She had managed not to dwell on the irony of the whole situation, but sitting drunk and half-drugged at a Caribbean airport while local teenagers robbed her blind had prompted a bit of contemplation. Her ex-boyfriend had planned this trip to celebrate their five-year anniversary, and after said ex-boyfriend had left her for the virgin cheerleader trainer, he had offered her the tickets as some sort of consolation prize. Emmy’s gut had told her to have some dignity and tell him to fuck off, once and for all, but everything was fully paid for and she’d been stressed lately with the new job and, well, it had been worth accepting just for the chance to imply that she would be going with a new boyfriend.
‘Seriously, Em, go. It’s all arranged and paid for. It’ll be nice for you,’ Duncan had said when he came over to pick up his DVDs and underwear a week after she’d returned from Paris. It had been a perfect trip workwise, but she was still smarting from Paul’s blatant rejection – not to mention her obvious role in driving him away with the talk about having kids. It didn’t help that Duncan looked incredibly fit and happy, probably the best since she’d known him. Fucker.
‘What? You and the cheerleader aren’t ready for a trip together yet? Or is premarital traveling banned also?’
He had sighed, suggesting he expected nothing less from Emmy, handed her a folder with the complete itinerary, and pecked her on the cheek. ‘Go. Get some sun. I’d hate to see it go to waste.’
‘Thank you, Duncan, we’ll do just that.’ Emphasis on the we, of course. He hadn’t even blinked.
Bastard.
Emmy hated him for encouraging her to go, but she hated herself more for taking him up on it. She might have ditched the whole idea, but when she floated the idea of a solo trip to the Dutch Antilles to her friends, they had not been pleased.
‘Solo? Why would you ever go there alone? Especially considering that you have two best friends sitting right here, one of whom just got engaged. I think it would be downright negligent not to invite us,’ Adriana had sniffed.
Not surprisingly, Leigh had been a bit more reserved. ‘Oh, please, it’s not that big of a deal. And besides, things are just crazy at work right now. I’m editing my first huge author. And I don’t think Russell would be thrilled if I ditched him for the Fourth.’
Emmy nodded. ‘See? Leigh’s too busy and I’m sure you’ve got, uh … stuff going on, too.’ No one had any clear idea what Adriana did all day, but there was an unspoken agreement never to address this. ‘Besides, it’s only booked for two.’
Post-breakup resolution or not, Emmy had little interest in spending the week scouting for men or tabletop dancing at local nightclubs. Paris and the whole Paul debacle had been a serious blow to her ego; the last thing she wanted was Adriana pushing her to hunt for men day and night.
‘Two, three, what’s the difference? Nothing a little phone call can’t fix. And Leigh, darling, I don’t give one goddamn what you have going on at work. As for Russell, he’ll just have to understand that your best friends are happy for you and want to toast you.’ Adriana smiled expansively at both girls. ‘Well, that’s settled. When do we leave?’
Things had rapidly deteriorated since they’d left New York, although by now the details were a little fuzzy. They’d flown on the six a.m. flight from LaGuardia to Miami and somehow, against all judgment, sense, and reason, Adriana had made a convincing case for in-flight Bloody Marys. Bloody Marys before nine in the morning. Which, although Emmy was loath to admit it, had been pretty nice. The second and third had gone down quite easily, and by the time they’d landed at the Curaçao airport, the Miami layover was little more than a hazy dream. The only solid proof that it had actually occurred – the $200 Gucci sunglasses Adriana insisted Emmy needed to buy at the duty-free shop – had just evaporated. Emmy’s suitcase had also vanished, but the tiny pills that Adriana had insisted she and Leigh try were working their magic: suitcase, sunglasses, whatever. She could not care less.
In the brutal late-afternoon sun the girls sat slumped against Adriana’s and Leigh’s suitcases – both of which were miraculously present and intact.
‘Where are we again?’ Leigh asked, tugging ineffectually at the bandanna she had tied around her hair. ‘I can’t seem to remember.’
Adriana glanced up. ‘Jamaica?’
They giggled, both certain that Jamaica wasn’t the right answer but unable to remember what was.
