Chapter 23 #3
By the time the rideshare’s here, I’ve finished two of the small bottles of bubbles, but they’ve not left me fizzy and excited. Just sad.
I hover in front of Ada’s door for a minute, but no sound comes from inside.
She’s left me to fend for myself again. At least last time she gave me twenty-four hours’ notice before she bailed on school to move to New York.
Then I remember what I said to her, and what she said to me, and I’m torn between being glad we’re apart and wishing we were together. All of this just hurts.
My rideshare driver is another 5-star master of silence, and as we make our way across town, I think about what it would be like to come home, take the primary care position and have money again.
Real money. Enough to afford blowouts from Johnny, takeaway from Mr. Partha’s food truck, and maybe even enough to save for a holiday.
Not a big one—Rarotonga, maybe. A week of lying on beaches with cocktails, watching the tide roll in and out over the cover of a paperback.
Bliss.
And Will. Picking me up from work, meeting me for lunch. Maybe even lying next to me on a striped towel, with salt-ruffled hair and adoring sky-blue eyes.
It’s okay to want those things, I tell myself, as guilt and Ada’s words fight to resurface in my brain.
It doesn’t make me a bad person to want something better than I have.
It doesn’t make me a shitty friend to want support on the one weekend I’ve been holding out for ages. I am allowed to want to be happy.
I am allowed to be happy.
I repeat the mantra as the car winds its way towards Silverlight Estate Hotel. I continue mouthing it to myself as I make my way through the chrome and glass entrance and into the room where the cocktail reception is being held. All the way until I come face-to-face with Jenny.
“Cecelia. I thought you weren’t going to make it.”
“Jennifer. I thought I made my intentions clear. Besides,” I add with a saccharine smile, “Nobody throws a party like Jenny Wallis.”
Her left eye twitches at the mention of her maiden name. “Thanks. Well, I hope you enjoy it. You’ll find the facilities here at Silverlight exceptional. So clean.”
This bitch.
I entertain a brief fantasy of grabbing her hair extensions and whipping her around like the principal from Matilda. But she loves to play the victim, and I’ll be damned if she pulls me into the gutter with her.
“How lovely. No mice, then?”
Her smirk widens. “Of course not.”
“Hmm. Must take the presence of a pretty big pussy to keep them at bay this close to the countryside.” It’s not my finest comeback, but it’ll have to do, and the narrowing of her eyes intensifies.
“Name cards are on the table over there,” she snaps.
“Oh, no need for that. Everyone I’m here to see will recognise me.”
I step around her, keeping my head high. I have a quick scan of the room but can’t see Will or Ada, so I head to the bar for alcoholic reinforcement. I’ve just ordered a gin and tonic when someone slides into position beside me.
“Cece? Oh my God, you look gorgeous!”
I turn at the familiar voice and plaster on my widest smile. “Oh, Rachel! So good to see you!”
Rachel was on the school’s B netball team with me, and a fellow witch in The Crucible. We hug and she introduces me to her partner, Morgan.
“What are you up to now?” I ask.
“I’m a personal trainer! We moved back from the Waikato a year ago, and Morgan started her own accountancy business. How about you? Still nursing?”
“That sounds wonderful.” I force myself to keep smiling, even as my already tender insides roil at the question. “No, not nursing. I own a bar in the city.”
“No way! What’s it called? We’re coming up for our anniversary next month, we’d love to pop in.”
I don’t know if Afterglow will even be operating next month, but I help her find our socials anyway, and she coos over Ada’s artistic shots as she hits the follow button.
Lydia from netball finds us next, then a couple of other girls from our year join our catch-up.
Like me, everyone is deeply invested in the downfall of Roger the Pharmacist and his affair with the German au pair.
As we talk, we’re slowly shuffled along the bar to a high-top near the dancefloor because God forbid the actual re-unioning we’re doing interfere with anyone’s binge drinking.
As much as I hate Jenny Wallis, she has done a great job with the party.
Couches are scattered around, high-tops dotted with tea candles along the side of the dancefloor.
There’s a lot of dark linens and shadow cleverly disguising the fact that this room’s held the wedding reception of half the people here tonight.
“Hey, Cece,” a male voice says.
I whip my head around so fast I almost sprain it. All hopes of Will evaporate, though, because it’s Xavier McColl, his light brown hair smooshed over to one side, the way it’s always been.
“Hey Xav, how are you?”
“Okay. Been a while.”
“You were in my bar a month ago for Henry’s stag.”
