Before the Fall
Sarah Waddell
Word Count 458
The runway wasn’t longer than half a mile, and we didn’t even see it until the plane was skimming the very green treetops. We were traveling from Barbados to Mustique in a caravan of very tiny prop planes. My husband, myself, and three of my children were in the first, my oldest son and my best friend, who was also my stylist, along with my husband’s trainer, sat in the second, and in the third were my husband’s two adult children and his assistant.
I was very, very rich. This alone provided me with an exceedingly false sense of well-being. I had far too much money to spend, let alone die, on this tiny obsidian airstrip, overgrown with bougainvillea and frangipani and palm trees.
Unlike other places I’d traveled through in the Caribbean, there was no poverty. No reminder of how much you had and how much of nothing else everyone else did. There were only 100 villas on the island, and my husband had rented an eight bedroom aptly called the Beach House, to the tune of 80K a week. It had a sixty-foot swimming pool overlooking both the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans; we had a staff of five and a French chef.
Upon arrival, my best friend quickly secured a cocaine connection, and we got that party started. It was as though we’d packed up our city apartment, Pratesi linens, Hermes china, and our very vintage Ralph Lauren beach house. So we did what we did in the city, we did what we did in Wainscot or in Palm Beach, my best friend and I made drinks, got high, and played with my children by the pool. It was incredibly beautiful. Everything sea green and turquoise, the word “azure” came to mind. My husband worked out with his trainer. I should be so happy, I thought. That evening the chef prepared a dinner of salad and fresh vegetables from the garden, and Caribbean lobster, grilled red snapper, and rosemary chicken. There were coconut chicken tenders for my children. Mountains of homemade ice cream for dessert. Before sitting down, my best friend and I locked ourselves into my dressing room to get ready. We drank Moet and Chandon and blew lines while she blew my hair straight, the way my husband preferred. I wore a newly acquired Liza Blue dress that was all but transparent and seemed to be made of tissue paper. I guess we had been talking and some time had passed because suddenly my husband was knocking on the door rather insistently. Not knowing what else to do, because it seemed like an option, I jumped out of the window. I landed in sand ten feet below, surely, I thought, I must be happy.
Sarah is a writer. She lives in Woodstock N.Y.