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Chapter One: Garden
 I never heard the two tiny tablets being secretly dropped into my drink at a bar on the lake resort island. Nobody could later say they saw who did it, either. So nobody will ever go to jail for it, but not for the reason you might think.
I'll never be the same again, but I'll survive.
I will forever carry inside me a vision of our world's reality and horror that I saw like a movie playing before me. No, with me in it, because I became one of the actors, the props, the scenery. It was terrifying. But this is what the truth really is, once you look beyond all the lies we tell ourselves to get through the day.
"Are you ready?" shouted three of my bright young women friends, while rapping loudly with their knuckles on my apartment door.
"Hold on," I shouted back, rushing around with a towel-turban on my head, a bath towel draped around my dripping torso, and nothing else on my birthday suit.
They were laughing outside—bright, happy, looking forward to a fun evening on the town. They weren't going without me, which made me feel warm and included.
I slipped into my bathrobe and opened the door and said: "Hey!"
They all cheered. "Hey! Come on, Alina! Hurry up!"
They pushed past me into the apartment (actually, a time share that Dori and I were leasing for a week). The others were our friend Sheri and Laurel who joined us for Spring week.
Dori had gone upstairs to bring Sheri and Laurel down to ours from their time share apartment.
"Hold on, you guys," I said laughing. "Can't go in my bathrobe."
"Oh why not?" said outrageous Dori, who was already a little bit lit up with the local wine.
"I'd embarrass you," I said trying to sound logical while we were all being a little crazy already.
"The men are waiting," Sheri (redhead) said.
"What men," her friend Laurel (brunette) scoffed. "Probably a bunch of losers." She didn't know how right she was.
"We need a blue eyed blonde along," said dark-haired Dori.
"Hold on," I said, "I have my dress all laid out on the bed. Help yourselves to some wine from the bar."
"Oh hey, yay," and so forth they all said. That got their attention, and I escaped to do my little bit of makeup and get dressed in the bed and bathroom suite.
Dori and I had managed to get this time share from a mutual friend, a nurse whose husband is a doctor back home at the city medical center. It was a big place, with two bedrooms that shared a full bath. The apartment also included a kitchen, dining room, and living room or den. The den had a large sliding glass door opening onto this fabulous patio, which in turn overlooked a quarter acre yard. That yard, which was carpeted with nicely mown grass, was studded with bushes (rosemary, brush cherry, and more) plus there were fruit trees (apple, plum, peach) buzzing with bees and birds of all types. Not to mention huge monarch butterflies flapping silently around in their ballet from blossom to blossom. The tall wooden privacy fence all around was offset with attractive pear trees and bushes.
When the girls arrived, it was just on the verge of dusk. You could see past the yard, overlooking the broad expanse of that beautiful lake dotted with little sails of all fun colors. The sun just then made a huge floating peach sort of splash on a perfect blue sky on the horizon. It was gorgeous. So peaceful, tranquil, harmonious, you name it.
As I quickly dressed in my dark, flowered, short summer dress, I could hear the other three in the living room. Sheri said: "If I were an artist, I'd sit out there on the patio with watercolors and capture the scene."
"That sunset in the garden is so glorious," Laurel said.
"Not to mention how the lake sparkles like liquid gold and peach melba," Dori added.
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