Page 11 of Melt With You

As the evening progressed, they switched over to pretty drinks with silly names – a Dirty Girl Scout for Dori, a Long Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall for Chelsea, and Blue Margaritas for Janie and Violet who cried out ‘jinx’ when they ordered the same thing, simultaneously. ‘You owe me a coke,’ Violet crowed.

‘Speaking of coke …’ Janie interrupted, ‘you know what happened to Gael Livingston, right?’

‘Gael?’ Chelsea asked, shrugging to indicate she didn’t know who Janie was talking about.

‘The man that owned the Creamery,’ Janie reminded her. ‘This place. What used to be here. He got busted for coke, the summer after we graduated. There was this sting, and he was caught with intent to deal.’ Janie’s older sister was on the local police force. ‘I heard he went to pr –’

But as she said the word, Violet kicked her under the table. Chelsea’s own husband had recently been arrested. Again. And even if Violet didn’t get on well with her sister all the time, she didn’t feel the need to pour on the salt, unless it was around the rim of one more margarita.

‘You know the deejay?’ Chelsea began. ‘He used to be in a band with Dameron.’

As they gossiped, talking about their friends, the people they’d seen the night before, Violet continued to look at the photos of Dori and Luke on the phone.

‘Why’d he take this?’

Dori shrugged. ‘I guess this is the new definition of phone sex.’

‘Weren’t things simpler when we were kids?’ Violet asked, watching the people around her, and the men with their Bluetooth headsets, going for that part-machine look, as if they’d signed on for a Robocop assignment.

‘I don’t know,’ Dori said, after her third drink. ‘Maybe we didn’t have all this space-age technology, but I don’t remember high school being particularly easy, either.’

Violet was silent, thinking. ‘Honestly, I don’t remember much of the day-to-day of it at all,’ she said finally. ‘I mean, I have these blurs of memories. Driving to San Francisco with you to go clothes shopping at those stores.’

‘The six-dollar a pound stores!’ Dori said excitedly. ‘I remember that.’

‘And going to Berkeley, to Telegraph Hill …’ Janie added.

‘… where all the stores smelled like patchouli.’

‘That’s how we got nailed,’ Violet moaned. ‘Your mom smelt the incense on you, and she knew there wasn’t a store in town that smelt like that.’

When one of their phones rang, the four women reached into their purses simultaneously. The phone was Chelsea’s, but Dori had it in her hands.

She didn’t realize the ringing device wasn’t her own phone until after she’d said, ‘Hello?’ and heard a semi-familiar voice ask for Shell. She was about to tell the man that he had the wrong number, when she suddenly realized the coincidence. ‘Shell,’ she repeated curiously. ‘Do you mean Chelsea? Are you looking for Chelsea Slater?’

‘She dropped my name already, did she?’

From the snide tone, Dori realized the man on the phone was Dameron, Chelsea’s ex. Marc Dameron, but they’d always called him by his last name. She handed the blonde her phone, mouthing, ‘Dam’ as she did so.

As she listened to Chelsea snipe at her ex, Dori realized that they must have swapped phones accidentally at dinner the night before the dance. She had grabbed Chelsea’s and Chelsea had taken hers. Slowly, realization dawned on Dori, understanding exactly what that meant. The photos she’d believed were on her phone were actually on Chelsea’s X-phone. She squinted her eyes, concentrating. The phone swap meant that Rowan might have called, might have gotten Chelsea instead of her, the way that she’d just answered the phone and found herself talking to Chelsea’s ex.

After Chelsea spoke to Dameron, she took both of the phones in her hands.

‘You can see why we got confused,’ she said. Dori nodded. Chelsea had bought her own scarlet slim-line after the birthday dinner in NY. Chelsea had always seemed to want the same toys that Dori owned. But now, while Dori watched, she felt that Chelsea had hold of the phone too long.

‘What are you doing?’ Dori asked, sliding her chair closer to see.

‘Nothing.’

Dori leaned over just as Chelsea hit the green button with the cherry. The one that meant ‘send.’

‘What did you do?’ Dori shrieked. She’d seen the name flash across the screen at the last second. Chelsea had learnt the functions of the phones better than Dori had. And, with a simple click, she had sent Rowan the picture of Dori tied down, eyes wide, lips parted in obvious pleasure.

‘I just wanted him to see what he missed,’ Chelsea said with a smile.

‘Bitch,’ Violet hissed, understanding the situation instantly. If Chelsea couldn’t have Luke, then Dori wouldn’t be able to have Rowan. Tit for tat in Chelsea’s world.

‘You have no idea,’ Chelsea smiled, sounding pleased.

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