Page 4 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests
“Oh, darling, now I know where I’ve seen you,” Janet cries from Stella’s other side. “You were on the other day labeling some poor celeb as bonkers for her maple syrup diet. And there I was, just about to stock up.”
“Well, I’m not sure I called her ‘bonkers’…” Dr. Gordon splutters, picking up his fork and wiping it with his napkin.
“Perhaps it’ll help slim down her thighs,” Stella mutters but finds herself royally ignored, as Janet is now gazing at the doctor, who’s sitting a little straighter in his chair.
No doubt she’s hoping to get a few tips on how to lose a bit of weight herself.
The dress is definitely designer, but she’s spilling out of it.
Nice rings, though, Stella has to admit; the woman’s engagement rock looks to be three karats, maybe even four.
“There’s no solid scientific evidence to support it,” Gordon says to Janet, putting the now sparkling fork down and warming to his topic.
“In fact, it could cause problems with blood sugar and insulin levels. And the short-term weight loss will only be reversed when the person returns to solid foods—”
Janet chuckles, cutting Dr. Gordon short just as he’s getting going. “Oh, I don’t know who I was kidding, anyway. As if I could live without red meat.”
Stella rolls her eyes, zoning out of this lame chat.
With no bubbles in sight, she decides she might as well give the red wine a go.
She leans forward to push her place setting (weirdly picturing a lizard reading a scroll) aside and picks up her glass.
The black curranty wine tastes bitter on her tongue but then slips easily down her throat, sending a pleasurable warmth through her.
“Not your usual tipple?” Matthew asks, his dark eyes on her from across the table. Surely they’re dark brown, though they appear black in this light.
She shakes her head. “I prefer champagne.”
“Do you know how to tell if it’s a good wine?” he asks, his voice almost a whisper beneath Dr. Gordon’s and Janet’s rising crescendo (“And what about the baby-food diet?”).
She swallows and shakes her head again, pushing her poker-straight hair behind her ear and frowning at her deep-red fingernails.
Matthew picks up his wineglass by its stem and slowly swills it around and around, the scarlet fluid spinning, then climbing up the sides in tiny tidal waves.
“See, it’s got legs,” he murmurs, keeping his eyes on the glass. She sees how the waves slowly ebb down, giving the appearance of long legs.
“Oh, yes, I see them.” She beams at him. He mirrors her smile for a second, flashing pointy white incisors; then it’s gone, and he’s turned to his right to top up the policeman’s glass. She has been dismissed and finds herself still grinning stupidly at the side of Matthew’s face.
Feeling foolish, Stella turns back to her own glass and attempts to emulate the wine-swilling, but it splashes over the rim and leaves red spots on her white napkin.
Sighing, she finishes off her wine, then pours herself a second glass, takes a large sip. This one is going down much easier.
Already the edges of the room have a hazy quality, like the old photos in her mum’s picture albums from the ’80s. It’s quite a pleasant feeling, and Stella leans back in her chair, suddenly finding Janet’s flirting amusing rather than irritating.
“So are you single, Matthew?” Janet is asking. “Or is there a lucky lady at home?”
“Still searching,” he tells her. “If you know anyone?”
As Janet guffaws, throwing back her blond blow-dry, Matthew catches Stella’s eye and gives her a split-second wink. A frisson of excitement sparks through her. Maybe tonight will bring some distraction after all.
Tristan
Staring down at his gnawed fingernails, Tristan listens carefully to the conversation going on around him.
Chatter weaves in and out, certain words hanging in the air like cartoon speech bubbles.
Mysterious… Serendipity’s… Celebrity… The truth is, Tristan can’t remember the last time he was at a dinner party.
Perhaps it was back when he was a student, sharing pizza with like-minded computer science undergrads.
As he counts on his fingers, it dawns on him that he hasn’t even spoken to anyone face-to-face for five days.
The number of people in this room, their loud voices, their different personalities, their range of opinions—it’s all hurting Tristan’s head.
