Lauren Weisberger - Chasing Harry Winston

Apparently Leigh didn’t get it, either. “Tell them you don’t need any sunglasses, that you just bought a pair,” she slurred.

“But I do need a pair,” Emmy croaked. She waved listlessly in the general direction of the boys, who had just thrown the truck into drive and were moving toward the airport exit. “Help us.” She sounded like Rose from the movie Titanic, frozen and nearly unconscious on her raft, adrift in the Atlantic, although thankfully they were neither freezing nor afloat.

“Come on, girls, we need to get ourselves together. This is a vacation-a celebration-not a funeral,” Adriana said, barely enunciating a single word.

The “vacation” was significantly less festive than the last wake Emmy had attended-not to mention that the food wasn’t as good. But she said nothing. After all, they were there to celebrate Leigh’s engagement, and she’d be damned if she was going to ruin it. So what if the whole thing had become a giant nightmare before it even really got started? Your best friend gets engaged only one time (hopefully…and if that friend was Leigh, then definitely), and she was going to show Leigh a good time if it killed her. Which it just might.

She had managed not to dwell on the irony of the whole situation, but sitting drunk and half-drugged at a Caribbean airport while local teenagers robbed her blind had prompted a bit of contemplation. Her ex-boyfriend had planned this trip to celebrate their five-year anniversary, and after said ex-boyfriend had left her for the virgin cheerleader trainer, he had offered her the tickets as some sort of consolation prize. Emmy’s gut had told her to have some dignity and tell him to fuck off, once and for all, but everything was fully paid for and she’d been stressed lately with the new job and, well, it had been worth accepting just for the chance to imply that she would be going with a new boyfriend.

“Seriously, Em, go. It’s all arranged and paid for. It’ll be nice for you,” Duncan had said when he came over to pick up his DVDs and underwear a week after she’d returned from Paris. It had been a perfect trip workwise, but she was still smarting from Paul’s blatant rejection-not to mention her obvious role in driving him away with the talk about having kids. It didn’t help that Duncan looked incredibly fit and happy, probably the best since she’d known him. Fucker.

“What? You and the cheerleader aren’t ready for a trip together yet? Or is premarital traveling banned also?”

He had sighed, suggesting he expected nothing less from Emmy, handed her a folder with the complete itinerary, and pecked her on the cheek. “Go. Get some sun. I’d hate to see it go to waste.”

“Thank you, Duncan, we’ll do just that.” Emphasis on the we , of course. He hadn’t even blinked.

Bastard.

Emmy hated him for encouraging her to go, but she hated herself more for taking him up on it. She might have ditched the whole idea, but when she floated the idea of a solo trip to the Dutch Antilles to her friends, they had not been pleased.

“Solo? Why would you ever go there alone ? Especially considering that you have two best friends sitting right here, one of whom just got engaged. I think it would be downright negligent not to invite us,” Adriana had sniffed.

Not surprisingly, Leigh had been a bit more reserved. “Oh, please, it’s not that big of a deal. And besides, things are just crazy at work right now. I’m editing my first huge author. And I don’t think Russell would be thrilled if I ditched him for the Fourth.”

Emmy nodded. “See? Leigh’s too busy and I’m sure you’ve got, uh…stuff going on, too.” No one had any clear idea what Adriana did all day, but there was an unspoken agreement never to address this. “Besides, it’s only booked for two.”

Post-breakup resolution or not, Emmy had little interest in spending the week scouting for men or tabletop dancing at local nightclubs. Paris and the whole Paul debacle had been a serious blow to her ego; the last thing she wanted was Adriana pushing her to hunt for men day and night.

“Two, three, what’s the difference? Nothing a little phone call can’t fix. And Leigh, darling, I don’t give one goddamn what you have going on at work. As for Russell, he’ll just have to understand that your best friends are happy for you and want to toast you.” Adriana smiled expansively at both girls. “Well, that’s settled. When do we leave?”

Things had rapidly deteriorated since they’d left New York, although by now the details were a little fuzzy. They’d flown on the six A.M. flight from LaGuardia to Miami and somehow, against all judgment, sense, and reason, Adriana had made a convincing case for in-flight Bloody Marys. Bloody Marys before nine in the morning. Which, although Emmy was loath to admit it, had been pretty nice. The second and third had gone down quite easily, and by the time they’d landed at the Curaçao airport, the Miami layover was little more than a hazy dream. The only solid proof that it had actually occurred-the $200 Gucci sunglasses Adriana insisted Emmy needed to buy at the duty-free shop-had just evaporated. Emmy’s suitcase had also vanished, but the tiny pills that Adriana had insisted she and Leigh try were working their magic: suitcase, sunglasses, whatever. She could not care less.

In the brutal late-afternoon sun the girls sat slumped against Adriana’s and Leigh’s suitcases-both of which were miraculously present and intact.

“Where are we again?” Leigh asked, tugging ineffectually at the bandanna she had tied around her hair. “I can’t seem to remember.”

Adriana glanced up. “Jamaica?”

They giggled, both certain that Jamaica wasn’t the right answer but unable to remember what was.

Emmy pulled the folder from her carry-on and began to read. “Aruba. Bonaire. Curaçao. The A-B-C islands of the Netherlands Antilles. Eighty miles off the coast of Venezuela. Population-”

Adriana held her hand up. “I’m bored.”

“It’s all coming back,” Emmy slurred. “We are currently in Curaçao. Our flight from Miami was delayed and we missed our ferry to Bonaire. We’re stuck.”

“Stop being so negative, girls!” Adriana sang. “We’re getting great color. We’re going to meet hot Dutch men.” Pause. “Are Dutch men hot?”

“Dutch men? I didn’t know there were Dutch men in Jamaica!” Leigh shrieked in a very un-Leigh-like way. Adriana cracked up and the two girls high-fived.

Emmy’s temples throbbed with pain and her skin was on fire. “Pull yourselves together, people. We need to get out of here.”

The trouble had started when the girls deplaned in Curaçao slightly buzzed but fully conscious and made their way to the ferry counter. Emmy politely requested three tickets.

“No,” a fleshy black woman wearing a muumuu and sandals announced with obvious joy. “Cancel.”

“‘Cancel’? What do you mean ‘cancel’?” Emmy did her best to glare, but the fact that her chin barely reached the top of the counter negated the intended effect.

The woman smiled. Unkindly. “No more.”

Another hour passed before they learned there once had been a ferry; there was a ferry no longer; and the only way to traverse those thirty miles now was by flying one of two local airlines, unnervingly named Bonaire Express and Divi Divi Air.

“I would rather die than fly something called ‘Divi Divi,’” Adriana announced as they surveyed the airlines’ side-by-side ticketing counters, each consisting of a single employee and a wheeled card table.

“You might die anyway,” Leigh said. She picked up a handwritten sheet listing the current schedule. “Oh, wait, this should make you feel much better. It says here that the refurbished six-seater planes are very reliable.”