Empowerment. Engagement. Authenticity.
Rangers Lodge Saga - Poster Girl
With Bella snug and sleeping in her stroller,
Kristen settled down on the blanket and booted up her laptop. The sun
was warm on her skin but a cool breeze made it pleasant. She slid the
card from her camera into the computer and admired the photos Adam had
taken that morning. She studied the photo of her standing with the water
and flowers in the background and decided it would make the perfect
profile picture.
She uploaded and captioned some of her favourites and then absently
scrolled through her news feed. She stopped short when she noticed Logan
had shared a photo to her page and tagged her. It was the shot of
Kristen sprawled between two beds of roses, one pink, the other red, a
wide smile on her face. Someone, most likely Adam since the original
post had come from the Rangers’ Lodge official page, had titled the
shot, “Finding Sunrise Beauty at Rangers.”
There were more than a dozen comments from her friends and Adrian’s
family. She grinned when she saw that one of her best friends had
congratulated Adrian on getting up that early and that Logan had replied
with a derisive “Hell no, he didn’t!”
Hearing a message come in, Kristen plugged in her ear buds and turned on
her screenreader to listen to the note from another one of her favourite
people. This one, Chris, had been her ex ages ago but, somehow, they had
worked their way around to being platonic soul mates.
Hey you. How goes the vacation? Mom says you’re featured in some ad for
the place. Reaching for the stars as always, I see. But yet you’re
attracted to lazy assholes like me and Adrian. What’s with that, anyway?
Ha ha, Kristen typed back. Doing things without Adrian, actually, so you
should be proud of me. It had always been easy to be completely honest
with Chris. He had no problem admitting he was just as lazy as Adrian
and was always telling Kristen she could do better, with the exception
of a dirty weekend or two set aside for him, of course. As for the ad,
Kristen continued typing, I went for a sunrise walk this morning and one
of the owners asked if he could post the pic. Had no idea he would turn
it into an official ad. She thought back to Adam’s words when he’d
uploaded the photos from her camera. Guess there’ll be more to come if I
continue these sunrise adventures, she told Chris.
Heh, what’s Adrian’s take on your new fame?
Dunno. He’s not up yet.
Isn’t it his fucking family you’re with?
Before Kristen could send a response, the Frisbee landed beside her.
“Just checking whether you still remembered we’re here,” Logan teased
from his stance twenty feet away.
Telling Chris she’d be right back, Kristen pushed to her knees and
whipped the Frisbee back in a low pass that had Logan scrambling to
catch it.
“Was aiming for your balls for sharing that ad,” she called with a
laugh.
“Public property,” Logan retorted. “Besides,” he jerked a thumb at Adam
who had returned, Kristen noted, looking more relaxed after his walk. ,
“he started it.” Logan whizzed the Frisbee to Ollie who had it zipping
quickly to Jackson.
“Started what?” Raven wanted to know as she and Brooke stepped aside to
watch the guys go at it. Both women pulled off their baseball caps and
wafted their sweaty faces.
“She’s Adam’s new poster girl,” Logan grinned, almost tipping backwards
as he reached for a pass from Ollie. Kristen cringed at the description.
“Shared with consent,” Adam said mildly. “You’re all welcome to post any
photos and testimonials on any of our official pages.” He tapped the
Frisbee against his thigh as the other two men signaled a break and
headed towards Kristen. Brooke and Raven had already picked spots on the
blanket and were poring over the photos Adam had posted of their morning
in the rose garden.
“Do we get cool photo get ups like this if we share?” Raven tapped a
finger against the ad then rolled her eyes at Kristen. “How the crap do
you manage to look so radiant at five thirty in the morning?” Phone in
one hand, she chugged from a water bottle in the other.
“More like six thirty, I think,” Kristen shrugged, typing a message to
Chris telling him she had company now. She bit back a grin when he asked
if her company was of the cuddly female variety. “The scenery and
photography helped.” Why were she and Adam avoiding each other’s eyes
all of a sudden? she wondered.
“Still…” Raven dug into her knapsack and produced a bag of corn chips
which she passed around. They all dug in as even Logan and Ollie
directed their phones to Facebook and the Rangers Lodge FB page. Kristen
tried not to squirm under their attention.
“Why don’t you all come out tomorrow. We can all be stars,” she joked.
“For once I’m with my brother on that one,” Brooke said and Raven echoed
her. “What does he think of these pics? I mean the idea of you being the
model,” she clarified. “I get he can’t actually see them.” She reached
into her own backpack and passed around a bag of mixed nuts.
“He’s not on Facebook.”
“You know, for a tech genius,” Ollie said, and Kristen was surprised
because Ollie rarely joined in on the family’s Adrian bashing. “He can
be pretty close-minded sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Brooke spluttered. She shoveled in chips and nuts with a
tilt of her head. “But, okay, he’s great at tech. Gotta get him to look
at my IPhone. It’s acting up.”
Use him when you want, Kristen thought cynically. “Anyway, I don’t think
he’ll care one way or the other.” She kicked herself when she saw her
friends roll their eyes. Way to rescue his rep, she groaned. “Meaning
he’s used to me sharing photos,” she explained but the words sounded
lame to her own ears.