Emmy pulled the folder from her carry-on and began to read. ‘Aruba. Bonaire. Curaçao. The A-B-C islands of the Netherlands Antilles. Eighty miles off the coast of Venezuela. Population—’
Adriana held her hand up. ‘I’m bored.’
‘It’s all coming back,’ Emmy slurred. ‘We are currently in Curaçao. Our flight from Miami was delayed and we missed our ferry to Bonaire. We’re stuck.’
‘Stop being so negative, girls!’ Adriana sang. ‘We’re getting great color. We’re going to meet hot Dutch men.’ Pause. ‘Are Dutch men hot?’
‘Dutch men? I didn’t know there were Dutch men in Jamaica!’ Leigh shrieked in a very un-Leigh-like way. Adriana cracked up and the two girls high-fived.
Emmy’s temples throbbed with pain and her skin was on fire. ‘Pull yourselves together, people. We need to get out of here.’
The trouble had started when the girls deplaned in Curaçao slightly buzzed but fully conscious and made their way to the ferry counter. Emmy politely requested three tickets.
‘No,’ a fleshy black woman wearing a muumuu and sandals announced with obvious joy. ‘Cancel.’
‘‘Cancel’? What do you mean “cancel”?’ Emmy did her best to glare, but the fact that her chin barely reached the top of the counter negated the intended effect.
The woman smiled. Unkindly. ‘No more.’
Another hour passed before they learned there once had been a ferry; there was a ferry no longer; and the only way to traverse those thirty miles now was by flying one of two local airlines, unnervingly named Bonaire Express and Divi Divi Air.
‘I would rather die than fly something called “Divi Divi,’’ Adriana announced as they surveyed the airlines’ side-by-side ticketing counters, each consisting of a single employee and a wheeled card table.
‘You might die anyway,’ Leigh said. She picked up a handwritten sheet listing the current schedule. ‘Oh, wait, this should make you feel much better. It says here that the refurbished six-seater planes are very reliable.’
‘Refurbished? Six seats? Reliable? That’s the best fucking adjective these people can come up with and we’re entrusting our lives to them?’ Emmy was about three minutes from ditching this whole godforsaken idea and getting on the next flight back to New York.
Leigh wasn’t finished. ‘Hold on, look, here’s a picture.’ Stapled to the back of the schedule was a surprisingly high-quality print of an airplane. A very colorful airplane. Almost fluorescent, actually. Leigh passed it to Adriana, who waved her hands in disgust and lit a cigarette. She inhaled deeply and handed the cigarette to Leigh, who reached for it instinctively before remembering she was no longer a smoker.
Adriana exhaled. ‘Don’t show me that. Please! There is no conceivable, imaginable, acceptable excuse why a plane needs to look like a Pucci dress!’ She glanced at the picture again, then inhaled and moaned simultaneously. ‘Oh god, it’s a prop plane. I won’t fly prop planes. I can’t fly prop planes.’
‘Oh, you most certainly will,’ Leigh sang. ‘We’re even going to let you decide which one. Divi/Pucci flies at six, and Bonaire Express – that’s the one that looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, in case you were confused – has a flight at six-twenty. Which do you prefer?’
Adriana whimpered. Emmy looked at Leigh and rolled her eyes.
Adriana dug through her wallet and handed Leigh her American Express Platinum card. ‘Book whichever one you think gives us the best chance of surviving. I’m going to find us something to drink.’
Having bought three tickets using an indecipherable combination of guilders, dollars, a
nd traveler’s checks, since the airline didn’t accept credit cards, Emmy and Leigh looked for a place to sit down. Hato Airport, it seemed, didn’t have much in the way of amenities, and seats were no exception. It was a dusty, open-air structure that, against all likelihood, offered not one square inch of shade from the brutal midday sun. Too exhausted to continue looking, the girls returned to the stretch of pavement where they’d sat before, an area that could have been a sidewalk or a tarmac or a parking lot. They had just collapsed atop her suitcase when Adriana, clutching a plastic bag and appearing triumphant, flopped down beside them.
Emmy grabbed the bag from her hands. ‘I’ve never needed water so bad in my life. Please say you bought more than one?’ Inside the bag was only a single glass bottle of electric blue liquid. ‘You got Gatorade instead of water?’
