"Good evening, Beartown Bears!" Bill shouted. He was standing on a portable stage, set up under the hospitality tent, for the mandatory staff meeting that was held every Sunday night, when the park closed early. Next to him stood Long Shadow, his animal trainer. Long Shadow was holding an animal skin drum dangling feathers. We sold ones like them in the gift shop.
"I said, good evening, Beartown Bears!"
"Yo-dah!" someone called out.
Long Shadow began banging on his drum. A steady, plodding beat.
"Yo-dah," Long Shadow sang. A few people continued, "Yo-dah! Yo, yo, yo, yo!"
"Yo-dah. Yo-dah. Yo, yo, yo, yo. Yo-dah. Yo-dah. Yo, yo, yo, yo."
Eventually most of us joined in. It was a simple chant, but then people added foot-stomping and a complicated knee-slap pattern, like a fucking camp song. Long Shadow picked up the pace until Bill nodded. Cheers erupted from around the tent. Maybe I'd underestimated the Old Man's ability to draw a crowd.
"Nice work, Beartown," he said. "Thank you to our seasoned summer employees for showing our new people how we start our weekly meetings. I can tell already we are going to have a very fine summer!"
More cheers.
"Our dodranscentennial year!"
The tent quieted.
"Seventy-five," Bill said. "Our seventy-fifth season open to the public. And it all began with my grandfather and a little bear cub. What was that little bear cub's name that started it all?"
"Solomon," Freddy answered. She was entering the meeting just then. Freddy had transformed herself over the past few days. She'd bobbed her hair and pulled it off her face with a handkerchief she'd rolled up and tied like a headband. She'd also invested in a pair of expensive hiking boots that she wore with a pair of socks bunched around her ankles.
"That's right," Bill said. "Solomon, or Solly Bear we call him. Good job…?" He inclined his head toward Freddy.
"Freddy," she said
"Thank you, Freddy. It's important for us to know our beginnings. It shows our visitors that we are family and that we all care about the work we do and appreciate their loyal patronage. So I charge all of you with knowing our history, which is detailed in your employee handbooks. Pick up a copy if you need one." He pointed to a large stack of spiral-bound booklets on the edge of the stage. "Also, we encourage you to stop by our museum and see the artifacts we've preserved. Amelia? Where are you Amelia?"
Amelia raised her hand. Freddy had already wound her way through the tables to find a seat across from her.
"Everyone, Miss Amelia Broadway is our lead museum guide. She can help answer many of your questions about bears and our history. And be sure to come to our weekly meetings, which start every Sunday night at 7 PM sharp."
A few heads turned back to Freddy.
From there, Bill launched into a litany of reminders. Employees needed to be wearing their ID badges at all times. The men's room at the northeast corner of the park would be undergoing emergency repairs during the next few days, and visitors were to be directed to either the one near the main entrance, or in the Canyon Rapids. Sign-ups for first-aid training for non-aquatic staff would be posted in the employee lounge.
Sookie, meanwhile, was helping at the food table, smoothing the vinyl tablecloth and lining the pans of food even with the edges. She tapped on the table, apparently satisfied, and left her station to join the man at the grills. He said something to her, his head tilted in her direction. She nodded, stepped closer, and nodded again. His tongs, snapping and twisting, suddenly stopped. She stilled too, as she listened to him. Though I couldn't hear them, I found myself drawn into the tenor of their conversation, their anticipation. Something was going to happen between them, a punchline or some kind of payoff, strangely intimate underneath this stupid revival tent with moldy canvas. I wanted to see it.
They were getting close when an asshole walked by and stopped, blocking my view. For a full minute he stood there, doing nothing but listening to the Old Man. By the time he finally took a seat, Sookie and the man at the grill were already rocking on their feet and shaking their heads and laughing. Fucking- A, I'd missed it. Up front, Bill was reviewing a weekly educational segment on black bears, something about bear safety. A car in the parking lot passed, gunning its engine. He paused and then continued, undaunted.
When I looked back, Sookie was still smiling. She was beautiful now, with happiness opening wide on her face. Relaxed and at ease. What had the man said to make her that way? She turned from him—he was a small man with bad hair—giving me a good view of her profile, her high ponytail, bare neck; and torso, draped in a blousy Beartown t-shirt. Somewhere in all of that extra fabric were full breasts and a waist swelling out to round hips. One day she would allow me to touch her, to press into the bulk and find the outline of her body. It was only a matter of working faster than Freddy.
Next to me, Clancy whispered, "Weird," nodding in Sookie's direction. "And definitely off limits if you want your job."
"In closing," Bill was still droning, "I'll remind you of the legend of Kchi-awasos, or Great Bear, reborn every spring. In the summer, we hunt him. He gives us a good chase. And in the fall, after a summer of hard work, we will capture him, victorious, and the blood of his slaughter will turn the leaves brown."
