Page 2 of Spring Break Fling

“Oh, please,” Tara said. “I covered breakfast. Someone else’s turn.”

“I’ll pay,” I said. “If I wait for you all to do simple math, I’ll die of thirst.”

“We love you, Hannah,” Maddie said, batting her lashes at me.

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, digging out my wallet.

With the blessedly cold lemonades in hand, we resumed our walk. The frosty drink perked me right up. I was no longer wilting in the sun and the day felt like a vacation again instead of a slog.

“This humidity is killing my hair,” Rachel complained.

Her curls were fighting a beautiful battle today. I always thought her hair looked best when it was all wild and untamed. I envied her curls. My own blonde hair was straight and flat.

“Maybe it’s the universe telling you to wear it down more often,” I suggested, trying to dodge another incoming group of sweaty tourists.

Rachel laughed. “Or maybe it’s just Miami trying to torture me.”

As we walked, Tara spotted a small crowd gathered around a street magician. His quick hands and engaging banter had children and adults oohing and aahing at his tricks. “Let’s check him out!” she exclaimed, pulling us toward the man.

“He wants money,” Rachel said with annoyance.

“Duh.” Maddie laughed. “He’s not out here for his health.”

“He’s trying to make his bills disappear,” I said.

We weaved through the onlookers until we stood at the front of the crowd, just in time to see the magician pull a rabbit out of what appeared to be an empty top hat. The children clapped enthusiastically. Even Rachel’s annoyed expression softened into a smile.

How could you not love a rabbit out of a hat trick? Maybe he’ll find rent money in there next.

The magician began shuffling a deck of cards with a flourish that seemed to defy physics.

“I have to admit, that’s pretty cool,” Rachel conceded.

“Pick a card, any card!” he challenged, looking directly at Maddie.

She played along for the trick, picking a card, showing it to the crowd, and sliding it back in. The magician asked Maddie to lift her foot, and underneath was her card. Everyone went wild and dropped dollars in the hat he was using to collect donations.

I wondered if there was another rabbit in that one. Would it eat the bills like lettuce? Surely, it would nibble the corners at least, just to see if it tasted good.

With that image in my head, we all started walking again. I sipped my lemonade and felt completely relaxed. The trip to Miami had been in the works for months. It was our Spring Break. Even if none of us were in school, except for Maddie who was a teacher, we wanted a Spring Break trip. We’d all been friends since high school and through college, and try as we might, we’d never succeeded at getting a Spring Break trip in the books. Maddie was either traveling with her parents, one of us or all of us couldn’t get time off work, or, more often than not in those days, we were flat broke.

But not this year.

This year we pulled it off, and as I looked around the boardwalk, I realized just how late to the party we were. All in our late twenties, I felt like we stood out amidst the teens and college kids all around us.

Better late than never, I thought.

My eyes scanned the crowd and checked out the many storefronts. The trinkets were endless. That and bikinis.

We passed a tattoo parlor. It was a small, edgy place with a black-and-red sign that read “Inked Up” in bold, gothic letters. The windows were covered in images of skulls, roses, and flames. The blinding sunlight outside made it impossible to see through the tinted glass, making the already edgy place feel a little ominous. One thing was for sure, a place like that was way out of my comfort zone.

“Oh my God, let’s get tattoos!” Tara said, coming to an abrupt halt.

“What?” I asked, nearly choking on my lemonade.

“Tattoos,” she repeated, as if it were the most obvious suggestion in the world. “It’s Spring Break, Miami edition! We have to do something wild.”

“We’re almost thirty,” Maddie said. “Aren’t we a little old for Spring Break regrets?”