Summer Days

by Lisa Jackson

  “The worst is when you’re in the car and somebody gets sick,” Pattie said.

  The rest of the table groaned in agreement.

  “Oh!” Nina, the woman next to Meredith, held up a hand. “Last week I’m in my car, it’s bumper-to-bumper on the Triborough Bridge—we’re all strapped in, of course—and then, boom. Conor hurls. I mean, so hard I could feel the vomit tsunami hit the back of my seat. Poor kid’s groaning, bless his heart, and his sister starts wailing, because she got splattered. And then—”

  “The smell!” the table chorused.

  “My gag reflex kicks in,” Nina continued, “so I’m rolling down the window, and the diesel exhaust fumes from the eighteen-wheeler in front of us start to mix with the eau de upchuck we’re already contending with—”

  While the story went on, Meredith noticed Janie and the others weren’t at their table anymore.

  “—And you’re stuck,” Amelia was saying.

  “No darting to the fridge for a 7UP in that situation.”

  “I always give Madison ginger ale for her tummy. Ginger ale and saltines—my mother swore by that.”

  One of the others released a guttural bellow of laughter. “My mother swore by tossing us a towel or two and barricading herself behind her double-locked bedroom door.”

  Someone chuckled. “The old ways were the best ways.”

  “Do you have kids, Marilyn?”

  It took Meredith a moment to process that she’d been addressed. She turned to the speaker—Nina?—and considered correcting her, but then she wasn’t one hundred percent certain she was putting the right names to faces either. “No,” she answered. “Maybe someday.”

  “Well, don’t hope too long. Get busy,” one of them told her.

  They all nodded. “The older you get, the worse everything is.”

  It was a subject they all had strong opinions about—which they hurled at her, rapid-fire.

  “Harder to get pregnant.”

  “Much harder!”

  “Then you end up doing IVF.”

  “Hormones!”

  “You become, like, this lab rat.”

  “And the risks get worse.”

  “Bed rest! It sounds good at first, but—”

  “I nearly went out of my mind.”

  “Then, when it’s all over and they hand you a baby, you’re so damn exhausted.”

  “And you stay exhausted for the next eight years.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “I just handed the kid over to my mom.”

  “I wanted to kill my mom. And don’t get me started on my mother-in-law.”

  Exclamations of sympathy ended in their flagging a waiter over for another round.

  Meredith pushed back her chair. “I think I should go back.”

  The women exchanged glances, grinning. “We drove her away with our pregnancy talk.”

  “And we didn’t even bring up episiotomies.”

  Amelia snorted. “We didn’t need to. It was probably mentioning my mother-in-law that did it. That woman always clears a room.”

  They laughed.

  “No, honestly,” Meredith said. “It’s been fun, but I need to find my sister.”

  Amelia blinked at her. “Those guys left about fifteen minutes ago.”

  Janie had left her without saying anything?

  Returning to the hotel, Meredith tried not to feel disgruntled. After all, she was the one who had switched tables. Janie had probably thought she was enjoying herself. And just that afternoon, Meredith had been kicking herself for being trapped as part of a sister act for her vacation. It was good that they did things separately, autonomously. She just hadn’t expected to be trudging back to the hotel by herself at night. But she hadn’t felt like waiting to go back with the yoga moms. From the looks of things when she’d left, those ladies had another hour or so in them, at least.

  On her amble back to the Tres Chivos, one look overhead shook off any sense of being disgruntled with Janie. Above, a million stars hung tantalizingly close. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen such a dazzling display. Maybe never. It was as if the heavens were a few million miles closer to Peru than New York.

  At the hotel, Meredith passed the dozing night clerk and headed straight to the room, which was at the bend of the corridor. The passageway was quiet—no televisions or radios in the rooms, no murmurs of conversations through the doors. Her footsteps on the tiles seemed too loud, so she was practically tiptoeing by the time she reached her and Janie’s room.

