“Okay,” Monique said, falling into pace beside Becky, wishing the whistling Judy would slow the heck down. “What exactly do you remember?”
“I remember we rode on the back of those bikes down the mountain and the steep turns scared the hell out of me.”
“They took us to some sketchy place,” Monique murmured. “No storefront at all. Just a set of concrete stairs down into a cellar.”
“As usual I couldn’t see a thing.”
“So the amputee—“
“Karl,” Judy barked. “He’s got a name, guys.”
“Yeah, Karl.” Handsome kid, Monique remembered. He spoke English fluently. He bounced like a kangaroo on his titanium prosthetics, so full of fun. “I remember Karl,” she continued. “Once he heard that you were night blind, Becky, he pulled the kerchief off his throat and tied it around his eyes.”
“Didn’t last long,” Judy said, “He nearly took a header down the last step. I think he was sweet on you, Monie.”
Warmth spread through her as she remembered a moment near the bathrooms, bumping into him, the brush of bodies, a fumble of awkwardness, the lowering of his young face toward hers.
She stepped off the sidewalk to allow an older woman pulling a rolling canvas cart of groceries to step by, and to give her girl parts time to stop reacting.
“There were strobe lights,” Becky continued, “and neon lasers. It was all a blur except for the long bar and the next thing I knew there was a row of shot glasses swimming in front of me.”
Monique pushed away the memory of a young man’s kiss. “Edelweiss liquor,” she said. “I can still taste it.”
Judy stopped abruptly in front of a restaurant. A barrel-chested man with a pipe clenched in his mouth shouldered by them. “Hey, I’m starved. Breakfast?”
Monique gasped, “Coffee.”
“You lightweights need more than coffee. You need protein. This place is advertising a ‘Big American’ breakfast.”
Judy plowed in through the front door, chattering in German to the maître d’ who obliged quickly by sending all three of them deep, deep into the restaurant, into a little corner table as far away from a window as they could possibly get. Probably, Monique mused, so their stench wouldn’t seep through the room and their bedraggled looks scare off other patrons.
A waitress arrived, slipped three menus on the table, and filled their coffee cups. Monique gulped down half the brew and lifted the cup for a refill before the waitress could slip away. Then she added cream and took another sip. She moaned and closed her eyes, feeling the healing effects seep through her system.
“If you girls really want to remember the night,” Judy said, sipping her coffee with more grace, “you may want to look at Monie’s cell phone.”
“Photos?” Becky stiffened. “We have photos?”
Monique’s heart did a little lurch.
“Videos too.” Judy perused the menu with a cat-in-the-cream look on her face. “Do you think they have bacon like our crispy American bacon? Or that lame fatty stuff we got in Germany?”
Monique dove into the front pocket of her daypack searching for her cell phone. She poked the screen until she saw the small blurry icons of a series of pictures and videos. With hesitation, Monique pressed on the first video.
“You know,” Judy said, sinking back in her chair and idly perusing the thin population of the restaurant. “This is definitely the way to do a midlife crisis.”
Monique tried to puzzle out what she was seeing as noise blasted from the speakers. “Becky, I think those are your sneakers.”
“Oh, God,” Becky murmured. “I’m doing Zumba. I remember this. I’m teaching Zumba to a bunch of Belgian backpackers.”
“Here I am,” Judy continued, “moping around in Europe of all places, trying to figure out who I am—since I’m not twenty-two, or an active mother, or employable anymore. I’ve been thinking I just have to get through this time, just have to wait it out.”
“Oh, God.” Monique’s eyes widened as she flipped through a series of photos. “We are doing shots.”
“But you know what?” Judy said. “I should have eaten a hash brownie in Amsterdam. At Le Jules Verne, I should have ordered another bottle of the Cote d’Or Grand Cru vintage, even if I had to finish it myself.”
Monique gasped at the next video. Between the strobe lights and the lasers it was hard to pick out silhouettes, but the longer she looked at the two people gyrating in a cage elevated on some sort of pedestal—like the kind you’d see in a cheesy strip club—the more sure she was that the butt filling up the screen was hers.
