Hot Flashes And Cold Duck
The suitcase feels weightless as Debbie lifts it to check it through. She glances back at her friend Elizabeth who had driven her to the airport and wonders if it is too late to just go back home and forget the trip.
Elizabeth loves airports, especially if she is seeing someone off that she knows. She will watch as her friend goes through the security post at the top of the long ramp here at McGhee/Tyson Airport. Then she will watch intently through a convenient window as the plane carrying her friend flies out of sight.
This trip is no different. Elizabeth walks with Debbie slowly up the ramp, fussing yet again at how she should use the wheelchair service offered by the airports. However, Debbie is nervous enough and doesn’t want to add the pressure of appearing totally helpless to the world.
Elizabeth reassures her friend just before she enters the security area that this is a simple trip to share an informal reunion with some high school friends. She should just go and enjoy some down time with a handful of friends she reconnected with through Facebook.
Memories of high school wash over Debbie as she waves good-bye to Elizabeth. They continue to bombard her as she boards the plane and finds her seat. She isn’t sure if she would have actually called these four women friends when they were all in high school, but more like classmates and people she knew.
Perhaps Vicky was more than that. After all, Debbie’s family did move next-door to Vicky’s family in junior high. For as long as Debbie could remember, Vicky was one who spoke her mind and didn’t care about doing so. She was usually right when she spoke out so things would usually go her way. Living next door to her, Debbie came to admire this trait and even envied Vicky for her boldness.
In contrast to Vicky, Barb was a lot like Debbie in some ways. Mostly in that she seemed shy and thoughtful. However, there was a certain strength about Barb that Debbie didn’t think she possessed within herself. This brought high admiration for Barb and the ability for Debbie to keep going forward.
In three years of high school Debbie never really got to know Julie. Seeing Julie as pretty and having lots of friends, Debbie felt that she was too average and timid, and therefore beneath Julie’s recognition.
Geri is the fifth person who will be part of this little reunion. In high school she had always been a bit of an enigma to Debbie. Not that she deemed Geri two-faced or anything. It was that not knowing her as well, Debbie just couldn’t get a good read on her. What Debbie did know of Geri was that she was more of a free spirit than she was and she could only dream of being more like Geri.
Since reconnecting to these women on the social media site, Debbie has come to know them a little better as the estimable women they have become instead of the awkward teenagers they all used to be.
The flight from Knoxville to Charlotte, NC is one hour. This is a relatively short trip, but a lifetime in Debbie’s mind. Once on the ground she focuses on making her connecting flight and the two-hour leg to Baltimore’s BWI airport. Debbie is determined to leave the past where it belongs and concentrate, instead, on the present.
Julie greets Debbie enthusiastically at BWI’s baggage claim and after many hugs and mingled tears, Julie’s gentleman friend enters to retrieve Debbie’s suitcase and escort the ladies to his waiting car. “Debbie, this is Chris. Chris, Debbie.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Sir. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Likewise.” Chris is more intent on exiting the hectic airport than meeting and greeting. His response is clipped, but not in a rude manner. It is more in the style of a man who would rather remain on the outside of “girl talk”.
The thirty minute drive to Julie’s house has the air in the car sounding more like a couple of schoolgirls chirping and giggling instead of two grown women catching up on old times. Once at the house, Chris departs leaving the women to their own devices. It would just be the two of them in the house for the weekend as Julie’s boys were otherwise engaged in other activities. The first thing on the agenda is for Debbie to rest if she is to attend the evening events.
Following naps, showers and much primping, Julie and Debbie approach a corner table at Squire’s Restaurant where Vicky, Geri and Barb are already chattering away. As the five women greet each other, the other patrons begin watching as if trying to figure out what all the commotion is.
Appetizers, salads, entrées and desserts are well accompanied by carafes of wine and pitchers of beer. As the food disappears the beverages flow into the conversation reviving bygone days, which had long since dissolved into youth’s blurry memory.
