“Camping? Oh, I love camping!”
Never was a bigger lie told. I’d camped once, in my parents’ backyard when I was twelve or thirteen, in a tent with my younger sister, Soleil. It didn’t go that well.
Sleeping in the backyard is not camping, per se. But I was in a tent, and inside that tent I was in a sleeping bag. On the hard ground. Without my pillow.
So to me, it was pretty damn legit.
Before I had any idea my family was just playing at this camping thing and I realized I could bail at any time and crawl back into the house and my own bed, my mother had said it wouldn’t really be camping if I brought a pillow. Pillows weren’t ‘roughing it.’
Like she was such an expert. If I’d been a little more contrary, I might have told her you also weren’t roughing it if there was a flush toilet and a sink for washing your hands ten feet away. But I didn’t. I was playing along.
Plus, I wouldn’t have put it past her to have my dad fashion some sort of outdoor, rustic toilet for Soleil and me.
All had gone well until the middle of the night. We were sound asleep when the sky split open in an abrupt and ferocious summer thunderstorm. Soleil and I woke, ready to make a dash for the house. We’d had about enough of the camping at that point. But the only thing stopping us was the huge spider in our tent, hanging out on the zipper that closed it. The zipper we had to unzip in order to exit. There we were, trapped in a deafening thunderstorm so loud our parents couldn’t hear us screaming for help.
Then Soleil threw up. All over the place.
By the time my dad came out to check on us, we’d pretty much lost our shit, having been trapped in a leaking, puke-filled tent with a giant spider taunting us, for god knew how long. Dad dragged us back into the house, the whole time bitching at my mom about her efforts ‘to expose the girls to new things,’ and especially about having to clean the mess up.
But he didn’t clean it. Next morning when the sun came up, I watched Dad from my bedroom window stuff the soggy, puke-y tent, both sleeping bags, and possibly even the huge spider, into the large plastic trash bin out in front of our house. Minutes later, the garbage collectors arrived on my street, erasing the trauma, or at least its physical evidence.
Years later, it looked like my life-long commitment to avoiding camping at all costs might be coming to an end. I’d just started my PhD program in archeology and had to participate in a ‘dig,’ somewhere in the middle of a North African desert. The thing about archeological sites, is that they don’t have Holiday Inns built right next door to them. They’re often in the middle of nowhere, which is why there are cool antiquities and such to be uncovered—no one’s been digging around there in a long time. Which meant that ten years after my first ‘camping’ experience, I was about to have my second.
My PhD advisor—essentially my ‘boss’—Drake Bancroft, sat back in his rickety university-issue desk chair, rubbing his chin and frowning as he looked at me.
“You like camping? That’s funny. I didn’t take you for the ‘camping type,’ Fleur.”
The man was not considered a world-renowned genius for nothing. And the fact that he had my number—or thought he did—had me shifting uneasily in my black suede spike-heeled boots as I stood across his desk from him.
“Oh, Professor Bancroft, are you serious?” I asked breezily, gesturing like I could wave his silly assumption right out of the room. “Camping rocks,” I said, almost choking on the words.
I was already thinking about what I would wear. A shopping trip was definitely in order. My sister Soleil, now a successful yoga instructor, would know what to get. Her hippy friends camped all the time.
Bancroft’s office door blew open and my fellow student Rod whooshed in, brushing past me and grabbing the sole chair in the office.
The one I’d been waiting to have an invitation to sit in.
So I remained standing.
“Hey, Fleur. Hey, Professor B. How’s everybody?” he asked cheerfully, waiting for his opportunity to do some major sucking up.
Of Bancroft. Not me.
“Hi, Rob. Come on in,” Bancroft said sarcastically.
Rob’s oblivious face lit up. “Sure thing, Professor B.”
Such. A. Douche.
Bancroft leaned forward, elbows on desk. “Fleur and I were just discussing her joining the dig—”
“Oh yeah, sorry, Prof, that I can’t make it. The hepatitis I got on our last trip has still got me down.” He patted his stomach.
Confusion washed over Bancroft’s face.
But Rob reached up from his seat and patted me on the shoulder. “But lucky for us all, Fleur can go in my place. You have a lot to learn, my friend, but you’ll pick it up fast. You’re fairly smart.”
What?
First of all, Rob was never in the running for this trip.
Second, did he really just say I had a lot to learn?
And third, did he also say I was fairly smart?
Delusional, insulting, and condescending, all in the span of less than sixty seconds.
How was that even possible?
Bancroft’s eyes darted between the two of us like he was afraid I might smash Rob over the head with one of the priceless artifacts on his bookshelves.
In fact, he popped to his feet, and even though I was pissed to the point where I could barely see straight, I couldn’t fail to notice how my professor’s dark wash jeans hugged his hips and thighs and other… places.
Down girl.
I wasn’t alone in my observations. Female students fought to get into his classes, and rumor had it that some even sat in the front row in short skirts with no panties on.
But the professor had eyes for no one, except his beautiful wife, also an archeologist with the university, her office down the hall.
I’d always imagined what a charmed life they must lead. They were both brilliant, good-looking, well-respected, successfully published, and supportive of each other. They even carpooled to work in their late-model diesel Mercedes and ate lunch together every day.
Well, they had done all that. Until recently.
Seemed the missus had found an undergraduate boy toy in one of her classes. And that was the end of the Professors Bancroft love story.
So sad. I mean, who in their right mind would give up a guy like him?
While Bancroft put up a good front, I knew him well enough to see he was hurting. Regardless, I said nothing.
It was none of my business.
But what was my business was my fellow student Rob and his string of nasty little comments.
I pressed my lips together to stop the flow of expletives on the tip of my tongue, and as I realized they might just come flying out of my mouth anyway, Bancroft opened his office door and shooed Rob out.
“See ya later, Professor B,” Rob sang, completely ignoring me.
