Antidote to Infidelity (10 page)

I’ve made a firm decision - I’m
definitely
not going. Definitely. Wild horses couldn’t drag me out of
the house. Now all I have to do is tell the girls . . .

***

By the time Rowan arrives, I’ve
waded my way through two portions of spicy chicken wings, four cheese and bacon
potato skins, a bowl of curly fries and a huge, sticky slab of mud pie (which,
in my defence, came highly recommended). Dressed in a dowdy beige overcoat and
a black pencil skirt, my pal has her honey-blonde hair scraped back into a
tight, neat ponytail, very little make-up and broad rimmed secretary-style
specs she doesn’t really need.

Ever conscientious, she
squeezes her way politely through the sprawling mass of people by the door, all
squabbling over non-existent tables, and makes her way over to our secluded VIP
booth in the corner. Giving me a warm hug, she kisses me lightly on both cheeks
before turning her nose up at the mountain of dishes on the table, impatiently
waving for a waiter.

“Jees, I know they’re busy but
I can’t
believe
they didn’t even clear the table. That’s gross - and
hardly worthy of a coveted five-fork award!”

I blush, shovelling the last
spoonful of incriminating mud-pie into my greedy cake-hole.

“Actually, er, I wouldn’t
bother complaining,“ I tell her, ashamed and full mouthed. “They’re mine.”

Gawping at me like I’m a hippo,
she scratches her head, surveying the carnage.

“God. All of them?”

“Yup, ’fraid so. I’m officially
a fattie.”

Visibly appalled, my prim pal
slips in beside me on the red leather pew, shoving my private dish collection
to the far side of the table.

“Crikey, Sal. I know you’re
upset, but . . .
crikey
. The last time you ate like this was your Uncle
Joe’s funeral. My God . . . no one’s died have they? It’s not Will, is it?”

Slurping my chocolate thick
shake in true binge-scoffing style, I sigh at the irony.

“What, dead? Nope, but I like
where you’re heading and the day’s still young.”

I’m about to share my brutal
Chihuahua plot when I notice the rest of our party - my sister Amy and my close
friends Bianca Wilson and Liselle Lawrence - shaking hands with Mr Clooney by
the bar, before waving madly and inching through the masses. Thinking I might
as well reveal all my gossip in one go, when everyone’s seated and listening,
with a good stiff drink in their hands, I hang fire.

Our Amy, clad in tight faded
jeans and a revealing Rolling Stones tank top, makes it to us first, followed
by Bi, in a chic, matching red leather two-piece that accentuates her ample
bosom. Finally Liselle, fresh from the gym and sporting a blue Adidas jogger
that clashes with her freckles and bright ginger bun, wedges herself beside
Rowan and squeezes my knee, giving me a watery
‘oh-dear-I-hear-you’re-a-little-upset’ smile.

Rooting through her shiny
silver clutch bag, Amy produces her purse. I’m genuinely expecting mothballs to
follow.

“Hi Row, hi Sal!” she chirps.
“Oooh good, you’re all bandage-free for tonight. I’ll get the drinks in ladies,
start as we mean to go on, eh? Yuk, whose are all these pots?”

Rowan, a willowy,
well-maintained size twelve, frowns disapprovingly, raises her narrow eyebrows
and tuts, “Sally’s. Honestly, I don’t know
where
she puts it. If I ate
half
that I’d be a walrus! It’s hardly fair.”

Amy - slinkier than an anorexic
stick insect - plonks her skinny little bottom beside me, slapping my hand as it
slides towards the stray nacho I’ve spotted under my napkin.

“Oi, piglet - no!” she chides.
“
All
of them? That’s sheer gluttony! Christ Sal, what’s up?”

Bubbly Bianca - thirty-eight
years old, with a long brown bob, the body of a page three model and the
spending habits of the Sultan of Brunai - squeezes Amy’s shoulder and shakes
her glossy head. Thankfully, she doesn’t bollock me. Obviously
she
knows
a good-old-comfort-binge when she sees one.

“Oh-oh, looks like we’ll be
needing the hard stuff!” she declares, in mother-hen mode. “Put your purse away
young Amy, this round’s on Howie! Who’s for cocktails?”

