sixteen
Jamie
TosayMainStreetwas idyllic would be an understatement. Colorful-looking buildings with cedar shake shingled rooftops made bright blue skies more brilliant. Black metal lantern-style lights covered tall wooden lamp posts lining the streets, their hanging wicker baskets holding pink and purple trailing petunias.
Outside of movies and TV, I had never seen anything like it, and the same could be said for the dozens of eyes staring out of the school bus windows, like children watching their first snow of the school year.
With a flourishing bow, Leo opened the door. Once we poured out of the bus and gathered around, he reiterated the time and location to meet back up before he made sure we all had our Polaroid cameras for picture proof.
Main Street had small streets that branched out, housing small shops and restaurants ready to be explored. On this street alone, there were two restaurants, a salon, a post office, arecreational gear shop, and, no joke, a general store. It felt like something frozen in time, like it belonged in a Hallmark movie.
Wildwood was its own little world, next to a fast-moving highway leading up the mountain. Across the highway was a ski resort and an adventure park with what looked like summer rides, though we’d passed by it so quickly, I didn’t get a good look.
Our scavenger hunt list was rather long, and I wondered how we could do everything in the time allotted, but this excursion had presumably been tested a dozen times over.
Everyone split into teams and scattered in different directions. Our three-person team of Emerson, Ren, and I chose to start at the post office, a two-room building about the size of my downtown apartment back home. I thought of my mother’s care package coming through this little building, which made me smile.
Our first clue was easily solvable. We had to “get a kiss from Peanut Butter”—a clue that had Ren’s eyebrow raised and would have been confusing if not for the four-legged postal worker who greeted us, a corgi by the same name. We took a photo of Emerson, who full-on giggled when our new furry friend pressed his tongue to her cheek, though all of us received kisses.
By the time we had completed nearly half of our twenty-five items, we found ourselves outside of a community posting board with announcements and advertisements ranging from a need for more volunteer firefighters to trail guide offerings to the local taxi service, a one-man operation with a direct phone line to a guy named Todd. Part of me wanted to pull out my ridesharing app just to see how limited it was out here, but Todd was probably the best option for a lift should the need arise.
“Oh my god, look at this.” Emerson was giggling again as she read a colorful posting with pictures of hand-drawn dogs and trees. “‘Hi, I’m Vivian,’” she read. “‘I’m seven years old. I’mopening a dog walking business. I am grate’—that’s g-r-a-t-e—‘with animals. I love dogs. I have two dogs and am not afraid to get my hands dirty.’”
Ren covered his mouth as he let out a small, happy burst of air.
“‘I can walk small to medium dogs. If your dog has high energy, that is okay because most dogs have high energy. I will charge seven dollars an hour. I will be available mostly after school.’” It listed her contact information and ended with “‘Thank you for supporting a small business.’”
I was dying of cuteness overload.
Grant came up from behind us. “That is so adorable my head is going to explode.”
He was one of the two-person teams, and when he’d partnered up with Ian, Ren had obviously been a little bummed, but he lit up the second he heard his voice.
“Who has a dog? We need to hire this little girl,” Ian mused. I’d only met him today, but he worked in an aquarium and thought it was funny that he was in Delphinus pod.
“It’ll only be a four-hour drive to watch my dog. I’ll compensate for gas,” Ren offered to no one. “Give me that phone number,” he joked, pulling off one of the phone number slips cut into fringe for the taking.
Ren had an amazing black lab named Goldie—because why wouldn’t he name her that?—but he hadn’t had her for long, just in the past few months since he and Zachary split. Over drinks one night, he’d mentioned feeling lonely, not that you need a reason for a fluff ball, and I could relate. I’d wanted a dog for years, but four-legged friends weren’t conducive to seventy-hour work weeks, and it was looking like I’d never get the opportunity. Occasionally, I wondered if I’d be happier living a different lifestyle, open to new possibilities like taking care of a living, breathing puppy, but I was a long way off from that kind of thing.
“You have a dog?”
Ren’s eyes sparkled as Grant asked his question. Not at all probing or deep, and yet…
Ren yanked his phone out of his pocket so fast I wouldn’t have been surprised if it flew across the street. Instead, the five of us hovered around his puppy picture-filled phone and aww’d until we couldn’t take it anymore.
Our group that wasn’t supposed to be a group wandered up the street.
“It says, ‘Hug Sasquatch,’” Ian said. “Hell no. You know Sasquatch is native to the Pacific Northwest. They’re obviously fucking with us because we can’t find one just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Not gonna happen.” The rest of us turned disbelieving eyes on him. “Don’t look at me like that. Sasquatch is real.”
The group burst into laughter.
Grant pointed to the side of us. “Sasquatch.”
“Ha ha, Grant. How about you go and—” Ian turned to see a nine-foot-tall statue of the mysterious creature in a cloth bucket hat and laughed. “Okay, now it makes sense.”
The five of us gathered around as I took an under-the-chin selfie to get him in the picture. Several oofs were made at the result, and we tried again. The fourth time was the charm because Lamar laughingly took over when he saw us on the street. I glanced at the photo as others shook their heads in agreement and noticed how much we all looked… Happy. It was one more reminder of the fact that Ren had made the right call, though I wasn’t going to tell him that. He was one gloaty pain in my ass, and it was impossible to pull him down from his high horse.
We had several hours to explore, so I figured we had time to have a quick break for lunch at the nearby Mexican restaurant. Emerson and Ian were the more serious members of ourcrew and continued their quest to scavenge no matter how many times we tried to convince them. There were some real competitors in this camp.
