CHAPTER ONE
Stretched out in her cozy bed, stuffed animals flanking her, Sarah looked across her room to the bulletin board she'd tacked up her upcoming itinerary. Georgia today, Rome tomorrow. Impossible. Yet, looking at the passport, the tickets on the bureau, across from the bed, that was exactly where she was headed.
Well, not just her. Cindy, her lifelong best friend and partner in evening adventures, was waking up somewhere -- probably in somebody else's bed -- realizing that in a few hours, her life was going to change forever, really. And Karen, well, she was probably already up, already had her coffee, had written in her diary, was already packed, pressed and ready to go. They were quite a trio, the three of them.
She looked at the grade school picture of the three of them, standing in the front of Mrs. Dunn's class, pointing to the globe. They were so cute. Little Karen, the turned up nose and freckles and deep blue eyes, Cindy, wide-eyed and pouty, even at 8 and Sarah, dark olive skin, button brown eyes. They were young women now, graduates of The College Of The South. The world awaited.
Friends since childhood, Cindy used to joke that since their mothers knew each other before they were born, they were sending vibes to each other in utero. "Yeah, you were trying to send texts," Sarah told Karen. "And you were trying to steal money out of my wallet," Karen told Cindy. "And you were telling your mother to hurry up and push you out. You had shit to do," Cindy said, smacking Karen on the shoulder.
The plan for this tour, "Our World Tour" Sarah called it, came one night after a few drinks and a lot of conversation. What could they do, the three of them, to kind of celebrate their lives, their achievement -- graduation -- and their friendship all at the same time. Sarah had seen an ad somewhere about a European vacation tour, something about castles and exotic cities and rediscovering Europe, somewhere new and exciting and unpredictable.
Where were they going to go in America? Nothing and nowhere particularly interested any of them. They ran down the list. Seattle? "I've seen rain," Karen said. "Los Angeles?" "I get in traffic here and am not impressed," Sarah said. "San Francisco?" Cindy laughed. "My nipples get hard in Georgia. I'd freeze 'em off near Alcatraz." They could not, even after a few moments, think of where in America they wanted to explore. So....they were quiet for a while. Quiet for them, that is. Then one of them spoke, funny thing is, nobody was really sure if it was Karen or Cindy or Sarah who said it but somebody blurted "Europe!" and they all yelled at once. This was it. The plan. The target.
As they began to talk about it, European MEN had to be more interesting than the beer-guzzling, Molly-peddling, tit-grabbing, get-me-off-first, tattooed muscle heads they had to fend off on an almost regular basis at any of the local clubs. The dating scene, the bar scene really, had sort of lost its appeal. What new pickup line were they going to try this time? Talk about bored. They'd heard them all, especially Cindy.
Sarah used to argue that her name should have been SIN-dy because, according to her at least, she lived up to her name. Certainly she looked at her sexuality as something she'd lose if she didn't use it. She might not really have been that slutty but compared with the other two, she was pretty wild. She always got a laugh during their usual weekly drinks-after-school meeting at Donovan's Pub near campus, when Cindy couldn't wait to recount her most recent carnal expedition, no doubt embellishing everything for maximum enjoyment and bragging rights.
The most sexually adventurous of the three, Cindy had always seemed to be the one who would always keep the others laughing, sometimes at her, sometimes with her relentless sarcasm, which seemed to find its way into her every comment, one way or another. And four years of hearing every pickup line imaginable, listening to these guys go on and on about whatever it was had sort of given Cindy enough for a while. Europe, she thought. That might be very different. Europe might be very different. She could not imagine it being the same old tired crap she'd heard a thousand times, comments that had her eyes rolling back in her head before the drink was half gone. The guys had to look different than these tattooed, muscle-bound, chain-wearing, pinheads who were always trying to tell her how they were different and SHE was different and so on and so on.
Their bedroom conversations was always the source of much amusement for Sarah and Karen because when, after the evening's festivities with Cindy had concluded, her partner l'amour would invariably seek some kind of sign of approval -- something on the order of "Was it good for you, baby?" Cindy's responses - at least the way she recounted them for her friends - were wry, withering at times.
"Earth-shaking," she might droll. "I've never had it quite like that....(a long pause) fortunately."
Or "Oooh, you're so big, it must really weaken your brain..."
Or "Nobody's ever asked me that before. You're really good. What a great question."
Or, quoting the great Garry Shandling, when he would ask "Was that good for you?" Cindy would roll her eyes and drawl, "I don't think that was good for ANYBODY."
Like a tape recorder, Cindy would remember them all, too.....and could perfectly capture the guy's always stunned reaction in that rather uncomfortable afterglow. "The idiot," she would say and the three would laugh. Some of Karen and Sarah's laughter, of course, was tinged with a bit of envy. They weren't quite as willing or as daring as Cindy. And probably never would be. But then, Europe beckoned...
They had all had their moments, of course. In many ways, it was a wonderful experience to watch these three friends go from kindergarten to grade school to middle school to high school, noting the crushes, the hairstyles, the fashionistas, the silly and sad moments when life just sort of interfered or kicked you in the shins or spanked you on the ass, they were all there for each other.
Karen, of course, would write about many of these things in her diary. She would always take good notes in class, always the one who found where the restaurant specials were, was the one who took bar conversations most seriously, remembered everyone's birthday, when they had lost their virginity, how long she would date a guy before she would let him kiss her, touch her breast and so on. Very organized and, in her own way, very funny.
She wasn't sarcastic, just very literal. She would not say she loved someone if she didn't, or say she liked a movie if she did not - no matter what the response of everyone else was. She liked plans, organizations, arranging her closet, filling her journal, there was always something she needed or wanted to do.
Sarah, the shortest and youngest, was always the one along for the ride. She was close with both of them; sometimes Karen would get exasperated at Cindy's behavior and occasional drunkenness. Sometimes, Cindy would tell Karen she was way too much of a tight ass for her own good and they would go at it. Sarah was always the peacemaker, the one who tried to calm things and fix things.
So now, the three of them, the sistahhood, was going to relocate their organization overseas for a few weeks. From Rome to Paris to Dublin. They would fly to Rome to begin. Then work their way through France and then Ireland. They had picked out a few spots -- well, Karen had, with a little help from Sarah and once they got to these exotic locations, they knew they could bend life to their will. Something would happen. Something fun and interesting and hey, weren't they ready for the world? Wasn't that what graduation from college was all about? To be READY FOR THE WORLD. "Fuck yeah!" Cyndy said when Sarah offered that suggestion that night at Donovan's Pub, mapping out their itinerary. They all raised their glasses. "Fuck yeah!"
