She was twenty-five. She watched cable television. She’d been in a serious relationship and…and…
And as Brian had walked out the door he’d tossed the accusation over his shoulder. “You’re just too damned conventional in the sack, Jorgina. Men need variety, excitement, danger.”
Danger? Jorgie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe she wasn’t the problem, maybe it was Brian.
And if Brian was the problem, then she didn’t need to be here, right? She just needed to find some guy who could appreciate conventional.
“You know,” she began, turning to her friend. This week, Avery’s hair was dyed the color of muscat grapes—a deep hue of acrid purple. As a hairdresser, Avery changed her hair style and color as often as most people changed clothes. “Maybe this—”
“Oh, no,” said Avery. She wrapped a restraining hand around Jorgie’s wrist. “You are not!”
“Not what?” Jorgie asked, but her voice came out high and squeaky, giving her away.
“You’re not fooling me. I’ve known you too long. You’ve got that I’m-gonna-run-away-from-fun look in your eyes. Same look you had in eighth grade when we played Spin The Bottle at Miley Kinslow’s birthday party and it pointed to the guy you’d been mooning over.”
“Quint Mason,” Jorgie supplied, wondering if he liked conventional girls.
She’d had a puppy-love crush on Quint for the entire school year and he barely knew she existed. If she squeezed her eyes closed tightly enough, she could still see him as he’d looked then—lanky, medium brown hair, a devilish grin that melted tweenaged hearts. Of course as a tenth grader, he’d never given her the time of day and she’d been far too shy to even say boo to him, but she’d been besotted. Jorgie sighed. She’d been getting it wrong with the opposite sex ever since.
Wonder what ever happened to him? Then she remembered something her brother Keith had told her in passing after his ten-year high school reunion the previous fall. He’d heard Quint had been stationed in Afghanistan, but that he’d recently left the air force and was working for some private airline. That did not sound like a conventional guy.
“Yeah.” Avery tapped her temple with an index finger. “Quint Mason. That’s him. This trip is just like that. You have the chance to grab life by the throat and really live.”
“But is an erotic destination vacation really the answer?”
“Look at this.” Avery snatched the Eros brochure from her hand and shook it under her nose. “Look at all the opportunities you’d be running away from.” Her friend flipped through the pages, reading the copy as she went. “Learn the sex secrets every courtesan knew. Find out how to hold men completely in your thrall. Dance the seductive dance that brought kings to their knees. Become an exotic woman of pleasure.”
Embarrassment heated Jorgie’s cheeks. She snatched the brochure back and stuffed it inside her purse. “Shh, someone will hear you.”
Avery shrugged. “So what? I’m not ashamed.”
“There are kids around.”
“Hey, I’m not their mother. It’s not my job to censor their exposure to life.”
“Maybe not, but you don’t have to announce to the entire airport where we’re going.”
“Seriously,” Avery said, “don’t run away. This is your chance to show that dork Brian that you’re anything but conventional. And where does he get off calling you conventional? You two met at an accountants’ conference, for crying out loud. He’s just as conventional as you, or he was before he—”
“But I am conventional.”
“Conventional is as conventional does.”
“Huh?”
“It’s something my grammie says.”
“Your grammie says ‘conventional is as conventional does’?”
“No, she says ‘pretty is as pretty does,’ I just substituted conventional, but the advice still applies.”
“It doesn’t make sense either way.”
“Sure it does. Act pretty and you’ll be pretty. Act conventional and you’ll be conventional. Act unconventional and—”
“I get your drift.”
“So stop having cold feet. Actually, stop thinking. You think too much, Jorgie.”
“And you don’t ever look before you leap, Avery.”
“But I have a lot more fun than you do.”
Jorgie sighed. True enough. “You know this is just a variation of the same conversation we’ve been having for twenty years.”
“I’m the accelerator…” Avery said, starting the quote their mothers spoke over their heads as they’d played in the sandbox together. Avery was the kid who flung herself headfirst down the slide. While Jorgie was the crying girl who hovered on the top rung of the ladder, too scared to climb back down, too fearful to take the plunge.
“And I’m the brake,” Jorgie finished.
“We balance each other out. It’s the secret to our lifelong friendship.” Grinning, Avery slung her arm over Jorgie’s shoulder.
Avery’s grin bolstered her sagging confidence. The truth was, she didn’t know what she’d do without her. Avery had such a life force. Whenever she was around her, Jorgie felt stronger, braver, more adventuresome. What few risks Jorgie had taken were due solely to her best friend’s influence. Avery was like an exuberant leader, barreling her way through life on her magnetic charm and sheer good luck.
“Your turn.” Avery elbowed her forward.
Shoulder muscles tensed tight as a wire, Jorgie stepped up to the kiosk and inserted her credit card. Ready or not, this was going down.
“While you’re doing that,” Avery told her, “I’m going up to the ticket counter.”
“Huh? What for?”
“Never you mind. I’ll be right back.” Avery raised her hand over her head and gave Jorgie a backward wave. She sashayed over to the ticket counter, her low-slung jeans and cropped cotton T-shirt revealing a peek at the vivid ink art decorating her lower spine. Jorgie would never ever have the courage to get a tattoo, but as much as Avery’s audacity shocked her, she also admired it.
The ticket kiosk spit out Jorgie’s boarding pass.
It was confirmed. She and Avery were on their way to Venice to learn how to make love like courtesans. Not that Avery needed sex lessons—the woman kept more men dangling on the string than she could count—but her friend could definitely do with a dose of the courtesans’ famed discretion.
Okay, all right, she would do this. She needed this. It was time she stopped playing it safe. Brian was right. She was too conventional. She could do this as long as she had Avery beside her.
Speaking
