Friday at Wazzer’s bar, and it’s getting weird before Christmas. People dash in and out, double- and triple-booked for the evening. After-work drinks at work get further drinks poured on top of them. It can be fraught.<\/p>\n
Winona and Willow had been a peaceful oasis at one end of the bar, comparing office party notes. Then, Will arrived – with Ulrika<\/a>. Ulrika, all smiles, brandishes a hand. “Look what Wayland <\/a>gave me for Christmas!”<\/p>\n Winona swallows. “That’s not an engagement <\/em>ring, is it?”<\/p>\n “No, no,” Ulrika laughs. “Blue topaz, he says, to match my eyes. So sweet. I can’t wait to meet his cousins in Kaitaia. So romantic, a real Kiwi Christmas! What are you doing for Christmas?”<\/p>\n “Eketahuna. Family. With Will,” says Winona, crisply.<\/p>\n “And you, Willow?”<\/p>\n Willow looks down and rubs her knuckles against a coaster. “Oh, well, Dad’s in Laos. He lives there with his wife now. And Mum moved to Perth after they split up, and she works for this mining company, and I thought I’d stay here.”<\/p>\n “No boyfriend? It might help if you had your hair cut, you know, properly.” She gestures at the long, natural ends of Willow’s hair.<\/p>\n And Willow snaps.<\/p>\n She bats Ulrika’s hand away, eyes suddenly hard. “I’d rather have no boyfriend than yours! I went out with him for four months. Has he borrowed money from you yet? Asked to move in? Maybe talked about moving to Europe?”<\/p>\n Ulrika goes white. “How do you – do you still talk to him?”<\/p>\n “I don’t need to, he does this to everyone. And – and\u00c2\u00a0 blue topaz is cheap as chips, it’s not natural, they treat it to make it that colour. And – it’s not just me! Tell her, Win.”<\/p>\n “We knew him when we were at uni, he’s rather dodgy, really. He dealt drugs. I wouldn’t go to Kaitaia.”<\/p>\n Ulrika’s lips move for a moment before any words come out. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier? And you – you’re still in love with him, to talk about him like that. It’s just sour grapes. I can’t believe this. Will, I’ll text you – from Kaitaia!” She turns on her heel and walks out.<\/p>\n For a moment, their end of the bar is a bubble of silence.<\/p>\n Finally, Winona huffs, “I don’t know what she’s talking about. Your hair is perfectly fine.”<\/p>\n Will, sweating profusely, adds, “The Wayland thing. It’s good she heard it from you. She and I are close \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we work together – and she and Win are friends \u00e2\u20ac\u201c right, Win? And, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122know, you had the experience. So, thanks. She’ll calm down. Right?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Wazzer says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You wanna join my folks for Christmas, Willow? All the ham on the bone you can eat.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Friday at Wazzer’s bar, and it’s getting weird before Christmas. People dash in and out, double- and triple-booked for the evening. After-work drinks at work get further drinks poured on top of them. It can be fraught. Winona and Willow had been a peaceful oasis at one end of the bar, comparing office party notes. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[80,78],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shortfic","tag-drama","tag-holidays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}