RV There Yet? (32 page)

Beverly shrugs. “Not that I have a chance of doing that. “Oh well, I'm happy to have a job—at least, I think I do.” She smiles bravely.

“We'll see that you do, Beverly,” Steve says. “Or die trying.”

Excuse me? Do I want to go that far? I'd rather take Beverly home with me and plunk her in my chocolate shop.

“I would think this job would be heaven,” Millie says. “Summer camps in-season and off-season, the only intruders being nature's creatures.” Millie looks dreamy.

“Yeah, as in bears,” Lydia says.

“What's a bear here or there? I could read all the books I wanted.”

“As with any job, it has its good and bad points,” Beverly says. She passes out the instruments from the church folks as Eric and his guys begin to play their acoustical guitars around the fire, and we sing some songs together. Steve's rich tenor voice envelops me like a cloud.

And then we do the ultimate camp thing. We sing “Kumbaya” around the campfire. Millie offers to go get her trumpet, but everyone quickly mumbles something about the fact that we have an early day tomorrow and need to get to bed. Something rustles in the trees, and the guys run to investigate but find nothing. I wonder if someone threw a rock so they could avert Millie's attention. Lydia's still worried about the woods and the fluttering leaves, so she makes it back to Waldo in record speed.

Steve walks me back to the RV, and we discuss the new business property idea. I decide to call Shelley before going inside. I hate to make snap decisions, but we thought long and hard about the property before when we made an offer on it. Unfortunately, we had to give it all up when the owners had a death in the family and decided to stay awhile longer. This time it looks as though we might have a chance. Shelley and I talk about the price we're willing to offer and decide she will send a copy of the Offer to Purchase via fax to Beverly's office. The whole thing gets us excited. If it falls through this time, we'll give up the idea of moving and make the best of our current business location.

Clicking off my phone, I stand just before the RV door and linger beneath a star-studded sky. A day filled with friends and truffles. It doesn't get any better than that.

I step inside to find balloons and crepe paper hanging from every nook and cranny of the ceiling. In big red letters, “Happy Birthday, DeDe” sprawls across our kitchen cabinets.

“Oh dear. I'm sorry, Millie. This is quite a mess,” I say, though I can't hide the fact that it thrills me that my friends went to all this trouble.

“What are you sorry about? It was Millie's idea,” Lydia says with a laugh.

“It was?” I'm truly shocked. Reaching over, I give both of the girls a hug.

“Just so you know, though, everyone had a part in it, so who knows what you'll find,” Millie warns.

“I don't like the sound of that,” I say, feeling a little nervous.

Millie shrugs.

“Shall we take everything down?” I ask.

“Leave it up 'til tomorrow,” Millie says, surprising me.

We each get ready to turn in, and after no major disaster befalls us, I pull off the covers to slip between the sheets but pause to whisper a “thank you” heavenward. Afterward, I climb into the bed, and it suddenly occurs to me that my feet are stuck midway.

Somebody has short-sheeted my bed.

23

Millie's horn-blowing rouses me from sleep the next morning
, and I'm ready to tell her to put a cork in it. I mean, she's experimenting with her notes this morning, and that's just wrong. Something else is bothering me, though. I'm hot. Really hot. From the neck up.

I rush out of bed and go to the bathroom. My face is red. Think match head. I'm sweating. I rip off my top and throw cold water on my face as fast as I can. Fifty years and one day old, and I'm experiencing my first hot flash.

Before I can work up a good hormonal fit, I hear a big commotion in the living room. Millie is near hysterics. Quickly shrugging my top back on, I step out of the bathroom. “What is it, Millie?”

Lydia joins us, and we both stare at Millie, who, by the way, has all the color of a white gourd.

“Three elk came out of the woods and were coming straight at me,” she answers between short breaths. Carefully she peeks out the window blinds. “They're still milling around out there.”

“Do you think they meant you harm?” Lydia asks, hand touching her throat.

“Well, they didn't come to talk about life in the Rockies, I can tell you that.” She peeks out again.

“How curious. Usually animals stay away from noise out of fear. What were you doing when they came into view? Did you have food out there?” Lydia asks.

“No, I was play—wait!” Millie says, snapping her fingers.

“What is it?” Lydia wants to know.

“I was playing my horn. You know what that means?” Her eyes are wide.

“The noise was getting on their nerves too?” Millie glares at me, and I shrug.

“What?” Lydia asks.

“I'll bet they thought I was a male.”

“Really? Your horn doesn't sound like that,” Lydia says.

“Sound like what?” I'm totally clueless here.

“Well, I don't know how else to explain it. Stranger things have happened.” Millie glances out the window again.

“Stranger things than what?” Everyone is ignoring me.

“Oh my goodness, that's hilarious,” Lydia says, laughing.

Millie's laughing with her, and I'm still clueless. I mean, Millie's not model material, mind you, but she hardly passes for a bull.

Millie glances at me. “If you'd visit your local library once in a while, Dee, you might learn something.” Her chipmunk laugh is back, and I'm worried about Chip and Dale's extended family showing up.

They continue laughing, and I'm feeling a little out of the loop. Opening the bread wrapper, I plunk a slice into the toaster. Irritated, I turn to them. “Okay, fill me in.”

