Jeff Simmons raised the flag and we all lifted our right hands and spoke the words of the pledge. Out here the guys mingled with the girls and I nodded to other people I knew. Scanning the faces my eyes met Greg Hansen's. He was on the far side, a head above the other kids. He stared directly back at me and I felt myself both flush and go cold thinking about how he'd been last night.

I'd hoped he wouldn't be around this year, but there he stood, a counselor like everyone else, still holding a grudge. As if he'd been the victim.

I wanted to turn away but couldn't, might have stayed rooted to the spot all morning if a finger hadn't poked me in the ribs and I looked down to find Cherri standing beside me. I let my breath out and grinned.

"Where've you been?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't you start on me too, Dan. I was tired is all."

I laughed. "They come and round you up?"

"Don't I know it."

Flagpole finished we wandered away, everyone grouping up. It felt wonderful walking next to Cherri down the slope to the main block. The sun seemed turned up a notch, the light growing brighter. I pushed Greg from my mind and almost forgot him until his voice brought me to a halt.

"Hey, Dani, I wanted to apologize for last night. I was way out of order. I'm sorry."

I turned and stared at him, nodded, offering nothing more. I crossed my arms, uncrossed them, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of reading my body language.

"It's okay, Dani, I'm not going to give you a hard time. I'm all grown up about us now. We're cool. I guess you've moved on. " He grinned, and for a moment I remembered what I'd seen in him. Greg was good looking, with charisma in spades, and to begin with he'd been sweet. Only later did he turn so bad.

I became aware of Cherri standing next to me, looking from me to Greg. She waited for me to say something, but I only nodded at Greg and said, "I guess I'll see you around."

He nodded back. "Great to see you again, Dani." I thought he might want to milk the moment, but he turned and strode off, long legs covering the ground easily.

"Why didn't you go at him?" I started to walk off but Cherri didn't follow.

I shook my head. Cherri didn't understand. I would do almost anything to avoid confrontation. If Greg wanted to draw a line under the past that was fine with me.

"He could have hurt you last night." Cherri took two paces toward me, stood close, staring up into my eyes. "If that'd been me I'd've kicked him in the nuts and punched his nose."

Her pretty face screwed up in anger, lines radiating out from her eyes. Her fists had bunched and I knew she meant it. Unlike me Cherri was a brawler, and I wondered why I was so at ease in her company because we couldn't be more unalike.

"He's not worth the trouble, Cherri. Anything like that and Greg always manages to turn everything round so it's your fault."

"Not to me," Cherri said. "Or you." Her face relaxed, transforming from pretty to beautiful in the process. "If you're not gonna fight for your honor I will."

I didn't want to tell her it was way too late to fight Greg for my honor. He'd taken that long ago, so I only said, "Don't you dare."

"Stick up for yourself, girl, or I will." Cherri laughed and brushed past me, her shoulder sliding against my breast. My nipple stiffened, confusing me because I'd never responded that way to another girl before.

I sighed and trotted to catch her up. The first induction meeting was about to start, and I didn't want her being late again.

The next three days passed in a blur of health and safety briefings, form filling and at the end of the day exhausted parties on the lakeshore. I saw Greg around occasionally, but he seemed to be sticking to his word and made no move to approach us. And it was us. Cherri and I a unit. Everyone recognized the fact. We weren't close in the same way as Tonya and Holly, no way, but we were best buddies, seemed like we would be the entire summer. Which was fine with me.

Friday evening the first group of kids arrived and everything changed. The camp went instantly from a quiet, civilized place to complete and utter chaos. Things would get better, and by the end of next week the kids would've settled down, forming their cliques, falling in and out of friendships and losing their manic edge. Some of that would be exhaustion, some acceptance.

My cabin became filled with the noise of a dozen fourteen year old girls, even on day one possible to tell who were the characters, who the shy ones, who the troublemakers. I was determined to be respected even if I wasn't liked, and on the very first evening picked on one girl trying to bully a short, pretty redhead into swapping bunks. I split them up and pushed the bully aside, glared at her and made it clear her kind of behavior wasn't acceptable in Eagle. Tonya and Holly helped but were less forceful, softer with the girls. I'd set my strategy before arrival, thinking hard about the counselors I'd known. The best had been firm but fair, and I modeled myself on them. Cherri would have been proud of me.