"Micida!" someone called out, which brought some laughter around him.
Bill, too, was smiling. "Micida!" he responded. "Let's eat!"
A group was already standing and heading for the food table. Most of us lived off Ramen noodles, cereal, and pizza for the rest of the week, and the promise of a full meal was the only real reason we attended these meetings.
Sookie was behind the serving table, in constant motion, replenishing food as necessary. I caught her eye, not only once, but twice, the second time for a full three seconds. When the line quieted, I approached. Half of her body was under the table, tugging at a box. She emerged with a package of napkins wrapped in a brown paper sleeve.
"Do you need something?" she asked, trying to swipe some stray hair from her forehead with her arm as she managed the package. It was all picnic food: hotdogs, hamburgers, potato chips, baked beans, and some kind of macaroni and hamburger casserole with cheese. I stabbed it with the serving spoon. "No," I said.
She turned from me and resumed her busy work. "On second thought, you could tell me something about yourself," I said.
She faced me once again, with the stance of someone who was ready for a challenge. It made me annoyed and intrigued at once. "I'm a little busy right now," she said, smacking a metal napkin holder onto the table once, twice, three times. She picked it up and peered inside.
"I thought you could use a break," I said.
"Is that right?" she said, peering over the edge of the metal rim.
"Definitely. What's your name?"
"Sookie Stackhouse. And you?"
"I'm Eric. Eric Northman."
"Welcome to Beartown, Eric. Help yourself to something to eat before it all goes. It won't last long." She went back to focusing on her napkin holder, poking at the spring mechanism that appeared to be stuck.
"You look like you know what you're doing around here. Except for napkin holders."
She stopped poking and looked up. Her eyes were the color of a comfortable denim blue and finely lined. She'd been through some stress in her life. "And you look like the kind of guy who finds his way," she said.
She was giving me the brush-off, sending me on my way. "I'll take that as a compliment."
Poke. Poke. She didn't answer. I wasn't ready to call it a day. "It's true I find my way, though not always on my own. People don't often say no to me."
She laughed. "You make it sound like you give people a reason to say no. They just don't say it."
"I can be very convincing."
"Because you're so tall, right?" She said this as if it were a throwaway line.
I paused. She still wasn't looking at me, so she was missing half of the effect I usually had on women. "Mostly, I don't waste my time on the little things."
"Hah!" she said triumphantly, banging the metal box on the table. She grabbed for the napkins. "I'm sorry. What were you saying?"
"Sweetheart, did you see where I stashed those extra key chains?" the Old Man interrupted, walking behind the table to a spot next to her and putting his hand on her shoulder, like he owned her. He took the napkin holder from her and shook it.
"I fixed it," she said. "And no, I don't know where the key chains are. There are so many boxes, I'm not sure what we have."
"I'm getting you that extra storage shed. They're setting it up in the parking lot on Tuesday. It's all yours for whatever you need." And then looking to me, he said, "You're Eric, right?"
I nodded.
"Sophie-Anne wanted to see you. I set up an appointment for you with her tomorrow morning."
"All right."
"I'm sure you're doing fine in the suit. But this is your first summer, and you're one of the tallest people who's ever worn the suit."
"Mm-hmm," I said simply, though I knew I was the tallest. Sophie-Anne had already told me so.
"It's always a good idea to get some instruction on wearing the suit. Even our seasoned employees like Claude need tune-ups every year. Sophie-Anne does a good job keeping all of our bears on the same page."
"I'll get right on that," I said.
"You need anything else?" he said to Sookie. "Looks like the line's died down. So we're okay on food?"
"Yep," she said. A slight frown had creased the corner of her mouth.
"Thank you again, Sookie," he said, squeezing her shoulder as he walked off to meet with Long Shadow.
"Listen," Sookie said as she busied herself with wiping up the table, not meeting my eyes. "It's not unusual for the police to show up in the dorms once or twice during the summer, especially when there's word that a big hallway party is brewing. You know what I mean? Bill likes to keep his facilities in good shape."
"All right." There went our plans for the night. "Thanks for the heads up."
She kept up with her scrubbing, even though everything looked all right to me. "Nice meeting you, Sookie Stackhouse."
I took my seat next to Clancy. "Crash and burn," he said to me under his breath.
"Let's get out of here tonight," I said and passed on the tip Sookie had given me.
"I feel the need!" Clancy said.
"The need for speed!" Hoyt answered on cue.
"No. Not there," I said. We'd already sneaked into the drive-in theater twice in the past week. I'd had enough Top Gun for the rest of my life.
Across the room at another table, Freddy, sitting with Amelia, cast me a superior look. Let her think I was losing, but I had a feeling my introduction to Sookie hadn't gone all that badly, thanks to the Old Man. Something was going on between her and the Old Man. Some kind of tension. I planned to use it to my full advantage.