There’s a vast difference between living a life of obligation and living a life of joy.
I’ve found I prefer the latter.
Even when it comes with two hundred screaming adolescents hyped-up on sugar sitting in an outdoor amphitheater for campfire skits and the end of the summer marshmallow roast.
Yes, yes, I’ve spent most of the summer hiding in the main house or the offices, or utilizing the private areas that Begonia insisted be roped off from the campers—and by roped off, she means triple-gated with fences and hedges and trees and monitored with cameras and motion detectors like a prison, because she did grow up as a camper and knows what they’re capable of.
And we do enjoy all manners of adult activities inside and out of the old farmhouse that we’ve renovated.
But it’s been a remarkably good first summer of camp, especially considering this is the last place that would’ve ever crossed my mind as a place I’d be happily settled with a woman I found naked in my bathroom just over a year ago.
I insisted we add a few touches as only Razzle Dazzle can, and so the camp food is edible, the beds are comfortable, and the entertainment has been top-notch. It’s been a lot of hard work, but at my entire family’s insistence, we’ve intentionally taken a loss on this division in order to fully staff the project and keep Begonia and myself from overworking ourselves.
I barely make forty hours most weeks.
Begonia, meanwhile, squeezes seventy-four thousand hours into every single day, and still has time to sit and eat dinner with me each night, walk our private trails on the land surrounding the campsite that I’ve acquired for additional privacy, and dance beneath the stars while the woodland creatures watch.
Plus, I insist she takes at least a week off every month. Call it privilege if you must.
I call it making sure Begonia takes time to experience the world instead of making her world solely exist inside the camp boundaries. We often head to Maine, but we’ve also been to Portugal, Argentina, Hawaii, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, and a number of European countries, some merely for dinner and the plane ride.
But not Paris.
Despite my regular contributions of a dollar here or five dollars there, and her comfortable camp art director salary that she insists is too much, Begonia is still somehow three years from saving enough for Paris.
It seems she can’t help donating to good causes when she has a few dollars in the bank, which suits me just fine.
And I utterly adore watching her occasionally count her piggy bank, and then yell at me when she realizes I’ve helped.
We’ve also seen the world’s largest ball of string, spent a week at Razzle Dazzle Village with Hyacinth and her family, took a train ride through the Rocky Mountains, attempted to learn fly fishing, got lost in Tennessee and accidentally crashed a wedding, and got lost in Iowa and accidentally crashed a funeral.
I’ve never known so much joy in my life, nor had beverages so regularly come out my nose at the dinner table, as I have since finding Begonia singing in my bathroom.
Full disclosure: the nose beverages are generally a result of Hyacinth’s visits, and not because Begonia enjoys torturing me.
I’m beverage-free as I stand at the edge of the campfire circle, which is a phrase that does not do the amphitheater justice. Three teenage girls have just re-enacted a pivotal scene from the latest Razzle Dazzle film on the stage, and Hyacinth has shoved her youngest at me so that she can clap the loudest. “That was way better than any acting Jonas Rutherford has ever done!” she calls.
“I can hear you, Hy,” Jonas says from my other side.
“She’s aware,” my mother tells him dryly.
Begonia, who couldn’t possibly let the final campfire of the season go without insisting her job as art director also made her final campfire director tonight, squints past the campfire, trying to see us. “Would you look at that?” she says to the campers. “I think my twin sister’s here. I can’t see her, but that sounded like her. Who wants to see me get doubled?”
All forty-two million pre-teens and teenagers erupt in screams of joy.
To meet Begonia is to love her, and I’m reasonably confident she knows every last camper by name.
“This suits Begonia,” my mother says as Hyacinth leaves two of her children with us and bounds down the stairs. It’s odd how natural it feels to hold her baby, who’s a slobbery little boy with mischief written in every ounce of his being. Unless he’s cuddling, which he’s perfectly content to do right now, and I’m perfectly content to let him.
“She’d try anything, but you’re right,” I say to my mother. “This definitely suits her.”
“It’s fucking late,” Dani says, earning a shh from her honorary third grandma, aka my mother.
Jerry huffs up to join us, Leo dragging behind him. “Did I miss it? We had a potty problem.”
He’s a decent guy. Not my first choice for poker night, but then, I’m not the poker night type, so we get along pretty well.
Hyacinth hits the stage with Begonia, and the adolescents go wild.
