THE soccer moms, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, departed the next morning at the ungodly hour of crack-of-dawn-thirty—or at least an hour Leah previously had only seen sliding into from a party the night before—on a plane bound for Bellingham, Washington. In Bellingham, there was a big touring bus waiting to whisk them off to the tiny hamlet in the middle of the Cascade National Forest, where they would be camping for the next couple of days. After a couple of days of rafting, they would move back to Bellingham to begin filming.
The camping site, on the banks of a swift-running river, was absolutely beautiful. They were surrounded by mountains and towering pines and spruce. Carpets of green stretched along the side of the road, spotted with yellow, white, and purple wildflowers. Up the road from their campsite was a small hamlet with a grocery store and a couple of restaurants (Trudy said Mexican and Italian, although how she could possibly know that, Leah could not say), along with a place to rent area cabins and a river supply store.
Their campsite included four small cabins. In the area between the cabins, another dozen camping tents had been pitched. Between every couple of tents were big red Igloo coolers and camp chairs, and three fire rings spaced throughout the site.
As the bus unloaded, they were instructed to take their bags and select a tent—two women to a tent. “Ohmigod, this is absolutely gorgeous,” Trudy gushed, dragging her incredibly large duffel bag along. “Who knew this was here?”
Anyone with an inkling of U.S. geography, Leah figured.
“Let’s choose one close by,” Trudy wisely suggested, after watching Tamara Contreras, who, predictably, shot ahead of everyone else to select the best tent.
Trudy squatted down in front of one and pulled the flap back, peering inside. “Not bad, not bad,” she said. “There are two Sleep Number beds, a private bath, and a Jacuzzi . . . reminds me of the place I lost my virginity.”
“Oh no,” Leah said with a groan. “Please promise me you won’t share that story.”
“Don’t be so squeamish,” Trudy said cheerfully. “It happened when I was sixteen,” she said, and crawled inside the tent, wiggling her butt as she tried to drag the giant duffel along with her, talking gaily about the time she lost her virginity in a voice loud enough for the entire campsite to hear.
As Yin and Yang settled into their tent for the weekend, a steady stream of people began to arrive. A camera crew showed up, and the rumor that spread like fire through the little camp was that the crew was filming a reality TV show—The Making of a Movie. Needless to say, it didn’t matter who the cameras belonged to—there was a lot of preening for them regardless, and in fact, according to Jamie, there was a little scuffle near the mess tent, when a couple of the Starlets tried to get the same close-up.
In addition to camera men (“You mean they are going to film us rafting?” Leah asked, horrified at the thought of anyone filming her drowning), there were various caterers, men with rafts and oars, and other official-looking persons who showed up, too. As the day slid into late afternoon, a party atmosphere had definitely invaded the campsite.
Fortunately for the soccer moms, a couple of the Starlets had discovered a booze locker near the cabin where rumor had it the T.A. guys would be sleeping. Apparently they’d dipped into it with a supersized ladle, judging by the shrieks of laughter coming from the banks of the river. Leah, who had taken it upon herself to do a reconnaissance mission for Trudy, Michele, and Jamie, detected a familiar scent in the air and traced it back to the tent of a couple of Serious Actresses.
“Pot?” Michele asked, her eyes lighting up. “How much fun would it be to go rafting stoned?” she asked, delighted, and toddled off to join in the fun by becoming a close, personal friend of a Serious Actress.
In the meantime, Trudy had pulled a silver flask from her bag. “Rick will never notice it’s gone,” she said confidently, and she and Jamie made up a concoction of vodka and diet sodas for the three of them. Red plastic cups in hand, the three women strolled around the campsite, taking it all in.