Chapter One: Part Two
A coat fell over her shoulders and she shuddered deeply, registering just how cold she was. Kate blinked in confusion when she realised that the city was in deep twilight, unable to recall when that had happened. Wrapping her in a huge pirouetting hug, Dee kissed Kate playfully on the cheek.
‘Come on love. Let’s get you warm, fed and pissed,’ she said as she half dragged and half-carried Kate towards her waiting taxi.
Called Danielle by her mother, Dee was a force of nature and Kate’s lifelong friend. Only slightly taller than average, Dee had a broad, muscular physique, earned through many years of strenuous early-morning training sessions that had, until three years ago, consistently earned her places on the state and national rowing teams. Hers was also the type of hard, athletic figure that appeared a little overweight in all but the best-cut clothes.
~~~~~
‘To a clean start and bugger the past,’ was Dee’s first toast of the evening. She diligently kept their glasses filled with brandy and offered many other toasts that evening, all proposing increasingly dark and imaginative scenarios leading to The Prick’s slow castration and eventual demise. All of Kate’s friends simply identified Silvio as The Prick.
Later, in bed, Kate stared towards the ceiling with unseeing eyes. Despite the alcohol and her weariness, sleep evaded her. With her deepening fatigue and frustration, her tears finally came. Less than an hour before dawn, exhaustion eventually prevailed and she fell into a fitful and restless doze.
~~~~~
Her fatigued brain struggled to understand why the sun was in her eyes, and why a door was on the wrong side of her bed. Confused and trying to focus, she looked around the room. At that moment, the reality of the past eighteen months hit her with the cold, dumbfounding force of an avalanche. Kate trembled as she felt a weight form in her stomach, growing hotter and heavier. Her head started to swim as the memories of her nightmare pushed against her, one after the other.
She had been happily married to someone she believed to be a wonderful man. Their future assured by her inheritance; the jewel of which was an engineering firm started by her father. Under her careful and expert guidance, the company had grown steadily, making a consistent and respectable profit. All in all, life had been as close to ideal as it could be. It would have been perfect if only her friends could accept how wonderful her husband really was.
Then eighteen months ago, a letter arrived from a bank she had never heard of. ‘Pay up or get out!’ was its essence. When she showed it to Silvio, he took it, assuring her that it was a scam and that he’d take care of it. Nothing more happened and life went on.
Three months later, Kate arrived home from a ten-day symposium and trade-show, excited to be home in time for their second wedding anniversary. On the phone, Silvio had promised her a huge surprise and sounded very excited about it. When the cab pulled up to her house, she found a large van in her driveway. The men carrying her furniture out pointed her towards a man leaning on the rear of his car. As soon as she approached him, he pushed a large envelope into her hands without explanation. She opened it and her world stopped. Written by her husband’s and creditor’s lawyers, the executive summary of the covering letter was brutally worded and explicitly blunt! Waves of nausea and confused disbelief washed through her as the words divorce and liquidation ricocheted around in her mind.
A man’s voice said her name loudly. She looked up as a voice from behind a video camera said to her, ‘Catherine Jones-Schivello, you are served. You have in your hands legal documents requiring proof of possession. This video is a legal record of your receipt and handling of those papers.' Jumping into the open door of his already running car, he shouted to her through his window, ‘Nothing personal, just business,’ before accelerating away.
Lawyers, arbitrators, liquidators, creditor’s representatives and accountants had all given her their expensive opinions in the fifteen months since. How piously the words, ‘ruined’, ‘nothing left’ and ‘why did you sign those authorities?’ rolled off the tongues of those billing her at $500 an hour. How condescending their ‘caring’ smiles were, their fees guaranteed in advance.
Kate’s lowest point was the day she confessed to her employees that the company was lost. The majority of those men had been hired by her father and most had endured Kate’s endless childhood curiosity, later mentoring her through her degrees. She regarded every one of those shocked faces as loyal friends. She had called nine of them ‘Uncle’ for as long as she could remember.
A molten urgency gripped her belly, pushing against her throat as it rose. Remembering the way to the bathroom in her friend’s apartment, Kate bounced from wall to wall in her desperate rush. She held the porcelain tightly as her stomach made a determined attempt to turn itself inside out.
Kneeling, still hanging on for balance and panting from her efforts, she ineffectively begged the bathroom to stop spinning between each wave of nausea. When her world eventually became somewhat solid again, Kate reminded herself that combining alcohol and recriminations with total exhaustion was a spectacularly poor idea.
Emotionally and physically hung-over, dazed and already spent, she staggered into the open dining-lounge area of the large apartment. Dee stood by a window with her phone to her ear. Spotting Kate, she waved brightly and pointed to some orange juice on the table. Feeling her still writhing stomach heat and contract at the thought, Kate shook her head, holding onto the back of a chair with her eyes closed. She carefully took a deep, slow breath to centre herself as another wave of nauseous dizziness passed through her.
Dee turned away to face the window, still listening to her phone before saying, ‘Dammit Sheila! You should have told me this a week ago… No. Last Tuesday. I sent the dates to you by text… We talked about them!’ After listening briefly, Dee said, ‘Right… I hope you enjoy your party… No, I don’t think we will… No. Goodbye Sheila.’
She pushed the ‘End’ symbol on her smart-phone’s display. ‘God, I miss real phones – ones you could slam down!’ Dee looked up from her phone and her eyes locked onto Kate. ‘Did you sleep? Never mind, the night’s over. Nutrition first, then hot water.’
Dee pulled out a chair and said, ‘Here, sit.’
Feeling beyond making even the simplest decision and with her stomach still unsettled, Kate gratefully let Dee take charge, sitting as directed. She took tentative sips of some very diluted juice whilst Dee made a few more fruitless and frustrated calls. After she took another deep breath and decided that her stomach was holding, Kate asked, ‘Trouble?’
‘Sheila bailed on tonight’s gig. She ‘misread’ her calendar… again. That was her last chance. I need to find a fourth body for tonight’s gig and nobody else is available. This guy is going to be the city’s new mayor. He’s polling at over 70% and we can’t afford to screw it up.’
‘Dee, I haven’t done banquets since we did them at school, but it would totally beat sitting here.’ Seeing the look of concern on her friend’s face, she added, ‘Please Dee? Let me help. I need to contribute and I seriously need something to focus on.’
Dee looked deep into her friend’s eyes for a few long moments before saying, ‘If you truly think you are up to it, we could really use your help.’
Dee’s private function business had started only two years earlier and was quietly building a reputation for excellence. Dee’s partner in life and business was Carrie, a brilliant chef whose food halted even the most intense dinner conversations. Carrie far preferred her nickname, saying that she only ever heard Carina when she was in trouble. Their business catered to in-venue, intimate gatherings of the rich and powerful. Dee, a sommelier, took pride in perfectly matching the wines to the food and setting of each function.
‘What do you need me to do?’
‘Mainly help Carrie, give Carla a hand on the floor when the food is going out, and let me know if you see anything that might be a problem.’
‘I can do that, Dee. I want to.’
Dee looked at her best friend and reached a typically fast decision. ‘Done!’
‘Where is Carrie?’
‘She’s been at her mother’s since Sunday. She’s due back in half an hour and we have to be moving by 11:30. Katie, she’s going to be so excited to have you on board today.’
Accepting the piece of toast that Dee was offering her, Kate smiled. ‘Me too.’
~~~~~