Four friends from summer camp have gathered nearly fifty years later at the beach condo where one has semi-retired.
(What?)
At a fast glance you can still tell who's who.
The weird thing, though, is that the essence of each has remained remarkably constant through the intervening decades.
There's the Cheeky Lass, the Organized One, the Decidedly Not, and the Unflappable Gal.
It's the latter's apartment overlooking the Atlantic.
Despite the fact that her friends have travelled to North Carolina from Charlottesville, Rhode Island and DENVER, it is the hostess that has had to journey the farthest for the reunion. That's because although she coordinated arrivals within minutes at the airport, she got confused between the cities of Charlotte and Raleigh and misdirected her guests. Consequently she had to take a 4 hour trip each way from her balcony to the baggage claim to pick them up.
And then again to drop them off.
Fortunately, she is the perennially good-humored, unruffable one, and was able to laugh at the mistake. (Unlike, say, the Messy One who schlepped 51/2 hours with her carsick/ drugged dog, listening to an awful Audible mystery, very, very nervous the whole ride because her original attempt to map the trip routed her through Sri Lanka.)
It was the first time the quartet had been back together all at the same time since the last big wedding. Everyones' spirits were high, enhanced by more spirits. There was beer, wine and Boxcars (pineapple juice, something, something and double the amount of rum called for). Slurpee sweet it has a major kick and is pretty much the perfect drink.
The Unflappable One even crafted a costume to illustrate the beverage.
When the four women each made charcuteries for dinner, the Messy One's goat cheese looked like a tube of toothpaste threw up on her plate. The sight caused everyone else to grab hold of the counter for support because they were laughing so hard. (Trying to shape it with a kitchen implement did nothing to improve its appearance.) When one of the "friends" asked to take a picture she emphatically demurred.
There were long walks and a water color activity reminiscent of their counselor days, ending in a very impressive exhibition.
On the last evening, after the Organized One completed her nonstop kitchen duty (or as she calls it, her "happy place")
(you should have seen the hospital corners on her campers' beds)
the Cheeky One suggested a viewing of Minx -- a chronicle of the founding of a Playgirl-like magazine. Actually it wasn't a whole episode. Just the montage that takes place at the 20 minute mark of the series' premier.
Google it.
Apparently while studying the shameless array of dare-I-say-it, head shots, the expressions on the Messy One's face were so hilarious, somebody else wet the couch watching her instead of the screen.
The time together was immortalized by a young Swede who, after witnessing a possible cohort of his mother's trying to commemorate their vacation with a stiff-armed-best-angle-capturing selfie, strode over and said, "I can't watch this anymore." He snapped a wonderful picture of enduring friendship.
At a tiki bar.
Comments