Summer Games

Carla knocked at my door early one Saturday morning and waited on the steps.  Her long brown legs were topped by red and white athletic shorts and she had on a worn t-shirt to match.  I had selected my outfit the night before:  green satin shorts trimmed with yellow piping and a t-shirt with the same colors in reverse.  Both of us were wearing our most comfortable tube socks and our only pair of Converse knock-offs.

I had filled Johnny’s old knapsack with sticky peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples, and a plastic bottle of iced Tang.  We were heading out to the Olympic Camp for a day’s worth of physical challenges.  We were well-equipped.  Carla and I lugged our bags up Broadway, kicking loose gravel across the warm pavement.

“Did you remember the band-aids?” I asked, still feeling the blister I had earned last week from my wet sock rubbing against my heel.  Carla assured me that she had pilfered a few from her mom’s stash.  Band-aids were a hot commodity in the trailer court.  If Marie’s supply was depleted, she’d ask my mom, and if mom was all out, she’d have to go over to Vella Hall’s and borrow (yet probably never return) a few left-over odd-sized strips.

We had spent the previous evening working out the details of a new obstacle course.  Every event always began with a perilous leap from the side of the road, over the wet ditch to the entrance of the camp.  Most times we made it, but sometimes we weren’t so lucky.  The outcome of this first jump often dictated our length of stay at the camp.

“Did you do your stretches at home?” I queried. 

“Well, Roxanne broke up with Robby last night and we all sat around the kitchen table listening to her wailing.  We finished off the Chinese food dad had brought home after darts and then Roxanne and Denise stayed up late tearing up old pictures.  I slept in this morning, so I didn’t get my stretches in yet, but we’ll do them in the camp on the flat surface over the big rock.”

“I like it better when we do our stretches together anyway,” I added, not mentioning that I had already spent almost twenty minutes doing the vigorous training exercise program we had developed.

With our bags safely tossed across to the camp, Carla made a running jump and cleared the deep ditch.  “Come on Adele,” she called out. “I’m here if you slip!”

Although she was younger by a full year, her voice carried a sense of confidence and maturity I trusted.  I backed up to the road and moved forward with quick, long strides.  I barely made the soggy edge and Carla was there, as promised, to pull me in.

“Do you think we should ask our moms to call the Olympics and register us?” I asked naively. 

“We’ll see how today goes,” Carla replied.