Mistletoe & Bastards (8 page)

What the
hell?

My heart began
to beat faster. I could hear it pumping in my ears, feel it
pounding in the veins of my neck. The air that had been so
refreshing a second ago suddenly became thick and I couldn’t
breathe. Then, as Johnny reached over and said something in the
girl’s ear and laid a hand on her arm in the exact same way he’d
done to me the previous evening, I thought I was going to throw up.
In fact, if I didn’t get out of the room in that instant, I
would
throw up. And wouldn’t that be an event to really make
Christmas?

I turned and
shoved my way back through the crowded bar.

Out on the
footpath, I retched into the gutter. Then, straightening and
sucking in a couple of ragged breaths I dug into my handbag for a
tissue and a mint. I leaned against a pole, trying to calm myself
down but it was no use. It was impossible to be calm when you were
raging inside, vomiting and crying simultaneously. Up and down the
street revellers were making the most of the Christmas cheer.
Couples were holding hands or kissing as they went into the bar. I
couldn’t feel a thing. It was like, in that minute, Johnny had
ripped my heart from my chest. I couldn’t believe I’d been so
stupid, so gullible. I’d believed every word Johnny had said to me.
I’d thought he genuinely cared. Judging by the swift way he’d gone
back to his old ways, it had been a load of shit. Well, I wouldn’t
be trusting him or any man again. In fact, I had no idea why I’d
even tried in the first place. I’d been perfectly happy being a
single career girl before he kissed me. I had a life I enjoyed,
didn’t I? I’d just go back to the way it was before. I blew my
nose, wiped my mouth and set off down the street for home.

“Mel!”

I stopped at
the sound of his voice behind me. I turned wanting to see a look of
— oh fuck knows what — on his face. Guilt? Hurt that I was leaving?
Instead I got one of bemusement, as if he was oblivious to what
he’d just done to me. Could he possibly be that stupid?

“Wait! Come
back, where are you going?”

“Home. Leave me
alone.”

“But why?”

I began to walk
faster. I heard his feet picking up pace behind me. At the corner,
I saw a taxi so I ran and leapt into it, fending a couple of burly
blokes out of the way as I did.

“Oi!” One
called. “That was our cab.”

“Like I
care.”

After giving
the driver my address, I sank into the seat. The taxi pulled into
the street and drove past Johnny, who was standing on the footpath
scratching his head and frowning. I turned to look out the opposite
window. I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. Actions spoke
louder than words. And his actions had been right out there for the
entire bar to see. I’d put my trust in him and he’d stomped it into
the dirt. It was lucky I’d found out when I did, I guessed. I
wouldn’t have wanted to realise two months down the track that he
was still a womanising bastard.

It was going to
be another shit Christmas.

*****

I woke up on
Christmas morning with a thumping headache — possibly from the two
bottles of wine I’d guzzled after I’d got home from the ill fated
trip to the bar. I also blamed it on the crying. Tears had a way of
making your head pound, especially when they kept on coming and
coming. And coming. I’d cried myself into a real state last
night.

Picking my
phone up from the bedside table to check the time, I saw there were
six missed calls from Johnny, which I promptly deleted along with
the messages. I was too angry and hurt to hear any of his excuses.
I was angry with him for letting me down after he promised he
wouldn’t, but I was more upset with myself. I should never have let
my guard down. There was a reason why I played the ice queen and
this latest setback only served as clarification that I should stay
that way. As of today, I was back to being the cynical, cutting Mel
that everyone knew and feared. Okay, well some of them loved me but
you get my drift.

I picked up the
phone and dialled Kirby. “Hey.”

“
We wish you
a merry Christmas
,” she sang into the phone. “How was the
date?”

“Like, don’t
ask.”

“
Oooh
,
you sound just like me. Is that, like because it was totally
awesome?”

“More like
because it totally didn’t happen. Is that invitation for lunch
still standing?” Suddenly, I didn’t want to be alone, eating my
swanky dinner and opening gifts I’d purchased for myself. I felt
the need to be around people who weren’t expecting anything from
me, who would allow me to sit and absorb the frivolity, not
participate in it. Though I suspected Kirby’s family might not
prove to be that type of people. If they were anything like her,
I’d be dressed in an elf suit by the time lunch was served.

