“WHAT TIME IS it?” Mel moans. “It feels like midnight.”
“No way,” Jesse says. “It can’t be midnight, can it?”
“Brace yourselves, kids,” I tell them, looking at my watch. “It’s only four in the afternoon.” I woke up about an hour ago and have been staring at the ceiling, trying not to think. But I let them keep sleeping, ’cause that’s the kind of stylin’ pirate/sex goddess I am.
“Are you kidding?” says Mel.
Jesse sits up. “Listen.”
“What?” I am out of the bed, shoving my feet into my Vans.
“The rain has stopped!” Jesse runs over and pulls the drapes. Sun washes the room with light. All three of us shield our eyes.
Goes to show. We were expecting an enormous disaster—and now it’s just over. We ate steak and slept through the worst of it.
“So what happens now?” I ask.
Mel starts bouncing on the bed. “Disney World!”
Jesse bolts up. “For real? Oh my gosh. Can we go to Epcot?”
“Sure,” says Mel.
“Yay!” Jesse’s face breaks into the first real smile I’ve seen in a long time.
Personally, I would be more up for Universal, but Jesse’s got an Epcot dream and who am I to squelch it? My posthurricane resolution is: no more spats with Jesse. No teasing, no baiting her with comments that bring out the Christianpants. “Epcot!” I yell, and I start jumping on the bed too.
Jesse gets up and jumps, and we’re all three jumping on the beds like we’re five years old, yelling, “Epcot! Epcot!”
Then Jesse leaps off the bed and heads for the hall door. “Only—ooo, that means we’re leaving the hotel, right?”
“Well, yes,” I say. “That’s the way it works.”
Jesse giggles. “Okay, in that case I just need to make one quick call. Two minutes. I’m using your cell.”
“What?” I ask. “You are being weird.”
Jesse turns and winks—actually winks—at me. “Never you mind,” she says, and then trots through the living room and disappears into the hallway, closing the door.
“I hope you’re calling your mother!” I yell after her. But she can’t be. She wouldn’t be winking if she was calling Ms. Fix. I look at Mel, who shrugs and goes into the bathroom. Because she’s Mel, she also shuts the door, and there I am, surrounded by doors and not a single answer.
I march into the hall.
“Uh-huh,” Jesse’s saying. “It has big pirate ships in front of it with black flags; you can’t miss it.”
“Who are you talking to?” I whisper.
She winks again.
“Sure, Marco,” she says. “See you then.”
She clicks shut the phone, and I piece it together. Jesse called Marco. He’s coming here to surprise Mel.
I’m so glad, I squeal. “Yay, you!” I say, squeezing Jesse’s arm.
“I know—yay, me!” she says. She hands the phone back to me. “He’s like an hour away. I called him after I gave Mel her makeover.”
“You did? That’s so…” I don’t know what it is. Sweet? Romantic? Totally old-school Jesse?
“He really likes her,” my friend says, giggling. The friend I know and love. The friend who’s full of funny little secret plans and ideas. The one who hangs lists in the staff bathroom. Buys armpit hair. Arranges for possible boyfriends to show up, a hundred miles from where last detected.
“That’s so great,” I tell Jesse.
“Yeah, I know,” Jesse says. She stops giggling and kind of sucks her lips in. “So you’re not, you know, going to be all weird about it?”
Because of my slutty Marco ambush, she means. A hot flush come to my face.
“Vicks, don’t,” she tells me. “I have a good scheme going here. You’ve spoiled enough; I don’t want you spoiling this.”
And F you very much, I think. Only, she’s right. I might spoil it.
“He must think I’m the biggest bitch,” I say. “How am I gonna look him in the eye?”
“Just be Vicks,” says Jesse.
I’m wary. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning stand up tall like you always do and act like nothing ever happened. You’ve toughed out half a million things worse than this. “
Actually, that is entirely true. Like I toughed out my hot-dog gas.
Jesse says, “Remember when Abe walked in on you in the staff bathroom and your pants were down? You lived through that, right?”
“Don’t remind me,” I say.
“You didn’t just live through it, you rocked through it. You made jokes; you didn’t act embarrassed; you made the whole thing perfectly okay for Abe and everyone else, just by holding up your head. ’Cause Abe was just about to die of humiliation. I mean, geez Louise, he saw your hoohaa!”
“Okay,” I tell her. “Enough with the memories. I’ll be fine.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. I’ll just pretend I can’t remember a thing. But help me if I suddenly go silent. If I go silent, you know I’m weirding out.”
“Got it.”
“Guys?” Mel sticks her head out the door. “What’s up?”
Jesse bursts into the hotel room. “We’re going to Epcot!” she cries. “What else?”
“Oh, excellent,” Mel says. “Let me just grab my purse, eh?”
“No, no, no, no, no,” Jesse says. “Not so fast, missy.” She makes a show of sniffing Mel. “Um, you need to take a shower.”
“I do?”
“You do.” She propels Mel back inside the room. “We all do, but you first.”
“Oh. Okay.” Mel is cowed.
“What, you want me to lie?” Jesse says. “This is Epcot we’re talking about. We can’t go stinky to Epcot.”
“I’ll shower, I’ll shower,” Mel says, and disappears back into the bathroom. Jesse looks at me, and I look at her. We collapse into giggles.