The 10:00 o'clock Swim
As Kayla and I are barreling down the highway, making our great escape to the Fern Ridge Yacht club, I don’t think I could ever be happier. I'm so grateful to be leaving my summer job behind and enjoy the last little pure bliss of summer. No longer will I have to deal with children who think whoever screams the loudest will get what they want; no more crazy parents or coworkers. Just me, my best friend, her van June, and camping at the lake. Caamp songs are blasting out of the driver side speaker; the only speaker that works. We scream-sing along to the music, our hair dances with us, yelling so loud that I think our voices are going to be horse before we reach the campground. The drivers around us are unimpressed by our loud music and car dancing shenanigans. But we are teenagers and it's summer, what else should they expect. We put our trust in our noble stead, June, as she carries us into the sunset and towards the lake.
We pull up to the Yacht club, and there is a closed gate blocking us from furthering our adventures. Kayla turns to me with a smile; I just know that this is the start to a night full of laughter.
“Ok. I don’t have my gate key, but the gate is motion activated so I have a plan.”
“Alright. Let's hear it.” I say fully prepared for anything.
“ You are going to go to the other side of the gate. Start jumping and waving your arms around. That should be enough to trigger the camera and open the gate.” Kayla says, with a grin as big as the Cheshire cat’s on her face.
“Ok, got it.” I say as I hop out of the car; ready to jump and wave my arms around like my life depends on it. I squeeze through the gate, big enough for a human but not a car. I back up a couple feet, to where Kayla said to, and start jumping around. Nothing happens. I wave my arms more, I jump higher, and still nothing happens.
“BE BIG RILEY!” Kayla yells.
“I’m trying!!” I say.
After a couple more failed attempts of me jumping; Kayla calls me back to the car. She says she's going to call her brothers to give her the key and let us in.
“Hey Rocco, can you come let me and Riley in? We are at the gate, and I tried to have Riley trigger the camera but it's not working.”
“That's because it's a pressure plate not a camera Kayla, but yeah here I come.” Kayla's brother says.
When I hear that, I look at Kayla, appalled that she made me jump around for nothing. She hangs up the phone, and we both burst out laughing about our trials to get the gate open. A minute later, Rocco and Kayla’s other younger brother, Riggs, come rolling up on their electric skateboards to let us in.
By the time we get to our parking spot, unload all of our food, and say hello to the rest of Kayla’s family, the sun is barely above the horizon. Kayla’s dad gives us the task of getting more firewood, so that the fire lasts long into the night.
“Remember, if you don’t think you can handle it; I can always have Rocco do it instead!” Kayla’s dad yells to us.
“We’ve got it!” We yell back and head off to the wood pile. Kayla has the wheelbarrow in her hands; an axe in mine. Although neither of us have ever chopped wood before, we are fully prepared to do this together. We are with most things. The moral of our friendship is: if we go down, we go down together.
“Ok, do you have a game plan for how to do this?” Kayla says.
“No. I thought you had a plan.” I say giggling.
“ Well I guess we're just winging this.” She responds.
We know the basics of how to chop wood. You put the block you’re chopping on a platform, and swing the axe to chop off smaller pieces. Sounds like it should be easy; it’s a lot harder than expected. Kayla takes the axe first. She swings it up above her head, and brings it down fast and sharp on to the wood. A loud crack echos, but no wood comes off the block. She winds up to swing, but again there is nothing but a loud crack.
Kayla laughs and says, “This is too hard. Your turn.”
She hands me the axe so I can try. I bring the axe down on the wood with my most powerful blow. This time, a loud crack sounds from the wood along with a small sliver of wood. I look at Kayla and give her a triumphant smile and laugh.
“We did it! We chopped wood!” I yell.
We continue for about an hour with the same results, and eventually call it good enough to head back to flaunt our goods. We settle down by the fire, and look at the lake.
“You wanna go swimming?” Kayla’s Cheshire grin blooms again.
“Ya. I do.” I say mimicking her smile.
Before we head out to the water, we have other things we need to do: Eat dinner, hot dogs roasted over the fire, and well eating try to convince Rocco to talk to the scary soccer girls. We also have to try and set up our bed inside of June. This presents challenges, as there is not much space and one of us is going to have to sleep in the dreaded “crack.” The crack is the part of our makeshift bed that didn’t quite reach the wall, and if you laid on it you sink into it. We play rock paper scissors for who would sleep there the first night. To my eternal dismay, I play rock and she plays paper.
By this point it’s 10:00 o’clock but we can finally head to the water. Kayla and I are hysterical with excitement. We run as fast as we can from the van to the water. We look completely crazy but we could not be having more fun and that's all that matters. We splash in. It’s frigid, but I couldn’t care less. The moonlight glimmers off the water, and it’s the only way I can make out Kayla’s shape. We swim out to the dock to look at the stars. As we lay down and look up at the sky I’m in a state of pure bliss. Finally summer feels like summer. There's no stress, just me, my best friend and the stars.