At Last (6 page)

But she flashed back to the first thing the two paragliding guys had her and Kevin do: read and sign a release form. She hadn’t done more than glance at it before she signed. Mark would’ve had a fit, but he didn’t have a say anymore. In truth, she was sure that if she’d read the release, she would’ve balked and not signed.

That alone would’ve ended Kevin’s crazy up-up-in-the-air idea. But right then, it felt like her idea too. That was until the speedboat started to pick up velocity, and the guy not steering gave the metal links that connected them to the lead line, and the line to the boat, one last check. That’s when panic struck.

Susan could feel herself start to hyperventilate. She knew she was about to scream, begging for them to stop the boat, to let her go. And just at that exact second the guy hit a button, releasing the extra line holding them down, that also released the parachute strapped to Kevin’s back.

With an abrupt leave-your-stomach-at-the-door jolt they were forty feet in the air. Someone was screaming like they were being murdered. It took a moment before Susan realized it was her. She slammed her eyelids shut, squeezing as hard as she could. She couldn’t take it, the way getting ripped from the boat and up into the air made her feel so defenseless. Without the thinnest sense of control. Susan thought she was going to die, which horrified
and
comforted her. The horror was probably just some knee-jerk reaction to impending death. Some genetically imprinted warning device that said,
don’t do this, stupid!

The part of Susan that was comforted was the one that didn’t want to go on any more. That didn’t want to keep remembering how it felt getting stood up at the church. That didn’t want to go back and have to explain to her co-workers what happened--to see their open pity. Or face her mother, God forbid.
That
part was happy to be forty freaking feet in the air with the only thing keeping her from certain death, a well-used parachute.

That part was sure that this was the end, and it breathed a great sigh of relief. The whole nightmare would be over soon.

Susan felt the heat and pressure from Kevin’s arms, wrapped firmly around her where her belly met her rib cage. She felt his chest heaving and his heart thudding against her back and realized she had a death grip of her own on Kevin’s forearms.

“Are we dead yet?” she screamed.

“Nah.” Kevin’s voice was in her ear, yet his words seemed to streak away with the pounding wind. “But if you open your eyes--”

How did he know she had her eyes shut?

“You’ll see that it looks like heaven.”

Her whole body trembled, stiff and tight, bracing for impact. She had a hard time registering what he’d said.

“Really...it looks like...heaven?”

“Close enough. So are you gonna look or what?” Kevin snapped.

It was the first mean thing he’d said since he’d been back--the old, fun Kevin, who told her how it was, and it automatically made Susan start to relax. She opened her eyes slowly, apprehensive until the dazzling blue of the ocean snapped them wide open and made her jaw drop in shock.

“It’s so...” Susan just shook her head. The sight was too beautiful; she could not find a word worthy of it.

Kevin slid his arms from around Susan and gently grasped her wrists, pulling them out until they were fully extended from her body. It was like she had wings, was flying like a bird and was as free as one too.

Susan started to laugh, her voice curling staccato from her lips. Her cheeks ached from the width of her smile. She screamed with joy every time the parachute dipped and went back up in the air. When the boat began to slow, and the line started to pull the parachute back to the boat, Susan groaned unhappily. She could’ve stayed up there all day.

~*~

As the cool night air wafted in through the sliding glass doors of the hotel suite, tickling Susan’s toes, she felt a ripple of immense pleasure roll over and through her. A cool glass filled with a frozen margarita--no salt--was perched in her hand. She’d forgotten how much she loved them. How the sweet-sour taste made her taste buds stand at attention, how the slushy cold texture always made her feel like a kid eating a snow cone. But most of all, she missed the way they made her forget all her problems--that was the alcohol, pure and simple.

Though it was only a temporary cure for what ailed her, she took that cure with both hands and gulped it down until she had a terrific brain freeze.

“Oww!” She slapped her palm against her forehead and gritted her teeth.

Kevin chuckled. “You always do that. You’d think that would be the one thing from college you would’ve retained.”

“Very...oww...funny.” She held out her glass to Kevin. “Another.”

“The magic word, please.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

Susan opened her eyes and shot him a peeved look, and then, seeing the smirk on his face, smiled too. “Now.”

“That’s my girl,” he crooned as he poured another glass and handed it to her with a raised eyebrow. “So, is this going to be one of those nights when I have to drag you to your bed, or one of those nights when you get us arrested?”

Susan pursed her lips haughtily. She didn’t really remember the nights he’d carried her to bed--though she had an idea he rather enjoyed it. But she did remember getting them arrested. Nothing like too much tequila, a wet t-shirt contest and a “borrowed burro.” That farmer didn’t appreciate the borrowing part. She’d won a hundred bucks riding into the cantina on the back of the burro, dousing herself with a pitcher of water as she humped energetically to the wacked-out Mexi-rock band that was playing that night. Yet when she and Kevin had taken the borrowed burro back, they found a police cruiser waiting for them.

Thank God they’d been in New Mexico for Spring Break instead of Mexico, or they might still be in jail down there. With the hundred bucks they won, and the five hundred they had left for the rest of the week, they only needed to call their parents for the other thousand to pay the fine. “Night’s young.” Susan arched her eyebrow to match Kevin’s.

“Mmm, fun.” Kevin sat back on the other couch and gulped some of his margarita. By the look on his face, Susan could tell Kevin drank about as much as she did, which was a couple glasses of wine on Saturday night. Maybe less in his case, with how fitness conscious he seemed to be.

“We used to drink three pitchers all by ourselves!” she groaned, feeling too old.

“We were younger, our bodies could take it.” Kevin patted his belly, making it stand up in a fake mound.

“Beer belly fraud!” Susan laughed and said, without thinking, “I could have Mark sue you!”

