It was an exceptionally hot, humid day on the island of Dolphin Cove, off the coast of Florida. The rare breeze that blew across the sweat soaked faces of the Dolphin Cove campers aboard the small boat crossing the ten mile stretch from the mainland to Dolphin Cove was hotter than the still air itself. But Briony Greer didn’t care. She was too excited. It was her first time back at Dolphin Cove, the summer camp she had attended since she was eight. But her last year had been three years ago, when she was thirteen. And now, she and her six camp BFFs and originally Bunk 3 roommates were all back as CITs at sixteen. And she couldn’t wait to see her friends again.
“Bri, Bri,” an excited, high-pitched voice interrupted Briony’s thoughts. She looked down and saw her eight-year-old half-sister, Symphony. Everyone said Symphony was the spitting image of Briony, but Briony didn’t think so. She had ultra-glossy, professionally straightened, boob-length ebony locks, deep hazel eyes, and soft, mocha colored skin. She was toned from her slim biceps down to her perfectly sculpted calves, and, though she was a little on the thin side, Briony had not spent countless exhausting hours dancing for nothing–she looked good.
Symphony, on the other hand, was a little pudgy, though Briony’s mother insisted it was just baby fat. She wore her mahogany ringlets in two high pigtails and had a splatter of freckles dotting her tanned face. In Briony’s eyes, the only think of Symphony’s that resembled Briony whatsoever was her stunning voice. Both Greer girls had been blessed with amazing singing abilities but unlike Briony, who planned to Broadway one day, Symphony just enjoyed singing along to Hannah Montana on the radio.
“What’s up, Symph?” Briony asked, her momentary annoyance with her sister for ruining her peaceful moment evaporating. Nothing was going to put her in a bad mood that day. Nothing.
Symphony wrapped her freckled arms around Briony’s arms and pulled herself up so she was sitting in the seat next to her. “Tell me about her again, Bri,” she said, her brown eyes wide with excitement. “Tell me about-” she lowered her voice, “Atlanta Harris.”
Briony rolled her eyes. Symphony was still in shock that Briony was friends with Atlanta Harris, a star on her favorite Disney TV show. Briony didn’t see what the big deal was. She and all her camp friends had know Atlanta since they were seven or eight, and to them, she was just Lannie, the sweet, strawberry blond who had been afraid to swim in the deep end of the pool until their third summer and had a massive crush on the lifeguard, Kyle. “Look, Symph,” she explained as the captain of the boat sounded the horn to signal that they were pulling into the dock. At the glimpse of the all too familiar lake and the cabins past the volleyball net, tennis courts, and pool, Briony’s stomach leapt. She was finally back!
“C’mon, Symphony,” Briony exclaimed, giddy with excitement like she was nine years old again. “Let’s go!”
Symphony was suddenly nervous. “I don’t wanna go,” she whined, down casting her eyes. She tugged on Briony’s arm. “I wanna go back home, Bri. I don’t wanna go.”
Briony shook her head at Symphony. Of all times, she chose now to be homesick. Briony didn’t have the patience for that. She scooped Symphony up onto her back and dashed for the stairs that led to the familiar, splintered wood pier. It was so good to be home.
Lannie Harris pushed her way through the hordes of preteen campers, searching for a familiar face. She was wearing cutoff Bermuda shorts and a simple pink H&M halter that matched her pink Havaiana’s. Her favorite wraparound Gucci sunglasses were positioned on her freckled nose, shielding her ever-so-recognizable aquamarine eyes from view so she could focus on her real mission: finding her friends.
Lannie pushed her pixie blond locks out of her face and sighed. She had dyed her hair blond for a Warner Bros. movie she had just finished filming and she was going through a reverse treatment to get her natural color back. Lannie wondered if her friends would recognize her with signature strawberry blond waves gone. Of course, her face had been plastered across the cover of every tween celebrity magazine possible the second she went blond–but she doubted any of her camp friends read Popstar.
Lannie was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice as a tall, lanky girl who was looking over her shoulder bumped into her.
“Oh sorry,” Lannie piped up. The girl looked to be about her own age–sixteen, and had short, choppy platinum blond locks that reminded Lannie of Pink’s 2006 hairdo, or in her case, hair-don’t She wore a black what looked to be a sports bra over a hot pink tee shirt that was ripped to reveal her pierced navel. She wore baggy, army green cargos sitting so low on her waist that they were practically falling off her, and a black, spike-studded belt. On her feet were paint splattered Chucks. She turned to face Lannie and gave her a little grin. Her unusually bright emerald green eyes shone.
Lannie blinked and pushed her sunglasses up so they rested on top of her head. There was only one person in the whole world she knew that had striking, emerald green eyes. “Macy?” she said in amazement.
