A Wandering Muse at Camp

"Go!" Lewis said in a loud, commanding whisper. It seemed as if he knew that Tess was on the verge of crumbling, and she couldn't. Not when her love needed her.

Tess knew in her heart where Avery was heading. It was the only place on the property where Av had complete control. When she got to the tech building, the locks were opened, but the lolling metal tongues of the deadbolts were left out, so the door couldn't be closed with Avery's key still in the bottom lock. It was as if Av tried to haphazardly close the fasteners but couldn't quite achieve the task.

Tess took out the key and pocketed it before fixing the disarray of the locks. Tess's own was hanging on the wall in the house. Lewis did need to open the place up for other people occasionally. It only went missing from that hook on numerous nights when she and Avery could exploit its privacy and ensure no one else could stumble in on them.

"Avery?" Tess hurried down the hall. The photo studio and computer lab were dark, save for some light leaking in through the open door, but there was the sound of soft sobbing. "What can I do for you, babe?" Tess pleaded when she found Avery curled into a ball with her back against the wall.

Avery reached up and grabbed Tess's hand, pulling her in close. Tess sat beside her as Avery leaned in and sobbed on her shoulder. Big, ugly tears rolled down her love's cheeks. "Just stay with me, please." Came out in a soft whisper.

"I'm here. I'm always here, my love." Tess didn't even think about it as the L word slid out. "I love you, babe." This wasn't how she wanted to say those three crucial words, but she couldn't help it. Avery needed to know that Tess would support her regardless of obstacles.

Tess sat there and let Avery cry for probably an hour before she was ready to talk. "What am I going to do without one of my roots?"

"The others are going to have to help carry you." Tess didn't want to sugarcoat or give false hope about Avery's mom coming around. That was a vehement reaction that had no place in logic. "Let me support you when you can't."

"Why... why did I think this would be easy?" Avery hugged her tighter.

"Nothing ever is." Tess sighed. "But it's more bearable when we have someone else to help pick us up."

"I wanted to tell my parents I found a girl I love, and they wouldn't listen." Avery sobbed again. "I love you, Tess." Avery came in for a slow kiss even as tears continued to flow.

"The feeling's mutual. That's what I wanted to tell you tonight." Tess held her woman in her arms as she sniffed back her own tears.

They embraced in mostly silence as Avery cried herself out. They probably would have stayed, tucked away in their private refuge, where Avery, stumbling upon her, had allowed their love to grow in safety if the light hadn't flicked on.

"Oops, sorry, girls." Mateo apologized profusely. "Lewis wanted me to make sure the tech building was cleaned up. Oh fuck, what happened?"

"My mother is what happened." Avery struggled to her feet but seemed to regain her confidence as she wiped away a lone remaining tear. "She despises that I'm a lesbian." She helped Tess stand.

"That sucks. I'm really sorry. You two are good together." Mateo shook his head.

"You knew?" Tess questioned. The girls tried to only show affection around her family or in the privacy of their sanctuary. Avery had announced she was a lesbian but had said nothing about dating Tess.

"Have for a while. You do know how you two look at each other, right?" Mateo started to pick up things in the lab and tidy the space. "Someday, I want a woman to look at me like that. I know I'm just a waystation on the way to someone else, but one day..." He trailed off.

"Maybe when you stop creeping on the ladies, Mateo." Avery wasn't ready for contrite and sincere Mateo, apparently.

"I never... That was Kendall. I may be many things, but a creeper I'm not." Mateo explained. "We got this place under control. Get out of here, you two."

"Let's go into town, and let me buy you lunch." Tess grabbed Avery's hand.

"Okay..." Avery had a morose tone but stopped them once they were out of Mateo's sight. "Thank you." She pushed Tess into the wall with the power of her kiss. "Now I don't have to worry about how to tell you I love you."

"That's never going to change, Avery. No matter what life throws at us. This isn't just some camp romance." Tess smoothed some errant strands of hair from Avery's face. "You know that, right? I love you, Avery." It was her turn to kiss the beauty.

"Believe me, I know." Avery smiled for a moment before the gloom returned.

They walked through the camp hand in hand this time. PDA may have been forbidden, but surely no one would give Tess guff for supporting her girlfriend on a monumentally shitty day. Avery held her head high and proud, letting a pair of sunglasses obscure her puffy eyes.

