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  While some of the crowd began to boo, and call for more, the MC took charge. He instructed the band to play something else, and invited the crowd to dance some more.

  Meanwhile, Simone had recovered sufficiently from her initial shock to rush over to where Brodie was now assisting a struggling Sasha down from the dais, and attempting to zip up her frock at the back. As she struggled with him, Sasha began to sob, but, in between sobs, she sang, “It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to…” before trailing off into continuous, louder sobbing.

  Lee remained anchored to his chair, staring open-mouthed at the tableau unfolding before his eyes, unable to respond to the drama in any way that might be of assistance.

  “Thanks, Brodie!” said Simone, exasperation evident in her face and tone of voice. “I’ll try to take care of her now, but I don’t quite know how! I can’t just up and leave with most of the guests still here.”

  “Why don’t I take her home?” suggested Brodie. “I think the party’s over for her, and you can take your time seeing off the other guests, tending to the staff, etcetera. She can sleep it off at my place, and I can see you there, after you get away.”

  “OK, thanks,” responded Simone, a little hesitantly, not knowing what else to do with her inebriated daughter, at that moment.

  A few moments later, however, as Brodie was slowly making his way out the door, almost carrying the now all but comatose Sasha, Simone came running after him with Sasha’s purse, which she had retrieved from the table where her daughter had left it.

  “I think it would be better if you took her home to our place, Brodie,” she said, breathlessly, as she caught up with him. “Here’s Sasha’s purse. There’s a house key in it. You’ll need to de-activate the security alarm after you get in. It’s located on the left, just inside the front door. The code number is 3, 5, 7, 9. Do you know how to operate it?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Boothby. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her until you get home.”

  Nadine and Pat were seated at a table in the covered outdoor area of Zoot’s in the company, now, of two men. Their table was close to the paved walkway that led from the door of the function room to the large car parking area that served the clientele of the entire establishment. Nadine had selected this table for its proximity to the walkway, and the uninterrupted view it provided of the comings and goings to and from the function room.

  At last her constant vigilance was rewarded by the emergence from the function room, in an obviously distraught state, of a small, bird-like woman, followed closely by a portly, middle aged man who appeared to be struggling to keep pace with his companion’s determined march. The conversation between the two, as they hurried by, was clearly audible to Nadine and her companions.

  “I’ve never been so disgusted in all my life!” said the woman, vehemently. “Those daughters of theirs are just spoiled brats!”

  “But I don’t like leaving Lee in the lurch,” replied the man, between pants.

  “Humph! That’s his problem! It’s his fault they’re so spoiled,” replied the woman, with a toss of her head and an increase in her pace.

  Soon after the passage of these two, there followed, at a slightly slower pace, another couple of similar ages. The man carried himself stiffly, his back ramrod straight, his chin tucked in, and his eyes fixed firmly to the front. His female companion trailed along half a pace behind, and slightly to one side, her eyes, alternately, downcast, and then raised to the side of the man’s face, as if trying to gauge his mood and intent, like an obedient pet.

  “I couldn’t stand to stay there one minute longer!” declared the man, without looking in the woman’s direction. “I feel so embarrassed for David.”

  “I know, dear,” was his companion’s only response.

  As these two marched out of earshot, Nadine turned to Pat and, with a mischievous grin, said, “I told you there’d be some more entertainment if we stuck around tonight.”

  It was only a few minutes later that they both stared, in amazement, at the sight of a tall, well-built young man, following the same path as the two previous couples, but almost carrying an obviously very drunk and weepy Sasha Boothby. They then witnessed the exchange between that young man and Simone, who had hurried after them, brandishing a woman’s purse, which she handed over to the man, before turning, apparently reluctantly, and disappearing back into the function room. The young man then continued on towards the carpark with his bedraggled burden.

  At that point, Nadine began to feel decidedly uncomfortable. Given what she had just witnessed, she thought it quite likely that Lee and Simone would also soon leave the function room, and the prospect that Lee might see her still there, and seated at a table with people whom she considered to be a bit ‘low-life’, caused her considerable concern.