‘Not Gatorade, querida. Blue curaçao. Mmm. Doesn’t that look delicious?’ Adriana removed her ankle-wrap ballet flats to reveal a pale pink pedicure and tucked the bottom of her tank top under the band of her bra. Even though she’d seen Adriana’s tight tummy and love handle-free sides a million times, Emmy couldn’t stop staring. Adriana politely pretended not to notice. She nodded toward the bottle. ‘Local special. We should get started right away if we plan to be obliterated by takeoff.’
Leigh took the bottle from Emmy. ‘It says here that blue curaçao is a sweet blue liqueur made from the dried peel of bitter oranges and that it’s used to add color to cocktails,’ she read from the label.
‘Yeah, so?’ Adriana asked, massaging a dime-sized drop of Hawaiian Tropic oil onto her already golden shoulders.
‘So? So it’s really just food coloring with alcohol in it. We can’t drink this.’
‘Really? I can.’ Adriana unscrewed the cap and took a long gulp.
Emmy sighed. ‘No water? I’d kill for some water.’
‘Of course there’s no water. I covered the entire airport. The only little shop was boarded up – permanently, it appears – with a sign that says no. I saw something that might have been a bar at one point but could’ve also been customs, and an area that was designated as a restaurant but looked like downtown Baghdad. There was, however, a folding card table near the Divi Divi gate staffed by a kind gentleman who claimed he was duty-free. He had about ten cartons of something called Richmond Ultra-Lights, a few crushed bars of Toblerone, and a bottle each of Jim Beam and this. I chose this.’ She handed Emmy the bottle. ‘Oh, come on, Em. Relax a little. It’s a vacation!’
Emmy took the bottle, stared at it, and took a swig. It tasted like liquid Splenda with a kick. She drank again.
Adriana smiled, proud as a parent at a sixth-grade talent show. ‘That’s the spirit! Leigh, sweetheart, take a nip. There you go … Now, girls, I have a little present for you.’
Leigh forced herself to swallow and shuddered. ‘I know that look. Please tell me you didn’t smuggle in something truly illegal. If this’ – she waved her hands expansively – ‘is the international airport, can you imagine what the prison looks like?’
Undeterred, Adriana pulled a red and white container shaped like a large pill capsule from her jeans pocket. She twisted off the cap and shook out three tablets. One disappeared down her throat. She handed one to each of her friends.
‘Mommy’s little helper,’ she sang.
‘Valium? Since when do you take Valium?’
‘When? Since we decided to fly on an aircraft that looks like a Six Flags ride.’
Well, that was all the convincing Emmy needed. She swallowed the little round pill and washed it down with some blue curaçao. She watched Leigh do the same and then everything once again got soft around the edges.
An hour passed, and then another. Emmy opened her eyes first. Her calves were a splotchy salmon color and there were six empty beer cans on the ground. Vaguely she recalled being approached by a man who wore a cooler suspended from his neck. He didn’t have any water, either, but he was selling cans of beer called, suspiciously, Amstel Bright. At the time it had seemed like a good idea, but the beer and the blue curaçao and the Valium combined with hundred-plus-degree heat and no water was probably not the wisest move.
‘Adriana, wake up. Leigh? I think it’s time to board.’
Leigh opened an eye without moving a muscle and looked up with surprising clarity. ‘Where are we?’
‘Come on, we need to move. The only thing worse than getting on that plane is sleeping here tonight.’
That seemed to motivate everyone. They managed to hobble, all together, in the right direction.
‘Wow, great security here,’ Leigh mumbled, as the girls weaved their way toward a chalkboard that read ‘I just adore airports that don’t inconvenience you with X-ray machines and metal detectors.’
They boarded the six-seater with little drama, earning only one strange look from the pilot when he saw Adriana down the last of the blue curaçao and promptly pass out against the window. The flight wasn’t particularly terrifying, although Emmy applauded with her fellow travelers when the wheels touched down. Naturally, their planned car and driver were nowhere to be found at Bonaire’s Flamingo Airport, and Adriana’s hardback cosmetic case had somehow vanished during the twenty-minute ride, but everyone seemed beyond caring.
‘It makes for light traveling, this whole lose-a-bag-per-flight deal,’ Adriana said and shrugged.