"Where's Maxine!?" Avery stopped them when they got to the staff parking. The spot beside Rex was empty. Like the two of them, their cars were often paired together.

Any of her stuff that had been in the car was in a clump of the formally occupied space wrapped in a blanket that Tess and Avery took out to have picnics with. Under a rock at the top was a piece of paper that said 'Maxine is mine, Dyke!' underlined several times in bright red ink.

"That's my mom's handwriting." Avery flopped on the ground beside the pile.

"Did she have some kind of mental break?" Tess was flabbergasted at how a mother could turn on her daughter like this. She sat in the vacant parking spot beside Avery and hugged her close.

"I don't know..." The tears returned in full gusto.

Tess would've sat beside her love until the grass grew over them if that was what it took to comfort her. She had no idea what she could do about this ultimate betrayal. Tess could do nothing to fix things. All she could do was be a shoulder to cry on and become the best support system possible.

"Tess?" A familiar voice that Tess had been looking forward to seeing all summer asked from the other side of Rex. "Oh my God, honey, what's wrong?" Tess looked through tears to see a tall, slightly tubby black man and his slender Latin husband with their mouths agape and concern in their eyes. They were in their mid-forties, gray hairs peppering their well-trimmed matching goatees.

"Dwayne? I'm glad you're on your feet again, but this isn't a good time." Tess tried to shoo them away. She'd been looking forward to seeing Dwayne for a year, but her love needed her.

"Why? I'd sit beside you two, but I'm unsure I could get up. The right leg's still a mess."

"My mom decided that she didn't want a lesbian for a daughter." Avery glared at Dwayne.

Dwayne looked at his husband and affected a soft smile. "Believe me, it's the perfect time for you two to let us take you to lunch."

"We know a little something about shit like this." Dwayne's husband spoke. "I'm Lorenzo. I don't believe we've introduced ourselves." Lorenzo took a step over and offered Tess and Avery a hand up.

Tess waited for Avery's direction. Where she was going was totally dependent on what her girl wanted.

"I'm Avery, Tess's girlfriend." Avery let Lorenzo help her up. "Could you guys help us put this heap somewhere? It's all I have from my car."

"We can put it in Rex." Tess offered as she started to gather the debris from the stack.

"Let me help." Lorenzo offered.

Avery -- In Dwayne and Lorenzo's car

"J's is still open, right?" Dwayne asked. It was the name of a legendary burger spot that moved out to the town during the summers. Camp Winslow was only one spot in a chain of man-made lakes and surrounding campgrounds, providing the village a significant income.

"For one more week," Tess answered the query. The mother of the clan that ran the place was a teacher for forty years, and the routine was still ingrained. Instead of returning to a city a hundred miles away for winters now, she and her husband went somewhere warmer in their three-quarters retirement.

"Good. This is our treat." Lorenzo stated from the driver's seat. The pair had a luxurious SUV.

"So, Avery, you're my replacement?" Dwayne seemed to be trying to keep things light as they drove toward town.

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"Tess is lucky that you're so bad at rock climbing." Lorenzo teased his husband.

"Yes, she is. I didn't know there was a requirement for all the IT people to be so cute, I mean, I set a high bar, but damn, Avery, you surpassed it." Dwayne interjected before anyone else could respond.

"Uhh... thank you." Avery had gone from a raw, pulsating, irritated nerve of despair and anger to numbness.

"So, how'd you set up the camp's IT this year." Dwayne looked over his shoulder at the girls.

Avery went into her whole philosophy and plans for the network and her success in teaching coding to the campers for half the ride to the restaurant. Dwayne listened and nodded in between leading questions and genuine appreciation.

"Why'd we both fall for nerds?" Lorenzo asked Tess.

"Some lucky quirk of nature, I guess." Tess gripped Avery's hand.

"What do you do when you're not doing IT or falling off rocks, Dwayne?" It was Avery's turn to ask.

"My hubby's a professor at Tess's college, at least now he is," Lorenzo answered for him.

"Associate Professor, for now. I must complete my dissertation and then get tenure to become a full Professor." Dwayne explained.

"You got the job?" Tess smacked the back of Dwayne's chair in a cheer. "I guess I don't have to wait until next summer to see you two."

"Yup. My hubby caught a lucky break because of his unlucky break. He started talking to the dean because they were at the same physical therapist in the waiting room." Lorenzo sighed performatively. "My hubby didn't want to be my patient this time."

