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Wayne. She put on the brakes. Or tried to, digging
both feet into the sand and pulling back against Kevin’s forward
march.
    It didn’t even slow
Kevin’s progress. So she tried yelling. “Kevin! Stop! Now!”
    He turned to look at
her, bewildered. “What?”
    “You’re dragging me
like I’m a dog...or a two-year-old!”
    “So?” His face was
sober, not a hint of a smile.
    “So stop it!”
    “Can’t,” he said
turning to start walking again. Susan could feel her bare feet
plowing through the hot sand. “If I leave you to your own devices,
we’ll be cooped up in the room the entire two weeks, and you’ll
just lie in that damn bed all day.” He stopped and turned to face
her. “Now what kinda friend would that make me if I let that
happen?”
    “The kind of friend I
ever call back again,” Susan said, waving that off. “The kind who
understands sometimes that’s exactly what a woman needs. To just
lie around and mope for a while.”
    Kevin stared into
Susan’s eyes for a still, thoughtful moment, then smiled. “Nah,
nobody’d wanna do that!” And he turned again to charge across the
beach, dragging her once more.
    “At least tell me
where you’re taking me.” Susan gave up with putting on the
brakes--it wasn’t doing a bit of good. And between the jogging and
trying to pull back on Kevin’s procession, she was getting
winded.
    Kevin stopped, and
Susan fell against his shoulder, staggering to gain her balance
after the abrupt stop.
    “We’re here.”
    Susan leaned over,
gasping for breath, looking around her and not registering the
significance of where they were. All she saw was more beach. It was
nice, but nothing special, certainly not surprising. . “So...where
is ‘here’?”
    He didn’t answer her,
so she looked up to him from her stooped position and saw he was
staring at the sky. She stood up straight and followed his gaze,
searching for what Kevin was looking at, and with a jolt, she found
it. High in the flawless tropical sky floated a bright red
paraglider, a cable running from it down to a gleaming white
speedboat cutting through the ocean froth.
    It looked pretty,
like a kite--but then it hit Susan what Kevin was planning.
    “No way!” she
bellowed as she turned and tried to bolt back up the beach to the
safety of the hotel.
    But Kevin still had
hold of her wrist, and even though he wasn’t squeezing very hard,
it was enough to keep her right where he stood.
    “This isn’t fair!”
she whined, pulling hard, crouching down and pulling to get herself
free with every ounce of her strength. “You outweigh me by a
hundred pounds!”
    “Ninety pounds,
maybe...you’ve gained some the last five years.”
    What an asshole!
Didn’t he know how paranoid she’d been the whole last year about
her weight? Some best friend he was, not even listening to her as
she groused about all the dieting she’d had to do just to fit into
her wedding dress. Just the thought of that dress made her see red,
a volcano of molten anger surged up through her veins. She flopped
on the sand and shoved her feet against the side of Kevin’s leg,
pulling wildly to get free.
    “Let go of me, you
muscle-bound troglodyte!”
    The look on Kevin’s
face as he looked down on Susan was bemused, which made her all the
more enraged. He shrugged and released her wrist, sending her
crashing back into the soft, hot, white sand with a sudden huff of
expelled air.
    Susan lay there,
looking at the big blue sky, the blissful looking paraglider
sailing through the silky air currents with such ease. Kevin
dropped down beside her, stretching out and gazing up with her.
    “I’m afraid of
heights,” Susan said in a flat, trembling voice.
    “I remember.”
    Susan turned her
head. “Then, what the hell?”
    Kevin’s face was
serene, still, and he started smiling that irritating smile again.
“What better way to take your mind off your troubles than to face
your greatest fear?”
    It sounded like it
should be a line in a