Mistletoe & Bastards (6 page)

Everyone sat.
Womble began to give out the gifts and we laughed at the outrageous
choices people had made for each other. It seemed that though we’d
known each other for years, even seen each other naked on the odd
occasion, we actually knew bugger all about our friends when it
came to gift giving. Because no one in their right mind would give
a girl a can of paint and an atlas as a gift — not even if Sasha
was repainting her kitchen and planning an overseas holiday. When
it came time for Johnny to unwrap his gift, I held my breath. My
teeth nibbled at the corner of my lip as he pulled the ribbon away
ever so slowly and tore at a corner of the wrapping, trying to
guess what it was.

“It’s one of
those pics of a naked chick and a rugby ball,” Womble offered.
“I’ve got one in my loo.”

Of course.

“I have one
already,” Johnny replied.

“Maybe it’s a
print for your new lounge room?” Millie said.

By this time
the wrapping was almost off. Johnny stared at the framed jersey on
his lap not saying a word. The boys were silent too, in awe of the
absolutely perfect gift I’d chosen.

“Oh come on!”
Kirby cried. “That’s like totally over our budget. Who broke the
rules?”

And everyone
turned to me. How the hell had they known it was me?

“Thanks,”
Johnny mouthed.

I smiled back.
He hadn’t said it, but I knew he loved it.

With the gift
giving almost over, Womble moved to the last and biggest of the
gifts. The speculation over drinks had ranged from a washing
machine to a new set of luggage — that’s how big the box was. Of
course, the only person who knew what was in that box was Simmo and
he was smirking like the cat who’d got the cream, obviously
extremely proud of the gift he’d chosen for his mate.

“I bet it’s one
of those climate controlled beer fridges,” Sam said, as we watched
Womble ripping the paper from the box. “I wouldn’t mind one of
those.”

Millie shook
her head in resignation. “I’m not buying you a beer fridge, Sam.
We’d have nowhere to put it. Besides, I already have your
gift.”

“Maybe it’s an
Ab Cruncher Pro?” Johnny concluded. “Womble could do with one. His
gut’s doubled in size since the season finished.”

“Hey!” Womble
called from his spot near the tree. “I heard that.”

Johnny held up
his hands. “Only stating the facts, mate. You could give the real
Santa a run for his money at the moment.”

Ignoring him,
Womble ripped the last piece of tape and lifted the lid.

“SURPRISE!”

Well. That was
something of an understatement.

Kirby began to
gulp at her drink. Rambo coughed into his hand and looked at the
floor. None of us quite knew what to say because there in front of
us was none other than that slut Courtney, her arms flung to the
ceiling in greeting and her boobs spilling out of her top and
bouncing as she leapt from the box. Dressed in her trademark
emerald green — which for once was appropriate given the season —
she looked like the slutty Santa’s Helper star of a Christmas porn
movie.

“Like, what the
hell?” Kirby, the first to find her voice, had taken the words
right out of my mouth.

“What. Is. She.
Doing?” Sasha hissed, the answer being self-explanatory as that
slut Courtney was now writhing on Womble’s lap while Mariah Carey
warbled ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ over the sound system.
Courtney’s green satin boy shorts had crept into the crack of her
bottom and we were all getting a good view of the butterfly tattoo
on her left bum cheek as she attempted to put Womble’s hand on it
and make him squeeze.

“Jesus,” Sam
mumbled, shaking his head. “Way to ruin a guy’s appetite.”

“I think I’m
going to be sick,” Millie answered, and dashed from the room.

“Who’s she?”
Tony’s eyes had lit up like it was Christmas — which it was.

“That’s
Courtney,” Simmo said. It was plain as day that he had no idea the
effect Courtney’s performance was having. He was only proud that
he’d thought of the ultimate gift for the bloke who had everything
but a World Cup.

“You mean she’s
the one you cheated on Sasha with? I’ve got to hand it to you,
mate. You’ve got more balls than me, bringing a chick dressed like
that to a party when you know your wife’s going to be here.”

“Ex. Wife.”
Sasha glared at Simmo. “Please enlighten us as to why you’ve
invited her and why she’s grinding against your friend like she’s
recently been let go from a bad strip show.”

