by Clare Kauter
“OK,” he said. He paused for a moment before speaking again. “So what did you and Will argue about?”
I sighed. I just wasn’t going to be able to get away from these D&Ms today. There was no point refusing to relay the story – I knew I’d just end up telling him anyway. “He asked why I was angry with you and Celia, so I told him what you said last night and then he took your side so I left.”
“You were expecting him to agree with you, were you?”
“I wasn’t expecting to talk about it at all, but he dragged it out of me. Anyway, he said that I was just angry at Celia because Topher disappeared and I needed to take it out on someone.”
“You don’t think he’s right?”
I didn’t answer for a moment, choosing instead to stare at the ground and try to think of a response. Eventually I shrugged. “I guess he could be.”
“Did you say something offensive to him after that because you were worried he was right?”
I nodded. “Didn’t really faze him, though. Guess he’s used to me by now.”
“How bad?”
“I said his qualifications were bullshit because they came from a TAFE.”
“Ouch,” said James. “That’s a bit rude.”
It kind of was, especially considering I had no qualifications.
“Well, you haven’t talked to him for five years. That’s a bit rude too.”
“You haven’t talked to Celia for five years,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but I had a better reason,” I snapped.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It is!”
“Is not. You and I both know that you just made up a reason to be angry with her because you were jealous that she and I got together.”
“Ew, don’t be gross.” I did not want to think about the possibility that he was right.
He smirked. “Sorry.” By this time, we’d finished our food. “Shall we head to Rift?”
We got back into McKenzie’s car – a black Ferrari, because he liked things ostentatious – and drove to the nightclub. McKenzie had offered to give me a lift so that I might partake in the promised ‘one drink’. (Unlike me, he had his full licence, so he’d be able to drive home after a beer.)
We walked in past Panther and Patty at the front door, and I realised word of this would get back to Tim and Adam within the hour. Oh well. It was work. Kinda.
Instead of heading to the VIP floor like we had last time, James and I stayed downstairs. We waited in line at the main bar and ordered a beer for James and a cider for me (pear Rekorderlig, since it was sweet and syrupy and mostly tasted like cordial). Once we’d obtained our beverages, we scanned the dark room for a free place to sit. There were plenty of booths and tables around, but most of them seemed to be filling with people, um, canoodling.
James leaned in close to me and said into my ear, “This is a bit gross.”
I nodded in agreement. “I can feel my feet sticking to the floor.”
“Should we try to get upstairs?” he asked.
I nodded. Provided it wasn’t a private party or anything, I couldn’t see it being a problem. After all, we knew the owner.
The guards at the base of the steps, however, didn’t seem to agree.
“If you’re not on the guest-list, you’re not going upstairs,” one said. He had a disproportionately small head covered in thick, coarse hair.
“Listen, coconut-head –” I began, but James cut me off.
“Mate,” he said loudly, talking over my insult. “Honestly, if you just ask Lonny or Stacey –”
“Maybe you should have asked ahead of time,” sneered the other guard, a short, greasy guy with tiny, beady eyes. I was working my way up to another insult when I heard from the floor above:
“Charlie! James! Come up!”
It was Stacey. I stuck my tongue out as I passed the guards. Hah! In their faces. Their ridiculous, stupid little faces.
“What are you guys doing here?” Stacey asked. “I thought you hated each other again? You’ve got kind of a rollercoaster relationship.”
“Yeah, it’s like on-again off-again friendship,” James agreed. “But I think we’ll be OK for a little while now.”
As long as he kept buying me hotdogs, I was pretty sure he was right.
“Come with me!” Stacey said. “Lionel’s having a business thing, so Os is here with Jo.”
“Os is Jo’s husband, right?” James whispered to me. I nodded in response. “Right. Should I avoid him?”
“Probably,” I whispered back. “Let’s just say hi, then we can make some excuse to break away from the main group.”
“Like what?” he responded. “Dancing?”
I snorted with laughter. I looked ridiculous enough trying to walk like a normal person. Free-style dancing was a whole other level for me. Without responding, I walked over to join the group. Jo, Os, Stacey, and Lionel. Now me and James too. It was like some sort of weird triple date.
Jo’s eyes widened at the sight of James, but she seemed to pull herself together better than she had last time.
“Hi!” she barked, loudly and emotionlessly. I was impressed.
“Hi, Jo,” I answered.
“Hi,” James said. “How are you?”
“Good!”
She kind of shouted it in his face, but it was still a vast improvement on her usual interactions with McKenzie. I was proud. Os looked stunned, but happy. Our girl was growing up!
“That’s good,” James answered. “And you, Os?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
His answer was a little curt, but he wasn’t openly hostile like he normally was with James. Wow. What a development.
“James,” said Lionel, eyeing him warily.
“Lionel,” James responded, warmly enough.
“What brings you here?”
“I found a dead guy,” I said.
Jo snapped completely out of her stupor at that point.
“Seriously? Oh my god, that’s crazy! Who was it?”
“Are you OK?” Os and Stacey asked in unison.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I don’t know who it was.”
