Don't You Forget About Me

When I was a senior in high school, one of the kids in our class organized a spring break trip to Bermuda. I don't know what my parents were thinking but they agreed I could go. I distinctly remember the cost being $510.00 for a full week at the Elbow Beach Hotel. I got my first part-time job as a bank teller to pay for the trip. My boyfriend of two years was already in college but he and most of my best friends' boyfriends also arranged to come with us.

Come April, we boarded a charter flight and headed to what is still one of the best vacations of my life. We ended up in a little two-room suite cabana overlooking the beautiful beach below. Unbeknownst to any of our parents, our room ended up with me, my boyfriend, Stephen, my best friend, Chris, her boyfriend, Pat, my friend Sue, and her boyfriend, Chris. We also had Joe, Chuck, Shelly, Jen, Sean, and half our senior class coming and going as they pleased. Some more than others.

It was an amazing vacation in a fabulous place. We rented mopeds and explored the island. I remember swimming out to dance on a reef to the music of The Bermuda Strollers reggae band as they played on our beach. I remember the tropical fish swimming along the reef that could put Nemo and his friends to shame.

Some nights, we would sit in the piano bar singing along to standards with Sid, the elderly British piano player. And we would drink rum swizzles and mai tais. We would travel between groups of friends, exploring, talking, laughing, and drinking. With this our first shot at legal drinking (18 in Bermuda), you can bet we over-indulged but for the most part, we never got too crazy or did anything too dangerous.

Except for one classmate, Frank, whom everyone had completely lost track of. There were occasional Frank sightings assuring us that he was, in fact, not dead. During one evening's wandering, there was one such siting - as Frank was being thrown out of some girls' room. He could be heard asking "How can I love you if you won't lie down?" And then he was gone. Like Bigfoot.

Fast forward hours or days and Stephen and I find ourselves sound asleep on the pull-out couch in the middle of the night. I awake from a strange dream in which Stephen was sleeping on both sides of me. As I step out of the ether, I realize that there are indeed two people in bed with me. It was Frank! (Near as we can figure, none of us locked the door and Frank, in an attempt to locate home base, had stumbled into our room, found a cozy bed, and snuggled in.) I smack Stephen awake and tell him Frank is in bed with us! Mostly asleep, he opens one eye, says "oh, it's just Frank" and attempts to go back to sleep. Um. No. He's gotta go.

He rouses and agrees to remove our 'guest' from our bed. Frank is not a small guy and he's dead weight so Stephen enlists a sleeping Patrick from the next room. Eventually, they move him out to our patio and throw him across a lounge chair, where he happily spent the remainder of night. We think.

We returned home from Bermuda with only one serious injury (Jen, broken arm - moped accident), nobody pregnant, and our parents none the wiser.