  Just then, the mobile of one of the two young men sharing her table began to ring. He answered it with a curt, “Yeah?”, followed by, “What? Yeah. Yeah. I dunno! Yeah! ’Ang on. Me n’ Steve’ll meet ya there in five.”

  Then, grabbing a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from the table top, and tucking the packet expertly into the sleeve of his t-shirt, he jumped to his feet, a move quickly imitated, like a well-trained seal, by his male companion.

  Pulling in his stomach, and pushing out his chest, the first man extended one rough, slightly grubby hand towards Nadine, which she took, hesitantly and gingerly.

  “Nice t’ meet ya, luv. Jake’d be real chuffed to see Pat mated up with a bit o’ class like youse. ’Member what I tol ya. Anyone gives ya any grief, just ring Pat. She’ll know where t’ find us, and we’ll sort ‘em out, no worries!”

  Then, turning to Pat, he continued, “See ya, Pat. Give Jake our best next time yez see ‘im.”

  The two then departed, much to Nadine’s relief.

  “I think it’s time I got going, too, Pat,” said Nadine, after a short pause only long enough to allow the two men to disappear. “Mum’ll be waiting up for me. I’ve seen enough of the rich and famous for tonight!”

  When she re-entered the function room, Simone scanned the milling, noisy crowd for a glimpse of Lee. Eventually, she spotted him with George and Marj. George appeared to be giving him an earful of his wisdom, to which Lee seemed to be paying no attention. He was staring, vacantly into the distance, still apparently in shock over his elder daughter’s outrageous stunt.

  Making her way, with some difficulty, through the throng towards Lee, Simone noticed that, as she passed, some guests fell briefly silent, while some gave her sympathetic looks. She did not pause to speak to any, but stopped only when she reached Lee’s side. Then, ignoring George’s presence, and interrupting his tirade to Lee, she said to her husband, in a commanding tone, “Lee, I need to speak to you, now.”

  Having gained his attention, she pulled him aside, out of George’s and Marj’s earshot, before continuing.

  “Brodie has taken Sasha home, to our place. But,” she added, a note of concern entering her voice, “we don’t really know him all that well, and Sasha’s pretty near comatose. So, could you please collect Delia, and get home with her as quickly as you can. I’ll deal with the party planner, and wind this all up as soon as we can get everybody out of here. Then I’ll get home too. God, what a shambles!!”

  Lee quickly agreed, immensely relieved that he had been given cause to leave what he, too, thought had become a complete shambles, thanks to Sasha. He also welcomed the opportunity to avoid the embarrassment of attempting to make excuses for his daughter’s behaviour to their many friends present. He therefore quickly set off in search of Delia.

  CHAPTER 7

  The warmth, on her face, of the morning sunlight, streaming in through her bedroom window, awoke Simone. She was immediately aware that she had slept later than usual, and that it had been a deeper, less disturbed sleep than she had anticipated, after the events of the previous evening. She surmised that those events must have left her so physically and emotionally drained that her mind and body had simply demand
ed the regeneration that only deep, unbroken sleep could bring.

  She lay there, for a time, relishing the quietness of her room, before having to rise to face the inevitable post-mortems and recriminations which she felt were bound to develop once Sasha and Delia awoke. Her solitude was broken, then, by a gentle rap on the bedroom door, followed, immediately, by the quiet entrance of a fully clothed Lee, bearing a tray on which rested a steaming cup of tea, and a plate of hot, buttered toast, with jam.

  “I thought you could probably do with a starter, this morning,” said Lee, as she sat up and took the tray he proffered to her. Her wide-eyed silence demonstrated her complete surprise at this most unusual kindness from her husband, and it took her a moment or two to recover sufficiently to mumble a bewildered, “Thank you, Lee.”

  As she nibbled, tentatively, on a piece of toast, and sipped, appreciatively, at her tea, Lee sat on the edge of her bed and watched her.

