Chapter Seventeen
Campers!” Natasha stands before us holding a drill, wearing a gingham print sundress and a smirk.
“Today’s challenge is a tribute to this beautiful country we’re in—Canada!”
“Hell yeah,” Kei says, clapping.
“This is our season’s sweetest challenge, as you’ll be using this—” she holds up the drill, squeezing the trigger so it revs to life “—to draw maple syrup from a maple tree.”
Several campers groan. “How you gonna get maple syrup out of a tree?” Giovanni says, his brow deeply furrowed in confusion.
But I’m buzzing. I actually know how to do this. I used to do it every year as a kid, when we’d visit my dad’s family in the Laurentian mountains in Quebec. I can feel my dad’s hands on mine, helping me hold the tap straight as he drove it into the tree with a hammer.
I don’t want to give myself away just yet, but after proving myself useless in the kitchen, I’m happy I can show Kei that I’m not a total dud, at least.
Natasha turns to Kei. “Kei, as the only Canadian in the group, do you think you have a natural advantage?”
He laughs, shaking his head. “Yes, every year in Vancouver, right after we build our igloos, we go into Stanley Park and get our maple syrup for the winter.”
“Not fair!” Giovanni exclaims, clearly not picking up on Kei’s sarcasm.
“He’s joking, G. Chill,” Damian says.
“But that’s not all,” Natasha says, arching an eyebrow. “You’ll be led into the woods blindfolded, and the first couple to find their way out, with a quart of maple syrup, will win the challenge.”
“Y’all are doing too much,” Sue-Ellen moans.
Moments later, as I’m stumbling through the woods, I can’t help but agree with Sue-Ellen.
“Oh my god, this is so creepy.” I squeeze Kei’s hand, and he squeezes back. I shuffle my feet along the forest floor, looking for some feedback to prevent me from tumbling over and taking Kei with me.
“What, you don’t enjoy being blindfolded and led into the woods by a virtual stranger?”
“I really don’t. Ouch!” My cheek stings after being whipped by something—a tree branch, I presume, unless corporal punishment is part of this challenge.
“Oops, sorry.” The deep voice belongs to Teddy, a new cameraman. “We’re almost there.”
Teddy’s job is to deposit us in the middle of the forest, and film us as we fend for ourselves to get back. Presumably, he has a map or a GPS or something, though who can be sure?
In any case, I’m not loving this. It’s giving Blair Witch Project.
We’ve been walking for a while, long enough to be hot and sticky. The mosquitoes are in full force, and I’m tired and itchy and disoriented, but I dare not complain. On the plus side, there have been lots of opportunities to make physical contact with Kei.
“I think this is good.” Teddy puts his hands on my arms and twirls me around a few times. “You can take your blindfold off.”
When I pull my blindfold down, I almost laugh out loud. We could be in any forest, anywhere in the world. It’s just trees and dirt and bugs and more trees and dirt.
Teddy hands Kei a bucket containing our drill, a hammer, and a small white plastic spout.
Kei looks at the contents, then at me. “I’m sorry, I’m a bad Canadian. I’ve never actually tapped maple syrup before.”
“Well, you’re lucky I have.”
“I didn’t know there are maple trees in the desert.”
I give him a playful shove. “There are plenty of maple trees in Quebec, where my dad is from.”
“So you’re half Canadian.”
“Half French Canadian.”
“An important distinction.”
“Absolutely. Now, let’s find a suitable tree.”
Kei pulls on a low-hanging branch of a nearby tree to inspect the leaves. “This one looks just like the flag.”
I examine the leaf. It has five lobes. I remember my dad touching his finger to the point of each lobe, and then into each of my five fingers so I’d remember how to identify the leaves.
“That’s a sugar maple, but it’s too small. We could damage the tree.” I scan the trees in the area, then march over to a larger maple and wrap my arms around it. I press my face into the bark and inhale its resinous scent.
“I never took you for a tree hugger,” Kei says.
“This is how you know if it’s big enough.”
“So, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you still hugging it?”
The feel of my body pressed against the tree has brought back a flood of memories. The sweet humidity of my uncle’s sugar shack as the sap boiled in a large steel pot. Rolling hot maple syrup in the snow to make taffy. Lacy-edged pancakes soaked with the fruits of our labour.
This unexpected trip down memory lane has left me feeling tender. But I just smile, and gesture for Kei to hand me the bucket.
I was only a kid when we’d make trips to Quebec, and I’ve never actually set up a tap before, but I can clearly picture my dad and my uncle as they went through the motions. I drill a small hole into the trunk of the tree as Kei watches on.
