Читать книгу The Happy Hypochondriac Survives World Travel - Kat Spitzer - Страница 11

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Finding My Parent Trap Twin

I’ve always dreamed of being Haley Mills. I watched the Parent Trap approximately 386 times as a child. That’s a rough estimate. I can recite that movie word for word, and I do a heck of a take on the song, “Let’s Get Together, Yeah Yeah Yeah.” At the time that I first fell in love with that movie, I was about eight years old and an only child. But I knew. She was out there. My twin was waiting for me at a luxurious all girls’ camp. We might not get along at first because of our uncanny resemblance, but we would eventually bond over a picture of a favorite boy singer and become best friends. Past that point, the story in my mind got a little fuzzy, since my parents were together and happily married. I had no parents to trap! But I knew I couldn’t have been the only child.

Perhaps there had been a mix up at the hospital and they thought she was dead. I could bring her home from camp and we could all be reunited. Or maybe they saw us both and just liked me better and thought two was too many. In that case, I would need to think carefully about bringing her back home. Either way, she was at that camp, a specific camp that had not yet been chosen, and Fate patiently waited to bring us together.

• • •

“How much? $1,800? Are you crazy?” My mother looked at my father like he had just asked her to go to a swinger’s party. “You must be out of your mind. I’m spending $1,800 for Kat to go to summer camp for three weeks? She’s only eleven for Christ’s sake. I don’t even spend that much for my vacations.” My mother grew up poor, in a two bedroom house packed with twelve people. I guess I could see where she was coming from. My dad, however, grew up in Florence, South Carolina, in somewhat high society. He escorted girls to cotillions, had maids, and had actually attended the boys’ camp on the other side of the mountain from the expensive girls’ camp in question. They had trouble seeing eye to eye on the matter. I sat back quietly to watch it all unfold, already knowing that my mother would concede. She handled the money, but my dad talked her into most things.

“I had this opportunity and I want her to have it now. It’s my family tradition.”

“Do you realize that on top of that $1,800 to stay in an un-air conditioned cabin, we’ve got to shell out $500 more for horseback riding? And they want us to put money into something called a ‘canteen’ so she can have treats each day, or buy a t-shirt. What? Do we have a money tree I don’t know about?” She always asked about the money tree. I think she secretly hoped that one time somebody would answer her affirmatively. As in, yes, there is a money tree in South America that sprouts fifties and hundreds. She would have been on the next plane, shovel packed securely in her luggage.

My dad just laughed. Money didn’t matter to him. He spent what he had and never knew the word “budget.” He was not concerned. Instead, my mother fretted and tried to scavenge to make ends meet. Sadly, by today’s standards, that camp price is fairly reasonable. I looked up camps recently for my daughter. She’s very little but it’s never too early to plan. Like my dad said, it’s tradition. Nowadays, the same types of camps run $1,500 a week or more, plus extras. I might find myself making the same comments my mother did. It’s all a great big circle of life.

“Fine! But this is ludicrous. We have to buy her a plane ticket, too!” And so it went, as she called and made the reservations. Hoorah! One step closer to finding my twin.

• • •

My best friend, Belle, and I boarded the plane. I had talked her into going and her mom was none too pleased about the price, but had acquiesced just like mine had. Now we were two twelve-year-old girls flying for the first time, and all by ourselves to boot. I was suddenly struck by the feeling that maybe I hadn’t thought this all the way through. Wearing a local radio station t-shirt, and considering myself the height of fashion as I headed to summer camp, I couldn’t quell my internal bundle of nerves. How do planes work again? It seemed like an awfully big, heavy piece of machinery to be able to lift up off the ground and take us many hours into near space. I don’t care how much like a bird it looked. Belle must have been feeling the same tension and sense of wonder, too. She ate approximately sixteen little bags of peanuts. That was back in the day when people didn’t seem to be as allergic as they are now. Peanuts were everywhere on planes. Or, at least until Belle embarked and finished them all off. My mind now raced as fast as the air under the belly of the plane. Besides the fear of flying, would I get thrown from a horse, shoot my eye out with a gun, drown in the lake, get murdered by some crazy killer in the woods (I’d seen the movies), get bitten by a snake? Oh the snakes! Was it too late to go back home? I hadn’t ever been away from my parents for more than a couple of days. This was three whole weeks!