“Oh yeah, the murder bar. You work there, yeah?”
“No, it’s mine. I own it.” Didn’t I just say that?
“Ada works there too, doesn’t she?”
A prickle starts at the base of my spine, the same one that comes every time a new envelope from the bank lands on my desk. We’ve drifted slightly away from the group of girls, and Xav is now staring down at me with a weird energy. “No, she—”
“She coming tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” I say, trying to keep my voice light. “You know, Ada, she’s not much for school spirit.”
“Huh. You know, I thought I saw her at my work today.”
The prickle has moved all the way to the base of my neck. “Where are you working?” I ask, even though I already know.
“Thompson Farms,” Xavier says coldly. “So where exactly is—”
“Cece!”
I recognise that voice immediately, and the prickle spreads between my shoulder blades. “Thrasher!” I match his tone of surprised delight, but neither of us means it. His smile flicks away like a switchblade.
“It’s Dan.”
“Oh, right, sorry, Dan. How’s things?” I’m more than happy to pretend the last time I saw him harassing Ada in her playpen never happened, at least while we’re in public.
“Doing well, just here to enjoy myself.” He peers around me, to the high top that I realise is now deserted. The girls have moved to the dancefloor, with Morgan and Rachel twirling in each other’s arms. “You here alone?”
“We’re all here together, aren’t we?”
“Sure. Where’s that mate of yours?”
My whole body is tingling now, cold vibrations freezing me inside out. “I don’t have any idea who you mean, Dan.”
“Oi, you losers!” Tristan appears at my side, and I’m simultaneously flooded with relief and the desire to throw a chair at his head. He ignores me completely, as he always did in social settings, to throw his arms around Dan and Xav.
“You boys have fun catching up,” I say, thankful for an opportunity to return to my safe place, the bar. I order another gin and tonic to wash away the taste of those weird encounters when another male voice sounds close to my ear.
“Cece Taylor. I’ve been looking for you.”
I am not prepared for the full force of Will Sharpe.
Social media is a shitty substitute. No poorly cropped photo can properly capture the way the bar lights pick up the honey-colour of his hair, the laugh lines that crinkle the corners of his eyes.
They sure as shit can’t capture his presence, the way he leans in with a smile just for me, the air around us shifting to make room.
Butterflies go wild in my stomach, as if the baby ones that fluttered every time he smiled my way in school have grown with me, and now they’re huge adults that have taken LSD and gone to a rave in my abdomen.
“Here I am,” I manage. Here I’ve always been.
“It’s good to see you.” Will leans on the bar, swaying a little as his eyes trace slowly over my body. They pause on my chest, and I thank the angels for this neckline.
The plan is go.
I am going to hook up with Will Sharpe tonight like my life depends on it. Ada has her own revenge plans for this reunion, but this is mine. If I’m left with nothing at the end of this weekend—no business, no home, no best friend—I am going to have this memory to hold on to forever.
I am allowed to be happy.
Will orders a drink, and we clink our glasses together, then I lose time. The party keeps moving around us, good music and food floating into my consciousness, but there’s nothing else for me but this. The moment where all my stars align.
Will says something, and I say something back, but I’m not listening. Neither is he. I recognise it in the way his eyes rake my body, the way they linger on my lips, the brush of his fingers as he tucks a strand of my hair behind one ear.
He sees it in me, too, I hope. In how I touch his arm, lean a little closer, blush when he compliments me. The words don’t matter; the energy has the wheel, moving us closer, desperation pressing at us, fizzing in the gap between our bodies.
“Are you staying here?” Will asks. He’s downed three rum and Cokes in the time it’s taken me to finish my gin, but why does that matter?
I shake my head. “I’m at Nikau Palms.”
“Well, I am. The view upstairs is beautiful. Would you like to see it?”
Triumph surges through me. “With you? Always.”
We make our way towards the elevator, just outside the reception room doors. I can feel Jenny’s eyes on me, sticky with hate, and I straighten my spine in a defiant ‘fuck you.’ As if he can read my mind, Will links our fingers.
The hellfire roasting my back intensifies.
It’s happening. Holy shit and all the saints, it’s happening.
Will’s hand is clammy in mine, which is cutely comforting—maybe he’s nervous too, now that the moment between us has finally arrived?
Davis’s gold-flecked eyes flash through my mind, all confident and soulful.
And unsolicited business plans.
I push him away. Davis is what Hot Mess Cece wants. Will is the relationship Stable Cece was destined to have.