Chapter 7.

The first Sunday after the arrival of the campers I had a free day. The new influx of kids would be busy with games and hiking and swimming, so I stayed in camp to help. I also needed to write home. I always wrote Mom, never Dad, but knew he'd read my letter. Mom worried about me when I was away, and I could never leave without promising to write once a week. At least once a week. Twice a day if Mom had her way, with instant delivery, ahead of her time with the worrying. These days emailing and texting every five minutes still wouldn't be enough. Dad trusted me. I'm sure he still worriedain fact I know he still worriedabut his attitude was I needed to learn how to get along on my own, exactly as he had. Dad wasn't much older than me when he did his first tour as a photographer in Vietnam. That had been his big break, his photographs winning all kinds of awards, getting him commissions for Time and Life. He told me people had to grow up faster back then, but I thought he was making excuses. He'd gone to war because he wanted to, because he was nineteen and didn't want to join up but did want the excitement. I was glad the world was a more peaceful place in 1989.

After lunch I spent time in the classroom getting everything ready for my first class Monday morning. I was checking stocks of developer and paper when a tall kid came in.

"Help you?" I asked, thinking he was one of the older campers.

"Hi. I'm Jack Bennet." He came across, offering his hand.

"Hi." I shook, frowning. I guess he caught the confusion on my face.

"I'm your photography counselor." He grinned. A nice grin.

"Oh." I don't think my face changed much. "I didn't realize I had one."

Jack laughed. "Not officially. But they let you sign up as a helper if you want, and I thought this sounded like fun. My real specialism is sailing. Your classes fit in with my teaching times so I thought..." He trailed off, shrugging. I realized I was still glaring at him and tried to fashion a more sympathetic look.

"Oh, hey, cool. I can use the help." His face lost the worried expression. "D'you know much about photography?"

Jack shook his head. "Squat. Does it matter?"

"I guess not. I can teach you what you need."

"I hoped you'd say that. I'm not being fair, but you don't mind do you, Dani?" So he knew my name. I guess he would if he'd asked about the class, but I experienced a moment of panic. Was Jack another Greg? He looked okay... but so had Greg. I couldn't spend the rest of my life running away from men.

"You can help me lay out for tomorrow. I'm going to start with some simple developing." I walked to the storeroom and started handing him developing trays and dark bottles of developer and fixer. Jack stood with everything in his hands, not sure what to do.

"Put all the bottles on the big desk up front. I don't want anyone playing with them until I'm ready. Put three of the trays at each workstation. They'll need other stuff too. I could show you what to put out, but..." I glanced at my watch, an idea occurring to me. "You got to be anywhere in the next hour?"

"Nowhere special. I want to take one of the dinghies out before dinner, but that's all."

"This will go easier if I show you what I mean. Come on."

I led the way outside and looked around. Jack followed meekly. He stood tall, broad shouldered and good looking with buzzed dark hair, a flat belly and long legs. He wore a t-shirt and blue jeans. The t-shirt was printed with a faded cartoon of an old guy sitting astride a Harley motorcycleawritten underneath the words: "I'll sleep when I'm tired."

"Where we going?"

"Where are these boats you're sailing?"

"Dinghies," Jack corrected me, an expert on sailing the way I was with cameras. He pointed. "Down at the jetty."

"Show me."

We walked down over the grass and out onto the wooden jetty. It moved under our feet, unbalancing me, but Jack didn't appear to notice. He stopped by one of the small plastic boats.

"Get in," I said. "Show me what you do."

He shrugged and stepped into the boat which rocked wildly as his weight transferred, but Jack seemed unconcerned. I'd have flailed around if it happened to me, probably fallen in.

Jack glanced back, not sure what I wanted.

"Set everything up like you're going out."

"Yeah?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

He started pulling on thin ropes running down the aluminum mast, different colors and sizes, his hands swift and sure, performing each task with familiar ease.

I lifted my camera and started taking shots. Every time Jack moved the dinghy rocked, mast swaying against the sky.

Jack took a curved piece of white plastic from the bottom of the boat and slotted it into the back.

"I'll take this one out later now she's all set up. You want to come?"

"Is it safe?"

Jack laughed. "She's safe. What d'you think, want to come?"

"Is it hard?"

He laughed again. "Simple."

"I'll think about it."

"So that's no?"

