The Bastard Takes a Wife (7 page)

At the door of Studio 2, another tall, slim
girl walked towards us. “You must be Millie? And Alex?”

She was wearing a fitted polo shirt and short
shorts that showed off one of the best sets of lightly tanned legs
I’d ever seen on a girl. Her blonde hair was tied back in a sleek
ponytail and a pair of black-rimmed glasses framed her face.
Everything about her screamed ‘lets get physical’.

“I’m Jackie, I’ll be your trainer. Here for a
bit of a tone up are we? Getting ready for the big day?”

We nodded.

“So what’s your exercise routine been like,
say, in the last six months?”

“Uh, non-existent,” I replied, feeling rather
sheepish that I’d been too busy to take any ‘me’ time.

“What about you, Alex?”

“Zero. I’m Greek. I’m allowed to be
comfortable in my chubby little body.”

Jackie was pokerfaced. Fitness was no joking
matter.

She led us over to where some free weights
were lined up against a wall. Two exercise mats were set up on the
floor and a rowing machine, medicine ball and bike had been placed
in a sort of circuit.

“All right then. Set to get going? We’ll
start slowly. We don’t want to kill you on the first day. We want
you to come back. Now, are there any areas you’d like me to target
in particular?” She looked me up and down and ticked a few things
on her clipboard.

“Not really. Just a general work out’ll be
fine.”

“I’d like to lose a bit more weight if I
can,” Alex added. “I’ve lost five kilos.”

Jackie gave her a smile. “I can handle that,
no problem. Lots of cardio is the requirement for that. Now get
your bum on the elliptical and get warm. We’ll start in ten
minutes. Oh and this is Pammy, by the way. She’ll be training with
you today, if that’s okay?”

I looked over to see a short woman of sixty
or so sitting on the exercise bike. She had very thin toned legs
and a rather large tummy that was she trying to hide in an
oversized t-shirt that read ‘Miss Universe Training Squad’. A shock
of bright red dyed hair stood on end all over her head, punk
fashion.

“Hi girls,” she said. “Are you new?”

“Yep.”

“God, I am so not in the mood for this today.
If Jackie gets on my case, I’m as likely to tell her to get
stuffed.” A cheeky glint twinkled in her eye. I could tell she
meant every word.

Jackie looked up from the clipboard, where
she’d been filling in more notes about Alex and I. “Shush up and
pedal Pammy, you talk too much.”

“You should be more respectful of your
elders.”

“You don’t pay me to be nice, old girl. You
pay me to get you fit. Now shut up and get those legs working.”

“She’s a tyrant,” Pammy whispered, after
Jackie turned her back to us. “Works me like a dog. I nearly
vomited during the work out last week.”

Alex glanced at me, a look of terror on her
face. “Oh my God.”

“Nothing to worry about. If wants me to do
too much crazy stuff, I tell her I’ll do it when she does. Then I
remind her who pays her wages. Works every time.”

“I’ll have to remember that.”

Me, too, I thought. It’d come in handy next
time Angus had one of his stupid ideas.

By ten minutes into the workout, I was
convinced that I was dead. Either that or the victim of some
terrifying new form of torture. My legs were beyond jelly and my
heart was pumping so hard, I could see what Pammy meant about
wanting to throw up. Dragging my eyes up from the floor, where I
was doing sit-ups with the medicine ball above my head, I looked in
the mirror, not surprised to see a beetroot red face surrounded by
a wad of wet matted hair looking back at me.

Alex didn’t look much better. A rivulet of
sweat had trickled down the side of her face, past her collarbone
and found its way into her cleavage. She’d given up trying to wipe
it and was now concentrating on trying to keep her body upright. I
could tell she didn’t want to get whooped by a granny.

“How much longer?” she gasped.

“Only twenty minutes. Legs up. Come on. Suck
in those tummy muscles,” Jackie chirruped.

“Twenty minutes. I thought the sessions were
only thirty minutes long?”

“They are. You’ve only been at it for ten.
Now get those legs straighter.”

Alex groaned and attempted to roll her eyes
at me as she heaved her legs up and down in the hamstring machine.
“Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

“Think of the end result.”

“What? My funeral?”

From the other side of the circuit Pammy
flipped a free weight into the air and began to bench press like a
pro. “You’re not that fit, are you, young Alex?”

