Chapter Nine
Posy
In none of their videos did they stay in a trailer set up fancier than a house.
Certainly more elegant and better equipped than the small cabin I grew up in.
I shouldn’t be disappointed since they had clearly chosen a glamping experience for my benefit.
And they were so pleased when we arrived and they showed it to me. What could I do but thank them?
Truly, if I hadn’t been expecting a wild Three Bears Road Trip adventure, I’d have been super excited by the trailer. It looked like something on Pinterest, just not like something my online heroes would choose to spend their time in.
To be fair, they were in the tent next door, but it was pretty swell too.
“Posy, are you ready?” Judah’s voice carried from outside the screen door. “We’re starting the campfire.”
“Absolutely.” Determined to be a cheerful companion, I headed out to join them. “What a beautiful place this is. Can I help with the fire?”
“Oh, no.” He waved to where the other guys were stacking wood inside a circle of stones. “We’ve done this a thousand times. You can just have a seat and supervise. Would you like a margarita?”
“Sure, I guess so.”
“Just be a sec.” He disappeared into the tent, and the whirr of a blender preceded his return with four glasses of frozen blended drinks. “Here we go.”
A blender? In all their adventures, I’d never seen anything like that.
But I took the drink and settled into the comfortable camp chair to sip my drink.
“This is very good. Thank you.” The other two finished their work and set a match to the kindling before sitting back to watch the fire.
As the sun settled between two peaks to the west, I let the alcohol relax me.
I’d had very few drinks in my life so far, and I refused a second for fear of getting tipsy and making a fool of myself.
“Here we are.” Judah came out with a tray of aluminum foil packets. “I hope you don’t mind a simple dinner.”
“No. I don’t at all.” Finally, something that felt like their videos. “I recognize those. Your famous chicken/potato/veggie dinners?”
Saber chuckled. “The problem with our lives being so visible. We have no secrets. Seriously, we think it’s pretty good. Judah won a campground contest with it one time.”
“I know.”
All three burst into laughter before I protested, “But I really wanted to try it, so I’m excited. Can I put them in the fire?”
“No, we don’t want you to lift a finger.” Aldrin pushed some of the wood aside to create a bed of coals and laid the packets one by one before covering them with more coals. “See? All done. Now, we can relax and learn everything there is to know about you.”
As the sky darkened, the firelight grew more dramatic, and I could already smell the food cooking. “There’s nothing much to tell. I haven’t lived a life like you three, with all the excitement. We were a smallish pack, miles from town, so not much went on.”
I tried to think of anything about me that they might find interesting, these amazing videographers, but what could I say? There were hundreds of ladybugs in the garden when we got the aphids last spring?
“I bet it was peaceful out there.” Aldrin was using a forked stick to lift the foil packs out of the fire and set them on plates held by Judah. “No hustle and bustle.”
“Not as quiet as you might think.” I accepted a plate, excited to try their food even if they wouldn’t let me help with it.
“Even if there weren’t any other people around, the pack members were noisy.
We raised most of our food, so lots of tractors and other farm equipment.
Chickens clucking, cows mooing… People shouting and crying and laughing.
Surrounded by all those woods but living close together in such close quarters. It always seemed pointless to me.”
“Some shifters like that. Wolves often enjoy their packs.” Saber took a plate from Judah. “Thank you.”
“Sometimes they seemed to, yes, but there was a lot of infighting, and favoritism.” I peeled open the foil and breathed in the fragrant steam.
“I’ve seen you make this on videos, but without the smell…
oh my goodness. You need to figure out how to add scent because this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. ”
“You haven’t eaten it yet,” Aldrin pointed out.
“Nope. But it’s still the best.” Every bite backed that up. Each one different with a combination of chicken and vegetables, but all savory and delicious. Before I knew it, I was scraping the last stuck potato from the foil.
“You need another.” Judah plopped it onto my plate.
“Oh no. I’ve eaten far more than usual already.”
“And you are still hungry. Don’t try to argue. My bear insists.”
That thought warmed me to my toes. His bear was not only aware of me but wanted me to have enough to eat.
What a new feeling. My parents, of course, did their best to keep me fed, but they were stretched thin, and since I grew old enough to recognize the fact, I always held back.
Tried to eat just enough to make sure they didn’t go hungry.
That was one reason the full event had such appeal.
I might not be participating in most of it, but the food was abundant.
It was the only time all month I didn’t leave the table a little hungry.
“S’mores time!” sang Aldrin. “I hope you saved room.”
I hadn’t, but the Three Bears Road Trip’s s’mores were world famous, and I was not about to pass up the opportunity to try them in person.
So I accepted a forked stick with two marshmallows on it and went to work toasting them to perfection.
They got out the graham cracker substitutes, delicate, crumbly shortbread, and topped them with squares of dark chocolate and Belgian chocolate from a chocolatier they’d visited on a trip.
Ecstasy.
“I always wanted to try to make these, but we didn’t have the cookies or the chocolate in the pantry.”
How could I ever go back to the regular kind now?
“Are they as good as we make them sound?” Aldrin asked.
“Better.”