by Jamie Knight
"You have her address, right?"
"Um, yeah, of course," I said, not really listening.
"Great! The party is at seven tomorrow night. We are all meeting there at six to get ready."
"I'll be there," I said, forcing a smile.
"Awesome."
And just like that, she was gone, like ninja into the mist. It was weird how some people could do that. Almost as if they had a superpower. Not me. I always seemed to try to slink off awkwardly.
I finished my shopping and loaded the trunk of my car. No sooner did I get the last bag in than an SUV zipped by, splashing me all up the back with water and mud from a puddle made by a surprise spring rain.
The sky had been clear and blue when I left that morning, which is why I hadn't even considered bringing my umbrella. Proving once again what my grandma had always said. April was not to be trusted. Though I had always assumed she had meant April Flannigan, the fallen-away Catholic schoolgirl turned atheist who lived up the street from us.
I took off my splattered jacket and held it over my head as I closed the trunk and leapt into the driver's seat. Once I was safe in the confines of the car, I tossed the jacket
into the back and started up, putting the heater on full blast.
Waiting a few minutes for the car to warm up and the traffic to pass, everyone else apparently also having chosen that exact moment to leave, I turned out of the parking lot and smack into rush hour traffic.
I turned on the radio to distract me while I waited. Some sadist had decided to put on "Maybe This Time" from Cabaret. I was singing along by the end of it, my mascara starting to run. And not just from the rain trickling down from my drenched hair.
The time flew by faster than I thought it might. Twenty-four hours seemed like a lot at the time. I got out of class at four, which gave me exactly two hours to get a gift for Kristen before the appointed time.
Not that the timing was the biggest issue involved with the task. My bank account had never been huge and had gotten rather smaller ever since I had quit the receptionist job and gone back to school to train as a massage therapist. I also had no idea what to get her. I hadn't seen Kristen in years other than the other night, and didn't really know her ever-evolving tastes.
My only clue was the utter lack of change in terms of her home decor. The wine would have to be of a commercial, Australian extraction which should be good enough. The real challenge was going to be the gift. Especially considering the massive collection of friends she had accumulated since our parting. All of whom presumably knew her as well or better than I did.
The wine was easy to get and wasn't as much as I had expected it to cost. The sales assistant had taken pity on me and applied her staff discount. I hadn't planned on telling her the whole story. It just sort of came out when she asked about the occasion.
Well, most of the story did, anyway.
I skipped over a lot of the sex, leaving that mostly to the imagination, but she seemed to get the picture. She looked to be in her mid thirties and had likely had a situation or two like that I her own life.
I put the bottle in the trunk just in case I was pulled over. It was the only way to absolutely prove that I hadn't been drinking while driving, the perfectly intact cork apparently not being proof enough.
I rattled my already sleepy brain, trying to come up with something that I could get Kristen that she would like but that would also be original. I thought of some new sexy underwear.
It certainly would have been a surprise, though I didn't know her size and the really good stuff was well outside my meagre finances. I had looked for some online once just out of curiosity. Just to see. It had been a short-lived experiment.
Then I thought of a new sex toy but figured that someone else would likely thought of that. One of her cool, detached friends with no shame when it came to sex. There seemed to be a lot of it going around.
With a slight pang of shame for a different reason, I did what I used to do in high school when I needed an original, interesting gift that wouldn’t make it so that I would have to eat Ramen for the next month. I went to the thrift store.
I reminded myself of how the pastor from my family’s church had once explained it, that there was a difference between thrifty and cheap. Cheap was having the money and not wanting to spend it.
Thrift was not spending more than required to get what you needed. An approach which had served me well in college and beyond, especially after I dropped out to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life and realized I didn’t have some career with good money. It became something of a habit for me not to pay the full tag price for anything. Though, as I walked the unswept aisles of my very picked-over local thrift store, cheap was exactly how I felt.
I went straight for the jewelry bins. Kristen had been into bling nearly as long as the term had existed, and I really couldn't see that changing with age. Her taste in paintings and dresses certainly hadn't.
A lot of the stuff was really cheap costume jewelry, most of it either aluminum or zinc at its core. There were a few steel prices, particularly in the rings section, but they were a bit more flashy than even Kristen liked.
I was about to give up when I saw it. Near to bottom on the right hand side. A ring with a facet cut, black onyx stone set in sterling silver. It was absolutely beautiful and reminded me a bit of her. Her pale skin and coal black hair.
The price was right, too. The cashier asked if wanted to spend an extra three dollars on a box to put it in. You bet I did! That was a spurge worth going for.
The box had been too small to gift wrap so I put it in my coat pocket, hoping the box would be nice enough of a way to present it to her. I watched the other party goers arrive as I got the wine out of the trunk, feeling oddly out of place.
Most of them had a sense of style that usually only came from having had ridiculous amounts of money for a pretty long time. Many of the pairs of heels clicking down the sidewalk costing more than my car. I locked up and headed in, hoping to hell I wasn't making a huge mistake.
