Page 79 of Big & Lily

“Cravings? What? You’ve known you’re pregnant for a few hours.”

“I’ve got to make up for lost time.”

“It’s going to be a long pregnancy,” I groan. But I am delighted, and I’ll go to the ends of the earth to find butter pecan ice cream and pickles and sardines and whatever else strikes my sister’s fancy.

Luna shakes her head. “A hoot.”

Jace starts the van engine. Probably a predetermined signal to Brick to move on. They likely have another group coming in soon and will want some much-earned downtime. The men, including Zave, shake our guide’s hand and slap him on the back. Luna and Mimi hold their palms together at their chests. “Trip of a lifetime,” says Mimi, which makes Luna and me cry a little.

“Come back and see us again,” Brick says. “Same goes for you,” he says to me.

“Well, I have a feeling I’m going to be pretty busy making Baskin-Robbins runs.”

“Yes, you are embarking on a different kind of wilderness experience.”

“At least this one is on territory I’m familiar with.”

“Ha, yes,” he says. “Now it’s your turn to be the adventure guide.”

“I think I’ll let some people find their own way. I’ll be in the back to grab anyone who wanders too close to the edge of a cliff.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Brick left us with one last kindness, a golf cart with ?a uniformed Jerry Garcia–looking driver behind with wheel. “He called ahead,” Jerry says as he puts our luggage in the back and then waits while we check our bags before dropping us at security. “There’s a wheelchair for you after you get through.”

Lily seems delighted to see me rolled through the airport like Miss Havisham. Or maybe she’s just delighted in general. She hasn’t stopped smiling since the emergency room. My sister piles our carry-on bags and pocketbooks and the crutches onto my lap and, despite her wrist injury and her bruised ribs and the cut on her forehead, practically skips to the gate, first convincing our wheelchair attendant, Susie, to stop for an ice cream and then at a gift shop where she grabs an armful of stuffed animals—a moose, two bears, a husky, and an otter.

“For You-Know-Who,” she whispers.

“Give the rest of us a chance.” I laugh. You-Know-Who is going to be showered with gifts if I have anything to say about it.

At the gate, Susie waits with us until they call, “All passengers needing help boarding.” That is most certainly me. “Silver lining,” I say weakly, starting to miss Susie and this chair already, knowing that getting to my seat with crutches is going to be a spectacle. As they scan our boarding passes, the woman at the counter holds up one hand, a universal stop-where-you-are signal, made even moreconcerning in an airport with its constant heightened security. Can we just have one day on this trip without incident?

“Ms. Ackerman,” she says to Lily. “We called your name earlier.”

“Lily?” I say, more as an accusation than a question.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“We’ve been looking for you,” says the woman. “To offer you an upgrade. First class is available for your flight to Newark today. We were just about to call the next passenger, but you’re here just in time.”

Of course Lily is getting upgraded. I almost forgot who I was with. Fine, whatever. As long as I get the bag with the neck pillow and the acupressure eye mask and the hydrating face mist. My sister flips her hair and flaps her good wrist at the woman. “Isn’t that sweet. Boy, I’ve had a long day, they’d have to delay the flight for me to tell you the whole story, but I could sure use some pampering right about now.”

“Okay, ma’am. Let me just change your boarding pass here.”

“But,” Lily continues, “unless you have an open seat for Bridget, I think I’ll pass. You see, my sister needs me.” Then she turns to me with a wide smile. “Besides, I can’t drink the champagne anyway.”

“And there she is, ladies and gentlemen.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Here, give me those bags and grab your crutches, Hopalong Cassidy.”

Grateful and relieved that I won’t have to manage on my own for six hours, I follow Lily down the aisle, stumbling along, nearly taking a header into a well-coifed, cruise-tanned, older woman’s lap after getting my crutch caught up under her seat. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I mumble, feeling the sweat on my lip. This is harder than climbing a mountain. Ahead of me, my sister is popping into every empty row, grabbing sick bags. She’s got a stack of them by the time we find our seats.

“Wow, okay. Ye of little faith. I don’t think I’ll need all those. I’ve gotten pretty good with the motion sickness this week. And I still have Mimi’s pills in a pinch. But thanks for thinking of me, hon.”

“These are for me,” Lily says, plopping herself down hard in the middle seat, saving the aisle for me and my bad leg, another first.

“For you? For what?”