It’s a good thing this place makes me so happy, Bea thought. Because it was expensive.
She pushed the thought away again. They had paid the camping fee. There was no going back now. Somehow she had to find a place inside herself that could relax and enjoy what they had purchased. Bea knew that would not be easy.
The people at the next campsite over had put chicken and sausage on the barbecue, and the smells had begun to drive Bea crazy. It would be hard to settle for the fruit and nuts they had bought at the supermarket.
Squirrel food. I shouldn’t have gone with only what the girl could eat, too. I should have bought some luncheon meat or cheese for myself.
“That feels great,” a voice said, and Bea jumped the proverbial mile. Of course it was only Allie.
“It does,” Bea said. “For once you and I agree on something.”
“What are you staring at?”
Bea realized it was not the ocean. Not the ship or the kite. The natural setting had lost her attention. Her focus had shifted to the meat cooking next door.
“Oh, just coveting dinner at the next site over.”
She might have said it too loudly. A moment later Bea noticed the middle-aged couple responsible for the barbecue looking her way, disturbingly ready to break that conversational barrier.
“You don’t have many of the comforts of home over there,” the woman called.
Of course that was easy for her to say. She and her husband had one of those motor homes about the size of a Greyhound bus.
She was small, a compact woman with hair that looked beauty-parlor fresh. How one achieved such a thing on the road, Bea could not imagine. It made her feel self-conscious about her own thin gray hair, slicked back after her shower and left to dry on its own.
“We get by,” Bea said.
“Any refrigeration?” the husband asked.
He was wearing a robe over swim trunks. Bea wondered if he really was brave enough to swim in that cold, wild ocean. People did, of course. Bea knew that. Still, she did not swim. And knowing what kind of creatures lived under there did not make her feel any more inclined toward a saltwater dip.
“No refrigeration,” Allie said, answering for Bea, who was lost in thought.
“What do you eat?”
“Sometimes we eat out,” Allie said. “Sometimes we buy stuff at the supermarket that doesn’t need refrigeration.”
“Short trip?” the wife asked.
“Not very,” Allie said.
“We can throw some extra food on the barbecue,” the husband called back. “You’re more than welcome.”
Bea felt her eyes go wide. “That’s awfully generous.”
She could feel two different emotions, two urges warring inside her: the part of her that wanted to keep to herself and build an invisible wall between her van and its neighbors, and the part of her that wanted barbecued chicken and sausage.
“My grandmother might like that,” Allie said, moving a step closer. “I’m a vegan. I doubt there would be anything I could eat. But thanks.”
“We have corn on the cob and salad and garlic bread,” the wife said.
“We’ll be right over,” Allie replied.
“This is absolutely delicious,” Bea said. “And we really appreciate the generosity.”
“I’ll say,” Allie added, talking around a mouthful of roasted corn.
They sat at a picnic table with their hosts, watching the top of the sun touch the blue horizon and disappear. Turned out the bright orange of the sunset had only been warming up for its evening show.
The couple was tanned, Bea couldn’t help noticing. Almost ridiculously tanned, as though they had nothing better to do than bask in the sun all day long. As though there were no such thing as skin cancer.
Three kids rode their bikes through the campground, ringing the bells on their handlebars and shrieking with laughter. Bea tried not to find it irritating.
She remembered suddenly that she was supposed to be communicating with the people they met on their trip. Not that she had exactly agreed to that challenge. But these people were feeding them a hot dinner. It seemed only right.
“Where do you folks live?” she asked. Just to dip her toe in that figurative human water.
Both the husband and wife pointed in the same direction.
“South of here?” Bea asked, not sure she understood.
“No, right there,” the wife said. “Our rig.”
“Oh, you live in that motor home.”
It made Bea feel a little better. A little more kindly disposed toward them. They didn’t have everything in the world that Bea didn’t. They didn’t have that huge RV and a big, fancy house. They had only what Bea saw in front of her. They lived on the road. Bea could relate to that.
“If you don’t mind my asking . . . ,” Bea began. Then she stalled. Who was she to ask them personal questions?
“We probably don’t mind,” the husband said.
“Was that a choice? Or out of necessity?”
“I guess everything is a choice at one level or another,” the wife said. Then she looked up and around at the faces at the table. And seemed to note that more words would be needed to get her point across. “Andy’s mother was sick. She was in her nineties, and she had Alzheimer’s. We sold the house to live with her for her last few years. She didn’t own a house. She lived in an apartment in Seattle. We hung on to the money from our home, but it wasn’t enough to buy again. We’d had a mortgage to pay off. We didn’t have a ton of equity.”
“We could have bought another house,” Andy added. Bea couldn’t tell if he was every bit as anxious as his wife to share personal details, or if he was a little defensive regarding the picture she’d painted. “Potentially. But it would have put us in so much debt. This rig we could buy free and clear, and that way we could afford to retire. I get a little pension.”
Bea realized she had stopped chewing to listen to their story, which came as a surprise, because the food was too good to stop eating.
“Debt is the worst,” Bea said. “Debt is a terrible, terrible thing. Somehow they’ve got us all primed to accept it. They’ve taught us it’s part of the American dream or some such nonsense. But it keeps you in chains. The deeper in you get, the more money they make off your misfortune, and the deeper in you get. It’s a big, vicious cycle where you give some faceless bank too much power over your life. And they don’t care about you one bit. Don’t for a moment think they do, because they don’t. It was always so stressful for me. Like a sword hanging over my head. Like being chased by wolves all your life, and you can’t stop running. No matter how tired you get, you have to stay ahead of them at all costs.”
A long silence fell.
“So you’re out of debt now?” the wife asked.
“I am. Completely.” She could have added, “Because I lost my home and I live in my van now.” She could also have added that she literally walked out on her debts. Left them unpaid. She didn’t.
Change was one thing, but there was no point in letting it get out of hand.