“Guess not.”

“Give it a month and you’ll look like me.”
She snorted loudly at her own humour.

God. I hoped not. Pammy, bless her, ran rings
around us in the fitness stakes but I wouldn’t swap bodies with her
for a million bucks. She was more of an orange than an
hourglass.

“I don’t think I can last much longer,” Alex
puffed. “Can we slow down or get a drink or something?”

“Sure… in, ah,” Jackie checked the time, “Ten
minutes. Change stations.”

I put down the medicine ball and rolled to my
knees. Until that moment I’d never known the meaning of the word
tired. “We don’t have to do this, you know. I don’t want you to
change because of some misguided idea that you think you have to
compete.”

Completely defeated, Alex was trying to
remove her legs from the clutches of the hamstring thingy. Her
whole body had taken on a pinkish glow that didn’t look healthy.
“I’m not. And it’s fine. Truly. I’m just not that used to
exercise.” She bent down to pick up her towel and with a loud clang
whacked her forehead on the metal footrest.

Shit.

“Alex! Oh my God. Are you alright?”

A large lump began to surface on the top of
Alex’s head. It looked like she was giving birth to an egg. From
her skull.

“Quick, lay down,” Jackie screamed. “I’ll get
an icepack.”

Pammy looked up from her Sumo squats. “That’s
one helluva way to get out of a workout,” she snorted, and kept on
pumping.

*****

That night, I lay in bed on the phone to Sam.
I was sore in parts of my body I hadn’t known existed before that
exercise session but I was way better off than Alex.

“You should’ve seen her head, the lump was as
big as a tennis ball,” I said. I’d driven her straight to the
Emergency Department at St John of God where I’d been subjected to
an hour of wailing while we waited for a doctor to see us.
Sometimes having a Greek girl for a friend was too much. She was so
O.T.T with the emotions. Even the receptionist had offered to get
her a painkiller to keep her quiet.

“Is she okay, though?”

“Yeah. I think her pride was hurt more than
anything. She wanted to do well. She’s been on a diet you
know.”

“A sore head shouldn’t stop her from
training.”

“No, but her pride will. There’s no way I’ll
ever get Alex back in that gym again after the looks we got as we
left. She was mortified. Not that I blame her. We got our bums
whipped by an old lady.” I’d already relayed our meeting with Pammy
at the gym. I didn’t need to elaborate.

Sam chuckled. “Wish I’d seen it.”

“No. You don’t. And I’m calling Angus in the
morning. We don’t need anymore of that silliness before the
wedding.”

On the other end of the phone, I heard Sam
yawn.

“Am I boring you?”

“No, I’m knackered, that’s all. It’s been a
busy week. Early night for me, I think.”

“Me too. ‘Night.” I blew him a kiss through
the phone.

“Love you.”

“You, too.”

It was only after he’d hung up that I
realised he hadn’t even asked how the wedding preparations were
going.

Ladies night at the Club. A major event on
the social calendar for the season and one I was looking forward
to. All week long I’d been in a war with Angus and Patricia. If it
wasn’t the wedding cars, it was the photographers or the cameramen
who were to film the event ~ though why Western Australia should be
interested in a six minute mini-special on
Today Tonight
was
beyond me. Now she was making noises about the song Sam and I had
chosen for our first dance as husband and wife. I mean, was nothing
sacred? Didn’t she realise that this was the only time Sam and I
would ever dance together? The weekend after the wedding would see
me back to the reserves roster.

Alex and I arrived at the clubrooms at 7.30
that night. Even though she wasn’t a Hornets girl, I thought it’d
be nice to include her, as she was still upset over Angus
suggesting she was fat. Not that she’d mention it. She was too busy
whining about the mess she’d made of her head and the fact that she
hadn’t eaten a decent meal in a month. A fun night at the club
seemed like the perfect opportunity to take her mind off her
worries and for her to get to know the other girls a little
better.