Macy McIntire stared at Lannie for what seemed like an eternity and Lannie wondered if she had made a mistake. But she couldn’t have. Even if the girl she was looking at had zero resemblance to the brown-ringleted, guitar playing poet she had last seen three years ago, those green eyes were Macy. Lannie would know those eyes in a crowd of thousands. She would never forget those eyes.
“Lan?” Macy said incredulously. Lannie’s face broke into a wide, uncontrollable grin. Macy’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, Lannie!” Lannie could not hold off a second longer. She promptly threw her arms around her friend. The two girls embraced for a long time before Lannie, sniffling slightly, asked the question.
“Have you seen anyone else?”
“Nah,” Macy shook her head. “You’re the first one I’ve found. C’mon, lets go find everyone else.”
The two girls linked arms and began their search for the other Bunk 3 girls. Campers stared as the pair pushed their way through groups of kids–a punk rebel and one of the most well know teen sensations in America–on a quest to find their very best friends.
Iris Santos sat on a bench in the vicinity of a grand oak tree, shaded from the heat and the mess of campers milling about the beach, looking for friends they hadn’t seen in a year–or, in Iris’s case, three years. She dusted off her white Hollister short-shorts and smoothed out her white wife-beater, aware of how stunning the white looked against her deeply tanned, cappuchino colored skin.
“Wow, Iris,” said the blond who sat next to her. “Just wow. You are so gorgeous.”
Iris blushed. “God, Brianna. Compared to you, I’m, like, an ugly stepsister or something.” She studied her friend. Brianna Foster looked the same as always: stunningly gorgeous. But in the three years time that had elapsed since the two had last seen each other, Brianna had gotten even more beautiful, if that was possible. Her long, beachy blond waves cascaded over her moss-green-and-white striped bikini top and floated onto her white, zip up BCBG cover up. Her simple outfit was accentuated with gold, Grecian goddess-esque thong sandals and a simple gold pendant. On Iris it would have looked plain. But on Brianna it looked stunning.
“Iris,” Brianna said seriously, surveying her friend. Iris was still petite and curvy, but she had lost her glasses, shed her braces, and gotten rid of the baby fat that had gathered on her stomach and under her chin at age thirteen. Now she had slimmed out and gotten a wicked pixie haircut and brightened up her dark hair with warm brown highlights. Her gorgeous almond shaped eyes were jaded–from many hours of staying up in the darkroom, Brianna presumed–but perfectly accentuated with just a touch of gold glitter eyeshadow. “You’re hot.”
Iris blushed. She had not been expecting that. Suddenly, long arms grabbed her from behind and squeezed. She hadn’t been expecting that either. “Hey you,” said a voice she hadn’t heard in a long time. She jumped, surprised. Next to her, Brianna shrieked and jumped up.
“Taaaaaaaaaahhhhliiiiieeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!” she cried gleefully, throwing her arms around the anonymous person behind Iris. Iris turned and saw Talia Emerson’s familiar smile grinning at her from beyond Brianna’s blond waves. Talia was taller than she had been at thirteen, but besides that, she looked almost exactly the same. Her long, chestnut colored hair cascaded down her back with not a single hair out of place, and her cute bangs were side swept so the eager, excited look in her indigo eyes was not to be missed. She wore jean shorts and a soccer jersey of some sort–her usual attire. And without braces, her smile seemed wider than ever. Iris could not resist. She wrapped her arms around her friends and joined in on the hug. God, it was good to see them.
Elizabeth Hendricks stumbled off the last boat that docked and her heart warmed at the familiar sight of her beloved camp. Campers were already milling about, and it smelled like home. Her home. She did her best to gather up her little brothers, Tommy and Jake, who were engaged in a water gun fight, and her little sister, Emmy, who was nervously reverting to an old habit of sucking her thumb, and anxiously pushed her way off the boat and onto the soft, white sand.
Once situated on land, Tommy and Jake found their friends, and, after a chorus of “Hey dude”s and “What’s up, bro?”s, they went off to do whatever eleven-year-old boys do, leaving Elizabeth stranded on the surf with a panicky, thumb sucking eight-year-old.
“Hey, Em,” Elizabeth said, scanning the crowd for any sign of her friends. Do you see any of your friends?” Emmy shook her head hastily, her thumb never leaving her mouth.
“Well, what about...” Elizabeth’s steady gray eyes searched for a group of little girls her Emmy might be friends with. She loved her little sister, but right now she wanted to find Macy, Talia, Brianna, Briony, Lannie, and Iris. And, of course, Reese. God knew if Reese was even going to show up. But her search was interrupted by a familiar head of black hair hurrying by. “Briony!” she exclaimed.
The head turned, revealing Briony, who was giving a small girl about Emmy’s age a harried piggy back ride. Her eyes widened when she saw Elizabeth. “Oh my God,” she dropped the girl into the sand. “Elizabeth!” The two girls ran towards each other in a tangled, happy embrace.
