“I mean it, tonight is about drinking, dancing and screaming the word ‘woo.’ That’s it.”
“Fine, but we’re talking about this tomorrow.”
“Whatever. How are you feeling?” Sam squinted at her, clearly scanning for signs that she was going to cry or keel over. Nicole would be offended, but she’d done both multiple times this week. It was embarrassing how weak she was. She was single, not experiencing a terminal illness. She forced herself to smile at her twin. “I’m fine. Where’s Tabby?”
“Right here, milady!”
Tabby burst into the room shaking her arms so violently her boobs were bouncing out of her mini-dress. Nicole felt a pang of envy. Aaron always wanted her breasts to be bigger. He once suggested she ask her friend Jackie for the name of her surgeon. For a second, she wondered if they would still be together if she’d gotten fake boobs, and she realised she was being ridiculous. She might as well be cupping her cheeks and sighing‘Aaron used to love big cans...’She snorted at her own joke.
“What?” Sam asked eagerly. “What’s funny?”
“I’m just thinking about Aaron being a jerk.”
Sam and Tabby looked at each other, clearly delighted.
Nicole rolled her eyes. “Stop being so encouraged by the smallest—oof!”
But both her sisters had thrown their arms around her, hugging her with all their might.
“You’re going to be okay,” Sam said, sounding insanely close to tears. “You’re going to be fine.”
“I know!”
Tabby put the polaroid on her bedside table. “We need more champagne. Proper champagne.”
“We have sparkling, we don’t need champagne!”
But she had already dashed back out of the room.
“Oh well, better make room.” Sam drained her glass in one. Nicole hesitated, then followed suit. The bubbles burned in her nose and she suppressed a burp. “Tonight isn’t going to be too big of a thing, is it?”
“Nah, only the people who came over when I won Fadeout Festival.”
Nicole gaped at her sister. “Almost two hundred people came over when you won Fadeout Festival!”
“Oh…yeah. They did, didn’t they?”
“Sam! I don’t want heaps of people knowing I got dumped! I haven’t told my boss or any of my Adelaide friends…”
“So, think of this as a trial run for telling everyone else. Training wheels. Besides, these guys aren’t arseholes. They won’t drown you in fake-sympathy wanting to know all the gory details and secretly wondering if they could bag Aaron.”
“My Adelaide friends aren’t like that!”
Sam turned away, examining her eyelashes in the mirror.
“They’re not!”
Tabby re-entered the room carrying a bottle ofMoët& Chandon. “Who’s not?”
“My Adelaide friends aren’t arseholes.”
“Ah.” Tabby raised the bottle. “Champagne?”
Nicole glared at her. “No. First you both have to admit that my Adelaide friends aren’t arseholes.”
“Isn’t it unkind to force people to say things that aren’t true?”
Nicole stamped her foot, the way she used to when she was little and Sam pretended she’d gone invisible. “It is true! Remember, you met Jackie and Taylor and Jennica and Chloe when we did that girls trip to the Barossa Valley for my birthday! We drank wine and talked about TV? We had fun! They were nice!”