“Nice sports bra, Monique,” Becky said.
“Judy, did we really dance in a cage?”
“Yeah, and your sports bra is pink, Becky,” Judy added. “And I didn’t just find that out this morning when you were washing up.”
Monique pushed the phone into Becky’s hands. Monique didn’t want to look anymore, but Becky couldn’t seem to look away. Becky made little gasping noises as the tinny music continued to play from the camera. Monique sank a little lower in her seat, wishing she could just curl up and hide in a crack somewhere.
“Oh, no.” Becky covered her mouth with her free hand. “I guess I should be relieved we’re partially dressed.”
Judy toasted her with her coffee cup. “I knew you’d thank me for that later.”
Becky blinked at Judy. “Did it hurt when the alien took over your body?”
Judy’s grin was sly. “You like the new me?”
“Please.” Monique gave up trying to squeeze the headache out of her temples. “This isn’t a new Judy. This is a young Judy.”
“Oh, no, foolish young Judy stuck to her own generation. She would never have struck up a conversation with a bunch of old guys on Harleys.”
Becky muttered, “Neither would the mother of five who ran the PTA for six years.”
“That’s the point. I’m switching gears.”
Becky sputtered, “Right to overdrive.”
Judy shook her head. “Have either of you ever driven a manual transmission?”
Monique frowned, having difficulty keeping up with the conversation. “That’s all they’ve got for cheap rentals in Trinidad.”
“When you’re driving a manual,” Judy explained, “you’ve got to press down on the clutch. And for a moment you’re between gears.”
Becky shrugged. “Don’t get it.”
“I get it,” Monique said. “When your foot is on the clutch, it’s a moment when you have no control. When the car can roll absolutely anywhere.”
Judy slapped the table. “Exactly. Next week I’ll be home putting up Halloween decorations on my lawn. Right now I’m hungover in a restaurant in Switzerland. Welcome to my clutch moment.”
Monique nudged her coffee cup as the waitress came by to refill. She watched the black brew fill the cup nearly to the brim. She went through the motions of adding cream, of stirring it more than she needed to, wincing at each tap of the spoon against the ceramic cup. It was hard to think when her head was pounding so much, when her body felt stretched and drained and illused.
“Why didn’t you stop us?” Monique gave Judy the evil eye. “Why did you let us make complete asses of ourselves?”
“Because I kept thinking that we three should have drunk ourselves silly the very first night in London.”
“So you took videos to memorialize our idiocy.”
“Well, yeah.” Judy shrugged, smiling at the waitress as she approached. “Now I can post them on my Facebook page.”
Monique stilled. Judy started chattering in German to the young girl in an apron, chattering away as easily as if it was a Friday morning stateside at the Cozy End. “I ordered your eggs over easy, Monie,” Judy said, her Cheshire-cat grin widening as the waitress left. ”And Becky, I figured you’d go for pancakes.”
With cold-hearted purpose, Monique seized the phone from Becky and flipped through the rest of the photos and videos until she came to the one she
wanted. She pressed play and turned the phone so Judy could see it.
“Here’s something Bob might be interested in.” Shouts of “giddy up” rang through the tinny speaker. “Jager’s got quite a wide, comfortable back, don’t you think?”
“I sent Bob that one already. We have a full-disclosure kind of marriage.” She winked. “Boy, a hangover really sucks the sense of humor right out of you two. Of course I’m not going to post anything incriminating on my Facebook page.”
Monique narrowed her eyes because Judy ended that sentence in a way that suggested she hadn’t quite finished it.
“I won’t post them,” Judy said, planting the cup back on the table, “as long as Becky stays for the rest of the vacation, and you, Monique, agree to finish Lenny’s list.”
Judy gave Monique the kind of pinned-butterfly look that had her shrinking in the little European chair. Monique found interest in the swirl of light cream in her coffee. She must have told Judy last night what she’d decided about the list. She had a vague memory of an intense conversation screamed over the music, with Becky bouncing to the beat in the background. She remembered shaking her head and doing another shot, telling Judy that her mind was made up.