All he wants to do is run out of this place, jump on the tube, and get home, return to the safety of his little flat in Manor House.
“God no, they ruin your body and spoil all your fun,” Janet bellows across the table after Matthew asks if she has children.
Her red-painted lips are stretched wide, her strange yellow-green eyes bright with humor.
It all seems so forced, and Tristan wonders if this is true.
He glances at the journalist, Vivienne, sitting on his right, her sharp profile pointing toward Janet with a look of open disgust. She is a person whose thoughts are projected straight onto her face, and right now her face is showing that she’s not impressed with Janet—or any of the other dinner party guests, it seems.
When he bumped into her in the street, he watched her take in his unappealing appearance, soaking-wet hair, and old denim jacket.
She instantly wrote him off as insignificant; she probably even considered pretending she knew nothing about the dinner party.
But the invitation was clearly in her hand, so she had no choice but to admit she was looking for the restaurant too.
When he pointed out the door, she swept past him and marched down the stairs as if she owned the place and he was merely a doorman.
As they entered the dining room, she immediately distanced herself from him, her eyes scanning the room for anyone more interesting, more dynamic, more altogether palatable than Tristan.
His hand instinctively reaches up to touch the scar on his cheekbone; the tip of his forefinger fits perfectly into the hollow left by that thug’s boot.
The wound has healed, but the dent will always be there to remind him of that night.
He looks down at his old Metallica T-shirt and thinks he probably should have made more of an effort.
Janet appears to be wearing a ball gown of some sort; Matthew and Gordon are in suits; Stella is wearing a tight black dress and cowboy boots, diamonds sparkling in her ears.
Tristan rarely thinks about his appearance these days, but today, before he got dressed to come out, he stood naked in front of his bathroom mirror and wondered where this almost-forty-year-old had come from.
It felt like mere months ago he was a nowhere-near-twenty-year-old with an exciting and possibly lucrative future at his outstretched fingertips.
Lately he’s grown his hair longer, brushing it across his forehead so it just about hides the worst of his widow’s peak.
It doesn’t seem fair that his hair is disappearing, yet he still suffers from acne…
Then his eyes fell to the sad-sack belly, which has surprisingly inherited the hair he’s lost from his head.
Lately, he finds himself patting it protectively, like you see pregnant women doing.
Just as he was about to leave, his landline rang. It could have only been one person, and he hesitated before deciding it was easier to get it out of the way.
“Why did you take so long to answer? You scared me half to death!” his mother shrieked.
“I was just on my way out.”
“Oh, are you seeing Ellie?”
“No, Mum, it’s over. Remember?” he sighed.
“It’s such a shame. You never did tell me what you did to chase her away—”
“Mum, I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow,” Tristan said, hopping from one foot to the other.
“OK, you go. Have you been taking those vitamins I sent? Muriel next door said they helped her son’s acne. He’s eighteen now and just started a medical degree at Edinburgh.”
“Yes, Mum, I’ve been taking them,” he muttered, teeth gritted together. Please go.
“And don’t forget, your father is driving over tomorrow to look at your boiler…”
As he made his way to the restaurant, Tristan reflected on the months he’d spent living back at home over the summer.
His mother had insisted, keen to “look after” him following the breakup.
It hadn’t been so bad at first; she’d filled him up with all his childhood favorites: shepherd’s pie, lasagna, homemade chips, and pale sausages.
He’d spent whole days in his old bedroom, his laptop on his knees as he sat up in bed, wrapped up in his single duvet, like a large receding Baby Jesus.
But one Sunday morning, when his parents were at church, boredom had led him to poke around in their bedroom.
Tucked under their bed, he found a box. Why hadn’t he just left it where it was?
Why had he chosen to release those secrets?
Now, sitting at the table among these loud and rude people, he thinks wistfully of his quiet flat, even his parents’ cozy semi.
Still, he forces himself to tune into the chatter.
They’re all trying to work out who has planned the dinner party, but Tristan can’t think about that now; his mind is already overloaded.
He hasn’t spoken a word since he sat down. He should say something.