And with that she felt the smile slide right from her lips. Her eyes burned, and her breath caught in her throat, sour and stinging. She saw the look on Kevin’s face. He’d gone from happy and joking to miserable. Obviously her sudden change of mood was easy to see.

As if on cue, Kevin’s cellphone rang. He grabbed for it, but it fell to the floor--he really was drunk already. He fished it from the floor and looked at the readout.

“Liz,” he said, answering it with a “Hello.”

He listened for a few beats before saying, “Ah, nothing really. Just some midnight margaritas.”

Susan looked around the room for a clock. She was surprised it was so late already. Seemed like she’d just woken up.

He said, “Not really.”

Susan could all too well imagine what question he was answering for Liz.

“Sure,” he said, and held out the phone to her.

She hesitated. She didn’t remember much, but she knew Liz had been with her through the wedding fiasco. And somehow she knew Cancun was all her idea too. Kevin shook the phone at her impatiently. Obviously, he still didn’t love talking with Liz.

Susan took the phone, and for a moment she just held it, pondering if she should just hang up. Liz would just call back, and even if Susan smashed the cellphone against the wall, she would find some way of getting a phone to her.

“Hey,” Susan said tentatively into the phone.

“Suze, you’re out of the coma! Tell me, was it a deeply spiritual experience or did you just watch reruns of
I Love Lucy
all day?”

Susan smiled wryly. “There was
Leave It to Beaver
and
Happy Days
too.”

“Leave it to you to turn a coma into your usual weekend on the couch.”

Susan felt weird lying to her, but she was sure Liz didn’t need to know about the real life reruns plaguing her mind.

“So have you even left the room yet?” Liz’s voice broke through Susan’s momentary reverie. “Will I have to pry you out of there with a crowbar when I arrive?”

“No, Liz, Kevin dragged me out this afternoon. We went paragliding.”

“Para what?” Liz’s laugh was a little uneasy. “Tell me it wasn’t some stupid sex thing! ’Cause I’ll rip Kevin’s--”

“No, silly. It was like hang gliding, except with a parachute, and you get towed around by a speedboat.”

“Oh.” She sounded even more worried, and she got sarcastic. “How did that go, Little Miss Scared of Heights? I remember someone freaking out in line for a ferris wheel once.”

Kevin was gulping down the last of his margarita, and smiled as Susan said, “No, I didn’t have a panic attack this time.”

The eyebrow he raised fit perfectly with the “Yeah, right,” Liz muttered over the phone.

“I mean it, Liz. I did great.”

Kevin threw his head back and chuckled, mouthing the words,
Big, fat liar
!

Susan stuck out her tongue at him, and he laughed even harder.

“Well, however it happened, at least you’re getting out of the room.”

“So when are you coming down?” Susan wanted her other best friend with her, needed her there.

“Two, three days, tops. I’ve got an important showing to get through--busy, busy--then I’m all yours.”

Susan bit her lip, feeling that warm, wet feeling behind her eyes.

Kevin saw it, and shook his head. “Sorry, babe, but I’m too drunk for chicks crying right now.” He stood up and teetered back on his heels. “I’m gonna leave you two alone and say good night.”

Susan sniffled and tried to smile.

“Pussy!” Liz chided in her ear.

Kevin walked unsteadily to the back of the suite and took a right into the common bathroom. A couple of seconds later, Susan heard the shower running.

“Hey, he’s done really well with me crying. You’ve got to give him credit for that.”

“Sure, sure. He’s a freaking saint...Saint Kevin of the crying woman! I hear the Pope will be inducting him into the Martyr Hall of Fame.”

“You’re terrible!” Susan said. “I thought you two had a truce going or something?”

“Or something.” Liz clucked her tongue. “Thank God he finally grew into a stud. Soon he’ll find some nice girl, and they’ll get married and have nice babies, and leave us alone.”

“What?” The thought of Kevin finding someone was... It made her head ache like it was going to split open and her brain bounce out like a grotesque beach ball. He was, and had always been, Susan’s. She shook that off just as the last thing Liz said bombarded her. He’ll “leave us alone.” That would be horrible! What would she do without him? She didn’t want him to leave her alone. She liked having him around. “You think Kevin’s a stud?”

“Yeah, sure. If I didn’t already despise him from our college days, I would’ve bagged and tagged him before you two got on the plane for paradise.”

“Yuck!” The mere thought of having her two best friends getting it on made Susan’s nose wrinkle and caused the acid in her stomach to rise in her throat. “Promise me you’ll never...”

“Jesus, Suze, you are one paranoid little puppy, aren’t you?” Liz waited for a reply until the pause grew uncomfortable. Finally, Liz gave in. “Fine, fine! I promise to never fuck Kevin! Okay?”

“Okay,” Susan said with relief. How would she go on if her two, wonderfully separate best friends, morphed into one? And what about all the kissing and inadvertent sex things she would be walking in on for who knew how long? And what if they broke up?

“I can’t believe you think I could...with Kevin!”

“You just said you would’ve ‘bagged and tagged’ him,” she grumbled. “What else am I supposed to think?”

“Okay, fine. You’re a drunk, clinically depressed former bride with abandonment issues. So you get a free pass...this time.”

“Thanks. When you say it like that, I really should call the front desk and ask if they have a suicide watch service.” Susan took another long pull of her margarita.

“That’s my girl,” Liz said. “She’s got her sense of humor back.”

Susan shook her head at the phrase--the phrase both Kevin and Liz had said in the last ten minutes.

“And don’t worry, sweetie,” Liz went on. “When I get down there, we’ll work on getting you a rebound fling going.”

“A rebound
what
?”

Liz sighed petulantly on the other end of the connection. “A rebound fling. You know, you go find some super hot guy, hotter than shit-head Mark, and you unceremoniously fuck the shit out of him...several times...and then you never see him again.”