Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (17 page)

Then Becky became aware of a man approaching. He was big and burly and tall. He pulled off his leather gloves as he looked
them both over. The chains on his leather jacket rattled. He had a faded tattoo of a pagan symbol right between his eyebrows.

In German-accented English, he asked, “Becky? Monique?”

Monique answered with a hesitant, “Yes?”

“Judy says wait. She comes.”

Becky stared at this guy with his grizzled beard and chained epaulets and a red bandana tied around his probably balding head.
Nervously she scanned the road for the shuttle. And then, with growing disbelief, Becky followed Monique’s gaze and looked
up the cliff face.

Monique murmured, “She wouldn’t.”

“She
couldn’t
.”

Becky scanned the ropes. She looked for a healthy female bottom. She saw one older woman, too thin to be Judy. She wondered
if Judy were up at the top right now, strapped into the harness. More bikers zoomed up in front of them, kicking up a spray
of pine needles as they filled the clearing with the smell of exhaust. The biker closest to them canted his front wheel as
he twisted the ignition key. His companion swung her leg off the back of the seat. She pulled off her helmet and tossed her
brown hair.

It took a minute before Becky could morph what she was seeing into the woman with whom she manned the Girl Scout cookie booth
in front of the local grocery store.

Judy grinned. “You two didn’t really think I was going to rappel down that ridiculous cliff, did you? With these wonky knees?”

Words abandoned Becky once again, along with thought and sense. Monique was threatening to throw over the bucket list. And
now Judy, the mother of five, was hitching rides with foreign bikers.

Monique stuttered, “I’m glad to see you made friends while we were gone, Judy. But we should—”

“These are the Hahns,” Judy interrupted. “They’re here for that soldier up there with the metal legs. After he makes his way
down, they’re going to some techno bar to celebrate his one-year anniversary out of physical therapy.” Judy looked oddly different,
loose-limbed, bright-eyed and wild. She casually tossed her helmet to one of the men. “You’ve got something on Lenny’s list
about motorcycles, don’t you, Monie?”

“Um…yeah?”

“Then say hello to our rides back to Interlaken.”

B
eep beep beep beep
.

Monique thrashed in the bed. The screeching noise pulsed in rhythm to the needle of pain just above her eye socket. She yanked
the pillow from under her head and pressed it over her ears, willing Judy or Becky to do something to
make it stop,
as the noise resolved itself into the distinctive, international, undeniable sound of an alarm clock. Then the part of her
that was always on time for work, always ten minutes early for a doctor’s appointment, always delivering medicine exactly
on the four-hour mark, shuddered into reluctant consciousness.

With a groan she snapped the pillow off her head. She forced herself to peel her lids open. They stuck as if her eyeballs
had gone dry. She blinked into utter darkness, then blinked again, confused. Above the wretched alarm clock she could hear
the rumble of traffic outside their cheap, off-season Swiss hotel, but she couldn’t see light seeping around the edges of
the shades. As she rolled up into a sitting position, the pulsing above her eyes intensified, and she pressed her palm against
her temple…only to come up against cloth. She seized a fold of it and tugged it over the top of her head.

In the dim light she discerned the shape of the bureau, two beds, table, and two chairs of their hotel room. She held in her
hand a folded bandana.

The sight of it triggered a memory of tripping down a narrow staircase to a loud, dim underground bar that smelled of stale
beer and mildew, of yanking a bandana off the head of a grizzled biker, exposing the bald spot above the iron-gray of his
waist-length braid.

Beep beep beep beep
.

It hurt too much to think, especially when that beeping was driving her mad. She glanced around the room until she pinpointed
a blur of red numbers. Reaching across a snoring Judy, she fumbled with the thing, pressing buttons and flicking switches
until finally in frustration she just yanked at the cord until it jerked out of the wall socket.

Silence buzzed in her ears. Neither one of the motionless lumps of Judy under her arm or Becky on the next bed even budged.
And Monique felt the pressure of a full bladder, a pressure she couldn’t ignore.

She stood up and hissed as the floor shifted strangely beneath her feet. Pressing a thumb beneath her brow bone, she used
the edge of the bed as a guide to head toward the bathroom. At the bottom of the bed, her toe caught under something heavy,
sending her stumbling. As she struggled to stay upright she cursed Judy for leaving her pack in the middle of the floor again.
She opened the door to the bathroom and walked smack into something.

Monique grunted. She winced an eye open and found that she’d knocked herself against the metal leg of a fold-up ironing board.
She backed out of the closet and shut it before coming to the reasonable conclusion that the hotel hadn’t switched the layout
of the room overnight. She grudgingly admitted that maybe she’d had too much to drink.

Images of the night flashed through her mind. A motorcycle vibrating between her thighs. Flashes of bright light, a pounding,
ear-shattering beat. The yeasty cold of a fresh beer as the liquid slipped down her throat. Her feet sticky against the floor
as she raised her hands into the path of the strobe lights and danced.

