Saved by the Celebutante

by Kirsty McManus

  She looks torn. I know she wants to see if I’m bluffing, but she also doesn’t want it to backfire if I’m actually telling the truth.

  I hold my breath. I’m not sure how kindly Peter would take to me calling for no reason. I really shouldn’t gamble with things like this.

  After a very tense moment, Samantha shakes her head.

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I think it would be awkward. I don’t want to have to lie and tell him I actually enjoy watching that trash he makes.”

  She turns back to the other women. “Oh, I meant to tell you about the adorable thing Archie did the other day…”

  The group switches their attention back to Samantha, reverting to the high school hierarchy where she was their queen.

  I hide a tiny smile. I think that rattled her, even if she didn’t show it.

  I stand there for a moment, listening to them all gush about their children, and my short-lived satisfaction evaporates. The women who haven’t brought their kids with them pass their iPhones around, displaying lengthy slideshows of their pride and joy.

  Samantha peers over at me, giving me a sly smile.

  “I’m so envious that you don’t feel the need to jump on the parenting bandwagon like the rest of us.”

  That’s it. She asked for it.

  “Samantha, did it ever occur to you that I might be infertile? That’s really classy. Making people feel bad about a situation they have no control over.”

  I walk off, ignoring hers and everyone else’s stares. What is the etiquette for leaving a baby shower? Do you have to wait until they do speeches or something?

  Ah! The bar! Alcohol will solve all my problems. I wonder what kind of cocktails are on offer. Or maybe I’ll have champagne. Just keep me away from the red wine. For some reason it makes me argumentative, and that’s the last thing I need right now.

  I spy the waiter. Oh no.

  “Will! You’re tending the bar here?”

  “Yeah,” he says unenthusiastically. “The other guy had to leave. His wife was in labor or something.”

  “That’s pretty weird, huh? A bartender hired to work at a baby shower, and then he has to go and help deliver his own baby?”

  Will looks at me like he doesn’t get it.

  “Would you like to order something?” he asks in a bored tone.

  “Oh, right. Yes. Do you do shots? I’m going to need at least six to wipe today’s events from my brain.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Sorry. All I have are green smoothies and mocktails.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Have you not noticed the theme for the day?” He points to the table of food, and only then do I realize it’s some sort of raw food / organic / paleo buffet.

  “Kill me now,” I moan.

  Will laughs, but in a way that makes me feel like he’s on my side.

  “Could you make an exception for me?” I plead. “How about a mocktail with a dash of rum or something?”

  “But then it wouldn’t be a mocktail.”

  “Exactly.”

  He looks around. “I don’t know…”

  “Come on, please,” I beg. I’m not proud of putting myself at Will’s mercy, but desperate times call for desperate measures. “I can’t handle all those self-righteous bitches while I’m sober.”

  He smiles conspiratorially.

  “Okay. Hang on a second. Maybe I can sneak some vodka into a virgin cosmo for you.”

  I smile, pleased. “Thank you.”

  I hate being indebted to my roommate, but he’s the lesser of two evils right now.

  As he mixes my drink, I notice him staring at me.

  “What?” I ask, paranoid.

  “Nothing. I was just wondering what you were doing here. Everyone here looks way older than you.”

  I laugh. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better, but we’re all the same age.”

  “I seriously wasn’t trying to make you feel better. How much Botox do you think that one’s had?” He points to Samantha.

  I giggle. “Will, you have just made my day. For the record, I would say a lot. She could barely move her face when she was talking just now.”

  Maybe I got the guy wrong. What if he’s a decent person after all? I mean, everyone has a bad day occasionally.

  He hands me my drink, and I turn to head back into the fray.

  “Hey,” he calls. “What are you doing after this?”

  I turn back, surprised. “Why?”

  “I was thinking of maybe grabbing something to eat. I know a great place nearby.”

  “Oh, that’s nice of you to offer, but I have to meet my sister in an hour.” I haven’t changed my mind that much about him.

  “I don’t know why you keep turning me down Ms. Lambert, but I will get you to come out with me one of these days.”

  “Sorry. Maybe next week.”

  “Think about it.” He turns to serve someone else, and I quickly escape. Yikes. That was close.

  I head over to a quiet corner to sip my drink and pretend to take an urgent call.

  Hopefully alcohol will make everything better.

  FOURTEEN

  Alcohol does make everything better. Sort of.

  Three non-virgin cosmos later (so much for my detox), I’m finding everything hilarious. For the record, I have no idea what might be in a virgin cosmo apart from cranberry juice.

  The poopy diaper game turns out to be a bizarre type of guessing competition where six chocolate bars are melted in the microwave and spread onto disposable diapers before being passed around for people to sniff and identify. By the time it’s my turn, I have developed a nice little buzz, but I am also absolutely starving. I can’t bring myself to eat the celery sticks with spinach and artichoke dip, or the sprouted bread with tahini and watercress, so when I smell that melted Hershey’s bar in diaper number three, I do something kind of silly.