I caught up with the others in the lobby, recognizing them from Whiney's dinner party. One, a pretty, hippie girl with dreadlocks and a kind smile, held the elevator for me. To the chagrin of some of her glamazon counterparts.
"Thanks," I said, squeezing in next to her.
"No worries," she said, smiling serenely.
Except for the hippie girl, the elevator looked like a deputation from the annual redheaded league. I didn't think I had ever seen more gingers in one place. Except maybe on that missionary trip my family took to Ireland with our church’s temperance league when I was ten. I touched my own fire-red ponytail subconsciously.
"You look fine," the hippie girl whispered.
I dropped my hand, doing my best not to blush. It really wasn't a good look with my skin tone.
Hanging my coat by the door, I helped set up, being put on candle duty, the idea being to actually try and use all of the candelabras Kristen had gotten as part of her inheritance from their grandpa. From what I understood from my talks with Logan as well as what Kristen had said during her dinner party, neither of them had gotten money. Not directly.
Logan had gotten controlling shares in the sailing business and the money that went with it. Kristen had gotten the candelabras and a few paintings she had particularly liked.
According to Kristen, the old man still had a fortune he had distributed to various banks around the world, mostly in Switzerland and the Vatican, that the lawyers and accountants were still trying to chase down. He had never liked the system much and she figured it was his way at getting back a them. On the upside, what had been found had already covered most of the estate tax on the house and paintings.
When everything was ready, we all waited in various corners for the surprise factor, and waited for Kristen to come home. According to Megan, Kristen was always home from work at the brokerage firm at exactly seven ten.
How she knew the exact time, short of staking o
ut in front of the building for a week taking note of the time, was anyone's guess. However she knew, Megan was right and at exactly ten after seven a key turned in the door and we all got ready to pounce.
I had seen Logan around during the set up. Though he seemed to want to avoid me as much as I was avoiding him and, while I knew he was there, somewhere in the dark, beyond the rack of the many candles, I had no real idea where.
Which suited me just fine. The less I saw of him, the better. Best just to keep my head down and get through the party. I was there for Kristen, after all.
At least that was what my head was saying. My heart and my pussy strongly begged to differ. They knew they were here for additional reasons as well.
"Surprise!" we shouted in a unified voice.
"Sweet fancy Moses!" Kristen shouted, clutching her chest.
"Happy birthday, dumpling," Logan said, emerging from the shadow and kissing Kristen on the cheek.
"Did you plan this?" Kristen asked, almost making it sound like an accusation.
"Megan did," Logan confessed.
"Hey, Kristen," Megan said, waving from her position by one of the bay windows.
"Hey," Kristen said, "You lit them."
"I thought it would be nice to see what they looked like," Logan said.
"They're lovely," Kristen said, casually wiping away a tear.
"Right, who needs a drink?" Logan asked, heading for the bar.
Despite my apprehensions, the party went pretty well. The candelabra idea had worked like a charm and everyone seemed to enjoy the wine I'd brought. Despite the fact that theirs were obviously more expensive and from nations better known for producing high-end vintage.
The time for gifting came and it turned out I had been right about the sex toy, since a girl named Amber was giving Kristen a fancy and expensive looking new model of vibrator. There was even some sexy underwear, courtesy of Megan, who apparently knew Kristen's size. I wondered if she had also stalked Megan’s underwear drawer.
It was my turn next. I approached Megan, box in hand, hoping I hadn't screwed up royally.
“Here you go, old friend,” I said, smiling timidly.
"Wow. Amazing. Where did you get this?" Kristen asked, staring into the polished black onyx.
"I have my ways," I said, doing my best to sound mysterious rather than shifty.
"It's beautiful," she exclaimed, slipping it onto her finger.
"You like it?" I asked, still in need of confirmation that I had gotten her the right gift after all my wandering and my long search.
Pathetic, I know.
"I love it," she said, hugging me.
From the huge smile she had on her face, I could tell she genuinely meant it.
The rest of the gifts were the usual fare. A surprising number of gift cards in the mix. Finally, it came down to Logan. There was no fancy wrapping on his gift either. It was held in one of those paper bags with handles that had a picture on it.
"Here you go, sis," he said, heading it to her.
"Thanks, bro," Kristen said, reaching into the bag.
She pulled her hand out immediately like she had been bitten, putting both hands to her mouth. I wondered if maybe he had gotten her the kitten she had always wanted but couldn't have because their mom was allergic. She reached in again and pulled out a small black teddy bear.
"Mr. Cuddles!" she cried, raising the bear into the air, the bag flying to the floor. “Oh my God.”
"I forgot that's what you called it," Logan said.
"Where did you find him?" Kristen asked, hugging the bear to her chest.
"It wasn't easy. I actually had to hire some Internet detectives. They found him on eBay of all places, but it is definitely him. He still has the chip in his nose from when you dropped him down the stairs."
Kristen inspected the nose of the bear, and then, after nodding her agreement, took Logan in a one-armed version of what they used to call an attack hug.
"Whoa, down, girl," Logan said, pushing her gently away, though smiling as he did so.
