Writer: Kelly Moore, a freelance writer based in Des Moines, Iowa
Intended Use: Sasee
Published: Not yet published
Printable version of Girlfriend Getaway.doc
Girlfriend Getaway
by Kelly Moore
With visions of neon lights, slot machines and scantly clad entertainers dancing in my head, I boarded the plane for Las Vegas. Leaving behind the bitter cold of Iowa would have been reason enough for me to make the trip. But 80 degrees and cloudless skies weren’t the only things awaiting me amidst the cigar smoke and twinkling bulbs of Sin City – my girls were there.
Dropping into 23C, I made sure to avoid eye contact with 23B and quickly pulled a book from my single allotted carryon – the international sign for “No In-Flight Chit Chat.”
“So what takes you to Vegas?” piped my uncouth neighbor.
Damn. I knew I should have packed those headphones.
Still clinging to the hope that she would pick up on my nonverbal's, I kept the verbal's to a minimum and avoided disclosing the real reason for my trip – a three-days, wild-nights bachelorette party. “Just visiting some friends.”
Friends.
The word was fresh off my lips, still floating above the fuselage floor like a fragile bubble from a child’s plastic wand. And before 23B had a chance to pop it with her sharp, pointed chatter, I took advantage of its lingering spirit by reflecting on how us girls, now in our early twenties, had managed to remain friends for more than 10 years.
Through each stage of my life, the word friend had held a different meaning. In elementary school, homemade friendship bracelets created from the fluorescent cross stitch thread we stole from our moms was enough to seal a friendship for life.
By middle school, intricately folded notes signed “BFFL” got you into the coveted cliques. High school buddies were in a class all their own as cars, beers and boys became our most prized possessions and our “friends” were the ones who could get you closer to any or all of them.
But as adults, my friends had become the people I counted on, whether they were 2,000 miles away or right down the street. They had become the girls who would fly across the country to meet me in Las Vegas for my bachelorette party, even after not seeing me for more months.
As the plane lifted off the ground, the passenger next to me continued to blather on, and I thought about how lucky I was to have four great friends in my life. Sure, the OUIJA board foretold that we would all be bridesmaids in each other’s weddings. But I just couldn’t believe it was actually happening… and soon.
The pressures of stepping onto the corporate ladder, into tumultuous relationships and out of dependency status were enough to derail the master plans of any psychic board game. As we ventured into our new lives, we barely even noticed the increasing intervals between phone calls or the erase the decreasing importance of celebrating birthdays. But none of that mattered somehow, because here I was, on my way to reunite with the girls I’d never really left.
For me – and I suspected for the other girls – this weekend was a time-traveling adventure back to the days when we had nothing to do but laugh, gossip and flirt. Here on this 747, I felt like Marty McFly flying toward a more carefree time in my flux capacitor-powered Delorian era.
As the plane touched down at [airport], I was on the edge of my seat.
With Lin behind the wheel of her petite, cherry-red Mitsubishi, we drove down the highway, chattering like children home from their first day of school after a long summer.
The conversation – or rather, the conversations – came to a screeching halt as someone yelled, "Rick Springfield!" in a car full of children of the '80s. A fifty-foot billboard loomed above us, revealing the fact that Rick Springfield was in town and performing live at the MGM Grand –
tonight! Before we even checked into the hotel we bought our $60 tickets to the show.
"I wish that I had Jessie's girrrl," Chloe sang into her fist microphone, the rest of us laughing hysterically at the way she remembered every word to the famous '80s single. A former glee club member, pom-pommer, cheerleader and sorority sister, Chloe was no stranger to being watched,
admired. So, with a good portion of the casino patrons looking on, she continued her impromptu concert for the girls. We sang along in the elevator, all the way up to the 14th floor.
Shortly after our first hour back together I became intrigued. Undoubtedly, we had each been through a lot of life changes since the last time we were all together. Rachel had become a mother. Ali was managing a staff of five. Chloe was married. Lin was dating The One. My
sister had started college.
I sat on the hot pink comforter of the double bed in our Flamingo mini-suite, one leg dangling off the side, and watched in silence as the girls continued to gab as they unpacked, holding up new dresses and offering accessories.
"This necklace would look sooo good with that outfit."
"I've never worn this belt; how do you guys think it looks with this skirt?"
"You wouldn't believe what a bargain I got on these boots!"
You'd never know to look at them, I thought, that they had all been apart for nearly two years. Rachel was still the bully, outdoing Ali's jokes, poking fun at my sister's shoes, lightheartedly pulling Lin's hair and inspecting the contents of Chloe's luggage. It was like she was 17 again, marking her territory and letting it be known that she was the indisputable leader. The only blonde of the group, Rachel's full-figured shape was a diamond in this rough of humble-chested brunettes.
The dainty Chloe was still just as aloof as I remembered, taking an extra couple of seconds to get the jokes, bringing up a topic that had already been discussed several minutes ago and answering every question as if it were a riddle. After a while, she just sat back and listened, the same way she had in high school.
Although my sister was four years younger than the rest of the group, she took her place in the center of all attention. Cracking jokes, reciting movie quotes, telling outrageously exaggerated stories, she revealed her self-conscious nature by hiding behind boisterous behavior. Being the
overprotective sister I am, I watched the group as she rambled on, looking for signs of annoyance or boredom. Fortunately, I detected none.
