Thin Girls Don't Eat Cake
Page 17
“No, but she’ll be pegged as utterly bonkers by dinner tomorrow. Everyone heard you and people talk in this town. They love nothing more than to make a small story bigger.”
“You can’t tell her it was me. If you say one word, I swear, I’ll never save you again.”
I put a finger to my lips. “Hmm. Weighing up if it’s worth it. Might be more fun to see you suffer. I mean, you must have known I thought you were married and you said nothing.”
“I didn’t know. I thought you were nervy. You kept jumping around. I wondered if you had some sort of emotional thing going on.” He gave me another look. “That didn’t come out exactly how I meant it to either, did it?”
“Not exactly. You seem to be as good at putting your foot in it as I am at tripping over mine. And I’m still telling Adelaide.”
Walking around to the driver’s side of the car, Cole pulled the keys from his pocket and flicked the remote to unlock the door. “So much for friendship. Next time I’ll leave you to Gerry.”
“Us girls have to stick together.”
He opened the door. “Need a lift?”
“I was intending to walk, now I can, but that’d be nice. Thanks.”
It would have been nicer, too, if he’d kissed me but there was no point getting ahead of myself. He’d only just become un-married, after all. I hopped into the car beside him, pulling the seatbelt across my chest and clipping it in. As I did so, my phone chirruped, announcing a text. I slid it from my pocket, glancing at the screen.
“Crap.”
“What?”
I waggled the phone in Cole’s direction. “Gerry.”
“Already? He’s keen. You only left him ten minutes ago.”
I opened the message. I felt my eyes bulging, reaching the dangerous level where they might pop from my head. “And clearly, that was enough time for him to — Oh my God. I can’t look. I’m seriously traumatised.”
Yet despite myself, that was what I was doing because there in all its glory was a close up picture of Gerry’s erection above a caption that read,
“That is possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen at close range.”
Cole leant over to look at the photo. “Man. That’s one lovesick dude. I’d say you’re in there.”
“Cole!”
“It’s not every day a bloke sends a dick pic to a girl. You should feel honoured.”
“I’m not honoured, I’m appalled. And if I’d ever had any intention of going on an actual date with that fool — which I didn’t — it wouldn’t be happening now, let alone sleeping with him.”
“Which is good.”
Apart from the obvious I had to ask why.
“If you slept with him, I’d never be able to have sex with you because I’m pretty sure you’d be forever comparing us and finding me not up to it.”
Before I could register the thought that we might even be having sex some day the phone chirruped again. I looked at the screen. A groan of disgust escaped my lips.
“Allow me.” Cole grabbed the phone and began to type.
Quickly, he pressed send, shooting the message into cyber space.
“Cole.” I squealed again, snatching the phone back. “You can’t say that. He’ll think I’m interested.”
Chirrup.
“See. Now what am I going to do?”
Cole began to laugh. He laughed so hard tears welled in the corners of his eyes. “I’ll fix it.”
“Like you did a minute ago? No, thank you.”
“Trust me.” He took the phone from my hand.
Swoosh. The message was sent.
“There. Problem solved.”
“Yes, but now we have a bigger one. Well, apart from the fact that the entire town is going to think you’re some sort of sadistic sexual deviant after Gerry starts spreading the word.”
“Which is?”
“Now I’m not sleeping with Gerry, I have to sleep with you.”
Sometimes I even astounded myself with my verbal dementia. Why would I have said that? Well, other than that I wanted to sleep with him.
Cole nodded slowly as if taking it in. “You’re absolutely right. Should we go straight to my place and get it over with?”
“I guess so. Are you hairless like Gerry? I don’t know if I can go there if you haven’t kept up with your manscaping.”
“Hmm. You could close your eyes and pretend.”
Our banter was interrupted by another chirrup.
“Oh no. No, no and no.” I read the message out loud.
“Enough.” Cole grabbed the phone.
I smirked. Right. Well, that was sorted then.
*****
By the time Cole got home somewhere around 2am, he was knackered, but not because of the hard week of work he’d done. He’d spent the remainder of the evening on the couch next to Olivia, trying to keep his hands to himself — God knows why. That damn tinkling laugh of hers, the one that made parts of him spring to life like he was a bloody thirteen year old hadn’t helped his cause. Neither had the couple of glasses of red wine nor three episodes of Game of Thrones she’d made him watch. Geez, if he’d known that show had so many naked women in it he would have started watching it sooner, just not when Olivia was present. He had to admit it was a weird feeling sitting there with her watching those women cavorting across the screen when all he wanted to do was to touch the girl beside him. Everywhere. And a lot. But the weirder thing was the fact that he hadn’t acted on the impulse. His hands had stayed firmly in his pockets or glued to his glass. Because for some reason Cole decided he should behave like a perfect gentleman, sensing that maybe Olivia might appreciate that more. He had the feeling her love life hadn’t been all that great in recent times and she needed a little TLC. It had been hard though. Damn hard.