“I suggested that we come here for a drink. Take her mind off things, you know,” said James.
Lionel nodded. Stacey and Os mumbled some more words of comfort. Joanna was having none of this normal social behaviour, although my story seemed to have temporarily shocked her out of her James-induced trance. “Well, you’re hardly going to take your mind off it with a single cider. Go buy a real drink.”
Jo’s version of a ‘real’ drink was a gin and tonic, but I didn’t bother pointing that out. “I’ll get something when I finish this one.”
James looked amused at the exchange. The thing was, I was pretty sure that he and Jo would get along quite well if she didn’t act so strangely around him. Oh well. Maybe someday Jo would get over her weirdness and they’d be buddies. Not any time soon, though. After those two (kind of normal) sentences, she was quickly back to being her weird McKenzie-obsessed self, staring at him unblinkingly.
“That must have been a shock, finding a body,” said Lionel. “Very unlucky.”
Unlucky? Not how I would describe finding a murder victim.
“Could have been worse,” I said. “I only saw the foot, and it was nice and fresh so there was no stench and there weren’t maggots or anything.”
Stacey shuddered. Oswald looked a little green. Jo and James shrugged and nodded in agreement. Lionel didn’t react at all.
“Still, unlucky. I hope you do not get yourself into any more situations like this. You are a nice girl. These things are unpleasant.”
I frowned slightly, trying to figure out what Lionel meant by that. Was he warning me off because he knew I was looking into him? Was his grip of English just a little shaky so it made his messages seem more ominous than they were meant to be? Or was he just a bit of a weirdo?
The exhaustion kind of hit me at that moment and I was aware
of my brain floating around in my skull – mostly because it felt like it was dissolving in its own brain fluid. I didn’t think I was going to last long tonight before I made McKenzie drive me home. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to get through my drink.
The conversation grew weird and stilted again, with Stacey and Os doing most of the talking, and Jo occasionally half-yelling a vaguely relevant word. For example:
Stacey: A car cut me off as I was on my way here.
Os: Argh, that’s one of my pet hates.
Jo: DOGS.
Os: No, pet hates.
Jo: CATS.
Os: What are you talking about, Joanna?
Jo: DOGS HATE CATS.
[Os sighs.]
I took a sip of my cider. Much more conversation like this and maybe I would be able to finish this drink.
There was a sound from behind me – a voice like nails going down a blackboard – and my upper lip involuntarily curled into a snarl as a groan escaped my throat. It was the sound of soul-stealing harpies advancing towards us. I downed the cider in a series of quick gulps.
“Well,” I said, plonking my empty bottle down on the table. “I think I’m ready for another drink.”
“Jay-Jay!” the voices were saying. I could almost hear their talons click-clacking on the floor as they strutted towards us. “Oh my god, fancy seeing you here! How are you? It’s been so long!”
Tanya and Sharna (or as I like to call them, Shartya) were technically two separate people, but although I’d known them almost my whole life, I still couldn’t tell them apart. They shared a personality (or lack thereof) and spoke with the same voice, so in my head I treated them as one person.
They’d moved in the same crowd as James McKenzie at school, but despite their best efforts, they weren’t that close with him. I shot him a look and he pulled his wallet from his pocket, handing me a fifty.
“Do what you’ve gotta do,” he said. “Save yourself.”
I stood and practically ran to the bar, where I ordered a gin and tonic, just as Jo would have recommended. While I was waiting for the bartender to pour it, I turned and looked back at the group. Shartya were draping themselves over James, giggling at everything he said and giving foul looks to my friends when they thought James wasn’t watching. It seemed like maybe they hadn’t got the memo that high school was over.
Pulling up a chair, I sat at the bar to drink my gin. I couldn’t handle the idea of heading back to the main group at that moment. As I was sipping, someone came and sat beside me. I groaned, but as I turned to tell him to piss off, he spoke in a low whisper.
“You need to get away from him. I know what you’re doing and you’re not safe.”
I turned to face him…
And after that, everything gets kind of fuzzy.
Lionel talking to the barman.
The man beside me gone, but me not knowing where he went.
Stumbling over to my group of friends. Shartya saying something along the lines of “Ew, someone’s had a few too many. Gross.”
James McKenzie holding me up and walking me outside, speaking on the phone. “She’s only had two drinks, and she hasn’t taken anything. At least not intentionally.”
Standing on the street, a siren in the distance, James trying to keep me awake and talking.
Then blackness.
Chapter Nine
Foggy and confused, I opened my eyes to find myself staring at James McKenzie’s face, his eyes closed, still asleep.
“Why is it that every time I wake up next to you, I have no idea how I got there?”
I heard a laugh from behind me and turned my head to see who was there. I wasn’t wearing glasses and from that distance my sight wasn’t too crash hot, but I was able to make out the long black head of hair.
Celia.
“I, um, didn’t realise you and James were so close these days.”
“We’re not, it’s just – wait, why are you here? Where am I?”
She hesitated a little, and when she spoke again her voice was a little more serious.
“You’re in hospital,” she explained. “We think your drink was spiked last night.”
