Even though I was the one who couldn't keep my eyes open last night, Kitty was the one who fell asleep within ten minutes of getting into bed some time after midnight while I tossed and turned for over an hour, and now it's eight o'clock on Monday morning and I'm wide awake while she is still sleeping.

I get out of bed as carefully and quietly as I can and make my way over to the sitting area, opening one of the curtains to look out over the tree- and pool-filled courtyard. It's already a beautiful day, the sky clear and cloudless, and the early birds are taking advantage of the pool, which opens at seven a.m. every day from the start of April until the end of October. I crack a window open and lean my head against the glass, listening to the far-off sound of splashing and chatting from five hundred feet in the air. Vegas is a different beast at this time of day.

I check my socials, scrolling through Instagram for a few minutes and liking Kitty's scheduled post that went up at some point during our travels yesterday. I reply to a handful of comments on my own latest post, a much less curated picture of my reading set up from a few days back when I was under a thick blanket with a coffee in a pumpkin mug, a gingerbread candle, and a mystery book. I have a clutch of regulars, twenty or thirty people who like and comment on everything. Theirs are the names I seek out first, making sure I don't miss anything, and I'm in the middle of replying to @bobbiithebooklover when a text pops up at the top of the screen.

Cohen, M.D. – not how Kitty's mom introduces herself, by the way, but an old joke from our House-watching days. I tap on the message. Some people I don't keep waiting.

Hi Fliss,

I hope everything went well yesterday and you got to Vegas without any hassle! I'm sure you're going to have a great time. I'm also sure I don't need to say this but I know Kitty's in a pretty vulnerable place at the moment, so I just wanted to ask you to keep an eye on her, emotionally. You know her, always trying to put on a brave face. I worry she doesn't let herself feel her feelings sometimes. You probably know her better than I do at this point. Make sure she's okay, will you?

Love to you both,

Sarah x

Kitty's mom is the only person I know who texts as though she's writing an email or a greetings card. Introductions and sign offs and proper punctuation, the whole shebang. She's also the only sixty-something woman I know who's able to text with two thumbs instead of one index finger.

hey sarah! I text back, everything went great yesterday! smooth flight & the hotel is incredible, and we made it to the bellagio fountains last night, so glad kitty dragged me out past my bedtime!! ofc i'll keep an eye on her, dont worry, im on call to handle any and all emotional crises.

Sarah reacts to the message with a heart. Texting her is easy. She's so busy at the hospital, she doesn't have time for much extraneous conversation, catching a couple minutes between meetings. For all the time she spent training to get her medical degree, these days there's very little practicing of medicine and a hell of a lot of administration.

I don't notice Kitty's up until she leans over me and says, "Who you texting?" in a sing-song voice. I jump a fucking mile.

"Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me!"

"You sure about that? I smell no poop."

I roll my eyes at her and lock my phone. "Just your mom," I say, answering her question. "She was checking in, seeing how everything went yesterday."

Kitty throws herself onto the second couch – yes, this suite really has two entire couches – and says, "Did you tell her you freaked out on the plane?"

"And have Dr Cohen think less of me? Absolutely fucking not."

Kitty laughs and throws a cushion at me. "My mom loves you, what're you talking about? She's always going on about what a good friend you are, such a confident young woman, what a nice girl and so pretty too," she says, slipping into a perfect imitation of her mom's proper Boston accent. I throw the cushion back, my cheeks inexplicably warm at being called pretty, even if it's only a secondhand compliment from my best friend's mom.

*

After breakfast at the vast buffet restaurant on the first floor, we change into our bathing suits and head to the enormous outdoor pool complex, and I'm so glad that the Cascade's pools aren't open to the public. Everything is guests only, and though kids are allowed in the hotel, I haven't seen any yet. Schools are in session and I don't know why anyone would bring their kids to Vegas anyway. This is a decidedly adults-only city, in my eyes.

The private cabanas are ridiculously overpriced – who needs a tent by the pool with couches and a TV and a fridge when all of that is upstairs and already paid for? – but the daybeds are first come first served, and it's quiet enough that we have no problem snagging one. There's no need for two: each one is a double bed partly submerged in the shallows so we can sunbathe with our feet in the water. It's heaven. Especially once we each have a frozen margarita in our hand, because being on vacation is all about day drinking, right?

"This is exactly what I need," Kitty says, putting on a pair of hot pink sunglasses that match her bikini. I wish I had her confidence, the ability to wear a two piece bathing suit as a fat woman. I brought a high-waisted bikini with me but that chances that I'll ever wear it are slim to none. Kitty has the figure for it: curvy hips and great tits and a slimmer waist. I'm the opposite. Very middle-centric. An apple shape: no waist to speak of and disproportionately small boobs, all my weight in my stomach and thighs. Intellectually, I know that doesn't exclude me from bikinis – every body is a bikini body, I know, I know – but I just can't. My boldest bathing suit is the one I'm in: a lilac one piece with big white polka dots and a detachable skirt, because I hate having my thighs out.

But there's hardly anyone around us and I want an even tan, so I leave the skirt on the floor when I take my place next to Kitty on the daybed. The sun is pouring down on us like honey, coating us in its golden rays, and if the forecast is right, we're in for two weeks of the same. Bright sun and blue sky, the humidity lowering a little more each day.

"So," Kitty says. I roll my cheek against the waterproof pillow to face her.

"Mmm?"

"Do I get to know the itinerary for this trip or is each day gonna be a surprise?"

Oh my god.

I totally forgot.