“She loves this camp,” Jerry says. “It’s a really good thing you make it pretty clear you can only handle one woman, because Hy would dump me for this camp.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jerry,” my mother says. “Hyacinth would never leave you for this camp or for Hayes. He gives terrible foot rubs. And she’s too busy to fully appreciate camp. Now, once your little ones are old enough to be campers…”
“Crap. I’ve gotta up my game.”
Begonia introduces Hyacinth, and the two of them fall into an old routine that I’ve seen dozens of times, but never the same show twice. It’s stories about their time at camp when they were younger, their favorite skits, their most embarrassing moments, and hints of the trouble they got into that they won’t tell the campers about, in case the campers come back next year.
“Don’t get in trouble,” Begonia says to the four hundred million teens and pre-teens.
Hyacinth winks at them.
The crowd roars with laughter.
“This calls for an interruption if you want this place still standing before the corporate retreats start,” my father murmurs to me.
I rub my thumb over the velvet box in my pocket. “It does, doesn’t it?”
“You sure you want to do this?” Jonas asks.
While I’ve had a fantastic year, he has not.
Turns out, we Rutherfords are better at navigating public scandals than we thought.
Or possibly we’re getting better at letting people see that we’re not perfect, and that’s exactly as it should be.
“I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life,” I tell him. “Here. Hold the little guy.”
He smiles and takes the sleepy bundle. “Good sign.”
I head down the closest stairway, following in Hyacinth’s footsteps to the stage, where Begonia gasps softly. “Well, this is unusual,” she says, meeting me at the edge and holding out a hand to help me up. “Look at this. We get the man responsible for Camp Funshine’s reincarnation himself. Now, go easy on Mr. Rutherford, okay? He doesn’t like big crowds.”
She beams at me, her nose wrinkling a little as if she’s asking what I’m up to, and I give her a peck on the cheek that makes the kids around us erupt in cheers.
“Always wondered if that would happen,” I murmur to her.
“What brings you to the stage?” she whispers back.
“I missed you.”
That smile melts me every time.
“Begonia didn’t introduce Mr. Rutherford here properly,” Hyacinth announces. “He’s actually her b-o-y-f-r-i-e-n-d.”
The kids squeal even louder.
“We know! We saw them k-i-s-s-i-n-g,” one of the teenagers yells.
Hyacinth fake-gasps. “Scandalous!”
“Truly,” I agree.
It’s odd being on a stage, and I still don’t know how Jonas does this—or Begonia, for that matter, as she’s out here for campfire skits at least every other week—but her hand is slipped in mine, and she squeezes lightly while she makes a face at the audience.
“Okay, okay, calm down. Grown-ups are allowed to date. And kiss.”
“And grown-ups also—” someone starts in the audience, but Begonia’s on it.
“Ernie Brown, if you finish that sentence, you don’t get to meet any other special guests tonight.”
Half the kids snicker.
“Now,” she continues, “since our dear Mr. Rutherford has come all the way up to the stage—for the first time all summer, I might add—let’s see what he has to say.” She smiles at me. “And the floor is yours.”
I look out over the mass of bodies in the dark, some illuminated by the fire, some farther back and merely shapes and shadows.
And then I look back at Begonia.
“Actually, I’d prefer to just talk to you.”
My voice carries, and I hear whispers around us.
Begonia’s nose twitches again, and so do her eyebrows. “Right here?”
“It does seem to be one of your favorite places.”
And there’s that smile again. “I have many favorite places.”
“That’s true,” Hyacinth chimes in.
“She’s notorious,” Jerry calls from the top of the amphitheater.
“Would you two please let him talk?” my mother says.
“Do you realize you’re surrounded by people who adore you?” I ask my beautiful bluebell.
She blinks once, and her smile grows wider. “And surrounded by people that I adore in return. This isn’t where either of us thought we’d be when we met, is it?”
“Not at all.”
I’m smiling too as I glance around at the kids again. Some are bouncing. Grins and smirks abound in this little amphitheater tonight.
“Is he gonna kiss her again?” someone whispers loudly.
“I hope not,” Hyacinth whispers back, just as loudly. “Ew.”
“What I hope,” I say, turning to the audience again, “is that each of you has learned a fraction of what I learn every day about the world and how to live life to the fullest, for having had the privilege of spending it with this lovely woman here.”
I squeeze her hand while more squeals and awws rise around us.
“Hayes,” she whispers.
