coming to me with the hopes of getting some sort of wisdom or advice, which is sort of a bummer for him, because I have no wisdom, I have no advice, and I have no inclination to share anything of the sort with random strangers I’ve just met, anyway.

  “So...” I say back, hoping he’ll leave.

  “So what’s it like here?”

  No dice.

  “Hmm,” I say. “Exhausting. Aggravating.”

  I give it a few more seconds of thought.

  “And soul-suckingly oppressive,” I add.

  “No, seriously,” Andrew says.

  “No, seriously,” I reply.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Mason walks over to Ben and badgers him into playing a game of pool.

  “But it’s so nice!”

  “Nice? Are you fucking with me right now?”

  “No! All I’m saying is just—Look out the window! It’s like having one of those travel brochures right outside, except it’s not a travel brochure, it’s actually what’s outside—do you know what I mean?”

  “We’re never allowed to be together unsupervised, just in case we accidentally end up murdering each other. The counselors do bed checks every two hours after lights-out. And every day of every week is planned with some dumb therapeutic activity that’s supposed to make us confuse exhaustion with actually feeling better. I’m going to go with no. No, I don’t know what you mean.”