Kitty gave me her card and her budget to sort this trip, but Levi was my point of contact for everything. He wanted to surprise her; he was going to do a scavenger hunt in the leadup to the honeymoon for Kitty to figure out everything we planned. Obviously that never happened, so Kitty's in the dark. I have all the power. Thank god I kept all of the emails and receipts, else Levi would be the one pulling the strings. Not that he'd do anything nefarious. He's too nice (and boring) to even think of meddling.

"That depends," I say. "Do you want to know?"

She purses her lips. "I do like surprises," she muses, tapping her sweating margarita glass as she mulls it over. "Maybe, like, a three day forecast? So I know what to expect?"

"Okay." I sit up and take my phone out of my Strand bookstore boat tote, the perfect size for a pool day and evidence of one of my only trips in the last few years, when Kitty and I took the train down to New York for a long weekend. "So, I figured today we'd want to relax and get in some pool time, maybe do a bit of wandering at our own pace. Nothing is booked."

"Perfect. I'm really feeling the pool vibe today." She lies with one knee up, her hands flat at her sides, eyes on the sky. "I was worried at one point that two weeks might be too long to be somewhere like this but it was the right call. We can have plenty of pool time without feeling guilty about not seeing the sights."

"Don't worry, we'll see plenty of sights," I say. Kitty has no idea that this trip involves visiting three more states beside Nevada. "Tomorrow, the only thing that's booked is ... you know what, never mind, that can be canceled," I say, when I see what's on the agenda.

"Hey! No, you can't do that!" She shoots up, almost losing her sunglasses. "What's booked?"

I grimace and show her the phone, the confirmation email on my screen, waiting for her to balk but she laughs.

"Don't cancel it," she says. "It'll be fun. Even if only because it's funny."

"You sure?"

"Come on, Fliss, I'm not that sensitive. I've always wanted to go on a gondola at the Venetian, anyway, so what's the difference if it's marketed as a romantic gondola ride for couples?" She grins at me and lies down again. "It'll be cool."

"Alrighty. Romantic couples' gondola ride it is. I figured we'll probably need a couple hours at least to explore the rest of the Venetian, too, and I thought it'd be cool to wander down the Strip and check out Paris Las Vegas. But the gondola's the only thing set in stone."

"Awesome. How many days have stuff that's set in stone?"

I switch to the color-coded spreadsheet I made to keep track of things that are booked versus things that I thought would be cool. "Um, let's see. So, there's the gondola tomorrow, and a couple days after that we're going on a day trip and I booked dinner at the top of the Strat for the day after. Then we have three days with nothing set in stone, then three tightly planned days where there isn't much wriggle room, and three more loose days. And then home the day after."

I look up from my phone. Kitty's staring at me.

"A day trip?" she asks.

"Yup. On Thursday." It's bold pink on my spreadsheet: booked and can't be moved. Dinner at the Strat is lilac: booked, but negotiable. Paris Las Vegas, along with most things, is cornflower blue: nothing to book, would be cool to check out.

"Where?" Her eyes are alight with curiosity and excitement, and there's a brief moment where I'm so fucking grateful that she realized she had to break it off with Levi six weeks ago, because it took most of that time for her to reach this point, where she has light in her eyes again.

"You really wanna know?"

"Yes. No. Ugh, fuck, I don't know!" She rolls onto her front and props herself up on her elbows, looking up at me over the top of her sunglasses. "I trust you implicitly. I know everything you've arranged is going to be excellent and I can't wait, although I don't want to wish the days away. But I am also curious and impatient. You see my dilemma?"

"I do indeed." I drop my phone into my bag. "Let me make the decision for you: it's gonna be two weeks of surprises. I'll let you know each morning."

"Ugh, now I'm gonna spend the next two days trying to work out where we're going for a day trip."

I put on my best douchebag yogi voice and say, "Don't worry about the future, babe, live in the present – enjoy the sun on your face and the pool at your feet."

"And the drink in my hand." She waggles her margarita at me and takes a loud sip, the blended ice gurgling at the bottom of her plastic glass.

We lounge for an hour, until we're sweating under the blazing October sun and it's time to relinquish our daybed in favor of the lazy river. There are lockers along one wall of the courtyard so we stash our stuff and I attach the key to the strap of my bathing suit, and I get a pool attendant to inflate the pair of boldly colored inner tubes I brought with me. Kitty gets into hers with ease, arms and legs hanging over the sides as she bobs down the eight-hundred-foot-long river. I am not so lucky. I get the angle wrong and end up splashing into the water, the inflatable ring popping out from under me and coming to land on my head.

"Come on, Fliss!" Kitty yells, drifting away from me. I splutter and laugh as I try again and she holds onto the side of the river to wait for me. She almost rolls into the water from laughing so hard at me when I fail again and a pool boy collecting towels takes pity on me, holding it still so I can launch myself into it with a splash.

"Fliss, oh my god, there's a float-up bar," Kitty says when I reach her and she releases her grip on the edge. "We can float right up and get drinks in the lazy river!"

"Perfect," I say, "'cause after that ordeal, I think I am in this thing for the rest of the day."

We float along the entire river twice, getting a feel for the layout of the courtyard – where the bars are, where the wave pool is, where the bathrooms are – and on our third trip, thirty minutes later, we manage to float over to the bar at the edge of the river for a couple more frozen margaritas. Thank god the food is included in the price of the stay because the alcohol alone is probably going to wipe out half of my budget for the next couple weeks. 

*

my favorite part of any water park is the lazy river. i just love to float!