Chapter 5
‘ I ’ve never felt so glamorous. Thanks for organising the photo shoot!’ Mel hugged an arm around Lorena.
‘I figured this would be the last chance I get for a while.’ She rubbed her belly. ‘Had to take the opportunity before sleep deprivation takes the healthy glow from my face.’
‘I don’t know if I ever had a healthy glow before kids, but the only way I get one nowadays is with some extra help. Now gimme.’ She wiggled her fingers near Georgie who was making cocktails.
‘Patience, Mel, patience.’ She expertly mixed and shook and poured, and eventually placed a tray of cocktails on the large kitchen counter where we sat on bar stools.
Red approached, rubbing her hands eagerly together, and I shot her a ‘don’t you dare’ glare.
‘So, do your creations have a name?’ I asked Georgie.
‘One of them does, but I thought I’d get your creative input on the others. I made them all especially for you guys.’ She handed me a drink of luminescent green liquid with a hint of pink at the top, and a white straw. ‘This is the Gresally.’ She chuckled. ‘For Greg and Sally. Made with specially chosen ingredients to complement your caring nature, Greg’s love of golf courses, and the love you both share.’
I smiled. ‘Oh, that’s so lovely. Thank you.’ I picked up the glass and Lorena took a photo of me as I sipped. ‘If you weren’t my bridesmaid I’d have you cater the drinks and food at the wedding!’
‘I’d do both if I could.’
‘I know you would.’ Georgie was known for taking on challenges.
‘Now stop chatting, girls, which one is mine?’ Mel was practically salivating at the tray of brightly coloured drinks.
‘Here.’ Georgie handed her a purplish mixture with one of those tacky paper umbrellas sticking out of it. ‘And here,’ she handed Lorena an orange mixture, ‘Non-alcoholic of course.’
‘Not fair.’ Lorena pouted. ‘But only a few months to go.’
Georgie took hers, a fairly plain-looking cocktail with a greyish-silver appearance. ‘Cheers!’
‘Cheers!’ We clinked glasses and sipped.
‘I think I’ll call mine the Thank God I’m Finally Drinking cocktail,’ Mel said as she sighed in relief, and Georgie laughed.
‘Or what about… A Night to Remember?’ Lorena proposed. ‘And mine could be…’ She eyed her orangey conc oction. ‘The Fruit Tingle? The Fruit Loop? The Tingling Touch?’
‘Citrus Craving?’ I suggested. ‘Or something sort of, um, motherly?’
‘What, like a Leaking Nipple?’ Mel guffawed, her drink half gone.
‘Ha ha, Mel. No need to get me excited about things to come. How about I call it The Glow?’
‘Nice.’ I smiled, and clinked her glass with mine.
‘What about yours, Georgie?’ Lorena asked.
‘Don’t know. Maybe something in honour of this weekend.’
‘The Country Getaway? Girl’s Best Friend?’ Lorena suggested.
‘I’ll drink to that.’ Mel raised her glass.
‘Mel, you’ll drink to anything.’ I winked.
‘True.’ She downed the rest of her drink and took another from the tray.
‘Hmm, let me think of another name…’ I tapped my chin.
‘The Dead Chick!’ Red exclaimed from beside me, and I forced myself not to look her way. ‘The Dead Chick. Go on, say it! ’
‘Hmm,’ I repeated, as though I was putting a lot of thought into it.
‘Say it! Say it!’ Red jumped up and down next to me.
‘Um, what about…’
‘The Dead Chick, The Dead Chick, The Dead Chick!’
‘Oh all right, The Dead Chick!’ I said with a little too much frustration in my voice.
Red burst out laughing, her piercing tone making me lift my free hand to my ear.
‘The Dead Chick?’ Georgie furrowed her brow.
‘Oh, is that what I said? I meant the um, the… The Best Chick! Yep, that’s you!’ I punched her lightly in the arm in a ‘you’re such a great pal’ way. ‘You’re the best chick, for making these drinks for us.’ Oh God. That was pitiful.
‘I’ll drink to that too,’ Mel said.