  I eat the chocolate off the diaper.

  I don’t think anyone notices, but then I’m faced with the problem of how to explain its absence to the woman next to me.

  I quickly stand up and stuff the rolled up diaper under my arm, bolting for the bathroom.

  I shove it down in the trash can and pile some paper towels on top of it.

  There. Evidence gone.

  “What are you doing?”

  I quickly spin around.

  “Sorry, what?” My face flushes. Freaking Samantha. How much did she see?

  “What did you just put in the trash?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you just put a diaper in there?”

  “Uh, no…well, sort of. I, uh…” God. How am I going to get out of this one?

  She comes over and actually reaches down into the trash, pulling it back out.

  “Was this one of the diapers used in the chocolate game?”

  “Yes, but I, um, dropped the chocolate, so I was just disposing of it.”

  She narrows her eyes at me.

  “You dropped the chocolate?”

  “Yes?”

  She leans in and sniffs my face.

  “What are you doing?” I shriek, trying to step back and crashing into the wall behind me.

  “You ate the chocolate, didn’t you?”

  “What? No!”

  “I can smell it on your breath!”

  “Who eats chocolate from a diaper?” I laugh nervously. At least she hasn’t mentioned I also smell like alcohol.

  “Apparently you. You know I’m going to have to tell Jen. The game will be ruined with one of the candy bars missing. The scores will be all out.”

  “Please don’t. I’ll go and buy another one,” I promise. “I think I saw a vending machine somewhere…”

  She holds up a hand to silence me.

  “Stop. You’re exactly like you were in high school. A stupid little girl who doesn’t know how to act appropriately. And probably not infertile either. Ho
w dare you try to make me look like a heartless bitch! When I’m done with you, everyone will know how spiteful you truly are.”

  She marches off and I stand there, frozen.

  Well, that went downhill fast.

  I’m not going to hang around and have everyone pointing and laughing at me. Even if Samantha doesn’t mention the fertility thing (because let’s face it, she doesn’t really know if I’m capable of bearing children or not because I’m not even sure), I’m still going to come out looking bad in the whole candy bar debacle. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.

  I’m going to have to leave.

  Luckily the bathroom is a considerable distance from the terrace, so I don’t have to face anyone. I take one last look back to make sure no one can see me, and then run for it. I slow down when I reach the lobby, but speed up again when I get outside. It’s not until I’m a few blocks away that I finally stop.

  I guess that’s the last time I’ll be seeing any of them. I seem to be quite good at making scenes lately.

  I hail a cab and get home just under half an hour later, throwing myself on the bed and watching the ceiling spin. I shouldn’t have had those cocktails. My life is such a mess.

  I’d felt my phone vibrating earlier to signal a call, but I didn’t have the energy to answer it at the time in case it was Corey. But now I figure I have nothing to lose, so I look at the caller ID to see who it was.

  Not Corey.

  I don’t know if that makes me more or less mad at him. He’s either been out all day without a care in the world, or he saw my note and decided to ignore it.

  But I do have a message, so I dial in to see who it is.

  Oh! It’s Barb!

  “Hi Chrissie, I am pleased to tell you that Luke and Molly have put in an offer I’m sure you’ll be very happy with. I’ll be available tomorrow, even though it’s Sunday, so feel free to call when you’ve had a chance to talk everything over with Mr. Lambert. Chat soon!”

  I scowl at the phone. Talk it over with Corey? Like he talked it over with me before moving some guy into OUR family home?

  Why should I give him the courtesy? I’m tempted to call Barb right now and accept whatever we’ve been offered, regardless of what it is. But I know deep down I need to consult Corey on the sale of our apartment. He could always stall things further if he thought I was being unreasonable.

  I need a distraction.

  I jump up and pad down the hall to Brad’s room, knocking on the closed door.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s me. Can I come in?”

  “Are you naked?”

  “Brad!”

  He laughs. “Sorry. Yeah, you can come in.”

  I push open the door and sit down on a bucket chair near the window. Brad is cross-legged on his bed, preparing a joint.

  “What’s up?”

  “Everything,” I moan. “Corey’s moved someone into our apartment and then I disgraced myself at a baby shower.”

  “Whoa. Not cool.” He holds up the joint. “You want some?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have smoked before, right?”

  “Actually, I haven’t. I mean, I obviously went to college with a lot of people who did, but I never got into it myself.”

  “Would you like to try it?”

  “Do you think I should?”

  “You totally should.” He slides off the bed and brings the joint and a lighter over to me. “It’s kind of like a cigarette, only you might have to relight it if it goes out.”

  I pull a face that must betray my lack of experience with all forms of smoking.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never had a cigarette either?”

  I shrug. “Sorry. I’ve always just stuck to alcohol.”

  He grins. “Aw. Who would have thought my little Chrissie was such a square?”

  “I’m not a square!” I protest. I snatch the joint out of Brad’s hands and then light it, inhaling deeply. I may not have actually smoked one of these things before, but I’ve seen enough people do it to know how it works.