"Nope. Last time that happened, I married you, and I'm not risking that happening again." Dwayne grinned. "I'm only getting married once."

Avery could see what Tess saw in the pair. She couldn't believe she bragged about her setup to a man who nearly had a doctorate in the field, but he seemed impressed.

They pulled into a spot at J's as her phone started to buzz in her purse. "It's my dad. Could you guys give me a minute?"

"Sure. We'll get a table. It's nice enough that we can sit out on the patio." Dwayne agreed. "We'll open the sunroof so it doesn't get too hot."

"If you need me, I'll be twenty feet away, babe." Tess kissed her lightly on the cheek before she got out.

"'Kay."

Avery let the car empty before she answered. "Daddy?"

"Hey, pumpkin. I'm so sorry about what happened this morning. Thank God I reached you."

"What the hell happened with Mom?"

"I don't know, sweetie." Her dad sighed heavily. "This isn't your fault, Avery. This was the last straw for your mom and me, though. We kept it from you children, but things haven't been good."

"What?" It felt like another punch landed on her unprotected psyche.

"Baby, I told her I was going back to find you and tell you I was sorry. I had just started to talk to Lewis about where you might be when your mom tore out of the parking lot in your car. I tried to chase her down. You worked three summers to pay for that car from me. Maxine is yours. You have the title and the insurance."

"She left a note on all my stuff she threw out of the car that said, 'Maxine is mine, Dyke' Why? Why does she want to hurt me?" More tears flowed from Avery's eyes.

"Fuck!" Miguel audibly smashed his fist down on something. From here, it sounded like the armrest of the family SUV. "I should have checked that instead of trying to chase her down. I wish I could tell you why. I will contact my lawyer and get your car back." Her dad sounded defeated.

"Okay." More numbness surrounded her.

"So, tell me about Tess."

Her father and Avery talked for twenty minutes before he drove into a well-known dead spot in coverage, but not before saying he loved her.

"Hey, Avery, how'd things go?" Tess asked when Avery joined them on the patio.

"My parents are getting a divorce. Mom has my car, and Dad tried to get it back but wanted me to know he loved me. So better, I suppose." Avery tried to put on a brave face as she sat down.

"I'm sorry, Avery. Dwayne and I were praying that the next generation would have an easier go of it." Lorenzo explained. "We gave Tess a bunch of resources. If you two need anything, let us know."

"We'll do what we can to support our baby gays. I don't think Lorenzo and I would have made it without our brave predecessors. It's time for us to return the favor." Dwayne had a tight smile on his face. "Tess told me everything that happened this morning. I'm so sorry, Avery."

"It sucks. I had no idea my mom thought like that. She was always so friendly with the lesbian couple that lives next door. I was scared to let my parents know I was in love with a woman, but that..."

"Yeah, it doesn't always go well. Trust me." Lorenzo passed her a soda that Tess had obviously ordered for her.

"What happened when you two came out?" Tess queried.

"My parents caught me kissing a boy in much the same manner as what happened to you, but it was hiding in a nook created by the fireplace outside our house. I have no idea why my dad decided that precise moment was time to empty the trash." Lorenzo started on his story. "That was before I graduated high school. They kicked me out of the house that night, and I was homeless for almost two years afterward. They never came around."

Lorenzo continued his story by dropping out of high school and living in condemned buildings while trying to hold down a job at a community center just so he had a place to take a shower. Eventually, that community center led to a summer job at Camp Winslow, where he met Dwayne. His now husband helped him get his GED. The two lost touch for years when Dwayne moved away to go to a prestigious college on the East Coast. Lorenzo was able to get student loans and crawl his way through college.

Several years later, Dwayne got hurt in his first rock-climbing accident and came into the clinic where Lorenzo worked as an intern after earning his medical degree. Their love was almost instantly renewed, and they were married a year later.

"It was my dad who had the freakout." Dwayne started with his own story. "My mom and dad never married, so I had to do the coming out speech twice. Mom was a breeze, and she already knew. Dad, though. He screamed and yelled at me before telling me he never wanted to see a..." Dwayne shook his head, "Let's just say the f-word, and I don't mean fuck, like me ever again. Sorry, I can't say the word that was hurled at me too often as a youth. Almost more than the n-word, though plenty liked to use them in combination. It would be a decade before he apologized." He sighed. "But I know a change of heart is sadly not the norm, so don't get your hopes up, Avery."