‘Mel, go easy, we haven’t started the hors d’oeuvres yet,’ Georgie said, then looked at me again. ‘Well, thanks, Sal. I’m glad you think I’m the best chick.’ She gave me a confused smile.
‘It could be a Dead Chick too, though,’ said Lorena. ‘I mean, the drink is kinda dark and gloomy looking. Not in a bad way, I mean, I bet it tastes fantastic, but it has a kind of mysterious appeal. ’
‘Hey, you’re right. I reckon Dead Chick suits it,’ Mel replied.
‘Or even The Haunted House,’ Lorena added. ‘We are in an old, creaky place after all. Beautiful, but it does have that look of a haunted house, don’t you think?’ She glanced around.
I scratched my cheek. Then my head. Then my arm.
‘Are you allergic to The Gresally?’ Georgie asked. ‘I hope not!’
‘Oh, no. Not at all. Just get itchy sometimes, from all those anti-bacterial hand sanitisers I use at work, I think.’ I stole a glance at Red who was in hysterics at Lorena’s suggestion for calling it a Haunted House.
‘If only she knew, ha ha! Tell her, Sally, tell her I’m here. I dare ya!’
Never in a million years.
‘What about The Ghost?’ asked Mel.
My eyes darted to hers. ‘What? What ghost?’
‘What about calling Georgie’s drink The Ghost? It has a spooky look to it.’
‘Oh.’ For a moment I thought they were all in on the ghost situation and were waiting for me to finally admit I could see her.
‘Is that what I look like? All spooky?’ Red asked, her hands waving about her body, then she laughed .
Thankfully, Georgie served up some nibbles, and conversation steered away from naming cocktails to ‘ooh’s’ and ‘ahh’s’ at her cooking prowess.
‘This is so unfair!’ Red kept screaming. ‘I want some!’ She chucked a childlike tantrum and pounded on the floor and I tried my best to ignore her. She was like a hyperactive child high on red food colouring. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d died from overexcitement.
As darkness fell, Lorena lit some candles and refused my attempt at turning on the main lights. She checked her watch. It was the third time she’d done it in the last ten minutes.
‘Why do you keep looking at your watch?’ I asked.
‘Huh? No reason.’
Liar. Five minutes later when I got settled on the velvet couch with another cocktail, the reason rang the doorbell.
‘Surely not the photographers again?’ I asked, twisting sideways to peer over the back of the couch to the front door.
‘Nope. You sit right there, hun, I’ll get it.’ Lorena said with a cheeky grin.
What did she have planned now? Maybe it was a limousine driver to take us to a fancy club? Only there weren’t any fancy clubs out here in the country, unless you counted the Barron Springs Pub, which was probably a few points shy of fancy.
Lorena opened the door slowly, and a man stepped in and placed his black winter coat on the coat rack. He was wearing blue scrubs and a surgical mask.
Huh? Someone from work? Maybe we were really having a surprise party and Lorena had invited all my work colleagues.
‘Are you okay, Lorena? It’s not the baby, is it?’ I asked, suddenly concerned that maybe there was some problem she hadn’t told us about.
She laughed. ‘Oh, hun, there’s no problem with me at all. This is Ty.’ She ushered him further inside. ‘That gorgeous young thing over there is Sally, the bride-to-be,’ she said, pointing my way.
Oh God. Was this an intervention? She had caught me talking to myself in the bedroom. Though it wasn’t really to myself. And I had been acting a bit strange and saying weird things thanks to Red. But maybe Red didn’t really exist after all and I was actually hallucinating and they could all tell, and Dr Ty was here to whisk me away to the psych ward.
Although the room was dark, apart from the ambient glow of candlelight, I could see strong cheekbones above his surgical mask as he walked towards me. He was also wearing protective goggles, like the ones I wore when I had to assist in a delicate potentially blood-spattering procedure at work. Maybe I, or all of us, were infected with some rare virus and he was here to quarantine us.