Danced?

Her bladder screamed with urgency. She wheeled around and saw the bathroom open just behind her. She stumbled in and took
care of business. She sank her head into her hands and tried to remember when she’d last danced publicly. Not since her cousin’s
wedding in Trinidad years ago, under the influence of too much coconut rum. Fortunately Kiera had been too young to notice
how “happy” Momma had become. Monique dug her knuckles into her gritty eyes, just hoping there weren’t any videos this time.

 Aspirin. She needed aspirin. And a tall, cold glass of water. Some vitamin B and a good breakfast. And to get the hell out
of Europe, away from Lenny’s nefarious plans, back home where she could finally give Lenny a piece of her mind. All the booze
in Interlaken couldn’t subsume that desire, though she was beginning to suspect that last night she’d tried.

She stumbled to the sink, bracing her hands on either side. She remembered they all had to catch an eleven-thirty train to
Zurich today, to get Becky—and hopefully herself—on that three p.m. flight to New York. Turning the faucet on she pooled water
in her hands and splashed it over her face. As she wiped the water from her eyes she noticed something dark lying like a coil
at the bottom of the sink.

It moved.

Monique shot back. She hit the wall, the corner of the towel rack bruising her shoulder. She threw out an arm and slapped
the peeling wallpaper in search of the switch plate. As fluorescent light exploded in the room, Monique saw whatever it was
poke its head over the porcelain edge.

Monique stumbled out of the bathroom backward, backpedaling wildly. Her foot caught on the luggage on the floor which shot
her legs right out from under her. Her butt took the brunt of the hit that rattled her vertebrae.

Becky shot up, a blindfold cocked across her face. “What? What?”

“S-S-Snake.” Monique kicked away from the luggage. Light poured from the bathroom and limned the lump she’d stumbled over.
Monique scuttled back farther, clutching the arms of the desk chair to struggle to her feet, as the “luggage” groaned, lumbered
off the floor, and formed itself into the shape of a man. A hefty, bull-chested man. He clambered to his full height and lazily
rolled his shoulders with a jangle of chains and creaks of leather, and then with a healthy snort, headed into the bathroom.

Becky wrestled the bandana off her face and then stared in that sightless way she had in the dark. “What the hell are you
yelling about, Monie?”

“There’s a snake in the bathroom sink.” Her heart raced in her chest. “And a man in our hotel room.”

On cue came the sound of a man peeing, that loud undeniable splash she hadn’t heard in her own house for years, that macho
voiding done with the door wide open that went on for so long it was a boast in itself.

Becky’s eyes went so wide that, even in the gloom, Monique could see the whites of them from clear across the room. Monique
reared back, taking the desk chair with her, falling into it so it careened back into the curtains. She shot her feet up off
the floor where there might be more snakes. She dug her toes into the seat and realized by the pressure against her ribs that
she’d slept wearing Judy’s belly pack. Inside it a cell phone buzzed.

“Judy,” Monique whispered hoarsely. “Judy, wake up.”

Judy moaned.

“Judy,
wake up.
There’s a
man
and a
snake
in our room.”

Judy shifted slightly and muttered something unintelligible, something guttural and vaguely German.

Monique glanced around for something to use as a weapon but the room was bare, unless she intended to poke a snake in the
eye with the hotel pen or ward it off with a memo pad. She seized a fold of the curtains behind her chair and jerked them
open, letting in a sharp wedge of light. Becky whipped away, wincing. Judy flinched where she lay sprawled with her mouth
open and a bag of Zweifel Pomy Chips under her cheek. The light stabbed her eyes, but at least when their intruder returned
Monique knew now she’d get a good look at his face and either recognize him from last night—or blind him before he could attack.

She tried to remember coming back to the hotel. Was this guy one of the biker crew? Had he passed out here? Why would they
let him into their hotel room in the first place?

“For the sweet love of Jesus,” Judy mumbled. “Close the effing drapes.”

The biker came out of the bathroom, tugging on his fly. A scraggly mane of white-blond hair stuck up in all directions. He
cringed and raised one hand against the light. The other hand held a fistful of snake.

Jager.

Monique suddenly remembered him galloping around the bar, whooping as he pretended to be an American cowboy with Judy clinging
to his back, hallooing at the top of her lungs.

Jager crouched down to slip the snake into a pouch. He said something in German. Judy mumbled a reply and lifted a hand that
looked vaguely like a farewell. Jager stood to his full height, slung his pouch across his chest, and gave them all a gap-toothed
grin. With a wave he swaggered out, the door squealing closed behind him.

Becky dared to lower the blanket an inch. “What just happened?”

Monique said, “A biker just left our room.”

“You said there was a snake in our bathroom.”

“He took it with him.”