“Of course.
We’d love to have you at our little gathering.”

“I’m not
putting you out?”

“No, no. Mum,
like, always prepares way too much anyway in case we have to like
adopt a sailor or something.”

I decided not
to ask Kirby what she was on about; I knew the explanation would be
beyond my realm of comprehension. “What time should I come?”

“We start
around eleven with champagne cocktails and gift opening. Wear a
party dress.”

The party dress
and cocktails I could definitely do, the gifts might be something
of a challenge at this late stage.

“And don’t
worry about presents, hon,” Kirby continued as if psychic. “The
pleasure of your company will, totally, be all we need.”

Possibly not in
my current mood but I was willing to give it a go.

“Okay. Great.
I’ll see you soon. And thanks Kirbs.”

“Any time. I’ll
like totally be expecting you to dish the dirt when you get here
though. It’s a condition of being served lunch.”

“To your whole
family?”

“Sure. They’re,
like, excellent at advice. Where do you think I get all my tricks
from?” She gave a giggle.

*****

Half an hour,
one shower and two Beroccas for my headache later, I was standing
in front of the open wardrobe trying to decide between a little
black dress and little red one when the doorbell rang. Given what
had happened the last time I’d opened the door without knowing who
was on the other side — ie: I’d had sex with Johnny — I was
understandably hesitant. If it was Johnny, I wasn’t going to let
him in. In fact, I wasn’t sure I could even talk to him given that
I’d only just stopped crying and hour before and my nerves were
still fairly raw.

“Who’s there?”
I asked the back of the door.

“Bertram’s
florist.”

Shit. There was
only one person in the world that would send me flowers and it
wasn’t my mother. I’d be lucky to get a phone call from her. I
opened the door.

The boy
standing on the other side was peering between the petals on a
massive bunch of white Christmas lilies. The only bigger display
I’d seen had been on a coffin, which if the flowers were from
Johnny was where I’d like them to be.

On his
coffin.

“Melanie
Samson?”

“Yes.”

He handed me
the bunch of flowers.

“You need to
sign.”

I put the
flowers on the hall table and went back to the door where I
scrawled my name on the electronic clipboard.

After the front
door was closed, I stood looking at the flowers for a minute. I had
no idea where I was going to put them. If I sat them on the table I
wouldn’t be able to fit to eat and if I put them on the coffee
table I’d never see the TV, not that I watched it that much but,
still. At last I decided on the end of the kitchen bench and then,
as I was arranging them in a vase the doorbell rang again.

What the
hell?

Putting down
the card I’d been about to read, I went to the door for the second
time, not bothering to check who was there this time. A different
delivery guy stood in front of me with a massive teddy bear in his
arms. It was chocolate brown and had a huge Christmas bow in green
and gold tied around its neck.

“Melanie
Samson?” the delivery guy asked.

“Yes.”

He handed me
the bear — god knows where I was going to put
it
— and I
stuffed it under one arm, signing with the other. “Thanks.”

“Someone likes
you a lot.”

“Either that or
he’s feeling extremely guilty.” I gave a titter that sounded
slightly maniacal and shut the door dragging the bear down the hall
and into the lounge. It was enormous. And rather heavy. I plonked
it in the armchair and took the second card to the kitchen.

I had the first
card out of its envelope when the doorbell chimed for a third
time.

For fuck’s
sake, I thought, beginning to lose my patience. What was with these
people? Didn’t they have better things to do on Christmas Day? What
courier company even
worked
on Christmas Day? I put the
cards on the bench and stomped up the hall, flinging the door open
so fast it hit the wall with an almighty crash and left a mark.

“Yes, I’m
fucking Melanie Samson. Whatever it is, just bloody give it to me
and—”

I stopped short
of screaming like a banshee. Johnny was standing in front of me
holding an enormous box of my favourite Lindt chocolates and a
magnum of Veuve Cliquot. Probably the easiest way to a girl’s
heart. But not mine. Not today anyway.

