I didn't win Miss Ihduhapi. That honor fell on a senior counsellor wearing a DIY Hawaiian skirt and a shaving foam bra. In fairness he played the whole thing for laughs and that was kind of the point. I did get a lot of compliments though. General consensus was that I made easily the most convincing girl and I got a ton of people commenting how brave I was and how I was a good sport. I showed just how good a sport I was by staying in costume long after the evening activity had ended and later that night I kissed Penny for the second time down by the lake under the huge Minnesota sky while I was still wearing her skirt. I kept my nails painted for a whole week afterwards and all my co-counsellors seemed to treat it as a good natured joke – with the exception of a Lifeguard called Jonathan who seemed to be one of the few people not onboard with my performance at the pageant.
I didn't know it at the time, but it would be my last summer at Camp Ihduhapi. It was never a conscious decision not to go back – life just got in the way. First there was needing to retake some classes to make up college credit, then there was a summer job to pay for books, and before I knew it, I was grown up and in full time employment. I would never again sing the alma-mater around the campfire, and I never again connected with that version of myself that came into being while standing on stage in a skirt. My holiday from real had finished.
Ten years passed before I received the invite to the reunion. Ten years of hiding within myself, living inside the frame of the life that had been built for me. I wasn't unhappy during this time, I just felt like I was merely persisting, longing for something that didn't exist. The reunion was in spring not summer – Camp Ihduhapi's off-season. One week on camp grounds, living in bunks with now grown up former campers and staff reliving traditions and activities from our youths. Penny was there, she had a husband and two kids now, as were countless other friends who in those summers had made me feel more accepted than any other time in my life. I was surprised to find even Jonathan had returned for one last week by the lake.
Penny had by now matured into a full mother hen and slid naturally into a kind of master of ceremonies role. It was with a wink to me that she announced on the second night we would be doing a Miss Ihduhapi pageant. There was minimal protest from some of the guys but once the rest of the girls got behind the idea they started giving themselves up to be drafted to the women for their makeovers in no time. Only Jonathan, with a sarcastic eye-roll flat out refused to take part.
And like that, I was in heaven again. Not a home away from home – just home. Wearing a flowery summer dress and strappy heeled sandals, I closed my eyes in the cool Minnesota sunshine and was reunited with a long lost part of myself. There would be no kissing Penny this time, but this was a greater gift than she could have given me with her lips.
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