Kristen returned to a two armed hug on her long lost and much beloved bear, continually saying, “I can’t believe you found him. Thank you!”
After the happy reunion of Kristen and Mr. Cuddles, it was time for dancing, Megan rousing the DJ she had hired from his hiding place in the linen closet. He had had a late night playing at a club last night, and had seemed only too happy to snooze in the closet while we had been setting up, waiting to surprise her and then having part of the party.
Now that it was his time to shine, he set up his rig on the kitchen table, which was still extended with the center piece from the dinner party that Kristen had thrown, and started working through a set list no doubt given to him by Logan. At least if the song selection was anything to go by.
The party continued as before, the music kept down to a level that allowed for conversation. Unlike most of the clubs Kristen had snuck me into when we were in high school.
I smiled at the memory. Kristen with her fake ID, me with my real tits so big the bouncer took me for an adult, even though I was only seventeen. I blocked all thoughts of Logan and his incredibly sweet gesture to his little sister who we both loved out of my mind and tried to mingle with Kristen's other friends.
I searched the crowd for someone who looked like a likely candidate. I soon made up a list in my head of instant deal breakers. Anyone wearing a designer label or more than three pieces of diamond jewelry was crossed right off the list. That might seem like inverted snobbery, but I had learned to tell the signs.
Kristen's family might have been rich— new rich, even— but she didn't seem to think that made her better than anyone else. I was part of the reason we were able to get along in high school.
I was honestly confused as to why she hadn't been more popular than she had been. She had everything Logan and I had and actually more. Yet she always seemed to stick to the same few friends.
As far as I knew, this had been a trend that had continued as she got older, but something happened after she and I started growing distant; she started getting a lot more friends. Though going by sight, most of the people at the party were closer to Kristen in terms of social class.
Ruling out nearly half the room, I was about to give up when I saw the hippie girl from the elevator. She was sitting cross legged at one end of the leather couch, sipping what smelled like peppermint tea from a mug.
"Hey," I said, sitting on the edge of the couch.
"Hellooo," she said, actually stretching the o out like that.
I honestly wondered if she was high.
"So how do you know Kristen?" I asked.
"Oh, she comes into the store at least twice a week."
"What kind of store?" I asked, wondering what she would be selling that Kristen would want to buy.
"Health food. She's really into the pastels."
"Like, the colors?" I asked.
"Nooo, they're the little chew guys. Made up of the best Mother Nature has to offer in terms of calming compounds. They taste like black currents."
"Like, drugs?" I asked, surprised, not having known Kristen to do anything harder than wine.
"I guess, though not the dangerous type. The worst that might happen is you get a sore tummy," she said, patting her own belly by way of demonstration.
"Oh, cool,” I said, still a bit confused.
"What do you do?" she asked, before taking another sip of her tea.
"Well, I did work as receptionist at a spa, but I recently went back to school."
"Good for you! What are you studying?"
"Massage therapy," I said.
"That's great! We need more people like you. Touch gets such a bad stigma in society but we all need it. It doesn't need to be a sex thing. Most of it really isn't if you think about it. It gets made that way by other people's interpretations."
She really was smarter than I had given her credit for. I felt like a bit of a jerk for thinking she was just a stoner. What
she said about touch was absolutely true and one of the first things they went over in my training course. Massage therapy really did have a weird reputation in Western culture.
"Exactly," I said, thinking I'd found a kindred spirit, "I'm going to go back to the spa and work as a masseuse when I'm done."
"Oh, that's awful!" the hippie girl cried like she'd just gotten a mouthful of raw salmon oil.
"What?" I asked confused.
"Massages should be free. It is terrible that you would let anyone capitalize on your healing hands."
"I-"
She put her mug on the coffee table and took me by both hands looking at me earnestly, her green eyes burning with passion and truth.
"You will have the gift of healing! Don't sell it out to the corporate wolves. Cherish it! Give it to those in need!"
"I-I'm going to go get a drink," I said.
"Okay," she said brightly, picking up her mug again.
The worst thing about what the Hippie Girl said, the thing that really hit me in the heart, was that she wasn't entirely wrong. Of course I wanted to get paid for my work. That was just logical.
But I didn't want to exploit people for it. People who really needed help. If Medicaid covered massage therapy in any significant way, I probably would have felt differently, but most people had to pay out of pocket. Even the ones who were really messed up and needed it badly.
I wondered what I could do about this situation. The best I could figure out was that maybe if I got in there and established myself, I could convince David to do a coupon day or something. Not that that would do much good.
I went to the drinks table and took a glass of red. Taking the first couple of sips, I went to find a corner to hide in. Through some quirk of fate, no matter where we went to avoid each other, I was pretty sure Logan was doing the same thing.
We always managed to be in each other's line of sight. At least since Kristen had come home. I wasn't sure where to go that this wouldn't happen, other than going and hiding in the closet that the DJ had vacated. That would have raised some questions.
As much as I didn't want to see him and still hated him for what he had done, destroying my heart like he had, my body had a different reaction. A warmth touched my cheeks and a tight ache came to my pussy every time our eyes met.