The evening had ended with them swapping numbers and making a date to go jogging on Sunday morning followed by breakfast at the bistro. It wasn’t the usual way Cole began relationships — not that he’d had a great deal of practice over the past fifteen years — but then Olivia wasn’t your usual type of girl. She didn’t seem to care that she’d be sitting opposite him looking sweaty whilst eating poached eggs. And he liked that idea.
As Cole stepped out of his jeans and kicked them into the corner of the room he used as a laundry basket, his phone, lying on top of the bed, lit up. He picked it up and flopped onto the bed to read the message.
So she was initiating contact after he’d made the first move was she? He liked that sort of confidence in a woman. He couldn’t abide those chicks that sat about waiting for the bloke to call. This was the twenty first century.
He began to type.
He thought about the answer for a second and decided the truth was a good thing. Why beat around the bush?
There was a brief pause before his phone pinged again.
This was promising. She wasn’t balking at his attempts at intimacy now, though being able to admit such a thing to his face was another matter. It might be that she’d give him the run around, make him do the chasing. Cole didn’t mind if she did. Chasing was part of the fun.
His phone pinged again.
Cole chuckled as he typed his reply and sent it off with a whoosh.
Cole put down his phone and waited for a reply. This texting thing made conversation so much easier. Plus, he could do it while wearing nothing but his boxers. It was a win-win situation. After a bit, his phone announced another message.
The screen went dark for a minute.
As Cole put the phone down on the bed and stood to go into the bathroom, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The reflection that looked back at him was grinning like a girl, something he hadn’t seen a long time. And Cole decided he liked it.
Chapter 20
Alice’s eyes were blazing with an anger that was almost scary. A whirling dervish, rivalling the Tasmanian Devil cartoon character, she was flinging items of clothing into an open suitcase on the bed without stopping to see what it was she was tossing or where it was landing. The frenzy meant, of course, that I was doing a fair amount of ducking and weaving to avoid trainers, underwear, a bikini — though why one would need that in September was beyond me — plus various other articles of clothing. I was also folding. Fast. Alice would have kittens in the morning after she calmed down and opened that bag, discovering everything in a higgledy-piggledy mess. And my best friend didn’t need to be having kittens. Not now or ever.
It was four days before Alice and Jed’s anniversary and for the second night in a row, I had been comforting an increasingly distressed Alice while Jed was M.I.A. This time was way worse than any of the others in the last month or so, though. On a scale of one to insane, Alice had reached manic, which was only slightly below murderous from where I stood. One more flying shoe and I was going out to the kitchen to hide the knives.
The evening had taken a turn for the worse after Alice had received a phone call from a woman asking for Jed. Not recognising the voice, Alice had enquired who was calling at which the woman had hung up, leaving Alice so distraught she’d almost dropped the phone into the bath where Ethan was merrily splashing away. Luckily, I’d been on hand to catch it.
Or maybe not so luckily. The ranting that had ensued was approaching epic and though I loved Alice, it was hurting my ears. Even her cat had made an escape through the cat flap to escape the din.
“I’m going to kill him. Dirty, stinking, cheating arsehole. I’m going to cut off his balls with a steak knife and then I’m going to kill him.” Alice raced out the door into Ethan’s room returning with her arms filled with nappies and baby clothes which she shoved into a shopping tote beside the suitcase. “If he thinks his skanky girlfriend can ring the house and ask for him, he has another thing coming. Who does he think he is? Hugh Hefner? And more to the point what sort of cheek does she have?”
I pulled a balled jumper from the suitcase, folded it and put it back in. “It could be a mistake. Please don’t jump the gun, Al.”
The look I was given in return was one that could freeze water.
“And you’re so totally qualified to give marriage advice, are you? You can’t even keep a boyfriend.”
Okay. So this was serious. Alice and I never traded anything other than positiveness in regard to each other’s problems. Even when Alice broke her leg before the Miss Bulldogs finale, I had managed to spin it so she could ham up the disaster in the talent portion of the competition. Not an easy thing when your talent is tap dancing. Alice had won the pageant, of course. She would have won whilst wearing a full body cast.
