Rebound (6 page)

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.”

“Why do you think I
need to do that?”

“Because you’ve been
dumped!” Liz groaned. “And the fastest, easiest way to get over the
pain and agony of being dumped is to have rebound sex. Guys do it
all the time.”

Susan’s jaw dropped
and she sagged a little as she mulled this over. The fastest,
easiest way to get over the pain of being dumped? And all she had
to do was have sex with some hot guy?

“And you’re sure it
works?”

Susan could
practically see Liz smiling on the other end. “Works for me every
week.”

Susan shook that fact
out of her head. Liz was infamous for going through a guy a week.
She just got bored easily, and if she didn’t, the guy got tired of
being shelved for days on end until Liz was horned-up enough to
blow off her career for a few days.