Lin spoke only when spoken to. She had not changed at all. We still had to drag every single word out of her mouth. Everything from her flaming red hair to her manicured, bronzed, Arizona toes reeked of perfection, rarity. Completely oblivious to her beauty, Lin was the kind of girl who meandered through life, unknowingly starting jealous lovers quarrels among couples she passed on the street.
Ali soon joined me on my hot pink observation deck. She gave me a hug and asked if I was excited to be there, a predictable question. Always careful to ensure everyone's happiness, Ali was equally unchanged.
We slid into our assigned booth at the MGM Grand auditorium, anxiously awaiting our heartthrob, Rick Springfield. Chloe had finally stopped singing "Jessie's Girl," but she continued to hum it, slapping her hands on her hips to the 20-year-old rhythm in her head.
Immediately after the cocktail waitress took our money, the lights dimmed and smoke seeped into the crowd from under the heavy, deep-red curtain blocking our view of the stage. Rick Springfield was about to reveal himself. We waited in intense anticipation for the Rick we'd seen on the billboard and on the front of the program, shirt unbuttoned, guitar slung to one side, messy, dark hair framing smoky, mysterious eyes and a sexy smile.
As the curtains started to pull apart, a shrill, female voice screamed, "We love you Rick!" It was Chloe. Little did we know, what was waiting for us behind that curtain was something much less desirable – and nothing worth screaming for.
Tiny gasps of disbelief came from our booth as we realized that our $60 did not buy us a ticket to a Rick Springfield concert. No, we were sitting in the audience of a G-rated, Vegas-style, kids show starring Rick Springfield as Merlin the Magician.
Ali and I caught each other's eyes in the light given off by the fire-breathing dragon on stage – the one Rick was attempting to slay – and burst into obnoxious laughter. We had been duped.
Old person's disease – the inability to sleep past 7 am – reared its ugly head the next morning. While the rest of the city was turning-in for the night, we headed down to the pool at 9 a.m.
Though the sun was barely peeking around the backside of the 30-story hotel, we couldn't wait to
begin a day of lounging next to the pool, soaking up every ounce of available UV.
For six hours, we sipped frozen drinks, talked about love, marriage, the hope of children, promotions and layoffs. We talked about high school memories, nights we got caught doing things that now seemed ridiculous and unsafe. We shared stories from college, commiserated as to how much we missed those carefree days – how we thought we'd never be as poor or as stressed as we were in college. We were wrong.
By the time the sun had scurried across the pool to the shelter of a neighboring near-skyscraper hotel, we were all Pretty in Pink skin. We returned to the hotel room for a few cocktails and the challenge presented by six girls, one bathroom.
"Don't I get my picture taken?" Rachel questioned the cashier at the Flamingo casino. At 4:30 in the morning, the clerk was in no mood for an intoxicated blonde and her $37 jackpot. So Rachel and I decided to have our own celebration – over a French Dip sandwich and a grilled cheese, special-ordered with Swiss and Cheddar.
Sitting across from each other in the blue suede-upholstered booth of the casino restaurant, we commented loudly on the night's perplexing events above a symphony of clanging coins and dinging slot machines.
We'd danced and drank in Vegas's premiere nightclubs and lounges, dined on exotic Chinese delicacies and read dead-on fortunes from sugary cookies, ran into three Elvis impersonators and even managed to meet a real-life Piano Man. Yet most of the girls seemed to be looking forward
to one thing throughout the night – going home.
No matter where we were, or how much fun I thought we were having, the girls all seemed anxious to leave, to return to the discomfort of rollaway cots and overstuffed pillows. I found myself wondering throughout the night, were we getting old?
Although two of her sat before my drunken self, what both Rachels said to me in response to my curiosity about the girls' behavior confirmed what I had suspected.
"What do you expect, Kell? We're old ladies."
The next morning we said our good-byes over five cans of Pepsi and one coffee – black. We gave each other hugs and promised to call, to email, to keep each other up-to-date on the situations we had discussed pool side.
Lin and Ali left first, leaving four of us behind to hypothesize what the next year would bring for each of them. Surely, Lin would be engaged before next Christmas. Ali would probably see the light and move back home to start a new life with her long-distance boyfriend of five years.
When Chloe left, we teased her one last time about the Rick Springfield debacle and told her we fully expected that she would send our $60 refunds by next week. She blew us a kiss as she jumped into the cab, and we could see her motor-mouth running a mile a minute, undoubtedly
recounting the weekend's events to a cab driver who pretended to care, just in case feigning interest meant a fat tip.
Rachel, my sister and I headed back up to the hotel room to do one final sweep for necklaces or toothbrushes left behind. When we were finished scouring the room for forgotten items, we went downstairs to the casino floor to take our chances at the quarter slots one last time.
Five minutes and twenty-five dollars later, we'd had enough of Las Vegas. Two nights had been plenty of party time for us old bags, we concluded.
Piling into the backseat of a taxi, we returned to the Las Vegas airport, feeling as though we had only left it hours earlier.
Flying different airlines, we were forced to part ways shortly after stepping away from the curbside check-in. As the final farewell, this one was the most difficult. But I comforted myself with the same realization I'd come to on the plane ride here – all I was doing with these good-byes was leaving the girls I'd never really left.
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