By the time they climbed out of the taxi at the hotel, they had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, had gotten drunk, sobered up, lost two bags, and flown an airline that sounded like a nursery rhyme from an airport that surely couldn’t have passed even the most lenient FAA inspection. Blessedly, the resort looked every bit as elegant and peaceful as it did in Duncan’s dossier, and Emmy thought she might kiss the check-in guy when he upgraded them to a two-bedroom suite. Leigh had already collapsed, fully dressed, on the bed in the smaller bedroom, and Adriana looked like she was about to do the same, but Emmy was determined to take a bath before passing out.
‘Adi, can I borrow something to sleep in?’ Emmy called from the oversized marble bathtub. She had already emptied the whole bottle of body wash under the running water and it had foamed up luxuriantly, giving the entire bathroom a eucalyptus scent.
‘Take whatever you want; just save the mauve silk teddy and robe for me. It’s my lucky set.’
‘Are you hungry?’ Emmy called again.
‘Starving. Room service?’
Emmy walked into Adriana’s room in a hotel-provided robe and slippers and began to dig through her suitcase. She pulled out a black garter and fishnet stockings and held them up. ‘Don’t you have just a pair of boxers or something?’
‘Emmy, querida, in case you didn’t know, boxers are for boys.’ She dragged herself into a sitting position and stuck a hand in her suitcase. ‘Here, wear these.’
Emmy took the lavender silk tap pants and matching swatch of fabric and held them up. ‘Is this honestly what you wear when you’re alone in your apartment and you just want to be comfortable?’
Adriana did her delicate femi-snort. ‘Hardly. They look like something my grandmother would wear. In fact, I think they’re a present from her. I usually wear these.’ She pulled a magenta slip over her head; the silky fabric moved like liquid against her body.
Emmy sighed. ‘I know I shouldn’t hate you for having a perfect body, but I do. I really, really do.’
‘Darling, these, too, can be yours’ – Adriana cupped her breasts and pushed them up, causing her nightie to slide up over her hips to reveal a complete Brazilian wax – ‘for ten grand and a few hours under Dr. Kramer’s magical hands.’ She glanced down and gave them each another squeeze. ‘I’m so glad I had them redone when they legalized silicone. It’s so much more natural, don’t you think?’
Emmy had admired – oh, hell, she’d worshipped – Adriana’s implants since the moment she returned with them after Christmas break sophomore year. Granted, they didn’t seem so perfect when one of them began to leak four months later and Emmy had t
o rush Adriana to the ER and sit with her through the night as they waited for a plastic surgeon to come rebuild her sagging left breast. But now? Swapping out the saline for silicone had been a good decision – even if it had meant another four full days and nights during which Emmy had to nurse her friend. They were flawless. So curvy and full and beautiful without looking the least bit fake … Well, perhaps they looked a tiny bit fake, but only to those who knew Adriana beforehand and, as Adi herself had said, with a laugh, ‘Once they’re in, they’re real.’ Real, fake, who really cared when they were that goddamn perfect?
Emmy had wondered a thousand times, ten thousand times, what it would be like to possess such breasts. Or, truth be told, any breasts at all. She’d always been mostly satisfied with her own slight frame, growing more pleased with her figure as she got older and realized how rare it was for a woman to stay thin naturally. Yet even though she realized how many women would kill for her metabolism, for her toothpick-thin thighs and itty-bitty bum and jiggle-free upper arms, she yearned to know how it felt to have a woman’s body, with all the softness and curves that men loved so much. When faced with breasts like Adriana’s, Emmy envisioned drawers full of sexy, lacy bras; halter dresses that could be filled out; a world rich with unpadded bikini tops; a total inability to shop in the children’s section because her chest would never fit in a little girl’s shirt. She dreamed of never hearing the ‘more than a handful’ adage ever again, and wearing strapless dresses without stuffing them first, and having a man stare at her cleavage instead of her eyes, just once.
Of course, she’d never have the nerve to do it. Even as she examined Adriana’s chest tonight, she knew she was too much of a wimp to ever go through with it. She also understood that her attractiveness to men stemmed from her delicateness, the natural gracefulness that resulted from having such a small body, the way her physical fragility made them even more aware of their own strength and masculinity, and not from anything as overtly sexual as big, beautiful breasts.
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