Dark Park

Whit's Hens' Night, Part One

Hi ScrubberTowners and Dark Parkers, Stace and I can't believe we're actually going to Whit's hens' night. After the one before, where she was going to marry Ron Pond, it was the last place we wanted to be. Remember us saying that we might have to just get sudden flu that night? So tempting, but we thought better of it. After all, we were invited and Whit is a friend, sort of. Besides that, I do work with her at War Paint, so we gave in.

On the afternoon of the day of the hens' night, Whit's mum Wendy came prancing into the shop for some new make up and false eyelashes. Whit rolled her eyes. She hates it when her mum buys make up meant for young girls, such as off-beat eye shadow colours of orange and pink, eye glitter and of course false eyelashes, which she tells me, her mum can't apply properly. Wendy seems to live in a perpetual teenage zone.

Marissa, our boss, spoke up and said

Lacey, you can serve Mrs Wells.

She knew that if Whit served her mum, they'd end up arguing and it would look bad in front of other customers. Marissa is a dragon, but I suppose she has a point. Wendy Wells was squealing over the variety in War Paint.

Whit turned to Britnee and said I don't think my mum's taken her meds this morning. Britnee giggled, but Marissa shot a warning glare at Whit, who then shut up.

Wendy Wells walked out of War Paint, shrieking again over her new bag of goodies. I even slipped in a few free samples of new product for her, which is what Marissa wants us to do if someone spends a lot.

I'm going to Stuff-Ya's now, to celebrate with a coffee and doughnut special, she called over her shoulder.

She's so skinny, she can eat all she likes of sweet yummy stuff and never gains a gram. It so isn't fair. Marissa wandered over to my counter and said

That was a good sale, Lacey. Well done, she added grudgingly. I nearly fell on the floor. Marissa hardly ever gives praise.

Stace got changed at mine, so we could both go to the party in Stace's car

When we arrived at Whit's, we expected to hear the noise of party central booming out of the front door, but everything seemed quiet.

Stace looked at me. Have we got the right night? she asked;

Yeah, I replied and before we knocked on the door, Wendy flung it open and screamed Lacey and Stacey, you're finally here. Whit told me you weren't coming.

Whit doesn't listen properly, Stace said. We're just running late.

Come here and give me a hug.

We hate it when people's mums want to hug us, but we let her give us a squeeze. Then we got to see what Wendy was wearing. She's noted for her dressing-too-young, over the top style. This time she had on a mini, one-shoulder dress in pale blue lurex with an asymetric hem, huge dangling gold earrings and hot pink stilettos.

How do I look girls? She said, twirling.

Like a rainbow, answered Stace. We quickly added Cool, but behind her back we rolled our eyes at each other. We noticed she said nothing about the way we looked. Dr Una reckons Wendy is a narscissors. Must find out what that means.  We both wore crop crochet tops in black, tight fitting satin pants, mine in silver and Stace's in black and fake fur jackets, all on sale from Bogan Chick. Mine was green and Stace's in bright lolly pink .We'd taken some really cool selfies before we left.

When we entered the lounge-room, we found an extraordinary situation. The guests, of whom there were far too many, sat around looking like stunned mullets. No one seemed to be initiating conversation and Stace and I realised that many people didn't know each other. There weren't nearly enough chairs, so some were sitting on the floor. Britnee had deserted Whit and was giggling and sitting on the knees of some of Whit's cousins, who all acted as if they'd had a lot to drink before arriving. Lucky things. We hadn't had time for pre-party drinks, coming from work, and Marissa, the boss from hell, always finds an excuse to keep me a bit later. Now we were starting to feel like we needed some. The bride-to-be was looking sulkily at the traitorous Brit and seemed on the verge of tears.