Confusion and a bit of fear raced through me. Ty stood dominantly in front of me. Golly gosh. They probably sent the strong one to carry me away and prevent me from resisting. Maybe there was a whole team of elite, muscular doctors waiting outside to ensure we didn’t escape. Or to move in if we retaliated. Like a medical SWAT team.
‘Sexy Sally,’ he said in a low, growl of a voice.
What on earth? What kind of doctor speaks to someone like that?
His mask shifted slightly, as though he was smiling underneath it, and he turned away and pulled something from the medical bag he was holding. Lorena assisted him with God-knows-what in the corner, and when he turned back around, music blared from the bluetooth speaker and I jumped in fright.
The catchy, rhythmic beat pounded in my ears as Ty strode towards me, and slowly, a realisation grew inside. Then it hit me like a whack to the head when he bent forward slightly and pulled at his surgical pants, ripping them off.
‘Woohoo!’ Lorena yelled, and Mel clapped and started dancing .
Oh my God. Ty was no doctor. He was a stripper! Lorena hadn’t listened to my requests to have a dignified hen’s party and had cheekily gone out and booked some raunchy entertainment! My eyes darted in her direction and I gave her a look that said ‘You didn’t!’ and she returned it with one that said ‘I sure as hell did, honey bunch!’
My mouth gaped as the candlelit glow reflected off the tight cords of his muscular thighs. He moved seductively in front of me and swung his stethoscope around in a circle like he was a cowboy about to lasso a criminal. Or me.
I covered my burning face with one hand, trying not to look at the fine specimen in front of me. What would Greg think! This was so not me, and wasn’t this sort of like… cheating , just a little? He’d promised he wouldn’t have a stripper at his buck’s night tonight and I’d agreed the same.
Ty grasped one of my artificial ringlets and extended it, then let it spring back to my face. I kept my hand hovering across my eyes, only slightly peeking through so as to not be completely anti-social. He was only here for a quick performance, right? Five, maybe ten minutes, and then he’d be on his merry way and I could get back to the normality that was my bridal weekend, with a ghost in tow?
The beat of the music picked up and the room took on the ambience of an intimate nightclub. Mel was now dancing barefoot on the coffee table, and Ty moved and swayed next to her, which only made her dance more. Georgie stood nearby with a drink in one hand, fanning her grinning face with the other.
I took a deep breath, though it only enhanced the sensation of tension in my chest. My heart beat faster as Ty came back towards me. He did some dance moves along to the music that were actually quite good. He had rhythm and speed and power. Shame he had to waste his dance ability on a career as a stripper. I bet he has an ego the size of his…
Whoa! He tugged at his shirt and it ripped right off, exposing a six-pack that Mel would probably give up alcoholic six-packs for. And the pecs, oh my God, the pecs! I could bounce coins off them! Not that I would ever do such a thing. But wow. My Greg wasn’t in bad shape but he wasn’t exactly Thor either. But this guy… was he even human? Surely no one’s body could look that good.
Ty moved with enough confidence to give Georgie a run for her money. He was practically naked except for his skin-hugging black trunks, surgical mask and goggles, and surgical shoes, which looked weirdly out of place on a body like that. His body gyrated and popped and locked in a stylish, sexy way that dancers did on music videos. With each rhythmic pop of his pelvis he jumped closer, his body a few inches from mine as I huddled with a cushion on the couch.
‘Oh yeah, work it, Doctor!’ Mel yelled, and for a fleeting moment I wondered where Red was. Why wasn’t she getting in the way? Surely she would have a field day with this!
As I became aware of a masculine scent of expensive cologne, my face burned hotter, and Ty finally kicked off those sensible shoes with their protective plastic cover that looked like a shower cap for feet. I looked at his feet to divert my eyes from his, um, the rest of him, and my heart skipped a beat. It was dark, but not dark enough that I couldn’t make out the slight swelling and discolouration of bruising on his left toes.
Oh my goodness gracious me.
I cautiously glanced up at his face and he lifted the goggles from his head, followed by the mask, revealing the perfectly proportioned face of the man whose toes I’d run over with the trolley in the supermarket.