“She, like,
always grinds,” Kirby pointed out. “It’s the only dance move she
has.”

“I know that,”
Sasha went on, “But does she have to do it here? What the hell were
you thinking, Simmo?”

Which was what
I was beginning to wonder. Courtney’s dance was becoming more
sexual by the second and a rather uncomfortable vibe had descended
over the room. Even the recipient of the gift seemed ill at ease
with it. He’d gone quite pale.

Simmo sighed.
“I couldn’t think of anything to buy Womble for his Secret Santa so
I paid Courtney to give him a lap dance. I thought it’d be a
laugh.”

Honestly,
sometimes I wondered at the intellectual capacity of my
friends.

“Maybe if we
were in a strip club, but not in Mel’s lounge room,” Millie said.
“It’s disgusting.”

Kirby rolled
her eyes. “And they said
I
was dumb.”

“Make her
stop,” Sasha said. “Get her out of here. She’s ruining our
evening.”

“It’s not
ruining mine,” Tony chimed in.

“Or mine,” said
Rambo. “I think it’s quite artistic.”

“OH. MY. GOD.
When she leaves, you can totally go with her!” Kirby’s withering
look could have peeled the paint from my freshly painted walls.

Johnny and I
sat on the window seat watching the scene play out before us. As
usual, Courtney’s arrival had turned the entire group tits up.
Millie had burst into tears because everyone should be happy at
Christmas and Sam was trying to console her. Sasha had stuck her
head out the window and was sucking back stress related nicotine
and Kirby was seething at Rambo for being even more of a prick than
he was when they were a couple. Still, Courtney danced on,
oblivious to the entire situation. Until Womble put a stop to
everything, that is. And that’s when the evening really did take an
unexpected turn.

“Stop!” he
yelled. “Get off me now, Court. And put some clothes on, for
Christ’s bloody sake. People are starting to believe you really are
the slag you keep pretending to be. And we both know it’s not
true.”

I blinked in
disbelief. Womble was incapable of stringing more than two
sentences together unless they involved rugby. I was unsure how he
coped in the workplace — he was an accountant — but I assumed he
could converse when it was number related.

Courtney
stopped. Her full lips were pouting and was that a glint of a tear
in her eye? “Didn’t you like my dance, Wombie?”

Had she just
invented a nickname for his nickname? Was that even possible?

“No, actually.
I didn’t. I thought it was degrading to you as a woman and I can’t
believe you would be so desperate to be a part of this group of
knobheads that you’d even consider doing it. You’re a smart girl,
Courtney. You’ve got a degree and a career. You don’t need to be
the ‘ho’ of the group to get us to like you.”

“A degree in
man stealing with honours in acting like a skank doesn’t count,”
Sasha mumbled.

“No, I think
she’s like totally got some marketing degree or something. She,
like, has a company with real clients and everything. She was,
like, in the newspaper.” Kirby whispered back.

I wasn’t game
to ask how Kirby knew this when she read nothing in the paper other
than the lifestyle sections. There were things that girl knew about
what went on in Perth that could probably make me cringe.

“You didn’t
think it was sexy?” Courtney asked him. She seemed genuinely upset
that Womble hadn’t enjoyed his gift. “I’ve been practising all
week.”

“It
was
sexy. But not entirely my thing, if you must know.” Womble stood up
and wrapped his Santa jacket around Courtney’s shoulders to cover
her nakedness. Facing the group, he swallowed, his big Adam’s apple
moving nervously in his throat. “Now’s as good a time as any to
tell you all—”

“—You’re not,
like, having an affair with Courtney or something? Oh God, that
would be, like, the living end.”

“Hardly.” He
turned to Courtney. “No offence, Court. You’re a gorgeous looking
chick but I’m gay.”

Cue dropping of
bombshell and silence great enough to fill the Simpson Desert.

“You mean,
like, you don’t like girls, gay? Just, like, to clarify?” Kirby
asked. Clearly, she was having trouble processing the information.
She wasn’t the only one. Womble was six foot three. He had to be
well over a hundred kilos. He loved cage fighting and cricket. He
drank like a fish and tried to hook up with anything in a skirt —
not that we’d ever seen him succeed. He was the most unlikely
looking candidate for a gay man in the world.