  “You’re up and about early,” she said, between sips, “since you were still up, talking to Brodie, when I got home, and didn’t get to bed until after me.”

  “Yes, but, after you went to bed, Brodie suggested I go fishing with him, down at the pier, this morning, rather than sit around here stewing and waiting for Sasha to get up. He said he knows, from experience, what it’s like to awake, hung-over, and be immediately berated by an angry parent. He reckons nothing is ever solved that way, and it would be better for me to relax, for a while, and try to talk calmly to Sasha later, after she’s had time to recover a bit. I was glad he was here last night, otherwise I might have been tempted to wake her and try to talk some sense to her then, even though I knew that would be pointless. I was just so angry with her!”

  After a pause, during which Simone said nothing, Lee continued.

  “I felt a bit guilty, leaving you to deal with all the aftermath of our daughter’s behaviour, last night, but you urged me to go, and seemed to have some doubts about Brodie.”

  “I know. I just didn’t think it wise, with Sasha being so drunk, to leave her alone with a young man we hardly know. At times, he just seems too good to be true. Maybe I was just being a protective mother.”

  Further discussion between the two, at that point, was cut short by the sound of their doorbell.

  “That’ll be Brodie now,” announced Lee, rising from Simone’s bed.

  He paused, for a moment, looking down at her, with a look of indecision on his face. He felt a fleeting urge to kiss her on the cheek, before departing, but felt unable to do so.

  “Ah – I’ll see you later, then,” he stammered, before turning to leave the room.

  As Simone continued to enjoy her tea and toast, she experienced some conflicting feelings about Lee’s departure. On the one hand, she appreciated the sense of his getting out of the house for a while, before Sasha awoke, but, on the other, she felt some resentment that she did not have the same opportunity. Besides, she knew that she also had Delia’s behaviour with Anita to come to grips with, and to contemplate how she could navigate her way through that minefield with her younger daughter. She had spared her husband the anxiety that she knew that piece of information would have caused him.

  She was still battling these mixed emotions as she left the bedroom and descended to the kitchen, tray in hand. Then, turning to depart the kitchen, after depositing the tray on a bench, her eyes fell on the collection of Sasha’s birthday gifts, which were spread, randomly, over a portion of the floor of the adjoining large family room, where they had been hastily deposited late the previous evening. Entering that room, she began to inspect and read the cards attached to some of the gaily wrapped packages. As she did so, she felt a rising tide of embarrassment at how the generosity of so many of her friends had been so unjustly rewarded by her daughter’s outrageous behaviour at the party held to celebrate her supposed maturity.

  Progressing through the array of gifts, her eye, at last, fell on the box bearing the emblazoned title ‘Wild Lover’, and her face burned anew with embarrassment at her recollection of Sasha’s performance with that particular object last night. Despite her renewed embarrassment, however, Simone felt somehow drawn to this bizarre instrument and, as if in a trance, she opened the box, removed the article, and held it up to study it, at the same time inquisitively fingering its erect phallic body. Driven by an intense curiosity, she found and pressed the button that activated the vibrating mechanism.

  She was unsure how long she stood there, mesmerized by this plastic object, but, all at once, she became aware of an overwhelming feeling that she was being watched. Spinning around, she found herself confronted by Delia, whose face bore a contemptuous sneer.

  The shock of being confronted by her daughter, in such an embarrassing position, caused Simone to drop the vibrator like a hot potato, and her face to turn an even darker shade of red.

  Mother and daughter just stood motionless, staring at each other in stunned silence for a few seconds, before either spoke.

  “Have you told Dad about Anita and me, yet?” asked Delia, at last, breaking the awkward silence.

  “No, not yet,” replied Simone, a little relieved that Delia had chosen that topic, rather than broach the subject of her apparent fascination with the vibrator. “I don’t think your father could deal with that, yet – not after your sister’s disgraceful exhibition last night.” Then, after a brief pause she continued.

  “Is it just an experimental phase you’re going through, Delia?”