Another memory of dancing in the heat, of feeling something cold on the back of her neck, of looking down and seeing a snake
draped around her.

She’d thought it was rubber.

Becky stood up, weaving. The blanket slipped off her and fell to the floor. She was fully dressed. A cocktail napkin stuck
to the seat of her pants. She minced her way to the bureau and then stared at the floor where Jager had apparently spent the
night. “Monie, where’s my suitcase?”

The cell phone buzzed in the belly pack again, but Monique ignored it. She looked around the room. Becky’s suitcase didn’t
lie open on the bureau. Judy’s dirty clothes didn’t lie in a heap by the door. Monique forced herself off the chair to pull
out the drawers, one by one. Empty empty empty. She stumbled toward the closet, looked in the bathroom, saw no toiletries
on the shelves. Saw no suitcases, no daypacks.

Monique seized the doorjamb. “We’ve been robbed.”

Judy growled into her pillow.

Monique tried to think past her pounding headache while Becky stood in shock by the bed. They’d have to go to the American
embassy. Thank God she’d had their passports photocopied and left copies at home. Kiera could fax that stuff over to the embassy
and they’d get them replaced. Monique wondered how long that would take. Her head was going to split open if she didn’t get
coffee soon. They couldn’t leave the country without their passports.

Monique looked down and realized she was wearing one sneaker. The other one lay by the side of the bed. She seized it and
bounced on the end of the bed trying to pull it on over her sock. Then she slapped Judy hard on the hip.

Judy sprang up. “All right, all right. I’m getting up.”

“Everything’s
gone
,
Judy. Everything.”

“Please lower your voice.”

“Great freakin’ idea you had, going off with those bikers.”

“Absinthe is a nasty, nasty thing.”

“‘It’s just a techno bar,’ you said. ‘Becky only has one more night,’ you said. What were you thinking?”

“You two should have stuck to beer.”

“Absinthe?” Becky said vaguely, dropping back onto the bed. “I remember that.”

Monique sucked in a quick breath, remembering it too. She recalled the neon green liquid in the little glasses. The raucous
glee of the crowd as they put a few drops of absinthe on the sugar cube sitting on a spoon, set it on fire, and let the caramelized
sugar drip into the green liquid, making it go cloudy. She pressed her swollen tongue against her teeth, tasting the bitterness
still.

Becky murmured, “I told everyone that I wanted to see the green fairy.”

Monique bent her head between her knees. The pattern in the carpet swam before her eyes. She didn’t
do
things like this. She didn’t drink to oblivion. It was poison to the liver, poison to the soul. She’d been feeling so upset
yesterday, so unhinged. She’d been so…angry. Oh, lord. What would Kiera think if she learned that her mother had been drinking
absinthe in a Swiss biker bar?

The cell phone, buzzing again, against her ribs.

It was her own phone she pulled out of Judy’s belly pack, her own phone, buzzing to indicate Kiera’s latest text.

Haven’t heard from u Mom. So what did u die on that cliff?

Monique shoved the phone back into the belly pack and muscled the shame away. “Listen,” she said, trying to get a grip on
herself, “we’ve got to call the Swiss police.”

Judy’s voice sounded tired. “We’re not calling the police.”

“We’ve got a crime to report.”

Monique strode to the window and flung the curtains wide, flooding the room with light. She winced at the view of a parking
lot, edged by an industrial building with corrugated metal siding. Right under their window lay a Dumpster. She looked at
it with a mind that had suddenly gone blank. With her heart skipping a beat, she glanced back into the room at the paneled
walls, the crooked Alpine prints, the nubby coverlet, the big old television.

“Oh, God,” she said. “This isn’t even our hotel.”

Monique sidled her way down the dim corridor, cringing as she noticed the peeling wallpaper and the water stains on the ceiling,
the smell of stale cigarette smoke, and the webbed areas of carpet. Looking around this place and thinking about the bed she’d
just slept in had her skin crawling. “We just spent the night in a flophouse.”

“Clearly you’ve never actually spent a night in a flophouse,” Judy snorted. “It’s a perfectly respectable place. We all stumbled
over here from the bar, which was a hell of a lot smarter than taking the bikes. We were lucky we could snag a room.”

Monique glanced over her shoulder, catching Becky’s eye before zeroing in on Judy, who had a terrible case of bed-head. “Did
you look in the mirror this morning, Judy?”

“I avoid that before my first cup of coffee.”

“How does your neck feel?”

“Pretty good.” Judy ran a hand along the side of her neck, tilting her head with a satisfying crack. “No ache for a change.”

“You have a tattoo.”

Judy’s fingers shot to her neck. “Is that thing still there?”

Monique started. “Still?”

Becky leaned in for a better look and then hissed a breath through her teeth. “Tattoos are permanent, Judy.”

“You might want to lift up the right sleeve of your T-shirt, Beck. And Monie, did you check under your shirt this morning?”