Womble stood a
little taller. “As in I don’t like girls. I like boys.”

I was
speechless. I think we all were.

Until Millie
screamed from the depths of my kitchen, “Oh my God… the turkey! The
turkey!”

Seemed as
though I should have organised that caterer.

*****

An hour later,
disaster averted, we sat around the makeshift Christmas table. My
own dining table had the seating capacity of two, so Kirby had
ordered two trestles and stuck them in an L shape so we could see
each other. The tables were covered with festive cloths and
decorated with tiny trees and huge candelabra dripping with
baubles. Sitting there with everyone I loved in the world I was
feeling, well, a little melancholy. The room looked beautiful, the
pizzas — hastily ordered by Sam to replace the turkey that Millie
had burnt to a crisp (in her defence we were
slightly
distracted) — tasted delicious and the company was the best. Even
Courtney seemed to be fitting in. And that’s something I thought
I’d never say. Who’d have thought that a girl who went round
shagging everything that walked and getting her boobs out in public
at the drop of a hat would morph into a high-powered business woman
during the week? Not me, that’s for sure. But then, if it was good
for the boys why couldn’t it be good for us? There didn’t need to
be double standards. I’d been trying to get them to see that for
years but maybe, in some bizarre backhanded way, Courtney had done
it for me.

As I relaxed
back in my chair, Johnny, who had found a seat beside me, leant in,
his voice soft in my ear. “You seem pensive.”

“
Mmm
.
Maybe.”

“Something
wrong?”

I looked around
the table. Sam and Millie had their heads together like they so
often did. He was holding her hand. Kirby and Sasha were
interrogating Womble as to which cast member of
Vampire
Diaries
he thought was hottest and Rambo, Simmo, Tony and
Courtney were laughing and playing some form of drinking game that
could only lead to trouble. Everyone had someone. Everyone but me.
It was almost as if, in this place, in this time, I didn’t exist. I
was nothing to them.

“I… I just feel
so alone.”

Beneath the
tablecloth, I felt Johnny’s hand reach for mine. He squeezed it
gently and I felt a lump begin to form in my throat. Oh shit. I
couldn’t cry. Not now. It was bloody Christmas.

“You don’t have
to be alone,” he said.

“This isn’t an
invitation, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I know. I was
just saying you don’t need to be alone.”

I frowned. I
couldn’t understand who this person was. Why was Johnny being so
nice to me and why, why was he looking at me like that? He had to
know the effect it was having. Beneath the table, my legs had begun
to quiver. I never quivered. Okay, well, only when I saw those
hairy moths with the wings that looked like eyes and then the
quivering wasn’t with excitement, like now. I had a real phobia
about moths.

“I don’t just
mean tonight, Johnny. I mean forever. I’m tired of always being the
strong one, the organiser. I’m tired of being the ice queen and of
everyone having someone. I want someone too.”

There I’d said
it. I’d said what he’d been begging me to say for ages. I’d owned
the fact that I was lonely, that no matter how I presented myself
to the rest of those imbeciles I was not beyond feelings.

Johnny smiled.
It was the kind of smile that could make a girl weak at the knees
if she let it. Maybe I should? Then, his face moved close to mine
and I felt his breath hot against my neck. “I’m lonely too,” he
whispered. His voice was so quiet I had to double take to make sure
I’d heard right.

“Chasing chicks
is fairly exhausting, Mel.”

“I can
imagine.”

“I’m tired of
chasing when the only girl I want is right next to me. Look,” he
continued. “You’re lonely. I’m lonely. We like each other. Why
don’t we see where this takes us? I’m not asking for anything. I’m
just saying I like you. I have for ages. If you hate my guts again
tomorrow, that’s fine. I’ll deal with it. I want to be with you
tonight. ”

It was like the
world faded away in that moment. Every stupid thing Johnny had ever
said, every ridiculous thing he’d done didn’t matter. His sincerity
was overwhelming. He really did care for me. All that mattered was
us.

“Yes.”

Johnny’s lips
were close to mine. “You mean it?”

“Yes.”

He put his
mouth to my mouth, grazing it softly. Beneath the table, his
fingers played in the palm of my hand.

It was so
romantic.

Then he jumped
to his feet. “Right you bastards. Party’s over. Get out.”