We stood at the door, looking around. It was
quite a shock to see the transformation from grubby cold sheds into
delightful room suitable for girls. I’d never expected Kirby ~ who
was in charge of the whole shebang ~ would have been able to pull
it off but she had. Delicate swathes of sheer brown and gold fabric
were draped from the ceiling and around the walls giving it a
tent-like feel and masking the horrendous veneer. Round tables
decorated with gold cloths and cute bee centrepieces were assembled
in two rows along the room. A catwalk of brown carpet had been
fashioned down the middle. Later on a fashion show would take
place, which would be followed by one of the two ‘extra special’
surprises Kirby had planned. In the bar area, caterers were busy
putting the final touches to girlie canapés and cocktails.

“Kirby, this is brilliant,” I gushed, as we
walked over to greet her. “You’re a bit of a hidden talent.”

“You don’t think the brown and gold’s, like,
too much?”

“It’s perfect. It is the club colours. So,
what’s the exact plan for the evening?” I took a champagne cocktail
from the bar and handed it to Alex, then got another for
myself.

“Well, the waiters will begin serving drinks
and finger food in a few minutes. Then at 8.30, we’ll have the
fashion show. It’ll be followed by the silent auction and, like,
last of all my special surprise.” She flung her bejeweled arms in
the air with a flourish. “It’ll be, like, … ta-dah!”

“I can’t wait to see what it is. Can’t you
give us a hint?” Alex said.

“Like, not a chance. Oh look, there’s Sash
and Mel.”

The other girls joined our circle and after
we exchanged kisses and discussed the best way for Alex to disguise
her head until the swelling subsided, we settled into catching up
on the week’s other events. Which, of course, meant the
wedding.

After our second drink, Sasha turned to
me.

“You look divine, Millie. I love that dress.
Is it new?”

“
Mmm
. I’ve had to update my wardrobe;
there’s been so many family dinners and interviews and stuff. I
wanted to look nice. Besides Patricia, Sam’s mother, gave me the
evils when I turned up wearing a dress I’d worn before for the
Brides
magazine interview. I thought she was going to have a
stroke. I was telling Kirbs about it so she organised for the David
Jones personal shopper to pull some outfits for me.”

“Oooh, ‘pulling some pieces.’ Don’t you sound
like the little fashionista?” Mel smirked.

“Shut up, Mel. You know what I meant.”

“I know and I was only teasing. You look
gorgeous.” She glanced over my shoulder. “Now, where’s the fucking
waiter? It’s like the Simpson fucking Desert in my throat.”

Kirby turned to the back of the room and
clapped her hands in summons. From behind the change room doors six
waiters appeared wearing black pants, black bow ties and no shirts.
They had rather nice sets of abs and deliciously muscled arms ~
well, except for the…. Oh my God, they weren’t waiters. It was the
boys.

“They’re our waiters?”

Kirby tittered. “Totally. I didn’t have an
ounce of trouble roping them in. They want to know what, like, goes
on at Ladies Night.”

At that moment, Johnny slid up beside us, a
silver tray of champagne balanced on his hand. He looked more
tanned than when I’d seen him the previous week. His teeth were
almost glowing against the backdrop of his skin. Mel looked him up
and down, her gaze stopping somewhere between his hips and his
thighs. Then curiously, she bit on her bottom lip and fixed her
stare on the chequered pattern of floor tiles.

“Ladies? Would you care for a drink?”

“Have you had a spray tan, Johnny?” I
asked.

How the hell had Kirby talked him into
that?

“’Specially for tonight.” He took our empty
glasses from us, handing over full ones from the tray.

“That-slut-Courtney’s, like, a beautician or
something in her spare time,” Kirby whispered. “I had to, totally,
suck up to her to get her to donate her services. She tanned the
boys for free.”

“Only so she could get a peek at their
bodies, I’ll bet,” Mel snorted, her eyes roving over Johnny’s. “God
knows it’s the only way she’d ever get a look.”

“Did I hear someone taking my name in
vain?”

Boobs preceding her, that-slut-Courtney swept
across the room and stood before our group. She gave a flick of her
trademark auburn hair and almost hit me in the face.

“Mel, Sasha, Kirby, Millie.”

“Oh Jesus,” Mel groaned. Stopping Johnny, she
downed her drink and took another from his tray. “Who invited you?
This event’s for Hornets WAG’s only.”

“Then why’re you here? You don’t date anyone
at the club. In fact, you never seem to do anything but swear a lot
and guzzle alcohol.”

“The fucking cheek. I’ll have you know I’m a
patron of the club. My grandfather was a founding member.”