by Diann Hunt
“Everything okay?” Lydia asks.
I shake off thoughts of Rob. “Uh, yeah. Shelley told me there’s a new gourmet chocolate shop that just opened down the road.” Placing my cell phone back in my handbag, I go up to sit on the floor between Millie and Lydia so I can hear them better.
“Uh-oh, that doesn’t sound good,” Millie says, checking her rearview mirror before she makes a lane change to pass someone who is, unbelievably, going slower than we are.
“Well, I don’t know that it’s such a big deal,” Lydia counters. “Competition is the name of the game.”
“And that should make me feel better?”
“Do they offer the same services?” Millie asks.
I explain the deal about the gourmet coffee.
Millie shakes her head. “You may have to rethink your business strategies.”
“Well, Millie, I don’t know why you’re saying that. I’m confident that Le Diva Chocolates has made its niche in our town.”
Millie shrugs. “I hope you’re right. It’s just that—well, never mind.”
“No, go ahead. Say what’s on your mind.”
“Is it a woman owner?”
“Yes.”
“How old is she?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“I have a friend who got her job knocked right out from under her.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“A younger woman, fresh out of college with new ideas, enthusiasm, zest for her job, that kind of thing.” Millie pauses here. “No inkling of how old she is?”
“As I said, I don’t know.” I’m almost sure I can hear Millie clicking her tongue.
“Come on, DeDe, spill it.”
“Doggone it, Millie, I didn’t ask her name, rank, and serial number.”
She continues to stare. Sweat forms on my forehead. The pressure gets to me. I crack. “Okay, Shelley thinks she’s about twenty-five.”
Millie’s eyebrows lift to her hairline (which, by the way, is heading farther north with every passing year). I wait for her to say something.
She doesn’t.
“I hate it when you do that.”
“Do what?” Millie asks as if she’s so innocent.
My head swivels to Lydia. “If I hurt her, can I plead menopausal insanity?”
“This from Miss I’m Still in the Perimenopausal Stage?” Millie jeers.
“That does it. After you go to bed tonight, I’m scrambling the canned goods you organized.”
“You do, and I’m swiping your chocolate,” Millie shoots back.
“I’m gonna give you both a good thrashing if you don’t stop this arguing,” Lydia says, surprising us both.
Millie takes a deep breath. “Look, I’m merely saying you’d better keep an eye on things, that’s all.”
“Oh, come on, Millie. It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Lydia says.
“Did I say it was bad? Just keep an eye on things. That’s all.”
Lydia changes the subject, for which I’m grateful, but if I’m awake at midnight, those canned goods are so gonna get mixed up . . .
6
“Are we there yet?” I ask for the hundredth time just to annoy Millie. I’m also wondering if Millie has noticed that I not only scrambled the canned goods but also made a mess of her sock drawer, putting brown socks with white ones, black ones with brown ones. I can’t remember when I’ve had such fun.
“Oh, this is it; turn in here,” Millie says, pointing to the campground. She handed the driver’s seat back to Lydia a few miles back so she could rest.
Lydia turns the motor home, gravel crunching beneath the tires as we make our way down a wooded lane. About a half mile down, the trees give way to an open section of land lined with RVs and campers.
“There’s the office.” I point to a rustic log cabin building not much bigger than an outhouse. Lydia pulls into a parking spot, leaving little room for anyone else.
Once we get everything squared away with the campground owners, we make our way to the lot. Dusk has settled upon us, and a variety of lights can be seen from the various campsites.
One camper has bulb-illuminated beer cans hanging from his awning. Another has birds with rhinestones. Others are adorned with elk, bears, fish, lanterns, and the list goes on. Whirligigs, pink flamingos, and ceramic children litter sparse lawns. People sit around campfires laughing and talking with their neighbors, children run and play between RVs, guys huddle in front of decks of cards. It’s a small community bound by their appreciation for camping life.
Minimal accommodations and dirt. Yeah, that’s the life for me, uh-huh.