“You’re kind of hot wielding a power tool,” he says, with a grin.
“I’m very good with my hands.” I wink. “Now pass me the hammer.”
But he is looking at me strangely, with a new intensity in his gaze. I can feel his eyes on me, and it’s like the air changes. Teddy must sense it, too, because he draws closer, his camera trained on Kei’s face.
As Kei hands me the hammer, he holds on to it a second longer than he needs to, our hands pressing together for one electric moment. We are getting really good at this whole ‘faking it’ thing.
Struggling to stay composed, I hold the plastic spout to the drilled hole and begin to tap it with the hammer. Kei comes up behind me and reaches around to hold the spout.
“Let me help you,” he says, his breath on my neck.
He’s standing much closer than he needs to, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his bare torso on my back.
I lean back slightly into him, and I hear his breath hitch, which is like an electric shock down low.
I swallow thickly, my brain so clouded with lust that I’m having trouble focusing on the task at hand.
Teddy moves in closer. I bet this is all very hot on camera.
I continue to tap the hammer against the spout, carefully avoiding Kei’s fingers.
“That’s it,” he breathes into my ear. “Just like that.”
I feel my nipples pinch against the fabric of my bikini top.
Goddamn, I’m so turned on. Kei gives a little laugh behind me, like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
I could turn and kiss him right now. I could grab him by the jaw and pull him into me, I could lean back against the tree and wrap one leg around his hip and—
No. I need to focus.
“Hand me the bucket,” I say thickly. “It’s going to come fast and hard.”
Kei’s mouth opens slightly.
“The sap,” I say, clarifying. A hot flush rises up my face. “The sap is going to start coming, um—”
“Fast and hard?” Kei says, a smile teasing at his lips.
“Just give me the bucket!”
But the sap doesn’t come fast or hard. In fact, it doesn’t come at all. We wait, peering into the spout in anticipation, but nothing happens.
“Should we try another tree?” Kei asks.
So we do, and then another, and another. But no sap.
I hum with embarrassment. This was supposed to be my moment, where I prove to Kei—and to the viewers—that I’m not a total lost cause, but I’m not pulling it off.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I literally did this every winter of my whole childhood.”
“Did you ever do it in the summer?”
I think back. We usually visited my dad’s family in late February, to celebrate my uncle’s birthday. I only have one memory of a summer visit, and we spent it in Montreal, taking in the Jazz Fest and picnicking on Mount Royal.
“No, it was definitely a winter thing.”
“So maybe it’s seasonal. Like, the sap won’t flow in the summer.”
I can’t be sure, but this feels very logical. “But why would they have us come out here and do this, if everyone is going to fail?”
Kei laughs. “Because hot people doing dumb shit makes for good TV?”
I groan. “I think you might be right.”
Kei wiggles the spout out of the tree trunk and drops it into the empty bucket. “Why don’t we just work on getting out of here.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be much help with that. I have zero survival skills,” I tell Kei.
He laughs. “It’s a good thing you’re cute, then.”
“Yeah, but cuteness won’t get us out of here.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got some skills.” Of course he does. “The first thing we have to ask ourselves is what do we know about our location?”
“Right.”
“So, what do we know?”
“I don’t know.”
He laughs again. “We know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, right?”
“That sounds vaguely familiar.”
“So think about the camp. Where does the sun set?”
I pause. I can picture Kei and Damian tossing a football on the beach, backlit by a purple and pink streaked sky glowing over the lake. “From the beach!” I’m thrilled to actually have an answer. “The beach is west.”
“Exactly. Which means the camp is west too, so we need to go west.”
“Okay.” I wait. Am I supposed to know which way is west? “So, where’s that?”
Kei looks up, shielding his eyes with his hand. “By the position of the sun, I’d guess that way,” he says, pointing toward some trees and dirt. “But let’s make sure. We need a stick.” He bends over and starts searching the forest floor. “Help me out. It has to be pretty long, at least a foot.”
I start to wander, keeping both Kei and Teddy firmly in my sight. I spot a long, mostly straight stick and hold it up to show Kei. “Perfect,” he calls. “Bring it over here, where the ground is flat.”
He’s in a clearing, where there are no trees. He drives the stick into the ground. “See how the stick makes a shadow?” I nod. “We’ll put this rock that I found at the end of the shadow. Then, in twenty minutes or so, the shadow will have moved enough that we can determine an east to west path.”
I give him a blank stare. “I’m going to have to trust you on this one.”
“You can trust me,” he says, brushing back a lock of hair that was stuck to my sweaty face.
“And now?” I ask.