The four spent the afternoon talking about things, and before they took them back to camp, Avery had a therapist lined up to start talking through things. It was the same woman that had helped Dwayne when he was younger. She had a charity that helped cover the cost to help young LGBTQ+ people cover their expenses.

Avery was still numb and shattered, but at least there was a pinprick of hope in the darkness that had descended on her that day. Whatever trials still came, the woman she loved would be beside her to help lift her when she fell.

Tess -- The last week of camp

"Hey, baby, do you know where Avery is?" Her mother stopped Tess as she was flitting about the camp and capturing images of the young elementary students participating in various activities. During this week with younger students, she was the photographer, not the teacher. Her mother's new ring sparkled in a beam of light.

"She's going over some fundamental coding activities. I think they'll break out toy cars here in a bit. That's always a hit. Figured I better get some photos elsewhere before that starts." Tess grinned. The cars, being a tangible programming example, were always a showstopper.

"Would you mind going and grabbing her? She's going to need you, Tess. I think I can handle a few photos." Her mother smiled, but it looked forced. Whatever reason she had to call for Avery wouldn't be good news.

"Okay, umm, who's going to watch her class?"

"Send them to Mateo's group. He could use a few more today."

"You sure you got this?" Tess was cautious about relinquishing her new camera.

"You know your dad and I met in a photography class, right?"

"Of course, but that was a quarter century ago, and things have changed slightly." Tess's fingers, as she mimed along, were far apart.

"Yeah, they've gotten easier." More of the forced smile appeared. "Hurry up and grab Avery. Lewis needs to see her in the office pronto."

"Okay, Mom."

It took just a few minutes to get the classes squared away, and Avery headed in the right direction. Tess waited until they walked into the farmhouse to take Av's hand. The prohibition on PDA was still intact, but if they weren't in public spaces, Tess would do everything to support her love.

"Do you know what this is about?" Avery looked frightened.

"No idea, but Mom said you would need me, and she forced a smile. It's probably not a good thing."

"So, no sudden raise?" Avery giggled nervously.

"Probably not, though you've earned it, babe."

The door to the office was closed when they got to it, which was odd as Lewis had an open-door policy. There was a murmur of light talking, drifting formlessly through the old oak door. Tess knocked lightly.

"Who is it?" Lewis called out.

"I brought Avery like my mom asked."

"It's unlocked. Please send Avery in." Lewis requested.

Tess opened the door and planned to let Avery go in alone, but Av gripped her hand and pulled her along. Her princess needed her. In the office with the warm old wood shelves, Lewis was behind his desk, and standing tall on the other side was a tall, somewhat intimidating state trooper who looked to be of Native American descent with long, dark hair.

"Avery April Ayers?" The trooper asked with a deep, authoritative voice.

"Yes, sir? Do I need to go get my ID?" Avery's voice quavered a little as she tried to put on a brave face.

"No, that's more of a formality. You look exactly like your photo. May we have a minute, ma'am?" He asked, pointing toward the chair across the table.

"Can Tess stay?" Avery asked and took a seat without releasing Tess's hand.

"If you'd like."

"Please. I need my girlfriend with me." Avery's green eyes pivoted toward Tess, and she gave her a little nod to tell her she was always with her.

"Alright." The trooper pulled out a tablet. "You're not in trouble. This isn't an interrogation, but you can call a lawyer if you'd like."

"I haven't done anything wrong." Avery had the hint of a flutter of nerves in her response.

"Where were you at nine a.m. this morning?"

"I was having breakfast with Tess, Edith, and Mateo," Avery replied. Edith and Mateo were an item. She was sticking with him even after their first hook-up, so maybe the man had finally learned something.

"We didn't think you could have been four hours away from here and gotten back by noon classes." The trooper tapped something on his tablet. "Are you the owner of a Silver 2016 Honda Civic?"

"Yes, sir, but my mom took my car a week and a half ago. I filed a report with local law enforcement, but they didn't know what to do with it. My father reported it was back at home that evening." Avery had told Tess that her name was on the car's title and insurance. She had bought Maxine from her father last summer.

"I'm sorry to tell you this: your car was abandoned on a rail crossing at nine a.m. A citizen called to report it, but it was too late to stop the train or move the car." The trooper turned around the tablet to show the remains of Maxine strewn across a hillside beside the tracks.