  Being extra quiet with the key, she snicked open the lock and slipped inside, glad to see that Janie had left a light on. She turned, took a step toward the beds, and let out a yelp. At first she wondered if she’d entered the wrong room. But her luggage lay on the empty twin bed, just where she’d left it. And after a few blinks of shock, she confirmed that Janie was on the other bed. Except that she was half dressed, and had Seth attached to one of her nipples.

  The two of them noticed her and jerked up to sitting just as Meredith was pivoting away. Too late. That image of Janie and Seth was burned on her eyeballs for all time. She fumbled for the doorknob.

  “Meredith,” Janie said.

  “I’m just going back to the lobby to . . . uh . . .”

  She lunged out the door before she could think of a reasonable end to that sentence, besides the obvious. Escape.

  She sprinted toward the reception area, where she collapsed onto a rustic wooden seat. The heavily carved bench jabbed into her back. What was it? An Incan torture pew? As if her psyche wasn’t tortured enough at the moment . . . God, she wished there were some kind of brain cleanser that could erase that image of Janie and Seth.

  How much had Janie had to drink? Meredith should have kept closer tabs on her. She just wasn’t used to being her sister’s keeper. It had always been the other way around.

  Meredith half expected her sister to run after her, but several minutes went by before she heard footsteps hurrying toward the lobby. She jumped up, wanting to avoid a confrontation about Seth in front of the desk clerk . . . on the off chance that he ever woke up.

  Instead of meeting Janie at the door, however, she nearly slammed into Sam. He jumped back from their near collision, his face pale and anxious. Meredith breathed a yip of surprise and stepped away, but he grabbed her like a drowning man reaching for a lifeline. The frantic look in his eyes wasn’t caused by bumping into her again. “I need help. Gina’s really sick.”

  Meredith shifted mental gears, glad for a problem to think about that might get her mind off his strong hands clamped around her arms. “Does she have a fever?”

  “No.” He stepped back, letting go. “That is . . . I don’t think so. But she’s been . . . ill. Like, for hours. Ever since we got back from dinner.” He lowered his voice. “And there are intestinal issues. . . .”

  Meredith raised a say-no-more palm. “Stomach bug.”

  “Well, yes. Obviously.”

  “I mean, a bad bacterial stomach bug.” She remembered the one beach vacation she’d taken to Cancún a few years before. She’d spent all but one day in her hotel room, worshipping at the porcelain throne. Bug was a hilariously benign word to describe the Godzilla that had been stomping around her digestive track for days on end. “Montezuma’s revenge.”

  One of his brows arched above the rim of his glasses. “In this case, it’s Buttercup’s revenge.”

  Meredith didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “The only thing Gina ate tonight was a guinea pig from a street vendor,” he explained.

  Bad pet karma was a bitch.

  “What should I do?” His voice was strained with worry. “I know the human body is mostly fluid, but there’s got to be a limit to how much somebody can lose.”

  “A pharmacy will be able to give you something.”

  His eyes widened as if this was an idea that hadn’t occurred to him. “You don’t think I should call an ambulance?”

  “So you can haul
her to a crowded hospital emergency waiting room while she’s nauseous?” She shook her head. “No.”

  “Okay, the pharmacy it is.” He was already looking toward the hotel entrance.

  She grabbed his arm before he could rush off. “Let me go for it.”

  “I was sort of hoping you could stay with Gina,” he said.

  “Me?”

  At her hesitation, panic showed in his eyes again, and she understood. He needed to be out doing something, taking action. And face it—it wasn’t as if she had anywhere to go now that her room had turned into the site of the weirdest booty call since Ernest Borgnine met Ethel Merman. She fished through her purse and found a pen and an old receipt. On the back, she wrote the name of the drugs she’d been prescribed in Mexico. As an afterthought, she added ginger ale and saltines to the list. Her time with the yoga mommies had not been wasted.

  She handed him the paper, and he was about to run out the door when she stopped him again. “Sam, wait.” She turned to the desk clerk and cleared her throat loudly to wake him. “Can you help us? We need a pharmacy. One that’s open late.”