My anxiety eased a little when we arrived at the airport and saw a person holding up a sign with our names on it, just like in the movies. We were stars! I was already one step closer to being Haley Mills.

The camp did not disappoint. It looked eerily similar to the one from the Parent Trap. They could have filmed it there, for all I knew. I had chosen wisely. The smell of pine trees, lake, fresh air and woodsmoke filled my head and made me dizzy. I think I experienced some form of nature elation. Growing up in Florida, I clearly spent a lot of time barefoot and outside, but this was different. This was my first time in the mountains. The air felt completely different, like it was a solid that I could crawl into and it would envelop me like a cool, but loving, hug. I was enamored instantly. I signed up for every camp activity I could. I wanted to do it all. The more I engaged, the more chance I would have of finding my twin. Belle didn’t know my motives, she just thought I was overly enthusiastic. I figured I could just as easily find my twin during horseback riding as I could at archery or riflery or wood burning. It was a matter of numbers, really.

I was a little embarrassed about my appearance, though. I had recently overcome a massive bout of chicken pox, which left me grotesquely scarred and scabbed. An especially disgusting large scab spotted my face right in the middle of my forehead, making me look like my native country was India, if India produced severely pale people. I’m surprised Belle wanted to be seen with me. I would have just torn the scab off, but I didn’t want to face another permanent pit of a scar. I had enough of those already from poor scratching choices. I would have to suck it up temporarily for the greater good of my beauty over the course of my life. Yes, I had painstakingly thought this through. However, I knew that if I found my twin, it would be hard for her to look at me in my current state; forget claiming me as long lost kin. She would avert her eyes. I was the elephant man.

In the meantime, while I waited for the scab to fall off naturally and my twin to make herself known, I decided to have a little fun. I was scared of many things, but had convinced myself that camp was a good way to embrace what frightened me and face it head on. Horseback riding was a personal favorite. It was terrifying and, in my mind, terribly unpredictable. Certainly those beautiful, mighty beasts would rear their hind legs and kick me into the sky if I traversed any areas remotely behind them. I imagined they would back up to kick me even if I was yards away. I wouldn’t remotely risk it. I walked large arcs around them to avoid all negative possibilities. They say that horses can sense fear and I probably did a very poor job of masking mine when I would say in a wobbly voice, “Hi there, Chestnut. (pat pat). Aren’t you a pretty boy? I’m going to get on you now.” I’m pretty sure Chestnut rolled his eyes and snickered sarcastically to himself. Then, shaking more than California in an earthquake, I would trepidatiously try to throw my leg over the saddle. I was a mess. But then once I was up there, I realized, “Darn, I look great!” My riding boots, my velvet hat, my cool pants. Even though I had on a silly t-shirt and not a cool black jacket, I still felt like I could have emerged straight out of National Velvet.

I rode and winced and inhaled deeply. I pulled and tugged and twisted the reins and squeezed my legs together into the horse’s sides. I spoke calmly and with authority. I leaned forward, I lifted my butt into the air, and I turned in my knees. I did all these things- just at the complete wrong times. I caused the horse to trot when I wasn’t ready. I made him stop when I thought I was trying to trot. On a number of occasions I had to wait on his back while he defecated. I still loved every minute. Chestnut was my guy. I would report to my parents right away that I wanted a horse. Who would have thought that I could actually ride one? I still worried nonstop that I would get thrown. But, as long as he didn’t paralyze me, I knew I would have to get right back on if he did such a terrible thing. Besides, there was an actual SAYING that dictated as such. I would have no choice.