"No. I'll think about it."

Jack nodded as though I'd confirmed my answer. Maybe I had.

He pulled on a rope and the sail ran up the mast. A breeze came in over the lake and the sail billowed and filled. The white material flapped and swung over. Jack let go of the rope.

"All done," he said. "If I pull this rope in and loosen where I'm tied to the dock I'll be sailing. Any more?"

"That's enough. You can take it all down now."

Jack let the sail drop but left everything else in place before stepping back onto the jetty, his weight rocking the boards again and I lost balance. Jack's hand gripped my arm, steadying me. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." For some reason I was embarrassed. "If you're done I'll show you what I want the kids to do tomorrow."

"Cool." He let my arm go and led the way back to land.

In the classroom I showed Jack how to pull down the blackout blinds over the windows and locked the door to stop anyone barging in and ruining the film. Before turning the lights off I demonstrated to Jack how to remove the film using an old spool and exposed stock. This was my playground now and I was relaxed in the dim lighting.

"This is a two stage process," I explained. "First I need to develop the film, then I use the enlarger-" I pointed at one of three set around the room, "-and finally develop the print itself. It's about as easy as your sailing, but I guess like everything in life, only easy when you get it right."

"Show me. Do I need to turn the lights out?"

"Not yet. This is all going on inside the developing tank. The tricky bit is getting the film inside."

I took a soft cloth bag and stuffed the tank and film spool inside, tugged a string with my teeth to close the top, my hands, the film and the tank now completely protected inside the bag. Jack laughed watching my hands moving around under the cloth.

"What are you doing? That thing looks alive."

"I'm transferring the film onto the tank spool without any light getting in. This is going to be tough when you try, but it's a technique, like everything else."

Jack sat on the edge of a workbench and crossed his arms. I was no longer nervous under his gaze, confident in what I did now. Inside the bag I slid one end of the film into the center of the plastic spool, pressed on the edges of the film so they bowed, twisted to slot the film into the spiral grooves. The act was second nature I'd done it so many times, but this would be hard for Jack, even harder for the kids. This was the most difficult part of the entire process, and I would make them practice the moves over and over during their four week stint. I screwed the plastic lid on the tank and tugged my hands to open the bag.

"That's kind of cool," Jack said.

I suppressed a smile, pleased I'd impressed him, even if only a little.

I started to mix the developer, measuring raw stock into a graduated flask. "I'll show you how to do all this with an old film later," I said. "Putting the film on the reel is the hardest part. Everything else is following steps, and timing."

I checked the temperature of the fluids, filled the developing tank, started the timer, turned the tank over a couple of times and tapped the side hard against the bench.

"The process takes around three minutes for this kind of film," I said. "And I need to swirl the liquid around every thirty seconds or the film'll develop unevenly." I showed him how to twist the developing tank so the fluid inside washed around, fresh developer replacing old against the face of the film stock. When the timer showed twenty seconds left I tipped the tank and let the fluid drain into the sink.

"This will keep developing with only the fluid left on the film so I need to flush with clean water."

Jack nodded, watching as I ran water from the tap through the spout on the tank.

"Now I need to fix the image. That's this next bottle called, oddly enough, fixer."

I poured the water out, added the fixer and repeated the tapping and swirling.

"This is the longest stageasix minutesabut I can let the light back in after three." I consulted the stopwatch which I had reset when the fixer went in, and when time was up I unscrewed the top. I reached, pulled the spool out and showed Jack. "You can't let the kids do this, but I like to check that the film's developed okay. Remember when we're doing this for real the kids wear rubber gloves and don't get any of these liquids on their hands. Some of this stuff is poisonous."

Jack leaned forward, his head close to mine and I smelled his scent, clean and masculine, a little sweat but nothing gross. He stared at the film where reverse images showed, fascination on his face. He really did want to do this, not just looking for a chance to get in my pants.

I straightened up and dropped the spool back into the fixer.

"We can leave that as long as we want now. Then we have to wash the film so no trace of fixer is left. Let me show you how to load the tank. This is what we'll be starting on first week. I'll get the kids to take some pictures, show them how to develop and enlarge a print."

"A lot of stuff to remember."

"Not so much. And I've done little crib sheets for everyoneayou too if you want."

Jack nodded, and I wondered why he'd really put down as a helper on the course.