“Either that or gin is a whole lot stronger than I thought.” If that was a case, I owed Joanna an apology, and a gin and tonic was a very brave choice of drink.
“Do you remember anything?”
I thought back. “Nothing useful. Everything is stilted. I don’t know how much time I lost.”
“How do you feel?”
I felt like my brain was too big for my skull and might start leaking out my ears.
“I’ve been worse,” I said. “Listen, um, I been wanting to talk to you.”
“You have?” she asked, sounding surprised.
Yes, since yesterday when James made me promise that I would, and Will pointed out that I was a terrible friend.
“Yes. I just wanted to say, um, sorry. For being a bit shit.” I couldn’t see Celia’s face, but she didn’t say anything, so I kept going and hoped I was saying the right things. Apologising wasn’t normally my deal. I was more of the stubborn, never admit your faults kind – in case you hadn’t guessed. “I like – I kind of blamed you for stuff and you didn’t really do anything and I’m sorry.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Celia?”
She paused for a moment before saying, “Are you high?”
“What? No!”
“So this is you speaking and not whatever someone slipped in your drink?”
“Yes!” I answered indignantly, though I understood where she was coming from.
“Wow,” she said finally. “You must really have the hots for James if he managed to convince you to apologise to me.”
“How dare you?” I answered, but without any real fire behind my words. She’d always teased me like that – she didn’t really think I was in love with James. I hoped.
“So, um, are we good?” I asked.
“We’re good,” she answered. “As long as you call that Adam guy off. His burns were intense.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. If it’s any consolation, he’s like that to everyone.”
“Lucky he’s hot.”
“Lucky who’s hot?” James asked, stirring beside me.
“Not you, sunshine,” I answered. “By the way, why are you in my hospital bed?”
“I was tired,” he mumbled, then seemed to realise what was happening. “Charlie! Oh, thank god.”
He pulled me into a tight hug and pressed a kiss on my forehead.
“He stayed up all night waiting for the doctors to tell him if you were going to be OK, and then waiting for you to wake up. Eventually he was being so annoying that I just sent him to bed,” said Celia. Well, that sounded cosy. I bit down the anger that had begun to surface at the idea of Celia and James hanging out together like old chums.
The door to my room burst open and in stormed Will McKenzie. He took in the scene around him, looking from Celia, sitting at my beside, to James, sitting next to me in bed, still with his arms around me, and raised his eyebrows.
“I’m using this opportunity to reconnect with all the friends I’ve driven away over the years,” I said.
Will smirked at that. “You OK?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good.” Will suddenly looked a bit awkward, and I realised that he and James hadn’t been in a room together for this long in five years. “Um, anyway, I’ll leave you guys to it.”
He turned to leave and I shot James a look. He frowned and shrugged. I looked pointedly at Will.
What? James mouthed, releasing me from the hug.
I jerked my head towards Celia. If I’d apologised to Celia, James couldn’t just kick Will out. James sighed.
“Um, Will?” said James. Will turned to look at him. “You don’t have to go. I know you and Charlie are close and everything.”
Will’s eyes widened slightly (I think – again, I didn’t have my glasses on, but I’d known Will lon
g enough to guess the facial expression that would accompany his words). “I – um – thanks.”
He walked over and took a seat next to Celia, and we all sat in awkward silence for a moment. It was a weird combination of people to have by my hospital bed, for sure.
“James?” I began.
“Yes?”
“Did you tell anyone I work with that I was here?”
He nodded. “Tim was here last night. Once the doctors said you were going to be OK, though, he left because he had to fly to Sydney for a work thing.”
Huh. Nice of him to say goodbye.
“And Adam?”
“Yeah, I told him too. He sent me to this hospital and called in some favours so that you’d have the best doctors.”
“He didn’t come himself?”
James frowned suspiciously. “Did you expect him to?”
I shrugged. “I figured he’d want to check that this wasn’t an elaborate plan to call in sick and get out of my morning jog.”
James smiled, then continued more seriously. “He couldn’t get away. Had to stay at the conference.”
Right. He was all caught up spying on Lionel – who wasn’t at the conference at all, but at the nightclub where I’d been?
“But, um, I thought that the conference wasn’t, uh, on last night.”
James rolled his eyes. “You’re really shit at talking in code.”
“Well, sor-ree,” I said. “You started it.”
“Are you talking about Stacey’s creepy boyfriend?” Celia asked.
“Yeah,” said James and I in unison.
“Stacey always has creepy boyfriends,” said Will.
“This one kind of takes the cake,” I said. “I think he murders people.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Like, I’m quite sure.”
“Jeez.”
“Yeah. Anyway, what was Adam doing?”
James looked like he wasn’t sure he should be telling us, but eventually he caved. “Setting up equipment in the rooms Lionel and his employees will be staying in.”
“Equipment?” asked Celia.
“You mean like bugs and cameras and stuff?” I asked.
James nodded.
Right. Adam was busy.
“How about our families?” I asked. “Did you tell them?”
James shook his head. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want them to know. They might get a bit worried, you know.”