Plans are already laid for more activities through the rest of the weekend providing Debbie’s health will allow. However, no one desires the evening to end and along with it the feeling of past joys reentered. “Let’s all go back to my house. I have some wine and we can continue this in the basement undisturbed.”
“Thanks, Vick, but I really need to get home to my Woobie.” Barb’s voice is both disappointed and excited. She wants to remain with the group and yet be at home with her daughter.
“Do you have a place I can lay down a bit?”
“Sure, Deb. You lay on the couch and we’ll sit around on the floor. Oh, and don’t worry. I’ll set a fan to blow the cigarette smoke away. Everyone ready?”
Settling into Vicky’s basement brings back even more bittersweet memories for Debbie than driving through the neighborhood. Shoving the memories to the back of her mind, Debbie concentrates on keeping up with the clamoring conversation unfolding around her. After all she did make a conscious decision to leave the past in the past and this was a part of her past that she refuses to revisit.
After lying for a bit, Debbie sits up and accepts a glass of what Vicky calls Cold Duck from Geri. Vicky is sitting in front of a fan rubbing ice on her neck in an attempt to assuage the current peri-menopausal hot flash. Vicky’s hot flash wans into a tidal wave of alcohol-induced heat that would rival the tropical heat of the equator felt by all members of the quartet.
“I’m outa smokes. Whatcha say we go out for some air and cigarettes?
“Isn’t it getting late?”
“Learn how to read a clock, Geri. It’s far from late. Bars are still open.” Vicky is already set to leave, the others follow suit proceeding slowly, giving Debbie time to balance.
Vicky skillfully pulls her car into the parking lot at Harvey’s. Julie automatically begins singing and continues singing as the foursome make their way inside and find a table.
Rounds of drinks are ordered and consumed just as quickly. The only thing that flows freer than the booze is the conversation and as the heat rises, inhibitions lower. Julie finds herself in her natural position at Harvey’s, holding a karaoke microphone. Her music selections become sultry and seductive while Geri dances directing her motions toward Julie. Vicky keeps her phone out with the video camera going and all Debbie can do is laugh hysterically and hold on for dear life.
After rousing more than curiosity at Harvey’s the foursome exit and find themselves at The Seahorse. Debbie orders herself a beer and slowly makes her way to the ladies room. Upon her return she finds her three companions imbibing in a strange drink directly from the pitcher using straws. Pointing toward a straw in front of Debbie, Vicky warns; “Hurry up before it’s all gone.”
“What is it?” Debbie’s southern drawl is a bit slurred from the alcohol already consumed and the lack of sleep.
“Good”, Julie snips between sips.
“A trashcan.”
“There’s one over there, Geri. I can try bringing it over to you if you need to hurl and can’t make it to the ladies room.”
The three women laugh as Julie explains, “The drink is called a trashcan. There’s a lot of liquor in it. And… some fruit…. I think. It’s served in a pitcher. Everyone drinks it like this. You’ll love it.”
After several long sips from the pitcher, Debbie digs into her pocket and using her cane and anything else she can hold onto, she staggers to the jukebox and makes a selection. Arriving back at the table, she fluffs her now tousled red curls, unbuttons her top button and avers to those at her table (which is as loud as she can); “I am more than this wretched disease which has engulfed my body. I .. AM … A … WOMAN!!!”
As if on cue, the music Debbie chose begins to play and Julie, once again starts singing; “I am woman hear me roar…”
Geri gets to her feet and commences to dance with Julie as Debbie unfastens yet another button revealing more cleavage than she has ever displayed in public and allows her hair to go where it may. Vicky seductively moves behind Debbie getting everything on her cell phone and takes Geri’s hand with her free hand linking all four women in a kind of dance that causes other patrons and staff to engage in similar free-spirited, fun-loving activities.
Enveloped in their own world and completely oblivious to anything around them, the women finish their drinks being told admirers in the crowd have paid their tab and they determine it is time to move on. Voices grow angry and loud behind them as furniture splinters and bodies fall to the ground causing the earth to shake even more under Debbie’s feet. Geri takes Vicky’s keys as Vicky and Julie help Debbie to the car and the four women pull off, as the sounds of police sirens grow louder.
