The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand Read Free Book Online Page B

tour guide, she congratulated herself on her fine decision. What if she had
missed
this?
    As they waited for the elevator that would take them back up to the top of the Dam, Greg whispered in Delilah’s ear, “I should have brought a joint.”
    Delilah giggled, less out of amusement than out of a sense of conspiracy, because she and Greg were the only two of the group who smoked dope, much to the dismay of their respective spouses.
    Jeffrey looked at Delilah sharply—the tour guide was in the middle of a discourse on the WPA—and Delilah felt bonded to Greg even more. They were the bad teenagers disrupting class. Hadn’t it always been that way when Delilah was growing up? She had led boys astray or she had let them lead her astray; she was always pushing the envelope, forever getting into trouble.
    They stopped for a late lunch at a roadhouse on the way back to Vegas, and Delilah and Greg polished off three Coronas apiece and started telling stories about the sexual mishaps of their younger years. They laughed like fools, spurting beer all over the table, while the Chief looked on with mild indulgence (sex wasn’t against the law, after all) and Jeffrey glowered.
    “Why don’t you guys tell stories?” Delilah asked.
    They were embarrassed by the question, and Delilah knew why. It was Andrea, the woman they’d shared. The Chief would not tell any stories about other women for fear of disrespecting Andrea in front of Jeffrey. Jeffrey, Delilah knew, had only slept with two women, herself and Andrea, and that sewed that up pretty tight. It was not funny to tell stories about his own wife, nor about the wife of someone else at the table.
    Jeffrey motioned for the check; Delilah excused herself for the bathroom.

    Twenty minutes beyond the roadhouse, Delilah had to pee again.
    “You just went,” Jeffrey snapped.
    Delilah had read somewhere that the human bladder could expand to the size of a grapefruit; hers was a basketball, a wobbly and distended water balloon. She had to go
now,
she was seconds away from letting the stream go, hot and grateful, all over the backseat of the rental car. She intoned as much.
    The Chief pulled over and Delilah climbed out of the Mustang without using the door. She crouched behind the exhaust pipe and lifted her prairie skirt. Her flow ran in rivulets over the hard red dirt. Jeffrey held his forehead in his hand; he couldn’t believe she was doing this, even though it was the kind of thing she was always doing. She climbed back into the car, grinning.
    “Okay,” she said. “Ready to go.”
    Delilah leaned her head back against the seat, catching the last angled rays of sun on her face. She was happy. The afternoon she went to see the Hoover Dam remained one of the singular afternoons of her life.
----

    Greg and the Chief and Andrea got up early and walked to New York New York for Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Addison and Tess and Delilah went to the Bellagio to see the impressionist collection. Andrea and Addison and Delilah and Greg were addicted to the slot machines; they each walked around carrying a plastic cup of quarters and would stop to play when someone else in the group went to the bathroom. In the MGM Grand, Addison hit it big. The coins splashed down. He won seventeen hundred dollars. Everyone else groaned. Of all of them, Addison needed the money the least! He seemed abashed by the win; he pinkened all the way over his bald pate—or maybe he’d gotten too much sun by the pool with Phoebe.
    I’ll buy dinner!
he said.
Wherever you want to go!
    They all agreed this was a wonderful idea, despite the rule of no gifts.
    They went to Le Cirque, because they had all heard of it—even the Chief, who claimed to know nothing about the finer things in life. Addison had actually been to the original Le Cirque in New York with his first wife. (She had gone to boarding school with one of Sirio Maccioni’s sons.) Phoebe complained that it was no fun to be the second wife and lead the