Have I mentioned it’s exhausting to pull into our lot and get hooked up to everything? I don’t know where Lydia finds the patience to do all this stuff. Causes me to shiver just thinking about it.
When we step outside, the scent of hamburgers on the grill reaches me, and I’m reminded of my teenage years at camp. Despite my prejudice against camping, those were good days. After all, they brought Lydia and Millie into my life. Well, I’m glad about Lydia anyway. Oh, all right, Millie too.
Lydia shows us how to help her with the hookups and get situated in our new yard for the night. The good news is, we don’t have to use a community bathroom. I just can’t handle that idea.
Once everything is in place and we’ve pulled out the awning, Millie takes a couple of pictures of our campsite while Lydia and I gather things from the cupboards for dinner.
“Anything else we need to do?” I ask.
“Well, there is one more thing. I have some lights I’d like to put up around the awning,” Lydia says.
“Oh, let me do that,” Millie pipes up. “DeDe can help you with the dinner.”
I’m positively speechless. Never in a million years would I have guessed Millie to be a lights-putter-upper sort of person. There’s a mysterious side to Millie, you know?
Lydia and Millie go outside, where Lydia pulls a box of string lights from one of the storage bins. Millie sets to work hanging strings of bird lights around the awning, while Lydia and I finish the meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, salad, and apple pie.
The amber-colored bird lights offer a warm glow as we sit at the picnic table and enjoy our dinner together. Nice ambience, but the dim lights make it hard for me to see if a bug lands on my food. And I’m not buying that whole “extra protein” thing.
“This is delicious,” Millie says, scooping a forkful of mashed potatoes. She takes a bite and looks at us.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Um, the potatoes; do they have any butter in them?”
Lydia looks up, wide-eyed. “Oh dear.”
“Did you forget to add the butter, Lydia?” Millie asks.
Lydia nods. “I meant to. I even got it out of the refrigerator, but when I saw it, I was thinking it was for the corn.” She laughs it off good-naturedly. “I’ll just go plunk some butter in this and stick it in the microwave. Be right back,” she says.
“You’re sure that’s a menopausal thing?” I whisper to Millie.
She nods. “I do that now and then too. We get busy and just forget.”
“I hope I don’t do that while I’m making chocolates.”
“You might want to start delegating,” Millie says with a laugh.
Lydia no sooner returns with the potatoes and sits down than someone calls out to us.
“Millicent Carter, is that you?”
We all turn at the sound of a very male voice. A man about five feet eight inches tall with shaggy brown hair, gray eyes, and a scraggly beard stands in jeans and a tattered T-shirt with a beer logo on it. A petite woman in a red top with cap sleeves, jean shorts, and multicolored sandals of red, green, and yellow joins him. She’s looking at the ground, so I can’t see her eyes.
Completing the trio, dressed in full Gap wear, is a teenage girl with long blonde hair and a cute figure that she’s all too happy to reveal to the world.
&n
bsp; Millie’s face is stripped of all color. “Doug?” She stands as they walk over to our picnic table.
“Guilty as charged,” he says. “How ya doin’?”
They exchange some chitchat, and Millie introduces the family to us. We learn that Doug is a friend of Bruce’s. Great, just what Millie needs right now.
“Yeah, I guess you heard about the wedding?” Doug asks.
“Yes, I did,” Millie says. “I hope things go well for Bruce.”
“Oh, I think they’ll go well all right,” he says with a laugh and a poke to his wife’s side. “He married a pretty little thing. Not much older than Melanie here.” He nods to his daughter.
Melanie smirks. “She’s cool too. She might let me borrow some of her clothes.”
“That’s nice,” Millie says.
Seeing how uncomfortable Millie is, I quickly direct the conversation toward camping. They talk about how they’re on vacation headed toward some place in New York to visit his wife’s family. The man talks ad nauseam about his past experiences of living out in the wild. When they leave, Millie goes into the motor home.
