A Lesson in Passion (3 page)

“You okay?” Lisa looked at Ginny
with some concern. “You look a little pale.”

“I think so. I'm think I'm just jet
lagged,” Ginny replied even though she had never felt like this
before on the way to a destination. Sure she would feel tired and
sick coming home, but never at the beginning of a
vacation.

“I'm going to bed. I bet I feel
better tomorrow.” Ginny started to head back to the room. About
halfway there, she realized that she was going to throw up and very
soon. Looking around, she noticed some tall bushes and ran around
them just as she hurled. It took several minutes to recover long
enough to make it back to her room. She was forced to smell the
sweet cloying scent of some exotic plant. Usually, it would have
been soothing, but when forced to vomit in the bushes, it became
very nauseating.

She finally returned to the room,
only to have to vomit again and again and again.
Dear God
, Ginny
thought,
what is going on?

Ginny's first thought was maybe she
drank more than she could handle. As she lay on the bathroom floor,
thanking the tile for being so cool against her face, she thought
about how much she had drank. Yes, she had several shots, but that
was about it. She wasn't mixing and she only had water with dinner.
Then she started to think about dinner. Mystery Stew.
What the hell kind of meat was that any
way
, Ginny thought grimly.
Oh God, please don't let this be food
poisoning!

As a physician's assistant, Ginny
knew what the recovery time for food poisoning was: at least two
days from the onset and that is just to start feeling somewhat
normal again.
This could be a real
vacation killer,
thought Ginny.
I'm sure it's just jet lag combined with alcohol.
I'll be fine by tomorrow.

Lisa didn't return to the room until the
middle of the night. She found Ginny still lying on the floor in
front of the toilet.

“Geez, Gin, what's wrong?” Lisa
looked so concerned despite her drunkenness. Her slurred words were
almost comical to Ginny, who had little to find amusing in the past
few hours.

“I don't know. I've been calling
Ralph on the porcelain phone since I left you in the club. I'm
hoping it's just too much alcohol and not the mystery stew from
dinner,” Ginny said in the most pathetic voice. She looked up at
Lisa and knew immediately that she had met someone already. “Can
you please help me to bed and then you can tell me about your new
friend.”

Lisa was amazed by how each of them knew when
the other had gotten lucky. It was like some kind of badge they
wore, but only the other could see it. Lisa tried to be gentle when
getting Ginny off the floor, but being inebriated herself made the
whole scene comical. She dropped Ginny a couple of times and then
Ginny had to help her stay up on the way back to their
beds.

Ginny threw off her bedspread and
climbed into bed with her clothes on. She was just happy to lie on
something soft. Lisa was raving about her “new” friend. She was a
photographer from New York and she lived in a loft and went to
great bars and lived like a gay version of
Sex and the City.
As Ginny half
listened to her best friend of many years, she wondered how drunk
she was to buy that load of bullshit. If her “new” friend truly
lived like she said, Ginny was a secret agent with the
CIA.

Ginny's last thought before going to sleep was
how much fun it would be to make fun of her friend over being so
gullible when she's drunk.

Any hopes of feeling better the next morning
were quashed. Ginny managed to sleep occasionally between
exhausting bouts of vomiting. Lisa woke the next morning to find
Ginny back on the bathroom floor and not able to move. She quickly
got Ginny's pillow and a blanket to try to make her more
comfortable. Ginny looked so pathetic that Lisa's heart just
dropped. After the mix up with the resort being “all gay” and now
she couldn't even get out of the bathroom. How much more could her
dear friend take?

• * Chapter 3 *
  

Ginny spent the first few days of her vacation
in bed in her room. Her only consolation was being able to see the
ocean and listen to its soothing, gentle waves crash on the beach
she couldn't bring herself to sit on. Lisa was constantly checking
on her and bringing her toast or water. No one could ask for a
better friend.

Ginny's only other friend was the pile of
romance novels Holly had given her. During the long hours of lying
in bed, unable to move or risk a new vomiting session, Ginny would
lie reading book after book. When she wasn't sleeping, she was
reading about all the people who had love lives and got to have
earth shattering orgasmic sex, even when it was their “first” time.
She read about past lives in worlds that seemed to be perfect
despite a lack of decent health care, running water, solid roads,
or technology of any kind.

Well
,
Ginny thought morosely,
Holly was right
about one thing: the sex parts are pretty hot.
Not that it would do Ginny any good, even if she did feel
better, with an extreme lack of potential partners. And so, when
not sleeping or sitting on the toilet so the offending food could
escape in other ways, Ginny was either lying in bed or sitting on
the balcony. To keep entertained, she became engrossed in past
lives and ridiculous problems.

Why doesn't she just stand up for
herself
, Ginny would think while reading a
particular passage. She shook her head in disgust that women would
ever allow themselves to be so subjugated by men. Ginny was not so
naïve to realize their predicament, but at the very least, they
could withhold sex until their “perfect” man came to his
senses.

On the third day, Ginny started to feel better
enough to go and sit on the beach. She was still extremely shaky
about eating in the dining room though. She'd often make Lisa go
and get her some bread and water. “At least I won't gain a bunch of
weight on this vacation,” she told Lisa when she returned with the
food.

“If anything, I'm pretty sure
you've lost some weight,” Lisa retorted. “You know, the gaunt,
stick figure thing is so in for all the models.”

“Something tells me that no one
will mistake me for Kate Moss,” Ginny smiled back. “And that's okay
with me, since I like having boobs.”