I also really took to Archery and Riflery. I have an intense love for target sports and earned my advanced patches with pride. I carry this love to this day and am thrilled that my son is in Cub Scouts so I can have access to some bows and rifles. Here’s the thing, my parents never explained to me that I was slightly double-jointed in my elbows. When you hold a bow, you are supposed to keep one arm straight. But my arm actually protrudes inward at the elbow, so that when I release the arrow, it skims that inward elbow at a high velocity and, well, tears the skin right off.

“Ow, Omigod!” I yelled, and it echoed off the luscious green mountains. Flocks of birds were disturbed and burst out of the trees. Small woodland creatures stopped what they were doing and turned toward the sound emanating from my location at the archery range. I wanted to say much worse, felt the curses on my lips, but feared the repercussions. I swallowed them whole. Tears welled up in my eyes and I doubled over, afraid to see the blood that I assumed was pouring down my arm. I was whisked away to the nurse’s station to care for my missing skin, luckily only a layer or two and not much blood, and the upwelling of a bump and bruise forming on my inner elbow. I was now even more deformed. Between the forehead, the other crater scars and the messed up arm, I was turning into Quasimodo. NOT a good look for a pre-teen, who already had bad, thick, dark, curly, unruly hair. Bandaged and feeling low, I returned to my cabin for nap/rest/letter writing/package receiving time.

Much to my joy, I received a package from my mom, that lovely woman. Much to my chagrin, however, she had not paid attention to my instructions about how to smuggle me some contraband candy. They don’t allow candy to be sent to campers, so the camp opened all packages and removed visible violations. The trick was to get creative. Instead, my mother laid the large package of Twizzlers right on top. Nice work, mom. Now the camp directors would be snacking on my favorite candies. She didn’t even put any SweetTarts in the socks she sent me, as I had specifically instructed her to do. Yeesh. What was she thinking? Clearly, she wasn’t. Well, no letter from me today. Okay, maybe just a small note. I did really miss her and this Teen magazine was going to be super fun to read on my bunk bed. Besides, a light rain was starting to fall so I had time to forgive her.

The rain picked up and thunder and lightning moved in, the noise reverberating through the hills, rattling our screens. We ran to unroll the protective canvas flaps so that the beds wouldn’t get wet when the rain blew sideways through the cabins. Afternoon activities were cancelled, although we could hardly hear the announcement because the pellets of wetness struck the metal roofs with such fervor. The ferocious crashing and booming seemed to have settled in our little valley, pouring hellfire and brimstone onto our beloved camp. We saw a powerful light followed by an almost simultaneous round of thunder that sent all ten of us in the cabin into a close huddle on the floor. The lightning/thunder combo struck again and we heard a loud warble. The announcement system had been struck. How would we hear Reveille in the morning and Taps at night? Or the haunting version of the Lord’s Prayer set to music before drifting off to sleep? The flashes of lights, bowling thunder, and whips of rain continued for hours.

Afterward, we ventured out to assess the damage. Four locations on the camp grounds had been hit and the bugle box/announcement system was out of commission, just as I thought. The horse stables had a small fire, which was quickly put out by the fire department and a cabin had a hole in the roof. I’d been in bad thunderstorms before, no doubt, but this was the first time I had been so exposed to the elements; so vulnerable to the possibilities. I felt thankful to be alive.

So, it turns out that my twin never showed up at the camp. She must have chosen another one that summer and is still out there looking for me. But even without my Haley Mills moment, traveling to camp changed my life. I realized that I might be afraid of a lot of things but I could still do them. I might have diarrhea in the process, but I would still make it. I wouldn’t always remember that lesson of course, and would have to relearn it on numerous occasions, but I did have a moment of clarity right then. I didn’t get thrown from a horse, I didn’t shoot my eye out (skin removal is minor in comparison), my plane didn’t crash, I didn’t drown (although I swallowed enough lake water to introduce some sort of organism into my system, for sure), and I didn’t get struck by lightning. I did it all without my parents there to protect me. I had my best friend with me and we grew a little as people that summer. And not just from too many airline peanuts.