“Wow, Liz,” Briony said happily, surveying her friend. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing,” Elizabeth grumbled, jealous of Briony’s stunning transformation from cute to flat out gorgeous. She fingered the white blond locks that fell softly to her belly button and straightened the hem of her baby blue tank top.
“Come on, girl,” Briony joked, grinning at her friend. “Of course it’s a good thing. You are so sexy, girl.” She let out her trademark cackle. “And I’ll bet Aaron is gonna love those.”
Elizabeth blushed and folded her arms across her C-cups, giggling. Aaron had been her camp crush back when she was thirteen, and things had heated up the last week before camp ended. It had been three years, and she hadn’t talked to him since. She’d been looking forward to seeing him again for practically forever.
“Elizabeth,” said a small voice. Elizabeth looked down. Emmy had removed her thumb from her mouth and was now staring anxiously up at her sister, eyeing the two unfamiliar girls nervously.
“Emmy,” Elizabeth said, raising her eyebrows at her sister. “Look who’s here. It’s...” she trailed off, waiting for Briony to fill in the blank.
“My sister, Symphony,” Briony piped up. She bent down so she was eye level with Emmy. “Emmy, right?” Emmy nodded vigorously. She was about to put her thumb back in her mouth, but she glanced at Symphony, who was standing seductively, for an eight-year-old, at least, with her hands on her hips, and thought better of it. “Well, it’s Symph’s first year here at Dolphin Cove,” she explained, oblivious to Symphony’s embarrassed pout. “But you’ve been here before, haven’t you?”
Emmy nodded happily. “Last year,” she explained.
“Well, I was thinking maybe you could hang out with Symph, and show her the ropes,” Briony continued.
“Of course,” Emmy smiled, glad to be put in the position of the ‘experienced camper.’
“I think I see Jen, one of the counselors,” Elizabeth said, waving over the tall brunette that was head of the seven and eight-year-old girls division. After a quick round of hugs and “Oh my God you’re back”s to Elizabeth and Briony, Jen introduced herself to the little girls, who were now cautiously gripping each other’s arms, and led them away to join a pack of excited, very pink little girls that were crowded on one edge of the beach.
“So,” Briony began, linking arms with Elizabeth. “Have you seen anyone?” Elizabeth shook her head. “I just got-” she started to explain, but then paused when she spotted a group of girls sitting in the shade of the big oak tree, waving wildly and calling, “Bri, Liz! Bri, Liz!” Elizabeth looked at Briony and shrugged before the two girls took off across the sand to meet their friends.
It was later that day when a helicopter disrupted the peaceful silence of waves lapping the shore on the far side of Dolphin Cove. It landed on the helicopter pad the Saunders family had paid to have put in nine years ago. A stunning girl with curly blond tresses and eyes the color of the deep ocean stumbled out and behind her two men dressed in black stepped out with almost a dozen suitcases. The girl straightened her Marc Jacobs sundress, dug the heels of her turqouise Jimmy Choo ankle boots firmly into the sand, lowered her Prada sunglasses to shield her eyes, and checked her leather Coach watch. It was one o’clock. Reese Saunders had officially arrived at Dolphin Cove.
Talia Emerson sat on her bed–the bottom to Iris’s top bunk. That’s the way it had been since the first summer of camp nine years ago. The girls had spent the last hour, their free hour after lunch, gossiping and catching up, and now things were a little more subdued. Lannie was sprawled on her stomach on Talia’s bed, going through the pictures on Talia’s Sony Megapixel. And Talia was just daydreaming.
“Woah,” Lannie suddenly burst out. “Rewind.”
“What?” Talia asked, leaning over so she could see the display screen Lannie was looking at. Lannie held up a picture of a tanned, buff guy with curly brown locks and twinkling eyes who was grinning at the camera.
“Who is this gift from heaven?” Lannie teased. Talia blinked rapidly to keep the tears from coming and stared at her brightly painted toenails. It wasn’t Lannie’s fault. She had no way of knowing. Why hadn’t Talia deleted those pictures anyway? She tried to convince herself she had forgotten, but she knew that she hadn’t. She knew that she still wasn’t over his dreamy eyes and soft, sweet smile and curly tendrils. His gorgeous face. Him, in general.
‘That’s Derek,” Talia said quietly. “my ex-boyfriend.” It was no use pretending. She was bad at lying and Lannie knew her too well anyway.
Suddenly, Brianna’s loud, expressive voice filled the tiny cabin. It was high pitched, like it always was when she was excited. All that came out before she jumped up, giddy, was, “Reeeeeeeeeeeee!” Talia fixed her eyes on the screen door, where a head of curly blond hair was poking in. “Omigod, Reese!”
