Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 1, Issue 3

by David Foster

  ‘It’s spelled R-I-C-H.’

  Chelsea folded her arms over her perky, expensive breasts and scrunched her mouth over to one side in a paltry attempt to disguise a smile.

  ‘You’re an asshole, do you know that? I like this guy! And all yo-’

  Abby laughed heartily, throwing her head back to allow more room for her jaw to fall and the laughter to barrel out. Chelsea was the most blunt, judgemental person she knew, and yet she could never, ever hack it when it was given back to her. Even when it was sprinkled on jovially, like cute, teasy icing sugar.

  ‘With all due respect for the man who is of course your soulmate, how can you know you really like him when the extent of your interaction with him was a minor car accident?’

  ‘We sparked! It felt very meant-to-be-ish. Anyway, you wait and see. After dinner tonight I’ll prove it.’

  ‘Prove what? That he’s rich? I guess if you can steal his platinum Am Ex, sure…’

  Chelsea shook her head and checked her Blackberry for the 689th time.

  ‘What’d you do on the weekend anyway?’ she said, changing the topic as she deleted one of the daily many newsletters she received. She opted-in impulsively and was too lazy to work out how to unsubscribe. It was textbook Chelsea. Want, need, race in; lose interest.

  ‘Had that bloody gala thing. Ended up going out with some of the girls afterwards to that new place, Deluxe, and getting absolutely trolleyed on tequila. And then hooked up with a very, very, very hot and preposterously young boy. Looks a bit like one of those gorgeous boys in the Burberry ads, all olive skin and brown eyes and longish hair and that perfect amount of facial hair. In all it was a very professional, grown-up evening.’

  ‘How young? Like, 18?’

  ‘No, you sicko… 25.’ Abby looked down.

  ‘How. Old.’

  ‘22.’

  ‘WHO’S the sicko?? Twenty-two! Was he wearing a nappy?’

  ‘Oh, you’re an idiot. Twenty-two is an adult! God knows what I was up to at 22, but I wasn’t a child. I knew what I was doing.’

  ‘You were being dull as shit with Mr Boring. That’s what you were doing.’

  Abby’s friends loved to remind her how different she had been while with her ex-boyfriend, a man she had stayed with for six years, although no one, Abby included, could work out why. He was nice enough. Nice friends, nice family, nice, nice, nice. Too nice. Abby had ended it a few years ago when she found a diamond ring in his underpants drawer. She figured it was better to break his heart by saying she had fallen out of love, rather than have him go through the whole proposal business.

  ‘He’s actually pretty smart. Funny too. Amazing body, Chels. Fit. Tanned. Delightful. Felt like a bit of a lardass next to him, but he didn’t seem to mind.’

  Chelsea didn’t dispel Abby’s belief she was lardass. Chelsea always felt Abby could do with a little more time in the gym.

  ‘Did you take him back to your lair?’

  ‘Of course. You know what tequila does to me.’

  ‘Was it worth it?’ Chels was in rapid-fire interrogation mode. She needed all the details. Immediately. Then she would conclude whether or not Abby should bother with a guy again. Her decision was final – Chelsea was convinced she knew men. The problem was she dated the same kind of man every time, which fuelled the deluded opinion that she knew all men.

  ‘He might just be the best lover this woman has ever had. Four times in as many hours. With SEVERAL added bonuses for no extra charge.’

  All of Chelsea’s previous ideas about this man changed instantly. Despite being a huge and loyal fan of the ‘No Sex Until Three Months’ club, she loved sex. The fact that her ex-husband – Tim, a monstrously successful plastic surgeon who was also a chronic gambler – never gave her any loving might have had something to do with it – she’d had a healthy-account at adultpleasures.com for years. She had been a mess for a few months after divorcing him and his addiction, but had bounced back, or rather overshot, as she was now a serial dater, with a Facebook wall that could pass for Match.com. She wasn’t interested in settling down with a man for a while, and with her enormous settlement money, didn’t need to.

  ‘Reaaallly! Well, you have to see him again, obviously. Twenty-two or fifty-two, if the sex is good, age doesn’t mean a thing.’

  Abby shook her head and exhaled. ‘Can’t, unfortunately. Threw him the fiancé line.’

  Chelsea closed her eyes and threw back her head. ‘WHY do you always DO that? It’s so psychotic to begin with, and then, if you realise you do actually want to see them again, you can’t, because they think you’re a screwy bitch. Which you are.’

  ‘I don’t know! I was, I didn’t know if, it just fell out of my mou-‘

  ‘Did you give him your number?’

  ‘No.’

  Chelsea shook her head: Abby was such a retard in these situations; she managed to sabotage things before the guy even left her apartment.

  ‘Look. He’ll find you if he wants to. He knows about Allure, right?’

  ‘Think I mentioned it, yeah… He knew one of the girls, too.’

  ‘Then hopefully he’s ballsy enough to contact you.’

  ‘He thinks I’m engaged! Anyway, whatever, it’s just sex. I can find more sex.’

  Chelsea shrugged, scrolling through her phone’s inbox. ‘Omygod, our new receptionist is so wrongo – she uses comic sans for God’s sake…’ Chelsea locked her phone and placed it in her bag. ‘Well, my cradle snatching friend, as delightful as this has been, I must go. Some of us have disgusting, rotting mouths to peer into.’

  She stood up, her toned, tiny body resplendent in a body stocking miscast as a dress, and swung her handbag – Gucci of course, complete with gilded keyrings and enormous G’s screaming from every square inch of the leather – over her shoulder.

  Tim’s ‘generous’ divorce payout meant Chelsea now only needed to work three days a week – which she did as a cosmetic dentist in one of those high-end surgeries in the CBD that had mood lighting and essential oil burners and groovy jazz playing in the foyer – leaving her plenty of time to make her body toned and tiny and tight dress-ready.

  ‘We doing pilates tomorrow morning? Mads is in.’

  Abby hated pilates, but seeing what it did for Chelsea’s figure ensured she kept up her pricey twice-weekly sessions. Their figures used to be fairly comparable, but then 30 happened, and Allure, and the twelve-hour days and processed, convenience food that came with it. It wasn’t terrible but now she had an extra layer of flesh hanging over the waistband of her jeans and cuddling her bra straps. It all just…hung. Over. She was a walking hangover.

  ‘Reformer class at eight. Then let’s go for breakfast and I can tell you both how Porschey De Rossi fell in love with me over our entrées.’ Chelsea winked playfully, threw a $20 on the table and bounced out of the café, the eyes of the waiter following her, glazed and pathetic under the spell of her petite arse.

  Abby checked the time, it was just after nine, and she was rarely at work later than eight. This – or possibly the second cappuccino – made her jittery with anxiety, and with shaking fingers she picked up her bag and phone, and set off.