Cupping my hand near my mouth, I whisper to Lydia, “I expected him to beat his chest and swing on a tree branch back to his RV.”
She laughs. “Oh my, DeDe, how do you come up with that stuff ?”
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
Lydia wipes tears from her eyes.
Crickets chirp, a dog barks in the distance, and cute little girls giggle as they walk down the lane with two older women.
“Do you think she’s all right?” Lydia asks with a glance toward the motor home.
“I’ll go check on her,” I say, rising from the chair. When I step inside, Millie is standing at the refrigerator. With her mouth wide open, she’s aiming the nozzle of a whipped cream can toward her tongue.
“Don’t do it, Millie. He’s not worth it!” I say with a heavy dose of drama, attempting humor to ease the tension.
She glares at me, then squirts the cream for all she’s worth, filling her mouth with a vengeance.
When Millie resorts to the whipped cream, she’s seriously upset. I step toward her and put my arm around her.
“Don’t take it to heart, Millie.”
She wipes her mouth with her hand. “I’m fine.” Opening the refrigerator door, she slips the can back inside as though she hasn’t a care in the world.
“You know that whipped cream is not the answer.”
“Maybe not, but it helps.”
Who am I to talk? I have my chocolate issues.
“I’ll be all right. Just seeing Doug and hearing about Bruce’s new wife—”
I cut her off so she doesn’t have to explain. “I know. Want to go back outside?”
Millie takes a deep breath, hesitates a moment, then lifts her chin. “Why should I let what Bruce does bother me?”
“That’s the spirit,” I say.
“Let’s go.”
We no sooner step outside than a woman leaves her camper across from us and heads our way.
“How are you folks tonight?” she says with a friendly smile. “I’m Sara Lee Gentry.”
“Sara Lee, as in desserts?” I ask.
“No, my mom just liked the name.”
“DeDe is a chocolate connoisseur, so she automatically thinks of desserts when she hears a name like that,” Millie explains.
The woman smiles. “Never acquired a taste for chocolate myself, though you probably find that hard to believe,” she says, patting her ample midsection.
“Have you seen anyone about this problem?” I struggle not to back away as though she has a contagious disease.
She stumbles a moment, then laughs. She tries to tell me how much better her life is without it, but her words are like a foreign language. “Blah-blah, blah-blah, blah, blah.”
We spend some time getting acquainted with our new neighbor, and before the woman can leave, Lydia has her sitting down to sample a piece of apple pie. The next thing we know, her husband wants some, as do the three kids and the mother-in-law. The dog tries to get in on the action, but they make him go home. Another neighbor and husband soon join in, and Lydia passes out tomorrow night’s apple pie to them too. She doesn’t seem to mind, though. Lydia is in her element when she’s entertaining. She’s a regular Betty Crocker. But if she offers my truffles, I will strip off her apron and close up shop.
After our guests finish their pie, Millie takes several pictures of our new friends, and we settle around the fire pit. Above the flames, I glance at Millie. She seems to feel better now. She has more color in her face. ’Course, she could be having another hot flash, so it’s hard to tell.
One of the neighbors shares a story of how someone backed a rig and car into a bathroom facility.
“Oh, that’s a frightening tale,” I say. “Stephen King?”
It takes a minute, but he finally laughs.
“Any of you do this full-time?” the man with salt-and-pepper hair asks.
Surely my ears deceive me. “People do that?”
He laughs. “Yep. All the time. That’s what we do,” he says, pointing to his wife beside him. They barely look old enough to drive.
“How do you support yourself ?” Sell baseball cards, bubble gum wrappers, lemonade?
“We have some real estate investments that provide monthly income, and we also work in camps along the way,” he says.
“How do you mean?” Lydia asks.
“We belong to a group where we find out about camps that
hire full-time RVers like us. Some places you work at to make some money; other places you work at because they’re on your way to where you want to go, and you get free camping in exchange. It’s really a great setup.”
“Uh-huh, loads of fun.”