“The female elk are drawn to males by their bugle, or mating call.” Lydia's words are splattered with giggles.

Now my jaw drops, and I look at Millie. “You're bugling the elk mating call?” Did I not say her playing is weird?

“Well, not on purpose. But God's creatures know good music when they hear it,” Millie says.

“You sound like a bull, Millie. You have an elk following, and you're okay with this?” I ask.

Millie lifts a smug face.

“Okay, I can see the advantage of that.” I form a phone receiver with my hand and bring it to my ear. “Hello? Carnegie Hall? My name is Millie Carter, and I thought you'd like to know that I can mimic the bull elk's mating call on my trumpet.' ‘Why, Ms. Carter, how fabulous! When can we schedule you for an event?'” Lydia and I bust up with laughter.

“Oh, why do I bother,” Millie says, brushing me away with her hand. Briefly she peeks out the window once again. “They're gone.” She turns and breathes a sigh of relief. “They were big.”

“You'd better get out of that brown,” I say, pointing to her blouse. “It makes you look, well, sort of elkish.” I laugh. “And just for the record, if you start growing antlers, I'm outta here.”

Millie makes a face. I giggle.

Just in case the elk are still hoping to get a glimpse of Millie, I decide to skip my Pilates routine this morning. Instead, I head for the shower. “Only you, Millie. Only you.”

“What, can I help it if I have the magic touch?”

This woman is definitely in denial.

Later in the morning we gather on the wooden pews in the white clapboard chapel, and the Aspen Creek Community Church ladies lead our little gathering in a worship service. Though some of the men have helped us, the women have been unable to help us up to now, and this is their way of getting acquainted before they “rub elbows” (their words) with us next week.

These older women could charm the antlers off a bull. Think Proverbs 31 woman times five. There ought to be a law against it, but there you are.

They lead us through choruses in the dog-eared pages of faded music books sitting in the pews, give a few announcements about the area, and take an offering. To my surprise, when it's time for the morning message, Steve Knight steps up to the front.

He talks about, of all things, starting over. Brings up that same verse in 2 Corinthians and shares with us how God makes everything new in our lives when we turn everything over to Him. Our circumstances may not change, but God helps us to see things through different eyes. The things we used to care about don't matter as much, and things we didn't care about before suddenly become important.

“A personal relationship with a living God makes all the difference,” he says. And I believe with my whole heart that he means it.

Steve looks so alive, content, happy. I had that kind of relationship with God when I was younger. I've been praying, but I can't deny something still gets in the way. I think it's guilt.

The message is soon over, and we go our separate ways to eat lunch so Lydia can have Sunday off.

“Hey, how about we all go into Estes Park to eat lunch?” Eric says, walking up behind us.

Lydia looks as though she's about to say no, but Eric cuts her off.

“Come on, Lydia, just as friends.”

“My motor home is all hooked up; I don't want to drive anywhere,” she says.

“ 'Course not. We'll take you women on our bikes.”

Her eyebrows shoot up and quiver beneath her bangs.

“Come on, Lydia, this might be fun,” Millie says, sounding every inch the biker woman. “Besides, after we shopped for DeDe's birthday, you said you wanted to go back into Estes Park and look around. And I need to get some film developed.”

My shock must register, because Millie looks at me.

“What? I have my moments,” she says.

“Obviously,” I say.

“Now you're talking, Millipede,” Eric says, nudging Millie's arm.

“You want to go with us, DeDe?” Millie asks me.

“Wait, I haven't said I would go,” Lydia says. This is all happening far too fast for her. Millie pins her with a stare. “Oh, all right,” Lydia says, then they both turn to me.

“No thanks,” I say. “I need some think time this afternoon. Do you two mind?”

Lydia and Millie shake their heads.

“Still, I don't know about this,” Lydia says, nibbling her fingernail.

Eric leans toward her. “Remember, they have a Starbucks.”

Everyone knows Lydia's penchant for Starbucks. She weakens. Eric moves in for the kill.

“I've got a helmet in my storage bin, and you can wear that. I promise to drive as safely as I would if my grandma were on the back.” He winks.

Lydia stiffens a moment. “I'm hardly your grandmother.”

“Trust me, I can see that,” Eric says with a grin.

She gives him a “don't go there” look, then dares a glance at Millie, whose eyes are pleading with her to go. She finally says, “Okay.”

“Great. We'll be by here in a few minutes.” Eric and the Biker Boys race off before she can change her mind. Beverly runs up to tell me the fax came through from Shelley, so I go over to the office to sign the offer and fax it back to her.

Afterward, Millie, Lydia, and I go inside the motor home to freshen up and get some money. Lydia wants to rethink the whole thing, but Millie isn't about to let her. I think this fresh mountain air is doing something to Millie's brain. As in causing dead cells to spring to life. It definitely agrees with her.

It is a sight to behold to see a black-helmeted Lydia flanked on the back of Eric's bike, in a setting of silver and black, holding Eric in a death grip—which I suspect is what he hoped for all along. Donned in a red helmet, Millie is on the back of Elmer Fudd's cycle, looking for all she's worth as though she hasn't had this much fun in a month of Sundays—which I suspect is true. The burly cyclist says something to her, and with one jolt, they're outta here.

Eric trails behind at a pace that would get him kicked out of any self-respecting motorcycle group.