Yes, her mind was made up, but Becky’s revelation still stung. On that cliff yesterday Becky had yanked back the curtain to reveal Lenny tugging at levers and gears. Until then Monique had been perfectly happy believing in the illusion. So, yeah, maybe Lenny had meant well. But she’d be damned if she did the things he’d wanted her to do, just to close the door on him forever.
“Well,” Becky said, “despite a serious case of cotton-mouth, the fact I have bruises I can’t account for, and a rather diffuse sense of sheepishness, last night was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.”
Judy mumbled, “Amen.”
“So if you don’t mind changing the flight plans one more time, Monie,” Becky said, casting a hesitant glance as she searched among the videos on the phone until she found the one she wanted. “There’s no way I want to miss any more of this.”
Becky tilted the phone, playing a video that appeared to be Judy doing a chicken dance. A smile played around the corners of Becky’s mouth. An easy smile that Monique hadn’t seen in a long, long time.
Judy didn’t bat an eye. “What do you think, Monie? Are you going to finish what you started?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want. Clearly we’re not making our train today.” Monique leaned back and folded her arms tight. “I’ve still got five more items on that list. Physically it just can’t be done.”
Judy pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“It’s impossible,” Monique insisted. “Not without tightening the itinerary. And I know both of you are sick to death of planes, trains, buses, shuttles—”
“—and motorcycles,” Becky added, as she shifted her thighs.
“Open your minds, ladies.” Over the rim of her coffee cup Judy’s lips stretched in a slow, wicked smile. “Lenny didn’t say that all those things on the list were chiseled in stone. He didn’t disallow…slight modifications.”
Monique frowned. She sensed a trap, long set and utterly unavoidable.
“I have,” Judy said, “the most wonderful idea.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
An itinerary blown to pieces? Judy knew all about those.
There was the time when Bob had finagled a ski trip to a Vermont resort, taking over a coworker’s time-share for a five-day holiday for the whole family. In anticipation Santa generously left new snowboards, parkas, ski boots, and insulated gloves under the Christmas tree. Judy had bribed a teenager to care for the dogs, the rabbits, the birds, and the hermit crabs; she’d stopped the papers and the milk delivery; had the car tuned up; bought a storage container for the roof-rack; hounded her children to finish projects and homework well ahead of time; and packed each suitcase so tightly they could be mortared like bricks.
But on the morning she packed the car Audrey and Maddy—who’d been particularly cranky the night before—woke up vomiting.
She’d given Bob a long, sorry look. They’d both known what had to be done. This was not the first time their best-laid plans went awry. So Bob took the boys snowboarding in Vermont just as planned. And she stayed home with two daughters who sobbed and wailed and all but tore their pajamas in distress.
Out of the attic stash Judy then dug out a video game the girls had been anticipating. When they could eat she served chocolate milkshakes and homemade soup on trays in front of the TV. As they started to feel human Judy fetched every pillow, blanket, and cushion to the living room so they could construct a fort in which they spent the nights sleeping, sprawled like pups. She decreed every day “Messy Day,” absolving all three of them of house duties and toy pick-up responsibilities and bedtimes. As the “silly French cook” she took orders for hamburgers for breakfast and bananas in cereal for dinner. The dining room table became a staging point for a Risk board game marathon where the girls ganged up on her to take over the world.
When the boys came home the girls rushed to them, scattering toys and game pieces and books and pillows, jumping up and down and shouting that they’d just had the best week ever.
Children got sick. Cars broke down. Friends lost their way. When life was unpredictable, Judy embraced the chaos. And that’s just what she intended to do as a sporty, European-size taxi pulled up in front of their Interlaken hotel.
Judy hustled out into the chill Swiss evening and shuttled her friends into the cab. “All right, ladies,” she said as she told the driver where to take them. “Are you ready for a ritzy night at a European casino?”
Monique shrugged, still moody.