***

I think now’s a good time to
tell you that I am, it has to be said, in utter awe and amazement of Bianca’s
resolve, given that her recent marriage problems make
my
predicament
look like wedded bliss. You see, she’s currently pushing for a mega divorce
pay-out having arrived home one cold November day to find her
forty-nine-year-old banker husband, Howard, handcuffed to the bed, with a
cheeky young stud slapping his bare arse.

Whereas such a hideous sight
would have left any
normal
woman mentally traumatised, or, at the very
least, knee-deep in Kleenex, Bianca took it all in her stride. She simply
tossed them their boxers and strutted out, declaring that when she returned,
she expected the house to be empty.

Amazingly it was, and the
result: she hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Howard and his chum for almost two
months. She’s got no idea where he is, what he’s doing (or
who
he’s
doing), and what’s more, she doesn’t seem to care one iota. She’s completely
shut him out, just like that. Instant closure without a hint of dramatics,
unlike your’s truly. The only conversing they do now is through Bi’s
hard-hitting lawyer - and unless Howard wants his dirty laundry airing in the
courts, it’s gonna cost him. Big time.

With her own successful image
consultancy - Bi Unique - to boot, Bi’s chic, confident and generous to a
fault, despite the fact she’s recently despatched of hubby number three. She’s
got cash aplenty and splashes it freely, particularly estranged old Howie’s,
with a twinkle in her eye and gloating satisfaction.

You see, perfect closure! Pity
the same can’t be said for me. I could drag Will kicking and screaming through
every court in the land but it wouldn’t get me anywhere - he’s got bugger all
in the bank to blow! What am I going to do - recklessly run up the overdraft?
Oooh, the excitement . . .

***

Hips swinging like a salsa
dancer, Bianca sashays back to the table with enough Mojitos to sink a battle
ship. Eh-eh. I’m sticking to milkshake or I’ll be up on the bar crooning ‘Your
Cheating Heart’ into a pepper mill.
Not
a pretty sight. My friends are
staring at me expectantly and I’m feeling strong enough (and oh-so-f enough)
to begin.

Twenty minutes later, dirty
laundry aired, I’ve lifted the lid on everything from Will’s fling and my awful
Christmas to sexy Doctor Foster, his flowers and yesterday’s torture at the
hospital. As I display my scabby wound for all to see, Liselle has her arm
around my shoulders, Amy’s scowling, Rowan’s sobbing and Bi, well - wouldn’t
you just know it? - she’s laughing. In actual fact, she’s nearer hysterics.

I can’t see the big joke.

Clucking like a mad chicken, Bi
wipes away a crocodile tear, tosses Rowan a napkin and slaps me on the back.

“Ohh Sally, don’t look so
serious. Welcome to the real world, honey! Thank
God
Will’s finally got
his knackers out the vice and shown you some red-blooded-male!”

“Bianca!” we all chorus, but
true to form, boisterous old Bi doesn’t budge an inch.

“Well it’s
true
. You’ve
got poor Will on way too short a leash, Sal. You should be pleased
the
balance of power’s shifted, it all makes for a good marriage!”

Rowan stares daggers at Bi, who
sniggers and swivels on her stool.

“And how would
you
know?” she sneers, with out-of-character venom. “The trick,
Bianca
, is
to get married and
stay
married, not see how many husbands you can notch
up before you hit forty!”

Sensing a bust up brewing I
close my eyes, unable to believe I have two such different friends. They’re
total opposites in every sense of the meaning:

Rowan saves. Bianca spends.

Rowan’s a strict vegetarian. Bi
loves nothing more than a juicy bit of rump.

Rowan works out. Bianca thinks
Gym is an accountant she once shagged.

Rowan deliberately dresses
down. Bi’s clothes scream ‘raunchy, rich and raring to go’.

Although most of the time they
get on, or tolerate each other for our benefit, once in a blue moon the shit
hits the fan and they scrap like cat and dog. I sense the claws are out now, as
the only chink in Bi’s armour is her age - and Rowan’s just struck a valid
blow.