  “No, no Mum! I’ve known, for ages, that I’m gay, and that’s the way I’ll always be, whether you and Dad like it or not! You two have hardly been great models of heterosexuality!” she continued, in an increasingly aggressive tone. “I can’t ever remember seeing you kiss, and I can’t remember the last time I even saw you touch each other, let alone lovingly. And when I saw you, just now, holding and looking at that vibrator, I thought you were about to use it on yourself. Maybe that’s what you should do. It might get rid of all your frustrations, and then you might leave me alone!”

  Shocked by her daughter’s sudden provocative statement, and the vehemence of her attack, Simone snapped, and delivered a stinging slap to the side of her face. It was an instinctive action, and one that she instantly regretted. She immediately collapsed into a nearby chair, where she burst into uncontrollable sobbing, fuelled by all of the pent-up emotions she had been experiencing for some time past.

  Delia responded by also bursting into tears and, after a brief pause, during which she gingerly fingered the side of her face reddened by her mother’s blow, she stepped to Simone’s side, and threw her arms around her neck. Simone reciprocated, and the two clung together, sobbing in unison.

  In between sobs, Simone asked Delia, “Did your father and I make you that way?”

  “No, Mum. It’s just the way I am, and the way I feel. I wish I could make you understand. What I need is for you to support me.”

  “I need some time to get my head around it, first,” replied Simone, as her sobs began to abate. “But I hope you know, darling, that I love you, just as I do Sasha, unconditionally.”

  “Thanks, Mum,” responded Delia, giving her mother a firm kiss on the cheek, and a stronger hug.

  “Please don’t tell Anita’s parents about us, Mum,” she added, after a momentary pause.

  “You should know I wouldn’t do that, without Anita’s permission.”

  “I’d better ring her and tell her that,” said Delia, relief showing on her face. “She is absolutely terrified you’d tell them. You just don’t know what dinosaurs they are!”

  As the two began to recover their composure, Simone spoke more calmly to Delia. “Please, Delia, don’t go running out today before your father gets back. He’s gone fishing with Brodie to settle himself down, and he wants to have a calm, reasoned talk with both you and Sasha after he gets home.”

  “Why me? I didn’t get sloshed and create a scene last night, and you said you haven’t told him about me and Anita.”

  “An
d I haven’t. But, you must admit you’ve had an attitude problem lately.”

  “Yeah, OK, I’ll stay. But I don’t think I’ve got an attitude problem ,” responded Delia, with a shrug. “Well,” she added, with an impish grin, “at least Sasha made her party memorable. I can’t wait to hear what Dad says to her about it! Will you ever forget the look on ‘Miss Prissy’ Braithwaite’s face when Sash called out to her?”

  “Oh my God!” responded Simone, burying her face in her hands.

  Late that afternoon, Sasha had still not emerged from her closed bedroom, and Delia had retreated to hers, ostensibly to study. Since returning from his fishing outing with Brodie, Lee had fussed around with his fishing gear, impatiently killing time until Sasha should show her face and he could have the stern talk with her that he intended. Having exhausted that task, he entered the bedroom where Simone was passing the time clearing some of her unwanted clothing from her wardrobe.

  “I think I’ll nick over to see Harold and Emily, and apologise for Sasha’s behaviour last night,” he announced with a grimace. “I’ve already broken the news to them that I won’t be able to attend their party next weekend. I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you about that, but I have to go to a seminar at the coast next weekend.”

  “Oh, alright, and thanks for volunteering to go and front them. I was dreading the thought of having to do it myself.”

  Some time after Lee’s departure, Sasha emerged, at last, from her bedroom, looking much the worse for wear. Simone heard her in the kitchen, and descended to join her there, followed closely by Delia. They found Sasha, seated at the table, with a cold pack on her head, taking some aspirin with a large drink of water. She gave her mother a sheepish look, as Delia raided the refrigerator, from which she took a large tray of assorted gourmet snacks, which she placed on the table, before sitting opposite her sister with a look of eager anticipation.