Being Lily. Qarnita Loxton
have flapped her too-thick-mascara’d lashes and said, Ooh, Owen, have you been working out?
I hate tall skinny blondes with thigh gaps. Now that her arms were uncrossed I could see this one was perky enough not to even need a bra. Double hate.
“Ja, okay, sure. See you later.” Owen stood for a bit, watching as she walked back to her table. He waved at the girl sitting there.
“What was that about? You know them?” I asked carefully when he sat down. Obviously he did.
“That’s Courtney. I don’t know the other girl,” he said. I scratched through the files in my head. I would’ve remembered her name if I had saved it together with a picture of what she looked like.
“Courtney?” Owen said again, his eyebrows raised at me. It was clearly someone I should remember. “My ex from Durban. The one I left to go work in Joburg? Talk about a blast from the past, last time she was screaming some big words at me over the phone. Said I was hardly better than my dad, which is crazy.” He shook his head at the memory. Riccardo and Elaine met when they were both working at the Beverly Hills in Umhlanga, and Riccardo had ditched Elaine when she fell pregnant, leaving her in Durban to come home to his family in Cape Town. It was the only thing to do given that mixed relationships were illegal then, and it was lucky for them that Owen came out looking like he could be Italian. Riccardo had phoned a few times a year, visited the Bluff a few times over the years, but hadn’t spent too much effort on being a dad to Owen even after the laws were changed. I’d met him just after Owen and I got engaged. Once was enough. “I haven’t seen Courtney for years,” Owen said, the memories somewhere behind his eyes. “Can’t believe she looks exactly the same.”
That’s Courtney? I wanted to shout but it wouldn’t have matched my act-casual idea. Although Owen didn’t seem to notice, I must’ve given off some scary vibes because a waiter magically appeared at our table, ready to take more orders. Usually I wave my arms like I am drowning in the surf before one of them comes. Possibly I’m not laid-back enough for a West Coast seaside town.
“You can take it away, thanks,” I said to the waiter. I hadn’t eaten enough of the eggs and avo, but I was glad for the time to remember what I knew of Courtney while he cleared everything away. Courtney was Owen’s first proper girlfriend. First girl he’d slept with when she was sixteen, him seventeen. His first love. Owen hadn’t ever given full sex details of any of his girlfriends (all three of them) and I was bloody relieved he hadn’t told – or expected me to tell. Imagine the hell in that! I didn’t ever want to think about the competition, plus I don’t remember half of the names on my and Kari’s European trip alone. He did say that he’d taken Courtney to his matric ball and that she’d worn a silver satin dress with such a low back and such a high thigh slit that his sister Ronnie had tried to close it all up with safety pins. Courtney’d dumped him after that matric ball to hook up with another guy, kept them both on and off until Owen was twenty-one, when he’d left to try his luck in Joburg. A month of long distance later, he had called it quits for good. He could’ve tipped me off on what she looked like, for fuck’s sake. If I’d known, I would’ve squeezed her surname out of him and Facebook stalked her long ago.
“I wonder why she is at Eden?” I said eventually, after the waiter had gone and I’d downed my cold espresso.
“Guess I’ll find out. I’ll ring you if it’s interesting,” is all that Owen said. Shit, I wanted to phone Kari from the toilet. She would’ve said something to make me laugh until I knew I was being ridiculous. I’d call Di later, hear exactly what Courtney said when she came looking for Owen.
“What were we talking about again?” Owen said, checking the Tag on his arm. “If Courtney’s coming at one, I should go back now, finish up the things I wanted to do later.” He ran his hand through his hair, resting it on top of his head so it temporarily flattened his thick dark hair. “Come on, babe, is where we go on honeymoon that important? I want to be married to you, all the frills and things don’t matter in the end. Let’s just enjoy the first days of being married – we don’t have to be in France for that? We have our whole lives to go there.”
I didn’t have an answer. He was right, it didn’t matter. I was too busy anyways thinking about what Courtney could want. Kari would nail me, warning I was letting my imagination run away with me. “Moenie spoke opjaag nie,” she’d said yesterday when I had a meltdown that something bad was going to happen. “Don’t go looking for crises in the month before the wedding.” I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t have a good feeling. How does the saying go? You can be a wife or a girlfriend for a short time, but an ex you can be forever. I thought we had been spared the ex-hex; I’d never factored in that kind of trouble. Would Courtney and her silver bullet bags change that with only four weeks to go?
3
Thankfully I had Shelley’s marathon Botox session to distract me during the long wait for Owen’s phone call. Even so, the time stretched.
“We talked honeymoon this morning,” I said as I pushed the thin diabetic needle into the corrugator muscle on Shelley’s forehead, squeezing in the Botox, then slowly pulled the needle out. I like the idea that I can easily relax a muscle that reminds me of stiff, ridged cardboard. I’m not usually the kind of person who relaxes a situation, smooths things over. I have the personality equivalent of resting bitch face: I can ruffle things up, piss people off, make them wonder what the hell is wrong with me with just one word. All without ever meaning to. Botox makes me feel what it must be like to be the other kind of person. The kind most people like.
“Oh?” Shelley said softly, exhaling through her mouth without moving her lips. We had crossed the finish line. Hands, face, and feet to stop her from sweating herself into a puddle in the February heat. Eyes and forehead to make her look like she had nothing to worry about.
“I was hoping he wouldn’t take it the wrong way. I practised how to bring it up and everything, even chose late breakfast where there is a time limit so that we don’t carry on too long and get wedding rage,” I said, pulling off my gloves, for once careful of my engagement ring. The latex kept snagging on the claws holding the diamond.
“Look at you, practising what to say,” Shelley said, finally relaxing. “Daddy’s little girl is growing up at last. Learning not to stomp her feet to get what she wants.” She smiled, scrunching her face this way and that, as if she needed the Botox to spread all the way around. “Owen has taught you well.”
I laughed even though it stung. Shelley was a truth speaker, and she was right. I had learned. In the past two years Owen had simply ignored what the others called my rich-bitch tantrums, taught me there were things money couldn’t buy. Showed me how to be nice. It’s not something everyone automatically knows how to be.
“Shelley, you are worse than me! Why does no one ever complain about you? In any case, I stuffed the whole thing up properly. And in the middle of it, this ex of his from Durban suddenly appeared from fuckin’ nowhere. She didn’t stay, said she wanted to see him at the office …” My voice trailed off.
“It’s in the delivery, darling,” she said, smiling again, patting my hand, “and it’s easy to hate someone pretty and smart and rich like you. No one expects you to be nice. But me? A sweaty strawberry shortcake with a baby pouch for a stomach and a laugh like a hadedah? People laugh at whatever I say.” She must have seen something extra in my resting bitch face because she stopped smiling and frowned while she still could. “Are you worried about the ex? She was probably looking for a rental. Believe me, you are at no risk with Owen – that guy only has eyes for you. Nothing like his father.” I’d told her how I thought that Riccardo’s hands had lingered too long on my bum when I’d hugged him hello that one time; how he had gone on to flirt outrageously with the waitress. He’d asked for her number (which she’d given!) when Owen had paid the bill. Then he had asked Owen for a loan (which he’d given!). I’d freaked out, but spared Owen my horror at his genetic makeup by venting at Shelley. People in glass houses, I’d reminded myself, thinking of how my dad’s body had followed his wandering eyes.
“Thanks, man.