Bruised, she retorts haughtily,
“So then, Miss-Monogamous, you think it’s right to remain faithful to a guy
even if he’s publicly doing the dirty on you left, right and centre? That might
be your scene, Pollyanna, but it sure as hell ain’t mine!”

Chink! Rowan’s weak spot, her
miserable marriage, receives a vicious counter strike. She blushes furiously,
scrabbling for a quick come-back. I can tell by the flicker of desperation in
her eyes that she’s floundering, and I’m not surprised.

As her closest friends, we all
know that her half-whit husband Troy, captain of the local semi-pro football
team, Goldwell Colts, has been dipping his wick in the office ink (translation
- he’s been caught shagging one of the cheerleaders).

It isn’t the first time it’s
happened. The
first
time, Rowan turned a blind eye. The second - having
nabbed him red handed, Calvins round his ankles in the back of his Jeep - she
stood up for herself, issuing toss-pot Troy with a ‘three strikes and you’re
out’ ultimatum.

Unable to decide if poor old
Row’s going to cry again or make a mad lunge for Bi’s jugular, I’m about to
step in but Liselle, piano fingers drumming the table impatiently, beats me to
it.

“Ladies, that’s quite enough,”
she shrills. “Restrain yourselves. This is about Sally and Will, and where they
go from here, not you two and your petty squabbling. Grow up and give over.”

Duly admonished by the strict
headmistress, whose icy glare is enough to send even delinquent teenage ASBOs
running for the hills, cat and dog back off, tails between legs, simultaneously
necking the dregs of their cocktails in silence.

Pursing her hot pink lips, Amy
whines, “To think I cooked him that lovely dinner on Christmas Day. I should
have let him starve, cheating bastard!”

Picking at her nails, a sure
sign she’s mulling something over, she adds, “What you need to do now, Sal, is
get right out there and level the score.”

“I
beg
your pardon?” I
demand, intrigued as much as insulted.

“You know,” my sister coaxes,
“get even - strike while the iron’s hot and all that. I’m not suggesting you
put
it about
or anything, but Will
has
opened the floodgates. . . you’d
be daft not to take a dip!”

When I don’t instantly shoot
her down in flames, she adds cheekily, “There’s nothing like a good old revenge
fuck to ease the pain, Sal. There must be someone at work you fancy shagging?”

Uh-uh. Never in a month of
Sundays!

Having already got
that
T-shirt, I shake my head adamantly, wondering just how many rampant ‘revenge
fucks’ my sweet little sis could possibly have squeezed in at the ripe old age
of twenty-three.

“No, no, no! Don’t you see?” I
whine. “That’s partly the reason I’m in this horrid mess in the first place!”

Seeing Bianca’s bronzed face
light up, I quickly add, “No Bi, before you get all hot and bothered, I haven’t
been getting down and dirty with the hockey team, I’m talking about Will’s
bloody jealousy.”

***

Allow me to explain. In ten
seasons of covering the local ice hockey team, the Strikers - who play their
home games at the Ice House, just outside Goldwell - I’ve made one
crucial
mistake. When I was eighteen, fresh-faced and star-struck, I had a brief fling
with one of the players, Wade Wallace - a smooth talking Canadian with
come-to-bed eyes and a bad reputation. Even though it was all over in a flash
(the sex
and
the fling), Will has never let it drop. Every now and then,
he likes to bring Wade into our bed (figuratively, not personally
you
understand) just to have a dig at me and my job.

In
my
mind, I spend my
Friday and Saturday nights watching a sports match, taking notes, doing a few
interviews and having a couple of beers. In
Will’s
mind, I spend them
fraternising with ‘the enemy’. In
my
mind, I’m having a professional
chat and enjoying a few celebratory bevies with the boys. In
his
mind,
I’m joining them in the post-match hot tub, giving out random blow jobs whilst
the netminder takes me from behind.

That
would be fraternising. What I
do is
socialising
. I’m still trying to explain the difference but it’s
like talking to a brick wall.

***

 “Ooooh!” As if struck by
lightening, Amy suddenly comes back to life, all excited.

“What about
doctor-what’s-his-name? He
definitely
wants to shag you!”