Camptown Ladies Read Online Free PDF Page B

sheen of pizza dough before Dad bathed the dough in olive oil.
    As a kid I got up early to watch Dad make calzones, and always thought Mom wouldn’t approve of him oiling and kneading this stuff that felt exactly like a big booby. I never told this to Mom, since Dad always snapped off a small ball of dough for me to play with, and I was addicted to the feel of it and the delicious doughy scent.I insisted on getting a drop of olive oil for my little blob of dough so it would feel extra soft and would last longer before drying out and cracking so I had to throw it away or feed it to the dog. To this day, the gentle grasp of a breast (either real or imagined) always brings this memory back, and my mouth waters just the same.
    Aunt Aggie stood at the car and surveyed the camp as she had done every day since Lisa bought the place, and said, “Damn, Freddie, you don’t get a friggin’ breeze like that back in the city.”
    “We don’t live in the city,” he snorted.
    “Don’t be an ass,” she said. I noticed Uncle Freddie tilted his head back, pointing his nose toward the trees. He loved to sniff the pines, just like I did.
    Doughy arms sufficiently aired out, Aunt Aggie waddled off, shoving her walker ahead of her as if it were a disobedient child, off to go find Mom at her self-imposed post inside the Gays & Girls Camp Store. Uncle Freddie used this opportunity to sneak away to see what Dad was up to. Their visits always started and ended the same way. Peaceful Aunt Aggie would arrive, but after spending any amount of time with Mom (or Lisa, the other female alpha-male in the family) they would start to bicker. Then, holding her tongue until after Lisa whipped up a delicious lunch, Aunt Aggie would make a noise about how Mom had insulted her by not accepting her help, so, she might as well be going. She would go on about this until around 3:00, before finally leaving in an imagined huff, unless Lisa surprised them with a dessert, in which case, the argument could be extended by another half-hour. Uncle Freddie would trail after her with the same serene smile he had upon his arrival and a little more tomato sauce on his shirt, only to return the next day to begin the ritual again, everyone pretending as if none of it had happened the day before.
    It was a particularly warm fall day, and we were all looking for outdoor projects. I asked Lisa if she had any plans for the teen recreation hall.
    She answered, “Teen recreation hall, my big, shapely, fat ass! This is going to be my five-star Italian restaurant!”
    Oddly, even with its gutted bare concrete slab floor and whatappeared to be shingled roof that looked eaten by woodland creatures, there was a part of me that could not deny Lisa’s genius behind a stove (or hot plate, or grill . . .) or her sheer will to bend the world to do what she wanted.
    But then I remembered where we were standing.
    Lisa whirled around inside the remains of the teen rec hall like a bull dyke version of Julie Andrews in a baseball hat and camouflage pants, seeing all the possibilities, while Cindy-Lu danced next to her, bouncing off her legs as if it was a new game and she were begging Lisa for the rules. I was trying to ignore the smell of teen boy urine emanating from the corners of the hall, wondering if our baby brother’s pee could have stood the test of that many years. Cindy-Lu had been distracted by the scent too, her tiny high-stepping paws stopping every few feet to sniff around the perimeter of the hall, to find the most pungent spot. Dog’s noses are supposed to be remarkable, so I laughed to myself as I wondered if the dog was thinking: Uncle Vince, was that you?
    I said to Lisa, “A restaurant? It stinks like the old Elephant House at the Roger Williams Zoo.” But this didn’t seem to trouble my sister.
    “I promise you, someday this place will smell just like Grandma and Aunt Aggie’s kitchen used to when we were kids. She pointed to the wall that adjoined the rec hall