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 DIVI DIVI, 6:00 P.M. “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 to 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.
Emmy sighed. She yanked the towel off her head and threw it on the floor. “On second thought, how do you feel about skipping dinner tonight? I can’t move.”
Adriana held her hands to her heart. “Like you even have to ask. Less food now means better bikini bod tomorrow.”
“Well put. ’Night, Adi.”
“Good night, Em. I hope your dreams are filled with gorgeous foreign men. Don’t think we just forgot about that….”
But before she could respond, Emmy was out.
At the pool on their second day of vacation Adriana could feel Le
igh watching her as she pulled a cigarette from her beach bag, lit it, and languidly inhaled. It was cruel to smoke in front of someone who missed it so much, she acknowledged this, but, hell, they were on vacation. There was no reason Leigh couldn’t enjoy herself a little and quit again when she got home; after all, Adriana did it all the time.
“Want one?” Adriana asked with a wicked smile, extending her hand in the direction of Leigh’s chaise.
Leigh glared and then leaned forward. “Let me just smell it,” she said, sticking her face in the stream of smoke. She moaned, her raspy voice sounding even deeper than usual. “My god, that’s good. If I found out I had only a year or five or ten left to live, I swear to you, the very first thing I would do is buy a pack of cigarettes.”
Emmy shook her head, causing a few brown locks to come loose from her ponytail. She adjusted her bathing suit—a sporty blue two-piece that looked more like a workout outfit than a bikini—and said, “You two are disgusting with the cigarettes. Hasn’t anyone told you what a vile habit it is? Fucking gross.”
“Good morning, sunshine! You’re a joy this morning, aren’t you?” Leigh said. She drained her remaining orange juice and pulled her straw tote onto the lounge chair. “My god, I can’t wait to get some sun. Do you believe it’s already July and I haven’t been out once this summer?”
Adriana made a show of looking Leigh up and down. “Oh, you would never know,” she said. “That translucent blue color you have going on totally works for you.”
“Laugh if you must,” Leigh sang, appearing genuinely happy for the first time in weeks, “but we’ll see who’s laughing in twenty years when you’ve both had huge chunks of skin cancer gouged out of your faces and massive amounts of Botox for all those wrinkles. I almost can’t wait.”
Adriana and Emmy watched in fascination as Leigh methodically removed two bottles and one tube of sunscreen from her tote. First she applied a thick Clarins cream, SPF 50, to every exposed inch of flesh from toe to shoulder, taking care to pull back her black bikini and work the goop into the border areas around her suit. When she finished that laborious task, she misted herself all over with an aerosol can of Neutrogena, also SPF 50, to “guarantee she didn’t miss anywhere,” as she explained to her captivated audience. With her body successfully coated and sprayed, she went to work on her face, massaging small puddles of some highly coveted imported French facial sunscreen into her cheeks, chin, forehead, earlobes, eyelids, and neck. She pulled her hair into a loose bun, covered it with a straw hat the circumference of an end table, and popped on a pair of oversized wraparound black sunglasses.
“Mmm,” she sighed, stretching her arms over her head, taking care not to displace the hat. “This is wonderful.”
Adriana glanced at Emmy and rolled her eyes. They both smiled. Leigh was particular, there was no denying it, but her ritual comforted them both with its very Leigh-ness.
“Okay, girls, enough small talk. We have a subject that needs discussing,” Adriana announced. She knew Leigh wasn’t up for talking in great length about the engagement—she’d made that abundantly clear the previous beach day with her incessant anxious chatter about the new huge author she’d been assigned (just the kind of nervous chatter the girls now tuned out after so many years of hearing Leigh say “I totally failed that final” and “I’m never going to get this manuscript back on time,” only to watch her score nonstop A-pluses through college and receive promotion after promotion at work) and one-word answers about her upcoming nuptials—so Adriana decided to let her off the hook. For now.
“I don’t know about you, Leigh, but I know I want more details of Emmy’s Paris trip,” Adriana sang, looking pointedly at Emmy. “The City of Love; I’m expecting there’s plenty to tell.”
Emmy groaned and placed her paperback copy of London Is the Best City in America open-faced across her chest. “How many times do I have to say it? There’s nothing to tell.”
“Lies, all lies,” Leigh said. “You mentioned something about a guy named Paul. Which, incidentally, does not sound like a particularly foreign name to me, but perhaps you could shed some light?”
“I don’t know why you keep making me relive this,” Emmy said with an imploring look. “It’s sadistic. I told you the whole story: Paul the half-Argentine, half-Brit, who was well dressed, well traveled, and overall exceedingly charming and attractive, chose his ex-girlfriend’s birthday party over sex with yours truly.”
“I’m sure there’s another explanation. Maybe he just—”
Adriana interrupted what was surely going to be Leigh’s overly tactful, insanely delusional game of “maybe he.” “Please! There’s only one explanation for what went on that night, assuming, as we are, that Paul is both straight and male. Emmy, be honest. Did you really want to have sex with him? Did you lust after him? Really and truly crave his body?”