“What happened?” Vicky asks looking back and seeing the police and an ambulance pull up at The Seahorse.
Geri, who is driving, replies; “I don’t know, but it looks bad. Clearly we can’t go back and going home isn’t an option.” Silence fills the air in the same manner an inferno fills the atmosphere around it. Debbie lays her spinning head back against the seat. “It’s okay, I know a guy.”
Waking up is difficult this morning. At first, the blur that is believed to have been last night seems more of a disturbing dream than reality. Debbie slowly sits up and looks around needing to find her glasses and cane. This is not Julie’s house. The décor is tropical. With a reeling, pounding head she staggers around in search of direction and sees Julie and Vicky sitting, well slumping, at a patio table outside the glass doors. Geri comes up behind her swaying and smelling of vomit and they realize this is not a dream.
Outside on the patio the staggering pair joins the slumping pair at the table and all collapse wondering where they are and how they got here. As they ponder in whispers fighting the urge to regurgitate whatever they nonsensically ingested last night ear-piercing rings begin shrieking from Julie’s cell phone causing the four women to jump out of their skins with their heads shattering.
Julie slaps her phone and picks it up putting it to her ear. “What? I don’t know where we are. What? Huh? Hello? Barb?” Julie looks at her phone with confusion and then drops it to the table. The others look at her through squinting eyes. “That was Barb. She said something about everyone looking for us, including the police. Seems someone was killed in that bar we went to. Phone died, too.”
Folding her arms on the table, Julie drops her head back down with a mournful groan as the bewildered women try to make sense of things. Debbie slowly lifts her head and looks at Vicky; “What in the world was in that duck sauce you gave us?”
“Mmmm, uh …. Um ….You mean,” Vicky coughs to clear her dry throat. “You mean the Cold Duck? It was just wine. Where are my cigarettes?”
“Isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place? You needing cigarettes?” Geri gets up to go back into the bathroom. Upon her return, Geri sits back down with a bottle of water and had been doing her own pondering. “How is it I’m the only one puking my guts up this morning?”
“Juls and I were up before y’all doing the same thing. Can’t be anything left.”
“With the Meniere’s I have learned to suppress. Bad habit, but when I’m vertigo, I can’t clean it up. Speaking of which, I think I’m hallucinating. There’s a man on our patio.”
“You’re not hallucinating, Deb. I’m here and I have coffee.”
“I hope it’s good coffee and how do I know you? You don’t look familiar.”
“Good? I just hope the coffee is real. And strong.” Julie sits up searching for a cup.
Geri takes a cup; “This is my husband’s cousin, Dante. What are you doing here?”
“Do you know where we are? Better question, do you know where my damn cigarettes are?”
“Well, first off, we are in Freeport, Bahamas. This is a friends place. He’s not here so I thought you could hole up here till things cool off. I’m here because you called me last night and asked me to meet you at the boat. I showed up and the four of you were there asking me to get you as far away as possible. The coffee is real, but if we are going to be here a while we’ll need to go into town and lay in supplies. As for your cigarettes Vicky, you threw them overboard last night and swore you’d never touch another one after the trouble they caused last night.”
“What the hell happened last night that would make me throw my smokes away?” Vicky’s bewildered voice brings to focus that everything is too real and something must have happened last night.
The women just look at each other in wonder while Dante allows a creepy smile to cross his face. “So, Ger…of all the people I know, you are not the one I expected to have to hie out of the country. What really happened? Ya kill someone?”
Dante’s voice resonated like a tolling bell deep inside a multifaceted cavern fading into the ebon haze.
The suitcase weighs heavy in Debbie’s hand as she struggles to lift it to check it through. She glances behind her to see if her friend Elizabeth, who had brought her to the airport, had found a parking space and entered the terminal. Not seeing her, Debbie turns back toward the smiling thirty-something lady behind the counter and wonders if it was too late to just go back home and forget the trip.
May 7, 2012
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