There are certain things you expect from a girls’ trip to Italy.
Long lunches. Excellent coffee. Someone buying ceramics she absolutely cannot fit in her suitcase. A group photo that requires seventeen attempts. At least one person announcing that she could “actually live here.”
What you don't expect is to accidentally form a four-woman surveillance unit before 9:30 in the morning.
And yet.
It Started With Breakfast
We had chosen a tiny hotel with one of those terraces that makes you immediately forgive every questionable financial decision involved in getting there.
White tablecloths. Flowers. Espresso. Croissants. Morning sun.
The kind of breakfast where nobody should be discussing anything more serious than whether to order another cappuccino.
I was sitting alone while the others were still upstairs when I heard the woman at the table behind me ask a man:
“Does your wife know?”
Well.
Good morning to me.
I stopped eating.
The man replied:
“Absolutely not.”
Now, technically, this conversation had nothing to do with me.
Emotionally, however, I was already involved.
Then the woman asked:
“And you're sure she won't find out?”
“Not until Saturday.”
That was enough.
I picked up my phone and sent three words to the girls’ group chat:
COME DOWN. NOW.
Girls Understand an Emergency
Three minutes later, everyone was downstairs.
Nobody asked whether I was injured.
Nobody asked whether the hotel was on fire.
They understood from the capitalization that something was happening.
One arrived still wearing hotel slippers.
That is friendship.
We ordered coffee and attempted to behave like four sophisticated women enjoying a peaceful Italian breakfast.
Then the woman behind us asked:
“And where are you keeping her?”
Four heads stopped moving.
My friend whispered:
“Dog.”
I whispered:
“Horse.”
Susan said:
“Mother.”
We all stared at her.
“What?” she said. “You don't know his family.”
Fair.
Then the man said:
“She’s Italian. About sixty years old. Beautiful. Very expensive.”
Breakfast was officially over.
Nobody was eating.
One friend was holding an espresso cup in midair.
Another had somehow moved her chair six inches closer to their table.
Susan was pretending to study the breakfast menu.
Upside down.
And then came the sentence that destroyed us.
The woman asked:
“Does she still have the original legs?”
Excuse me?
At this point, I felt we had earned the right to know.
So I performed the oldest maneuver in the history of female intelligence gathering: I casually turned around as though suddenly fascinated by something behind me.
And there she was.
On his phone.
A table.
A TABLE.
A beautiful, sixty-year-old vintage Italian dining table.
He was buying it as a surprise for his wife's birthday.
There was no scandal.
There was no mysterious Italian woman.
There was furniture.
We had assembled an emergency breakfast committee over antique furniture.
Then We Got Caught
Unfortunately, four grown women are not nearly as discreet as four grown women believe themselves to be.
The man eventually looked directly at us.
“Were you ladies listening?”
Silence.
I lifted my espresso.
“No.”
And took a sip.
There are moments in life when admitting the truth benefits absolutely nobody.
This was one of them.
We stayed another forty minutes.
Apparently, he bought six chairs too.
We needed closure.
This Is Why You Take the Girls’ Trip
Years from now, I probably won't remember what I ordered for breakfast that morning.
I might forget the name of the hotel.
I will absolutely forget which museum we were supposed to visit afterward.
But I will remember three women appearing downstairs within minutes because I wrote COME DOWN. NOW.
I'll remember the hotel slippers.
I'll remember Susan confidently suggesting “Mother.”
I'll remember four intelligent adult women constructing an entire story from six sentences that had absolutely nothing to do with us.
That's the thing about girls’ trips.
You think you're booking them for Italy.
For the restaurants.
For the hotel.
For the beach.
For the beautiful photographs you'll take and the places you'll finally see.
But eventually, the things you remember most are the completely ridiculous moments nobody could have put on the itinerary.
The wrong turn.
The lunch that became dinner.
The thing somebody said in the taxi.
The purchase that required another suitcase.
The stranger whose conversation became everybody's business.
The story that comes home with you.
So take the girls’ trip.
And if someone at the next table starts whispering?
Order another coffee.
You may be there awhile.
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