Sisterchicks Say Ooh La La! by Robin Jones Gunn

subconscious place between sleep cycles until Amy stirred in her bed. She padded over to the window, opened the drapes, and gasped. “Lisa, get up. You have to see this.”
    “I can see from here.” I squinted in the daylight that now flooded our room. “What time is it?”
    “Ten o’clock. And it’s a beautiful day in Paris! Come over here.”
    I pulled my glasses off the bedside table and shuffled to the window. “Wow,” I murmured with appreciation for the expansive garden that paralleled our hotel. The green grass and trees stretched as far as we could see from the Louvre to the Concorde. Below our window and across the street were a large Ferris wheel and other amusement park attractions. Behind the wide park rose the immense central train station making a bold statement. To our right in the distance stood the landmark known around the world. The Eiffel Tower.
    “What a view!” Amy said.
    “We didn’t have a view like this from the youth hostel, I’ll tell you that. What I remember the most about the youth hostel was how the common washroom had one long sink like a metal feeding trough. A long pipe ran above the trough. It was peppered with pinholes from which the cold water sprayed out. That was our only way to wash up. We had to go to a public bathhouse to shower.”
    “I don’t imagine the beds were as nice, either,” Amy said. “These beds are great. How did you sleep?”
    I told her about my wacky dream and the part about Johnny Depp. She laughed. “Wait. Don’t make me laugh any more. I have to go to the bathroom.”
    As I stood by the window and took in the view, Amy scooted into the bathroom.
    “No!” Amy suddenly screeched.
    “What? What’s wrong?” I tapped on the closed bathroom door.
    Amy opened it with a drinking glass in her hand. “I am such a doof.”
    “What happened?”
    “I just drank my contact.”
    “Amy!”
    “I know. Don’t say anything. I know.” She walked past me and crawled back into bed, putting the empty glass on the end table.
    “You brought another pair of contact lenses, right?”
    “Yes. Two pairs.”
    “And your glasses?”
    “Of course.”
    “So, relax. I doubt the lens you swallowed will goof up your digestive system. Just drink some of your cranberry extract and psyllium stuff. You brought that, too, didn’t you?”
    “Yes, I brought some psyllium.”
    “See? You’ll be fine.”
    Without looking at me, she pulled the covers up to her chin. “The psyllium is with my other pair of contacts, which are with my glasses.”
    That’s when I knew what she was going to say next.
    “And they’re all together, packed neatly in my suitcase. My suitcase that is roaming around Paris in the trunk of a stolen taxi.”
    “Oh, Amy.”
    “What was I thinking? Those are essential items. I should have put all of them in my purse. I don’t know how to travel! I’m a train wreck, Lisa. A disaster limping from one fiasco to another!”
    “No, you’re not. We’ll work this out. We’ll find an optometrist or have Mark send some of your contacts or something.”
    “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Put in my one surviving contact and walk around viewing Paris with my other eye closed?”
    “We could get an eye patch for you at a pharmacy,” I said, halfway serious.
    “Oh, great! How cute would that look? Can you see me showing up at the house Grandmere wanted me to visit? ‘Hi, I’m Amy the Pirate, and yes, I have been wearing these same clothes for the past four days. But hey, at least you can’t see the bruises on the back of my legs from when I
did
have luggage to haul around.’ ”
    I ignored her ranting and stepped over to the phone.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Calling room service. We need some serious croissants and black coffee in here.”
    “Oh, sure. Try to cheer me up with food.”
    “Hey, I’m starving even if you aren’t.
Bon jour,
” I said, responding to the voice on the phone. “I would like to order some