I moved from the side of the bed, taking the remaining baby clothes from Alice’s arms and putting them on the doona. Wrapping my arms around my friend, I felt Alice’s body sag, then the shuddering as she began to cry.
“I’m sorry, Livvy. I didn’t mean to say that. Truly I didn’t.”
I squeezed her tighter. “I know. We always take our pain out on the ones we love, don’t we?”
We hugged for a moment more, until Alice pulled away, wiping her eyes and giving a loud sniff. “And the one I love the most isn’t even here. Which could be a good thing. I have a lot of pain I’d like to inflict.” She began to wail again. “I hate him. I hate him more than Brussels’ Sprouts.”
“I think that’s highly unlikely. Don’t you remember that time at camp when you threw up in your jumper because Mr Simons said you couldn’t leave the table until you’d eaten every single one on your plate?”
“He was such an old bastard. Bit like Jed.”
“Jed’s not a bastard. There’s a perfectly good explanation for this. I know there is.”
“Yes. My husband is bonking another woman, that’s the explanation.” Alice yanked the zip on the suitcase so hard it almost broke. “Where am I going to go? Mum’s already told me there’s no room for us at her place. She thinks I’m overreacting. You expect she’d be more supportive at a time like this but the only person she cares about is Lisa. She’s always been the favourite.”
There’d always been a degree of tension between the siblings in Alice’s family. Alice, being the oldest, had often felt her younger sister was treated differently. Her parents never gushed over her the way they did with Lisa, no matter what Alice did.
“Stay at my place in the spare room. It’s big enough for both of you. We can set up the port-a-cot for Ethan.”
“Can I?”
“That’s what guest rooms are for, right? And if you stay for a few days, we’ll be able to watch the rest of Grey’s Anatomy without interruption. I’ll get the DVDs from the lounge on our way out.”
Alice gave a small smile. “Thanks.”
I hoisted the suitcase from the bed, my knees almost buckling under the weight. Starting for the door, Alice following behind me, Ethan in one arm and the massive bag of nappies — and lord knows what else — in the other.
“There is one condition though,” I said.
Alice stopped. “What?”
“If that crazy Gerry turns up, you have to hit him over the head with the frying pan.”
“It’ll be my pleasure. Might as well get some use out of it.”
“Very funny.”
Alice switched off the bedroom light. “Anything else?”
“Yes. If Jed comes round, I don’t want any blood on my carpet. It’s a bugger to get out.”
“Fine. I’ll stab him in the hallway, then.”
*****
After Ethan had been settled for the night in his temporary bedroom and Alice had opened her suitcase to find everything neatly folded and packed, she and I had sat on the couch with a bottle of vodka and a block of chocolate.
“I know, I know,” I said, holding up a hand to silence Alice before she could comment. “This is going to break every diet rule I’ve set for myself but extenuating ci
rcumstances are at play here. Emotional binge eating and drinking is absolutely necessary.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.” Alice leant forward filling our glasses with vodka and lemonade, though it looked more like straight vodka to me. Her hand was shaking as she poured. “I think you’re doing marvellously well, by the way.”
“I can fit into my old jeans again. The ones I used to wear when I left Perth. And I went jogging this morning for the third time this week. I haven’t done that in years.”
“I’m so proud of you. I told you, you could do it.”
“I was sceptical though. I guess it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. Now I can see the changes happening, I’m more motivated than ever to stick with it.”
“Good for you. Imagine how good you’re going to look by Christmas.” Alice’s lip began to wobble. She picked up her drink, downing it in one go and refilling the glass.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Christmas. What am I going to do about Christmas?”
“Christmas isn’t for a couple of months. It’ll be forgotten by then.”
“You don’t know that.” A tear slid down her cheek.
I picked up the tissue box, which I’d grabbed on way from the bathroom in case, and handed it to Alice. I hated tears in any form but when Alice, always perky, fun-loving Alice cried, it made me want to cry too. The entire world knew what a big deal she made of Christmas — the family at her house, the traditional dinner, even if it was forty-two degrees outside, the colour co-ordinated outfits that looked perfect in photos, the obligatory uncle dressed as Santa. If Jed weren’t around her perfect Christmas would be ruined.
“My strategy’s always been to worry about it when it happens. There’s no point getting het up over something that might not come to pass.”
A snort came from Alice’s nose as she blew. “I suppose so. But I’m not sharing my child at Christmas. I won’t. Jed can get stuffed if he thinks I’m letting Ethan go off with him and his floozy for the day and be spoilt rotten. He’s my baby.”
“Like I said, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Keep telling me that, will you? If you keep saying it, I might start to believe it.”