Page 7 of Don't Point at the Moon

Mitchell checked the open front door where Kate and Beth stood deep in conversation with an elderly couple. For all his wit and sarcasm, Mitchell trusted Harold’s insights, and right then, something crystallised in him. He leant down to position his glass carefully on a coaster before straightening up.

“How long?” asked Mitchell.

“Sorry?” asked William, confused.

“Around five minutes,” said Harold.

“Tell me you’re not going to crash their party?” asked William.

“Quite the opposite. You asked earlier about bystander intervention,” said Mitchell. “Well, this is a living example, me taking the initiative to stop Adam—and probably Tommy—finding themselves in a situation they might regret. Most of all, it’s about me knowing all of this and bothering to offer my help. They might tell me to piss off, but at least I’ll know I tried. Because if I woke tomorrow morning and found out something terrible had happened, knowing I could have intervened but did nothing, then I’d never forgive myself.”

“You’re an idealist. They’re adults,” said William, rolling his eyes. “They can take care of themselves.”

“That may be the case. And maybe I am being oversensitive.”

“Would they do the same for you?” asked William. Mitchell noticed that Harold had yet to pass comment. “I think not.”

“Fine. Then let’s just say I’m doing this for me,” said Mitchell before holding a hand up in farewell. “I’ll call you over the weekend.”

“Good man,” was all Harold contributed.

And with that, after a quick wave to the hosts, Mitchell slipped through the door.

Chapter Two

Tommy Chow perched on the corner of the faux-antique writing desk in his sister Sammi’s Wellington Street aromatherapy shop, Candles in the Mist, flicking through a society magazine. Sammi trusted nobody else to unpack and check the deliveries of her stock, especially the artisanal ceramic oil burners. Half-past nine, she still had another half an hour before the doors opened for trade. There was something magical about the store with its musk-laden air and softly lit interior. Clusters of candles of various shapes, sizes, colours and scents sat on tabletops surrounded by regimented rows of aromatherapy oils, devices and other beautiful but wholly superfluous lifestyle curios. Everything had been arranged on Chinese antique rosewood tables or dressers amid hanging red lanterns.

“What do you think of this?” asked Sammi, holding an egg-shaped device in her palm. Tommy squinted a few times before shrugging.

“Looks like a sex toy.”

“Barbarian. This is a mini humidifier—for travelling—combined with a diffuser, to slowly release essential oils. Comes with LED mood light settings.”

“Wow, who doesn’t need one of those? You should rename this shop Unessential Objects.”

“And you should keep your opinions to yourself.”

“Then you should stop asking for them.”

He’d offered to help unpack, knowing she would decline because, being a control freak, she insisted on personally inspecting every item in her inventory. Instead, he had popped along to her favourite juice shop two doors down and bought her what he called her lawn juice—a mix of green apples, green vegetables and wheat grass. Until she had the ring on her finger, she reminded him repeatedly, there would be no more cream-topped iced caramel macchiatos.

“What did you get up to last night?” she asked, filling the silence. “Back to trawling the bars again? Or have you turned over a new leaf and decided progressing to cocktail parties or other grown-up activities is now your thing?”

He should never have told her. Almost three weeks ago Tommy had found himself attending a cocktail party in Repulse Bay, invited by a friend of a friend. Unsurprisingly, his sister knew one of the hosts, Kate Kirkby, who attended the same Pilates class. She and her wife had used the party to introduce the little girl they hoped to adopt.”

“I did my one and only cocktail party, remember? Three weeks ago. An experience I would blank from memory.”

“So you did. What happened again?”

“I told you. Pretty dull to begin with. But just as things started to look promising, this gweilo dickhead stuck his fat nose in.”

“You know using the term gweilo for a Westerner is considered offensive these days, don’t you?”

Tommy rolled his eyes. His sister preached political correctness when the situation suited her. He said nothing because she also invariably had his corner.

“Whatever.”

“Anyway, go on,” she said, her head buried in a box. “Which gweilo? There are so many.”

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