“Go away.”

I made an
attempt to shut the door on him but he pre-empted me and stuck his
foot in the doorway and elbowed it open. Clearly, his rugby skills
were useful for something other than rugby.

Without
speaking, Johnny pushed the gifts into my arms and strode past me
down the hall and into the living room. I couldn’t think of
anything else to do so I followed along behind him . The magnum was
chilled ready for drinking. It wasn’t exactly comforting pressed
against my skin so I put the gifts on the kitchen bench.

“I asked you to
go away, Johnny. Please.” Seeing him again so soon was making all
sorts of emotions I thought I’d drowned in chardonnay resurface.
Either that or the massive hangover I had had suddenly become more
massive at the sight of him.

Johnny didn’t
move. “Sure, I’ll leave and never come back. I’ll go back to
chatting up girls and taking the piss out of you every time you say
one of those foulmouthed things that seem to come out of your mouth
the way the rest of us use normal words. But I’m not leaving until
you tell me what happened. Considering that I’ve just spent over
five hundred dollars on ‘sorry’ gifts when I have no idea what I
did, it’s the least you can do.”

I was floored.
If there hadn’t been a sofa between us, I would have leapt at him
and whacked him squarely on that gorgeous nose of his. Had he no
clue that I’d seen him with that girl? And even if he hadn’t,
didn’t he feel the least bit guilty for going off with her only
hours after he’d told me he was a changed man? Yet there he was,
his piercing blue eyes staring me down, and a look on his face that
told me he wasn’t intending on leaving until I explained myself.
Well, he had a bit of explaining to do, too.

“I saw you with
that girl,” I managed, at last. “I saw you kiss her cheek. It
wasn’t even twenty four fucking hours since you were with me and
you were trying to get into her pants!” And then the ranting
started. It spewed from my mouth like an explosion and I couldn’t
stem the tide. My mouth had gone into autopilot as if some force
outside myself was controlling me. I ranted and raved at him,
screaming at him about how I’d given him my trust, something I’d
never done before, about how hard it had been for me. I told him he
couldn’t buy my trust with gifts — even if one of them was my all
time favourite champers. At first, he looked puzzled, bemused even,
but then it was like some magical light of recognition went on and
he began to smirk. God, if he didn’t wipe that smirk from his face
I seriously
was
going to deck him.

“Are you
finished?” he asked after a couple of minutes.

“Well. Yes. I
suppose.”

“Can I
explain?”

Oh, this was
going to be good.

I nodded, not
trusting that voice inside my head to keep the sarcasm at bay.

“The girl you
saw me with was my sister, Jemima. I thought, seeing as how you
were so freaked out by the big family Christmas thing that you
might like to meet her one on one. She’s been dying to meet
you.”

I didn’t know
whether to be flabbergasted by the fact Johnny had spoken about me
to his family or that the girl I’d assumed was some random chick
he’d met at the bar was actually a member of his family. He hadn’t
lied.

Great. Talk
about want to find a hole and jump in it.

“You told your
sister about me?”

“I told my
whole family. They must think I’m tapped in the head, I talk about
you so much.”

Oh, this was
getting weird now. He was making it sound like we’d been a couple
for ages. And we weren’t really a couple. I’d be lucky if he’d even
want to be in a relationship with me now that I’d flown off the
handle over nothing. Again. I hoped he’d be able see past it.

“You really
told them? All of them?”

“Mum can’t wait
to meet you. She’s gonna be pretty upset when I tell her we’ve
broken up before we even got started. You’re the first woman,
outside of Beyoncé, I thought I might like to introduce to the
family.”

Shit. He was
going to make me cry at this rate.

Johnny stepped
around the sofa and moved close to me. His arms went around my
waist. “Do you still want me to leave?”

I sniffed.
Bugger him. “No. Can you forgive me for screaming like a
fishwife?”

“Yes. If you
promise to only rant like that at the rugby in future. You were a
bit scary, frankly.”