The morning was spent in a lounge chair on the
beach, reading more about the incredible lives of fictional
characters.  There was a nice breeze blowing and the ocean was
calm and glass like. Ginny was content to watch the other guests
frolicking in the water or participating in the unlimited water
sports available at the resort.

Around noon, Lisa came by with some more bread
and a little ginger ale to sooth any remaining discomfort. Ginny
noticed that the sky was getting dark. “Are we in for a storm?” she
asked Lisa, who had taken the chair next to hers.

Lisa surveyed the landscape. “Looks like it.
They have those storms all the time. You know, the ones that only
last a few minutes, then it goes back to blue and
beautiful.”

“It would cool things down for
tonight,” Ginny replied. “I love to listen to the rain when I'm
sleeping. The only bad part is that I usually have to get up to
pee.”

“Nice,” Lisa said with a
laugh.

*
*
*

As it turned out, it wasn't one of those
storms that ends after a few minutes. It was an unbelievably
violent storm that tears everything up. Ginny got her wish, to
listen to rain as she tried to sleep. Unfortunately, the sounds of
lounge chairs hitting the side of the hotel and trees being thrown
back and forth was enough to keep her up all night waiting for
something to come crashing through their balcony door.

Lisa and Ginny were sitting together watching
the carnage outdoors. “Is it only me, or does this ring of the
'worst vacation ever'?” Ginny asked while watching some sign fly
past the window.

“You're not dead, so technically,
it could be worse,” Lisa replied.

Ginny turned and stared at her friend. “Are
you trying to jinx me? Haven't I been through enough?”

Together they laughed over the irony of it.
Two minutes later, the lights went out and the two friends were
left in the dark. “Great, just great!”

“Do me a favor,” Ginny asked Lisa,
“Don't miss the toilet when you have to go in the dark!”

“Agreed!”

They tried as best they could to sleep, since
they had nothing else to do. Lisa wondered if anyone was at the
dance club when they lost power. She could imagine them all huddled
there, too scared to walk back to their rooms. Lying awake in the
dark, she started to envy them.

In the morning, the worst of the wind was
over, but the rain continued. Lisa went over to the lobby to see if
they would ever get the power back, while Ginny continued to sit in
the room, reading yet more romance novels. She began to stare out
the balcony door and wonder how she managed to get it so
wrong.

I've traveled all over the world.
I've met people from dozens of countries. I've seen wonders of the
world. Where did I go wrong on a crummy beach vacation!
She thought to herself.
No men, not feeling well, no power, no sunshine... I don't
want to think how it can get worse!

With that thought, in popped Lisa, wet from
head to toe and looking extremely unhappy. She was carrying a box
with their hotel room number on it.

“Good news or bad news,” was all
she said as she sat on a chair by the bed.

“Good news, please,” Ginny
replied.

“I got this box of necessary
supplies to survive the rest of the week if we wish to stay. It has
candles, matches, a couple bottles of water and some sort of
protein bars.”

Ginny did not look amused. “And the bad
news...”

“If we leave and head back to
Montego Bay, our chances of getting a hotel room are nil. The
airport is shut down until clean up can be completed and the resort
will not refund any money because it was an act of God.”

“So, there won't be any food
provided?” Ginny wasn't all that disappointed.

“They will have the kitchens up by
tonight, but most of the food will be packaged. This is to get
through today.”

“Well, it seems we have no choice
but to stay here a few more days.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Lisa did not
look amused. “I bumped into some of my new friends in the lobby and
they are planning on having a party in their room tonight. We, of
course, are invited.”

Ginny didn't know if she was up for a night of
“girl” talk. She hadn't slept, she'd barely eaten and now she was
sitting in a hotel room, with no air conditioning and no power. At
the moment, she was a little defeated. “I'll pass. Besides, I have
all these books to read. How will I get by if I don't find out what
happens to the pirate and his new girlfriend?”

“I'm sure this goes without saying,
but next time you totally get to pick where we go!”

Ginny couldn't help laughing at this. Truth
was, she almost always picked and Lisa willingly went along. She
followed Ginny to the pyramids in Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef in
Australia and to Machu Picchu in Peru. Ginny knew she had a great
friend and wouldn't trade her in for anything, even for a better
week in Jamaica!

*
*
*

By the end of the week, Ginny and Lisa were
done with a capital D. Although they still had water in their room,
they had no hot water. They never got the power back in their room,
although the dining room and lobby had power from a generator. It
rained most of the time, so they couldn't sun themselves on the
beach as a consolation.

Ginny spent most of each day, sitting on their
covered balcony, reading her collection of romance novels. Lisa
would often venture out to meet up with her “new” friends and
begged Ginny to come along. Ginny just didn't have the energy after
her food poisoning. Feeling badly about ditching her friend, she
knew she would just be a drag on the group.

When the bus came to pick them up to return
them to Montego Bay, both Ginny and Lisa had to admit that they
couldn't wait. “The potential of a hot shower, along with food that
doesn't scare the crap out of me to eat, makes this homecoming
especially welcome,” Ginny stated the obvious.

“Since reading those books, you
started talking funny,” Lisa commented back.

“Why, Lisa, whatever do you mean?
I'm simply expanding my vocabulary to include a wider range of
words to describe simple things.”

“Whatever. Although I agree with
your current assessment that the situation warrants our immediate
withdrawal,” Lisa said with a smile to show Ginny that years in the
business world could produce a similarly ridiculous
vocabulary.

“Should we leverage our synergies
and be more proactive towards solutions?” Ginny spent a lot of time
with Lisa and read a lot of Dilbert, so she'd learned the business
jargon.