“All I can say is don’t expect Atlantic City.” Becky’s slinky, emerald-green dress had risen up to reveal enviable knees. “I read up about this place during my pedicure this afternoon. The guidebook said that this casino has slots, roulette, blackjack, and Texas hold ’em. That’s it.”
“No craps tables?” Judy exclaimed. “How disappointing. I was looking forward to blowing on some guy’s dice.”
Monique sidled a look toward Becky. “You got the first watch, right?”
“Just pray that the light isn’t too dim.”
Monique raised the flat of her palm. “I’m not waking up in a flophouse with a snake again.”
Judy arched a brow. “Hey, it wasn’t me calling for belly-button shots at three in the morning.”
Becky narrowed her eyes. “You are totally making that up.”
Judy barked a little laugh. “Boy, you really don’t remember any of your criminal behavior last night.”
“Absinthe is legal in Switzerland,” Monique said. “I checked.”
“Maybe I wasn’t talking about the absinthe.”
Two heads cocked in suspicion. So, all right, maybe she was teasing them too much. It was just so easy. The poor women had spent the day gasping at odd moments as the fog of the alcohol cleared. Judy had jogged their memories along by dropping little facts. Like when Karl followed Monique to the bathroom, and Monique had returned later than expected with a wild look in her eyes and slightly swollen lips.
“Becky,” Monique mused, “I think I liked Judy better when she was a neurotic empty-nester resisting her own midlife crisis.”
“I object,” Judy said, “to the term ‘neurotic.’”
“When a woman’s hormones go wild,” Monique continued, “it’s just like being a reckless teenager again.”
“No brakes at all,” Becky said. “No consideration of consequences.”
“If she’s not careful,” Monique added, “she’ll end up shacked up on the Adriatic coast with an Italian lover.”
Judy felt that familiar prickly heat rise. So, yeah, maybe she did feel like a wild woman. She was feeling powerfully attractive tonight. Earlier today, after a restorative nap, Judy had hustled Monie and Becky to the Kosmetiksalon Beauty Création for manicures and pedicures. A German-speaking Helga had spent an hour
styling her hair into perfection. After, she joined Monique shopping, where for a hundred and seventy Swiss francs Judy bought a new dress at the department store Schild. It was a slimming A-line confection of black lace over a chocolate sheath that fell with thrilling ease over a figure that had lost five or six pounds.
She felt strong and determined in the sexiest of ways—a creature both freshly born yet mature, too, swimming in physical and intellectual confidence. The feeling was electrifying. She was determined to hold on to it for as long as possible.
“So,” Judy said, moving right along, “the only tables this casino has are blackjack, roulette, and Texas hold ’em. I’ve always preferred poker and I never understood Texas hold ’em. Either of you know it?”
“Marco plays it with his brothers at their annual poker party. It’s easy,” Becky said. “I’ll teach you.”
“That’s fine,” Judy said. “And we can watch for a while. No reason to jump right into things. We’ve got the whole night ahead of us, as long as you lightweights can make it past your ten p.m. bedtime.” She nudged Monique. “Lenny did want you to make that stash of yours last for as long as possible.”
Judy focused her attention on Monique’s little purse. Monique crushed the clutch between her elbow and her side. It currently contained one thousand dollars’ worth of crisp Swiss francs.
“I wouldn’t hazard to guess what Lenny would want me to do with this stash of his.” Monique’s lips twitched, and not in a happy way. “That man kept a whole heap of things to himself, didn’t he?”
Uh-oh. She’d hit the trigger again. She and Becky had nearly worn that trigger out at breakfast, trying to nudge a stubbornly defiant Monique into re-embracing the list. They’d gently prodded her into thinking about what Lenny had really meant with each item. Sure, number seven specified that they go to a casino in Monaco to see how long a thousand bucks would last…but was it Monaco that formed the heart of that wish? Monaco, which hogged hours and hours of the itinerary in transportation time? Or did Lenny just want his fiscally responsible wife to experience the primal thrill of blowing a thousand bucks?
Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (9781455517763) Page 18
