Alice was old enough to know her own mind. She wasn't a child and yet sometimes she acted like one. He'd start to reveal his plans, his dreams for a better future and he'd see her shut him out. He didn't even want to hear it. He had thought that if she could see the place, if she could come out and see what he had done, actually participate in the project, then she might come to appreciate what he was trying to do.

But no. She didn't really want to be there. She did her part but her heart wasn't in it. She seemed to be one of those live-for-today types. Eat. Drink. And be merry for tomorrow, we die.

If everybody thought that way, no one would ever accomplish anything.

He had lingered in the town partly because it had started raining and he wasn't anxious to drive back in the storm. He had been hoping it would let up. But at the same time, he wasn't looking foreword to spending another night with Alice, with her trying to convince him it was all a pointless waste of time. She didn't see the potential of the place, it's possibilities for success. She saw it as a romantic retreat, a place where apparently, she had hoped she could get him to loosen up and not take life so seriously.

They had each come to the camp with their individual goals in mind. He had hoped to get her interested in what he was trying to do; to get her involved so she could share his plans with him. She had hoped she could get him to walk along the lakeshore and gaze up at the stars, stop and smell the roses.

Only someone had to take the time to grow and tend the rose before anyone could smell them.

Alice didn't seem to understand that and obviously wouldn't try.

He sighed and pushed away his coffee cup. Hell. What was the point? It just wasn't going anywhere.

Neither of them was going to change. Maybe she would be better off going off to California. Maybe he'd be better off as well.

"Steve?" said Sandy, coming over to him, "Is there anything else you want?"

"Oh, no, no thanks, Sandy. I'm fine."

"You can't go back out there in that rain," she said, "You wanna get drowned?"

"No, but I've got to," Steve sighed, "I've got six new counselors up at the camp. They're babes in the woods in every sense of the word."

"Well, they'll be okay if they know enough to come out of the rain," Sandy said, smiling.

"Mhmm. Well, what do I owe you?" He reached for his wallet.

Sandy smiled at him and winked from behind her Harlequin glasses.

"Just a night on the town, Steve."