Read Online Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet (9781940192567) by Jenny Ruden - Free Book Online
Authors: Jenny Ruden
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To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: ARE YOU THERE YET?
Dear Mom,
Of course I got your e-mail, so please stop sending the same one 500 times. Iâm here. Iâm here. Iâm here. Golly gee, itâs frickin fantastic. Just as u promised. Thanks for spending all that money to get me out of the house. Itâs worth every penny. Iâm already a shadow of my former self!
I hope you earn that big bonus this summer without me and Jackie around to mess things up. Maybe you can spend quality time w/ur boyfriend too w/out having to explain why you canât keep butterscotch krimpets in the house or why jackieâs boyfriend hides in the closet (oops).
Donât worry about me, mom. Iâll be fine. There are public weigh-ins here and everything. AND when they wrapped the tape measure around my stomach some kind fellow in the audience actually mooed. What a peach! Pls sign me up for next yr. Better hurry.
PS Jackie h8s me now too.
PPS u both need zyprexa.
PPPS If u see TJ tell him I love him
Urs,
~bee
14
CELLMATES
AFTER THE COMPUTER lab, Miss Marcia led us to a cinderblock stairwell where study-abroad opportunities were posted for Greece and Thailand. Phone numbers were listed on tear-away sheets. French Lessons. Yoga. Discounted Textbooks. I was about to tear one down for NEW YORK STYLE PIZZA: FREE DELIVERY when Miss Marcia warned, âBefore you go to your rooms, I want you all to know that weâve never had a problem with fighting. It just doesnât happen here at Utopia.â Why she directed this at me, I had no idea. But thatâs what she said. She said this was a place where girls stayed up all night and talked about how beautiful they were going to be. Never mind that I hadnât stayed up all night discussing whose figure I wanted since third grade while snugly zipped in my Barbie sleeping bag. She had to be kidding, right?
Wrong.
The boys were shipped off to another dormitory on another area of campus. The Utopian girls were housed on one complete floor of MontClaire Hall, two or three girls to a room, with adjoining rooms connected by a bathroom. Needless to say, Miss Marcia and her long legs held private accommodations down by the stairwell a bit closer to the younger campers.
My dorm was in the middle of the hall next to a sun-bleached patch of tile where presumably a vending machine once sat. On my door were the words âBaltimore, Cambridge, and Santa Feâ written in puffy bubbly letters and festooned with curly ribbon. The room next to ours housed Hollywood and Atlanta.
I swiped my Utopia card into the slot and a loud click followed. The red light blinked to green, and I pushed the door open like a coffin lid. Keeping with themes, our dorm rooms, like everything else at this prestigious academic institution, were fancy, old, and probably haunted. There were hardwood floors, dark-mahogany desks with scholarly green lamps on them, and a wall of built-in bookshelves. The ceilings were high; in the dusty corners cobwebs drooped like lace. On one side sat wooden bunk beds and on the opposite side a single metal bed.
We agreed that since Cambridge was the oldest, she should be permitted to pick her bed first. She gravitated toward the top bunk like it had a magnetic field. In the bathroom, I reveled in the claw-footed tub and complimentary fluffy towels when Santa Fe asked, âI wonder how many geniuses sat their butts on that very toilet?â She stopped. âLighten up. Iâm going to SEE YOU PEE!â
I tried not to laugh, but couldnât help it. Who starts a university with the initials C.U.P. anyway? Lame.
Santa Fe walked back into our room and flopped down on the metal bed next to the window. That left me with the bottom bunk.
We all three busied ourselves in silence. Santa Fe removed an electronic device from her suitcase that beeped a few times. She rapped it on the wooden desk, cursed, and it dinged some more.
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