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“I bet you enjoyed it, didn’t you, man?” one of his police officer brothers said.
“How else could I look this good?” Will stroked his chin with his thumb and forefinger, then laughed. “If you must know, it was a very relaxing day.” He smiled at me and I smiled back.
“Was it better than sex?” Elaine called out, and immediately her hand flew to her mouth. “Oops, I can’t believe I just asked that, sorry! Must be the champagne talking.” Her ghostly pallor brightened a little as some of the guests laughed.
“And lastly, question eight: What is Kelli’s favourite movie?”
I’ve been redeemed. Sex and The City for sure. The first one, not the sequel.
“And the answer is of course, the Oscar winning movie, Destined.”
What?
“We saw it on our first anniversary and as the credits rolled, Kelli turned to me and said, ‘That is the best movie I’ve ever seen’. I asked her last week and she still agrees.”
Never even heard of it.
“Woohoo, I got all of them right!” Elaine stood and pumped the air with her fist, as did Diora. Well, Diora pumped the air but didn’t stand, her rounded body perched permanently on a pod in the Bliss Garden. Three people I didn’t recognise also ‘woohoo-ed’ and the waiter approached them with the lucky dip bowl. They each reached inside and plucked a mystery gift, but by the looks of it they were all chocolate, each with a unique name.
“I got Chocolate Passion,” Elaine said, lifting her cellophane-wrapped chocolate truffle. “I’ll take any passion I can get.” She pulled off the wrapper and popped the chocolate into her mouth.
“Chocolate Dream for me,” Diora said, while the other three winners got Chocolate Scandal, Chocolate Secret and Chocolate Love.
“Can’t I get a lucky dip too? I only just missed out, seven out of eight,” Ryan said.
“Me too,” Kasey declared. “Close enough?”
“Nope, rules are rules. Congratulations to our five winners and don’t worry, we’ll have chocolates and coffee later, as well as delicious cake.”
Cake. I leaned forward and peered longingly towards the kitchen, the key to my doorway home residing in that cardboard box. Two out of eight, that’s all I got in the Quiz About Kelli. That’s a measly… um… oh, I don’t know, some measly percentage. I was sure my e-pad had an inbuilt calculator but what was the point? I’d failed miserably in a quiz that was all about me. Elaine, a woman I knew nothing about, knew everything about me. Who was this woman I’d become?
Chapter 15
There’s No Time Like the Present
“When the music changes so does the dance” – Nigerian proverb
“Oh, look! Kelli’s doing the robot dance,” one of Will’s brothers said as he approached the makeshift dance floor in the living room-Party Hub.
“No I’m not,” I interjected, but on looking down at my stiff torso and rigid arms I realised I was dancing more robotically than intended. Not that I’d planned to dance even remotely robotically. Will’s brother – was it Steven? – sidled up next to me and matched my movements, holding his elbows at a ninety-degree angle and moving them up and down. Will joined in too, pulling off a rather brilliant robotic performance and I agreed that I was in fact doing the robot dance.
More guests participated, competing for the impromptu Robot Dancer of the Night award, which Will awarded to Cleopatra, the woman who’d asked me about some business proposal. Turned out she used to be a dance teacher, so no wonder she won, although if the caterers had participated I think they would have been in with a good chance.
After another fifteen minutes in the bathroom wrangling with my support suit, this time armed with Band-Aids to dress the fingernail wounds and body lotion to help the fabric slide more easily, I emerged to find Diora standing for a change, at the microphone.
“Listen up, everyone, it’s time for the best part of the evening…”
“The cake?” I asked with a little too obvious enthusiasm.
“No, Mum, the presents!”
Bugger. Then again, I did like presents.
“So, Mum, if you’d like to take a seat over here.” Diora gestured towards a stool near the present table. “You can begin opening the presents. Dad, you all set to take photos?”
I sat on the stool and Will stood nearby, e-pad at the ready with a little square shaped hologram hovering above it. As I picked up the first present, a small box with gold wrapping and a red bow, Will snapped a photo of me.
Seriously, what would a person in this day and age do without their e-pad?