  “Farmacia?” he asked.

  “Sí.” She added, “Can you go with him?” And as she called up her remedial Spanish, she made gestures that she hoped brought to mind a person accompanying someone and not, for instance, mugging someone in an alleyway. “Vaya con él, por favor?”

  Understanding—or seeming to—the man jumped up and disappeared into a back room. He returned a few minutes later with a rumpled-looking teenager in tow. Meredith recognized the youth from when they’d arrived. He’d helped lug suitcases up the staircase from the street. The desk clerk rattled off something to him that Meredith didn’t quite catch, but the boy nodded and sped for the door, beckoning for Sam to follow.

  Not that Sam needed encouragement. He moved as if jet-propelled, stopping only to turn and toss Meredith his room key. “If you could just check on her . . . Tell her I’ll be back as soon as possible. Tell her . . .” He looked so pained, for a moment she worried he was going to ask her to convey some sort of love message. “. . . tell her I’m sorry.”

  She nodded. Sorry she could handle. But sorry for what? she wondered. Had they had a fight?

  Not your concern.

  After she watched him go, the brass key weighed heavily in her hand. She smiled at the desk clerk and said gracias for his help, then turned and made her way back to Sam and Gina’s room. It was at the back of the hotel on the opposite side of the courtyard from her and Janie’s. At the door, she rapped lightly, not wanting to disturb Gina if she’d managed to fall asleep.

  Receiving no answer to the knock, she put the key in the lock and turned it as quietly as possible. Just check on her, he’d said. She’d make sure Gina was still alive and then go. Leaving the door ajar, she stepped inside and peeked into the suite. Damn. Janie had been right—it was huge, with freshly painted buff walls (no ooze) that reflected the warm light from the glass-shaded decorative lamps and the cozy brick fireplace in the corner. Double glass doors looked out on what appeared to be a private patio. Though it was dark, Meredith saw hanging plants laden with blooms just on the other side of the glass.

  A bricked archway divided the suite in two. On one side was the bedroom; on the other was a sitting area bigger than Meredith’s living room in New York. A couch and two chairs faced off at the end of the room. Nearby, a forty-eight-inch television held court on a low antique table. The wood floors boasted several rugs that seemed to have been woven locally and probably cost more than most Peruvian workers earned in a year.

  Wow. This room was either the hotel’s loss leader, or she and Janie really had gotten screwed, roomwise.

  In the bedroom, Meredith spotted Gina strewn across the bed like something that had been flung there. She lay on her back, her arm draped over the edge, her manicured hand nearly dragging on the ground. Sometime after getting back from the restaurant she’d managed to change into a filmy negligee in silky peach. Meredith was impressed. The woman might be sick, but she was being elegant about it.

  Gina squinted one eye open. “Oh, it’s you,” she said in a gravelly voice. “What are you doing here?”

  Meredith crossed toward her. “I ran into Sam in the lobby. He’s going to the pharmacy to find something for you.”

  “The only thing that could help me now is a cyanide pill.”

  Meredith laughed nervously. The fact of the matter was, Gina didn’t look good. Despite her high-end sleepwear and comfy surroundings, her skin had a decidedly greenish hue. And when Meredith took another step toward the bed, it hit her: that unmistakable sour-milk smell of sickness. Meredith gulped in a breath and tried to put on her best Florence Nightingale front. She wondered if it was too cold to open the patio doors.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

  “God, no,” Gina groaned. “Nothing is crossing these lips till I’m back in the U.S. I don’t care if I starve to death before I get there.”

  “You’ll feel better when Sam comes back. I sent him to find drugs to help you.”

  “Where’s Janie?” Gina asked. “Does she know I’m dying?”

  “No, I think she’s . . . asleep.” Meredith shuddered as that awful vision returned.

  Gina sighed and handed Meredith the cloth that she’d been holding to her forehead. “Run some cold water over this for me,” she said.

