Quiet Weekend At Home
Thursday 3rd May 2007
Necia poured herself another glass of Pouilly-Fuissé, and tried hard not to feel petulant and annoyed.
She and Eve, one of her closest and oldest friends, had organized a weekend of pampering and gossip for themselves at a beautiful spa weeks earlier and although it obviously wasn’t anybody’s fault that Eve’s mother had suddenly taken ill just hours before they were due to leave, it did mean that Necia had been left with the unenviable choice of going on a girly weekend on her own – sad city indeed; or to be on her own for the weekend, at home.
She’d treated herself to a long and sumptuous bubble bath, pouring expensive lotions into the running water with abandon. She had face-masked and exfoliated herself to hell and had then lain in the tub for over an hour with a large china mug of herbal tea and a dive-in-head-first novel full of delicious romp and nonsense, much of which had merely caused her to smile knowingly.
And now here she was; curled up on her sofa in a rich and luxurious robe, glass of favourite wine in hand, ready for… what? She sighed, loudly, and picked up the TV remote.
She found an old Bette Davis film on a channel in the back end of nowhere, and almost succeeded in convincing herself that there was nowhere else she would rather be, when the buzzer for the front door went. For a brief second she hesitated, and nearly considered ignoring it. Maybe a night in alone was exactly what she did need? She smiled at that and got up to see who it was. Just so long as it wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness…
“Hello?”
“Necia? Is that you?”
She frowned. The voice was familiar, but not quite recognizable. “Of course it’s me. Who the hell are you?” She wasn’t in the mood for guessing games, and the movie was starting to seem like the better choice after all. If she hurried, she would see Bette serving up a rat to her sister…
“Yes. Sorry. Of course.” The voice was hesitant, apologetic, and really rather nice. “This is Gray, Natalie’s brother? Sorry, she was supposed to be here to meet me, and she’s not and she never left me a key…” his voice trailed away.
Now Necia could picture him exactly, and Bette Davis immediately lost her appeal. Gray, her somewhat erratic neighbour’s brother, was in his late twenties, a teacher, with short brown curly hair, deep brown eyes and a simply edible shyness.
“Gray, yes of course. I didn’t recognize you. Would you like to come up and wait? At least for a while?”
He hesitated for a second, but accepted, and two minutes later was stepping out of the lift onto the lush carpeted hallway of Necia’s fourth floor city apartment. He saw her, still wrapped in the robe, and blushed heavily. “I’m really sorry about this, but when I saw your light…” His voice trailed off as Necia propelled him into the flat, and into the lounge, removing his jacket and settling him onto the sofa in what appeared to be one simple fluid movement.
“Don’t worry. It’s serendipity.” She poured him a glass of wine and sat down beside him.
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