It’s the summer of ‘99, and I have recently run the Big Three gamut of adulthood: a boy broke my heart, I moved out of my childhood home, and after two years of wasting time at a very pricey university, I changed my mind. I am now about a month into a summer job as a camp counselor four states away from home. I decided that I would hate this job about 12 hours after I started, but now I’m bound to an employment contract I’d never bothered to read closely.
I am sitting under an obnoxiously bright fluorescent light and pretending to be interested in a months’-old Cosmopolitan while the industrial laundromat dryers methodically thump thump thump out a strange rhythm in the background. At 20 years old, I think this is the height of maturity.
But really I’m just looking for any life experience that will make me interesting because I’m not especially pretty or smart, and everyone knows that people who aren’t especially pretty or smart must at least be interesting. I imagine all the quirky anecdotes Future Me will have about "That One Summer I Lived in Maine". Except I’ll leave out the truth of it all; I’m desperately homesick, I don’t like kids, and none of the other counselors have deemed me cool enough to sneak away into the woods and drink Boone’s Farm wine with them.
I’m mostly alone in this laundromat, which is both surprising and sad for a small town like this one. My only other companion is an older woman with overly-processed blonde hair and an off-brand neon velour tracksuit. She is quietly folding flannel shirts in the corner.
I’m contemplating a trip to the vending machine when the woman leans over the end of the row of cracked plastic chairs.
“‘Scuse me. D’ya have any change? The change machine ain’t workin’.”
I do, and I hand it to her.
“‘Preciate it.”
Her voice is dripping with the distinctive accent typical to Down East Mainers but there’s a sad gentleness to it, which is jarring coming from such a gruff exterior. As she rolls the quarters around in her palm, I notice tears beginning to streak down the roadmap of lines across her cheeks.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
What a stupid question.
She slumps into the chair beside me.
“Ayah. Sorry,” she mutters. She wipes both eyes with the heels of her hands, and it leaves behind angry smears of cheap mascara. “Had to take my son to rehab again.”
Her whole body seems to melt as she speaks the words into existence.
“I’m...sorry?”
“It’s okay,” she says. “Just prayin’ it takes this time.”
“Well…” I have several follow-up questions, none of which seem appropriate. She turns to me, her face alive with defeat and desperation.
“It’s gonna, right? It’s gonna take this time. Right? Brandon’s gonna stay clean this time.”
“Um, yeah,” I stammer. “He is. He really is.”
She nods. “He’s a good boy. Sure is.”
“It’s really great that he has your support.”
“He’s my baby.”
We sit like that, side-by-side and still, for a moment until she returns to her folding and I return to my magazine, and I imagine that both of us are thinking of Brandon.
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