  Meredith grabbed the cloth, glad to be somewhat useful and to get her mind off Janie. She found the bathroom, flipped on the light, and—

  Whoa. The bathroom really was impressive. Fuzzy hotel bathrobes hung against rustic tiles—not green—and a Jacuzzi tub stood next to another, smaller fireplace. Trying to think like a nurse and not so much like an envious hotel patron, she hurried to the double sink and ran fresh cool water over the cloth. At the same time, she caught a glimpse of herself in the massive mirror inside a carved frame. She’d spruced up to go barhopping, but her makeup had faded and the strain in her eyes indicated that her body was fading too. Crawling into bed sounded so good . . . if her room ever freed up. Maybe she could beg to stay on Sam and Gina’s couch.

  She shook her head. Crashing in Sam and Gina’s honeymoon suite—now that was a dumb idea. Tempting, but dumb.

  She turned to go back to the bedroom, but Gina nearly flattened her as she came streaking in. The woman sprinted toward the toilet, yelling, “Get out and shut the door!”

  Meredith didn’t have to be told twice. She scooted out and threw herself onto a chair.

  What a night.

  Several minutes later, Gina came dragging out again. She held her hand out and snapped her fingers to ask for the cloth Meredith had forgotten she was still holding. “I should run it through the tap again,” Meredith said.

  “Screw it,” Gina answered. “It’s fine.”

  She took the cloth and collapsed in a Camille-like faint on the couch opposite. “I should never have come on this stupid trip,” she moaned. “I didn’t even want to. Even when Janie started blathering about bringing you, the place held no appeal.”

  “Then why’d you come?”

  Gina let out a raspy chuckle. “For Sam. Sam saw the flyer I brought back from the yoga studio and latched onto the idea. It was all his doing.”

  “But you must have wanted to.”

  “Oh, sure. He’s so sweet. Who could resist a guy who wants to whisk you away, even if it means traveling with this group of nuts?”

  Meredith nodded. She had not only resisted Sam; she had run away from him. But back then, he hadn’t been interested in whisking her away.

  “It seems sort of unlike him. . . .” she couldn’t help saying.

  Gina squinted open one eye and looked at her. “Oh, that’s right. You knew him back in his student days, right?”

  “And just after.”

  “I guess he was a little different back then. More rags, few riches. He told me all about how he struggled to pull himself up by his bootstraps.”

  That was true
. They’d been in the ramen noodle phase of postgraduate life. They both had had student loans to pay off.

  “I guess he was probably a bore when you knew him,” Gina said.

  “No. . . .”

  “I like to think I’ve broadened his horizons. I’ve certainly made a difference in his wardrobe.”

  Meredith frowned. She tried not to be too judgmental. Yes, Gina sounded superficial. But she herself had noticed how good Sam looked now. She just hadn’t known she was admiring Gina’s retail handiwork.

  “And he’s gotten me to do things I wouldn’t normally,” Gina said. “Unfortunately, this is one of them. And it might kill me. How can I possibly take a three-hour train ride when I feel like this?”

  “You have all tomorrow to recuperate.”

  “By the end of this night I might be dead.” Gina shook her head. “We might just have to stay behind.”

  “Oh no.” Meredith hated herself for the thoughts roiling around in her head. As awkward as it was to be here with Sam and Gina, she didn’t want them to drop out of the trip. The thought of them staying behind while she went trudging into the mountains alone with her sister, Seth, and the rest made her unreasonably sad. At the same time, she knew she shouldn’t feel that way.

  And what right did she have to think that Gina didn’t deserve Sam, when she herself was the person who had abandoned him? After all, Gina was here with him, when she’d just confessed that she hadn’t even wanted to come all that much. It sounded as if this were a compromise vacation for both of them. And if that compromise wasn’t a show of love . . . or something like it . . . what was?

  Last but not least, there was the small matter of that ring Sam was reportedly carrying around with him.

  The door pushed open, and she jumped up. “Here’s Sam now,” Meredith said.