Everyone looks at me. “Did I say that out loud?”
They nod.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but I just can’t imagine it.”
“Oh, I see, we have a non-RVer in our midst, huh?” the man teases.
“Afraid so. She’s a hotel woman all the way,” Millie tattles.
The man’s wife laughs. “I was the same way until we got our motor home. They’re really quite nice.”
“Has all the comforts of home,” he says.
Sure, if your home is no bigger than a tree house.
“Why don’t you come over and see it?” He rises from the chair and takes two steps.
“Oh, Rick, they don’t care about that,” his wife says. “By the way, my name is Cyndi Pointer, and this is my husband, Rick.”
“Nice to meet you, and sures we do.” I have to see for myself what kind of home away from home they can stand to live in full-time.
We all walk a little ways down the road and come to their home. Okay, by the looks of their RV, I’m thinking this is so not a motor home. It can’t be. Can we say mansion on wheels? When we step into the tile entryway, my breath catches in my throat. If I didn’t know I was in a motor home, I would never believe it. Leather furniture, cherrywood, ceiling fans, side-by-side refrigerator, expensive countertops, washer and dryer, Bose surround-sound stereo system. Two televisions. Satellite dish. King-size bed and ceiling fan in the bedroom.
“This is way nicer than my home. Want to trade?” I say.
The wife laughs. “It is nice, isn’t it?”
Nice? Did she say nice? I’m thinking it must take a lot to really wow this lady.
“And you know, DeDe,” the woman says as if we’re old friends, “if it’s hotel service you want, there are some campsites that offer maid and butler services.”
“Something tells me I’m in the wrong line of work for that.”
“Yeah, it’s your wallet,” Millie says with a laugh. This time, I ignore her.
We sit down on a leather sofa that is so soft, I’m afraid I will slip into the folds and never be found again.
“Oh, what do you do?” she asks.
Before she decides that I wear a colored ve
st and clean trash from the highways, I explain about my work as a chocolatier.
“That is fascinating. You know, one thing I’ve always been curious about is why chocolate doesn’t spoil. Do you know? Or maybe I should ask if you can tell me in layman’s terms?” She laughs.
“Sure. Tiny seed bits from the cocoa beans called ‘nibs’ are crushed to the point that the heat generated liquefies the nibs into a thick paste called chocolate liquor. This liquid is then placed in a huge press that squeezes out the cocoa butter.” Quickly I look around to make sure no one is sleeping before I continue. “This butter keeps the chocolate solid at room temperature. That’s why it doesn’t spoil—yet it melts in the warmth of your mouth.”
“How fascinating,” the woman says, practically breathless.
Another connoisseur of fine living and fine chocolates. I’m in good company.
“Do you have a business card or Web site? I’m always looking for exceptional gourmet chocolates to send for special occasions. I assume you carry an assortment?”
“Yes, we offer truffles, a fruit and nut collection, caramel pecan patties, cherry cordials, a whole list of things. You can sign up for a catalog on our Web site.” I hand her my card with the information.
“Splendid. Once I place my order, you could ship it out for me, I assume?”
“Absolutely.” I’m feeling quite proud that I’ve managed to get some business while on vacation.
We talk for a little while, go back to our RV, and prepare for bed.
“That motor home was totally unbelievable.” Lydia fills Cobbler’s food and water bowls. “They’re called land yachts, you know.”
“What do you mean?” Millie asks on her way to the bathroom.
“The big fancy motor homes are called land yachts.”
“It’s easy to see why,” I say. “Who could have imagined that people lived in those things full-time? With a home like that, even I could do it.” Pulling my covers down, I crawl into bed.
“It would be one way to see the country, that’s for sure.” Millie’s standing in the doorway, scrubbing her face with a washcloth.
I wonder what it would have been like to travel with Rob. I can just imagine him behind the wheel of an RV, laughing at something I’ve said. His smile teasing me, his eyes flirting. The cry of a child outside interrupts my daydream, reminding me of my cold reality.