I turn back to her. “You, my dear bluebell, have done the impossible. You’ve taken a cold, battered, hidden heart and taught it the true meaning of love. You’ve restored my faith in humanity, pulled me back into the world, and brought as much peace to my life as you have joy.”
She swipes at her eyes, still smiling. “You make it easy.”
“The day we met, the only thing I wanted was peace, quiet, and solitude. And I know I was the last thing you wanted that day too. The universe had other plans for both of us, and I find I want something I never thought could exist for me.”
“What’s that?”
I drop to one knee, and gasps and squeals explode around me.
But I care simply about one person, and one person only, whose eyes have suddenly gone the size of the fire, and whose lips have rounded into a circle.
“Hayes,” she whispers again.
“What I want, Begonia, is to marry my best friend, the woman I adore and cherish beyond reason, the only person on this earth who could make me believe in the honesty of love again. I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you make me every single day. If you’ll have me.”
Her eyes are wide and shiny, her smile so bright it could be a star all on its own, and she’s squeezing my hand.
“Hayes Rutherford, you know you don’t have to marry me to keep me.”
“And yet I have an inexplicable urge to stand on a mountaintop and vow to love you for all eternity anyway. I want it all, bluebell. Babies and awkward holiday parties with our families and gray hair and adventure and life. I want to tie my life with yours forever.”
“Say yes, Ms. Begonia!” someone yells.
“Men are gross! Say no!” a very familiar voice yells back. It seems someone invited Keisha as well.
Begonia laughs, but the merry sound turns into a gasp as I pull the velvet box from my pocket and open it. “I don’t mind earning that yes,” I tell her softly. “And I don’t mind being told no, so long as you’ll still keep me.”
“I could never tell you no.” She swipes at her eyes again, laughing, as she drops to her knees too, then flings herself at me. “I love you, Hayes. I love you and adore you and cherish you and want to spend the rest of my life doing all the things I know to do to make you smile and laugh and also—” she drops her voice “—all those things we shouldn’t talk about in front of an audience of horny teenagers.”
“Is that a yes?” I ask as I cling to this woman who’s given me back everything I’ve been missing in my life.
“It’s a double-triple-quadruple with whipped cream and a cherry on top yes,” she replies.
And I suddenly realize the error in my plans to propose to her in her very favorite spot on earth.
We have an audience.
Easily solved, though.
I pluck the modest ruby ring out of the box and lift it to her finger. Could I have gotten her a larger ring?
Yes.
Would she have turned me down on principle if I had?
Entirely possible.
“It’s the color of my hair,” she whispers.
“Exactly right, my love.” I start to slide it over her knuckle while the campers cheer around us, when suddenly, a massive pile of fur woofs, leaps between us, knocking us both to our asses.
“Marshmallow!” Begonia shrieks.
I look down.
Then at her.
Then at her dog, who’s carrying something that looks very much like the first piece of wood I ever saw in his jaws.
But this—this is not a Maurice Bellitano original.
Oh, no.
“Is that from Great Grandma Eileen’s collection?” I inquire softly.
Begonia’s gaze connects with mine, and it’s so very identical to the first time Marshmallow stole something from me that I start laughing.
“Hayes. The children,” she hisses. “Tell the dog to take it home.”
I would.
And I should. He still only takes orders from me.
But I can’t seem to get myself under control.
“Marshmallow, go home,” Begonia orders.
He ignores her, naturally.
“Go give it to Grandma Giovanna,” I manage to push out.
“Hayes.”
Her voice is outraged, but her eyes—her eyes are shining in amusement.
And when Marshmallow takes off up the stairs to my mother, the dildo dangling from his jaws, I rise as well, lifting my love with me as I go. “Thank you for spending part of your summer at Camp Funshine,” I tell the campers. “Excuse us. I believe this lady is now mine. Jonas, come apologize for us properly, please.”
With my famous brother suddenly announced, no one notices as I carry Begonia off the stage.
No one except her, that is. And probably our families.
“Hayes. We have to make sure that’s the only piece of Great Grandma Eileen’s collection that he brought out here,” she whispers.
“I’m sure Hyacinth would be delighted to do it for us.”
She stares at me a beat longer before she, too, starts laughing. “Do you know how much I love you? Truly love you? Simply because you’re you?”
I settle her on the ground behind a copse of pine trees, link my arms around her waist. “I have an inkling. And now I’d very much like to show you how much I love you.”
And I do.
Just as I intend to show her how much I love her every day for the rest of our lives.
