Pauline stared at the red jelly on the plate in front of her, in the shape of a slowly melting star, what were the strange cubes inside? She wasn’t curious enough to pick up her spoon and find out.
Around her, people were talking, laughing, and pretending to eat their desserts. The man sitting next to her, who’d spent the entire dinner so far staring at the cleavage of one of the members of the bridal party over nudged his plate towards her. “Would you prefer the green?”
She chuckled. “No thanks, I don’t really have a sweet tooth.” A blatant lie, but since she only knew ten people of the 150-odd here, and none of them had seen her in twenty years, she didn’t think she’d be found out.
The man propped an elbow on the table then his cheek on his fist to better look her over. “You don’t look like the type to be spending a Saturday night at some small town second wedding.”
“I went to school with the bride, it’s nice to see her so happy.” And it was, but this trip had underlined just how widely their lives had diverged.
Her neighbour grunted. He was around her age, maybe a little older, a little chubby, with thick salt-and-pepper hair. Probably a bit of a heartthrob for the middle-aged divorcee set around here.
“So you were from around here, but now you’re, what? A big city girl?”
“I guess so.” London was a pretty big city, especially in comparison to this close-knit, remote Australian town.
“And what do big city girls do for fun on their weekends? Or are you one of those workaholic types?”
“Dinner or drinks with friends, maybe a concert.” Maybe a weekend in a different country. “How about you? What brings you to this party?”
The man nodded across the room at the cleavage he’d been fixated on. “My wife’s the Matron of Honour.”
The DNA of Stories 