I guess I’m gawking pretty bad because Sara’s looking at me instead of the dancing, and looking at me like I’m a hick. “You never seen stepping? I guess you wouldn’t have.” Her eyes turn back to the dancing, and she’s smiling, without irony, without reservation. “Now, that’s the way it should be. Campers, counselors, and cooks. United.” Then anger sparks. “Why do things get so screwed up?”

There is nothing I can say. The dancing line is beautiful, that’s all.

The last note fades out, and there is a moment’s hush before the line breaks up and they are again individual people, seven individual laughing people wrapped around the old cook in a chaotic embrace. When they release her, she too is laughing, bent low at the waist, hand over her mouth. Slapping her thighs, she steps backward all the way into the kitchen.

Arm in arm, Denise and Margie walk off the dance floor. Only when they have rejoined the white people does Margie change back. She stares at her feet. She is shy again.

“Last dance!” Mr. Bob calls.

*   *   *

Back at the cabin, there is talk of boyfriends.

“Last year at camp I really fell for this guy,” Yvonne says. “He had mild CP. He used a three-footed walker, and he was always falling down, getting injured, breaking stuff. Such a slob. Now I can’t remember why I thought he was so great, but I spent every minute I could with him. We found all kinds of places to sneak off and do things. I wrote to him, but he never wrote back.”

“So you’ll have to find somebody else. Somebody better!” Denise says.

“Yeah. That para is pretty good-looking.”

“Him? The King of the Formerly Normal?”

“Hey, I’m formerly normal too, you know.” Yvonne’s laughing.

“I saw you two dancing and him talking and you giggling up a storm,” Peggy Jo says. “But he thinks he’s too cool!”

“So who do you like?” Yvonne asks.

“I’ve been seeing this guy at home. My sister’s a cashier at the A&P, and he works there after school. My sister says I shouldn’t tell guys I’m in special ed. She says when I’m out of school, she’ll get me a job at the A&P and I’ll live a normal life.”

“I’ve tried that,” Denise confesses. “But I don’t know. Sooner or later they find out I’m epileptic. Epileptics can’t get married. It’s against the law.” An awkward silence comes. Denise is embarrassed. She takes a light tone.

“And what about you, Miss Margie? I bet every young man in tobacco country is after you!”

“Naw. Not every one.”

“But somebody? Who?”

“Just this one fellow is always looking at me in church.”

“Well, well, and what are you doing when this fellow is looking at you?”

“Nothin’.” Margie scrapes the floor with her foot.

“Nothin’?” Denise teases. “Not even looking back, maybe a little quick sideways look?”

Margie hides her whole face behind her hands. “Maybe!”