Page 16 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests
“I’ll get the next round in,” Melvin offers, jumping to his feet and then striding toward the bar. There’s a bounce in his step thatwas absent at Serendipity’s.
“Water for me, please, Melvin,” Gordon calls to his back.
As Tristan watches Melvin, he remembers him and Janet whispering together at the end of the dinner party. He wonders what they were discussing. Perhaps they argued; they don’t seem to be on the friendliest terms today. The night had fizzled out by then, Vivienne had just left, and Tristan had suddenly been overcome with tiredness, so he made his way upstairs. Outside, he found Vivienne standing over the spilled contents of her handbag, staring blindly at her mobile, apparently disoriented.
“My phone seems to be out of battery,” she told him. “I need to call a taxi.”
“The tube station isn’t far,” he assured her. Once he’d helped her pick up her things, they walked the twenty minutes together. They talked a bit about the other dinner party guests, and then Vivienne opened up about her magazine’s struggling sales figures, her inexperienced boss and hopeless colleagues. He listened, asked a few questions, and then, outside the station, she blushingly thanked him before stomping off toward the escalators.
Gazing into the bright station, he decided he’d had enough of people and noise for one night, so he turned away and made his way home on foot. He marched through London with his thoughts about the dinner party guests similarly marching through his mind. Janet’s red lips, Matthew’s impossibly black eyes, Melvin’s bass voice. Then Janet’s horrified face when she’d opened her envelope…
Tristan was surprised to find himself already standing in front of his block of flats. Going inside, he saw that everything was justas he’d left it: his small kitchen clean and tidy, his laptop closed on the desk, the sheets on his double bed perfectly ironed. Everything was the same, but he felt different. It was as if he was fully charged, having spent years on low battery. His fingers and toes tingled with energy. He tried to sit down on the sofa, but his body wouldn’t let him rest. He paced around his little flat, up and down, circling his small kitchen table.
Finally, he sat down at his little desk, opened up his laptop, and clicked on Facebook. He went straight to Ellie’s page and immediately noticed two changes: First, the blue button that usually came up saying Friends now said Send Friend Request. She had “unfriended” him.
“What?” he shouted at her smiling profile picture.
She must have known he’d looked on her page, must have known he would see this right away. He knew she’d dated someone shortly after him. It had nearly broken Tristan when he saw that she’d tagged a man alongside a series of pictures showing menus from posh restaurants, two hands (one clearly masculine, a chunky silver watch on his wrist) clutching champagne cocktails, and other shots of theater tickets and a private ride on the London Eye. Then she had gone quiet and even deleted the pictures. A friend had written a comment asking what happened. And Ellie had replied with a broken-heart emoji.
But that was all months ago, and there had been no mention of him since. Why would she suddenly unfriend Tristan? They hadn’t spoken in months. The only thing he could think of was that she had started seeing someone new, someone serious. Staring hard atthe pixels that made up the wordfriend, Tristan forced himself to count. The numbers—those lovely reliable numbers—were the only things keeping him from throwing his laptop against the wall.
“These should help with the shock,” Melvin says now, proudly bearing a silver tray with six shot glasses filled to the brim. Melvin grins broadly as he hands the glasses around like the best man at his first-ever stag party. It strikes Tristan that while Matthew is a sadder version of himself from the dinner party, Melvin appears to be a happier version. Matthew grabs a glass and knocks back the shot. He closes his eyes as the alcohol rolls down his throat, clearly enjoying the sensation. To Tristan’s surprise, Vivienne quickly follows suit.
“Bottoms up,” Melvin says, lifting a glass and clinking it against Tristan’s.
“To Stella,” Tristan says before putting the glass to his lips. The overwhelming taste of aniseed fills his senses. It takes all his willpower not to spit it straight out. Squeezing his eyes shut, he forces the burning liquid down, convinced his stomach will quickly give it its marching orders. But no, it settles and then a warm feeling washes through Tristan, and he slowly opens his eyes.
Gordon
Gordon clutches the small shot glass in front of him. The transparent fluid inside looks innocent enough, but he knows it contains around 40 percent alcohol and none of the antioxidant properties of a nice glass of Malbec. Of course, Janet knocked hers backimmediately. He waited for Vivienne to push hers away or Tristan to abstain, but, to his amazement, they both threw back the disgusting drink. Gordon lifts it to his mouth, takes the smallest of sips, and then hides it behind an empty pint glass on the table. Thankfully, no one notices, and he breathes out a controlled sigh. After what happened following the dinner party two weeks ago, he has no intention of overindulging this afternoon.
“Can you believe we were having dinner with Stella just two weeks ago, and now she’s gone?” Vivienne says, both hands clutching the handbag on her knee as if it is a wayward baby likely to throw itself onto the ground at any moment. “You just don’t know when your number’s up.”
Gordon’s hand goes to his jacket pocket. It’s time.
“Aren’t you going to ask about my information?” he says, and five pairs of eyes turn toward him.
“Oh, yes, Gordon—you said you knew something about Stella’s death?” Janet responds.
“Before we get to that, I wondered if Stella’s passing has made any of you give further thought toyournumbers?” he says.
“Gordon, I really don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss this on the day of Stella’s funeral,” Melvin admonishes.
“Well, I happen to believe this is the perfect time…” Gordon goes on.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about it, if you must know,” Janet cries, her voice cracking.
“Now, now, Gordon,” Melvin says in his most calming police officer tone. “Didn’t we agree that we wouldn’t take those envelopesseriously? Stella’s death was a tragic accident; no one could possibly have known it would happen.”
“I watched her leave her envelope on the table,” Vivienne says. “There’s no point discussing it when we’ll never know the truth.”
“Won’t we?” Gordon asks, then pulls a tiny black envelope from his pocket and tosses it in the center of the table like a magician performing a trick.
Janet lets out a melodramatic gasp as all eyes turn from Gordon to the envelope clearly bearing Stella’s name on its front.
After the dinner party, Gordon had watched the other guests leave. As he pulled on his jacket, he noticed Stella and Melvin’s envelopes still lying by their place settings. Instinctively, he picked them up and pushed them into the side pocket of his briefcase. Out on the street, he followed Janet and Melvin as they swayed along the road together. When they entered a hotel bar, he stood in the shadows outside and watched them take a seat by the window, Janet clutching Melvin’s hands across the table, wagging her ludicrous chest in his face. Gordon found he couldn’t stop watching her, that strange combination of disgust and interest stirring in him again. Later, he flagged down a black cab and must have dozed a little on the way, as it felt like only minutes later that the taxi stopped with a jolt outside the green gate on their quiet road in Wandsworth. He paid the man quickly and then tiptoed his way inside and up the stairs to their bedroom. Elizabeth was fast asleep, and he gazed enviously at her. His body ached with tiredness, but he knew he couldn’t go to bed just yet. He knew he had to do something about all the food—and wine—he’d consumed. Sittingdown on the bed, he pulled off his clothes and lay down next to Elizabeth, just for a minute.
But he awoke hours later, morning light seeping through the wooden shutters and no sign of Elizabeth. He assumed she’d set out on her morning run. Gordon’s mouth and tongue had the texture of felt, his head was heavy. He couldn’t stop thinking of the food working its way through his body, his perfectly balanced digestive system screaming out in horror. He leaped from the bed and crouched down in front of the toilet in their en suite. Quickly, he pulled his spare toothbrush from under the sink and felt relief wash over him as the steak, red wine, and gluey digested potatoes filled the toilet bowl.