Emmy laughed uncomfortably. “Wow. I don’t know how to respond. I guess? Yeah, sure. I practically threw myself at him mere hours after meeting him, didn’t I?”
“And by ‘threw yourself,’ you mean ‘nervously and subtly conveyed—or tried to—that you’d entertain the idea of another drink.’ Am I right?”
“Well, maybe.” Emmy sniffed. She was determined not to share the real reason for Paul’s speedy departure. If she admitted to asking Paul if he wanted children one day—a perfectly reasonable question as far as she was concerned—Emmy knew her friends would never, ever let it go.
“So you did not actually come across to him as a carefree, wild party girl who’s up for anything fun?”
“Oh, I don’t know! Probably not, okay? But why do you think that is? Because I’m not a wild party girl who’s up for anything. I’m an unremarkable girl who likes hooking up enough but would rather get to know someone I like than have some dirty fling with a stranger.”
Adriana smiled triumphantly. “And that, my friend, is your problem.”
“That’s not a problem,” Leigh added without opening her eyes.
“It’s the way she is. Not everyone can have meaningless one-night stands.”
Adriana exhaled a long, frustrated sigh. “First of all, girls, ‘one-night stands’ are for sad little people who meet in Atlantic City casinos or Midwestern hotels. ‘Hooking up’ is what drunken sorority girls do after their spring formals. We have affairs. Fabulous, sexy, spontaneous affairs. Understood? Second, I think we’re all losing sight of something here: I am not the one who decided Emmy should be having affairs in every city she visits. She made that little pronouncement all on her own. Of course, if you don’t think you can handle it…”
The waiter, an impishly cute blond guy in a collared shirt and khaki shorts, asked if he could bring them anything. They ordered a round of margaritas and picked up the conversation as though there’d been no interruption.
“No, you’re right,” Emmy conceded. “This was my decision, and I’m going to do it. It’ll be good for me, right? Get me less focused on the whole marriage thing. More relaxed. It’s just that it sounds great in theory, but when it’s midnight and you’re in some strange hotel and staring at this person you barely know and thinking that he’s about to see you naked when you don’t know his last name…I, it’s just…different.”
“But done with the right attitude, it can be very freeing,” Adriana said.
“Or a total disaster,” Leigh added.
“Always the optimist, aren’t you?”
“Look, I hear that Emmy wants to do this, and I totally understand why. I mean, if I’d only been with three guys in my entire life and they’d all been long-term boyfriends, I’d want a little taste of what else is out there. But it’s important she knows that one-night stands—sorry, affairs—aren’t always so glamorous,” Leigh said.
“Speak for yourself. I’ve always been rather pleased,” Adriana smiled. It was true, mostly. She’d been with more men than she could ever possibly count, but she’d enjoyed every one of them.
Leigh pounced. “Oh, really? Then I gues
s you’re not remembering that surfer guy—what was his name? Pasha?—who high-fived you after sex and then called you ‘dude,’ as in ‘Dude, just chill for a minute,’ when you asked him if he wanted another glass of wine? Or the foot fetishist who wanted to lube up your feet and rub them all over his body? And who could forget the one you met at Izzie’s wedding, taking a phone call from his mother while you were on top? Shall I go on?”
Adriana held up her right hand and summoned her most winning smile. “I think we get the idea. However, dear friend, you’re being a bit misleading. A few bad apples is no reason not to visit the orchard. Those were just unfortunate exceptions. What about the Austrian baron who thought, quite rightly, that diamond shopping at Cartier was good foreplay? Or the time in Costa Rica when the surfer—the other surfer and I—made love on the beach at sunrise? Or when that architect with that amazing rooftop overlooking the Hudson—”
“Just know that it can go either way,” Leigh said, looking straight at Emmy.
“You are such a killjoy!” Adriana shrieked. “I’m going for a swim.” She tried to keep her tone light, but it was all starting to irritate her. What was Leigh so bitter about? The girl had an amazing job at the city’s most prestigious publishing house, an adoring, sought-after sportscaster fiancé who had eyes only for her, and a put-together, sophisticated appearance that was just hot enough for men to like but not so hot that women hated her. Why was she always so miserable?
“I hope that after putting me through the wringer you haven’t forgotten your end of the deal?” Emmy said.
“Of course not,” Adriana replied. “In fact, I think I’ve already met my future husband.”
“Hmm,” Leigh murmured, unfazed, grabbing her frozen margarita from the waiter’s tray. She pressed it directly to her forehead for a moment before licking all the way around the salted rim.
“Is that so?” Emmy asked with what Adriana was irritated to hear sounded a lot like condescension.
“Yes, that’s so,” Adriana replied. “And although neither of you seems remotely interested, I’ll have you know that he just so happens to be Tobias Baron.”