  Oops. Okay. Well, I may have watched people, but I didn’t count on the reaction my lungs would have to the smoke. They feel like they’re on fire! I can’t stop coughing. How is this fun?

  Brad laughs. “Just take it a bit slower on the next go.”

  I inhale again, only not so deeply this time.

  Ah…all right. That’s more like it.

  “Thanks for suggesting this,” I say, feeling my heart rate slowing.

  “No problem. I’m honored to be the one to pop your marijuana cherry.”

  I blush. There he goes with the flirting again.

  “So, do you want to talk about what happened today?” he asks.

  “Not really. Can we just pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist for a while?”

  “That’s cool, baby.”

  Baby?

  I hand over the joint and gaze out the window. Brad sits back down on his bed and smokes the rest.

  “Do you think you’ll ever have kids?” I ask.

  He wrinkles his nose. “Nope.”

  “What? Never? Even when you’re forty and married?”

  “You assume I want to get married.”

  “You don’t? How come?”

  “Because it’s just a bullshit piece of paper issued by the government and it means nothing. Not to mention the fact that half of all marriages end in divorce.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Well, what are your thoughts on marriage now that you’re at the end of one?”

  “I guess I’m still hopeful. I obviously just made the wrong choice the first time.”

  “But doesn’t it kind of prove that the act of marriage doesn’t really mean anything? I would have thought it was more romantic to stay together purely because you want to, not because you feel trapped by a law.”

  The marijuana must be making me more open-minded because I kind of get what he’s saying.

  “I guess. I mean, when you put it that way…”

  “I don’t even think being in a monogamous relationship is particularly healthy. And I’m not just saying that to justify sleeping with a bunch of different chicks. I think everyone should be responsible for themselves and share moments with others when it works for those involved. Most monogamous relationships are just toxic unions of mutual enabling.”

  “So you think we should all live alone, never have children and only find someone when we need to temporarily relieve our boredom?”

  He laughs. “You could look at it that way. Or you could see it as being free of attachment with a world of possibility open to you.”

  “Hmm…so how does Becky fit into this scenario?”

  His face darkens for a second. “Becky knows where she stands. At least, she should. I’ve told her often enough. If she wants to put a different interpretation on our relationship, that’s her problem.”

  “But shouldn’t you discourage her if you don’t think she’s really listening?”

  “Don’t worry about Becky. Her feelings are not your concern. Anyway, getting back to you. Chrissie, your problem is you worry too much. You’ve set too many expectations for yourself, and if you just went with the flow a bit more, you’d be much happier. Who cares if Corey is seeing someone else? You probably realized it would happen eventually. And so what if you made a fool of yourself at a baby shower? If any of those women are your friends, they’ll forgive you. Otherwise, they’re not worth losing sleep over.”

  “I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but I don’t know if it’s working.”

  “Would having sex do the trick?”

  I blink. “Excuse me?”

  “Would you like to have sex with me? Right now?”

  “I…uh…” I’m so flustered I can’t even respond.

  “I’m serious. But you’d need to consider what I’ve just said. This wouldn’t mean anything more than two consenting adults having a good t
ime.”

  “Do…do you…actually want to have sex with me?”

  “Hell, yes. I can’t believe you even feel as though you need to ask me that.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s completely up to you.”

  I think about it for a second. Could I really do this? The alcohol, marijuana and loneliness aren’t exactly helping me see things objectively, but when I finally gather the courage to look at Brad properly, I know immediately what I’m going to say.

  “Okay,” I whisper.

  To his credit, he doesn’t make things awkward by double checking, or saying anything like “how do you want to do this?” and instead just slides off the bed and slowly approaches me. He kneels on the ground between my legs and takes my hand, pressing my fingers to his lips. He then reaches up and pulls my face towards his, kissing me full on the mouth. I hesitate for a second before embracing the moment. His lips are just as delicious as I remember.

  He pulls away after a minute and stares at me, confused.

  “That other time was real, wasn’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  He smiles cheekily. “Well, then…” He stands up and drags me over to the bed so that I fall on top of him. His hands stroke my back as his mouth explores mine. I find myself getting lost in the unexpectedness of the situation. Of course I had vaguely considered what it would be like to get physical with Brad, but I hadn’t seriously thought it would ever be a reality. I feel like I’ve entered a sort of dream-like state and I can almost convince myself it’s not really happening. My rational mind is not allowed to take over.

  I sit up as Brad removes my shirt and bra and then pulls his own shirt over his head. I lie back down, our bare skin touching. He smells really good, like citrus and the ocean.

  “God, you’re so hot,” he moans into my shoulder. I shiver as he plants tiny kisses all over my neck. He rolls me over so he’s now on top and continues to work his way down my chest.

  I am suddenly aware of the fact that I am lying on my phone. I must have left it in my back pocket earlier. I lift my butt up for a second, pull it out and throw it on the floor.

  Brad takes this opportunity to move across to one of my nipples. I let out an appreciative sigh.