I'm afraid that, with all the modifications to the engine and the exhaust system, it's almost impossible to make a quiet entrance to anywhere in my little monster... and it became totally impossible when the driveway to John and Cathy's house included a steep upwards incline from the road to the small parking area at the side of the house.
On the other hand, you don't have to knock on the door to let people know you have arrived and by the time I was getting out of the car Cathy was coming around from what appeared to be an outdoor dining area at the back of the house
"Steve! How great to see you! You haven't changed at all!"
"And you look as beautiful as every Cathy, although your eyesight seems to have diminished." I had never, ever, flirted with Cathy. She had always been good looking but there was just no chemistry between us and there wasn't now, but I wasn't the same quiet person I had been all those years before. She knew me when I was painfully shy but that version of me was long gone.
She blushed but her embrace was warm and ... enjoyable? It suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't touched another woman in over 2 years and I had obviously missed that feminine touch ... but I didn't go beyond what was an acceptable length of time for a hug between old friends.
"John should be home soon," she said as she ran her eyes of the VW. "Wow, this is nothing like the cars you used to drive ... it sure beats that rough old Land Rover you used to own."
I laughed, "Yeah, that was a beast. John and I used to joke that it used more oil the petrol. But this one is very different, my girls call it my mid-life crisis car."
Cathy chuckled and slipped her arm through mine, "Just wait till you see what amounts to John's midlife crisis car." Did I hear disappointment in her voice? Could all these years have amounted to disappointment for her? "It's just a very ordinary Toyota."
I had always thought that the two of them had been perfect for one another and undoubtedly virgins at the time they married ... but had she wanted something else? Nah! Couldn't be, not pretty virginal Cathy!
And even if she had wanted something on the side with me, it would never have happened. John was my friend and girls just plain scared me back then. The only way I had ended up with Wendy was because she had come on to me and wouldn't stop till we were engaged.
And then I realised that she was still talking, "... but come on in and get settled. Dinner will be around seven and our other guest should be here around 6.30." I grabbed my bag and began following her into the house.
"This 'other guest' wouldn't happen to be a woman would it? And you two aren't in cahoots with my daughters to try and match make are you?"
"I'm not in cahoots with anyone," she protested. "Angela is a very nice lady who has just joined our badminton club and we've invited her tonight because we want to get to know her."
Yeah, right ... liar, liar your pants are on fire.
Cathy's protestations of innocence were weak by any standards but I laughed and let it slide. I was actually enjoying being away from home and among friends and, if the cost of that was a night of trying to be interested in a person you hoped you would never see again, then it would be worth it.
When John arrived home I was saddened by what I saw. He had always been something of a middle-distance runner when I knew him before but the intervening years had clearly not been kind to him. He now had a noticeable paunch and I doubted that he could achieve more than a slow lumber these days. Suddenly I felt rather embarrassed to be no more than the 92 kilos I was when we last saw each other.
He tried to make a light-hearted comment about Cathy's cooking but I could smell alcohol on his breath too. Somewhere along the way he had begun to take a lot of different things for granted and appeared to have slipped into a rut that had room for a bigger body.
I laughed to myself, I was the world's leading expert on being it a rut and, while John still had his wife and years of future happiness ahead of him, mine was gone and I could see lonely years stretching ahead of me.
John ushered me out to the area I had seen when I arrived but not before I had commented on the fact there was no food preparation going on in the kitchen. Cathy laughed as we went out the back and then I saw the reason for no preparation in the kitchen.
Along one wall of the outdoor dining area I had seen was a complete kitchen with everything you would find in an indoor kitchen, plus a wood fired pizza oven built into one wall. Two fridges with glass doors were built under the countertop and I could see that they contained bowls of various types of salad. A separate wine fridge held at least six bottles of wine and the wood fired pizza oven was full of an enormous leg of lamb roasting quietly in the embers.
"Prep's all done," Cathy laughed, "we're just waiting on our other guest. What are you drinking?" John seemed to give me a rather sour look when all I asked for was water. Yes, I do drink occasionally but for some reason drinking with John didn't seem to be the right thing to do.
We talked about old times and our kids. John and Cathy had two who were just as brilliant as their parents and I was happy to talk about my two girls although I deflected most of the questions about my son. We had always had our problems but since the separation he had kept his distance and he hadn't spoken to me since my ex had walked out.
We were still talking families and old times when our other guest arrived.
I don't know what I had been expecting, maybe a single mother with a couple of kids showing the pressures of life? Or, seeing it was Canberra, maybe a woman who had been so focused on her career that she had forgotten about that ticking time bomb in all of us and was now all feminism and hard faced?
Whatever I was expecting it wasn't what turned up with Angela. She might have been 40, was definitely 5' 6" without the heels, long black hair that fell to just below her shoulders and had an almost perfectly shaped figure if her boobs had been a little smaller and her hips not quite as wide.
How could I have recalled any of that after she smiled at me the first time? It was just the cop that still lived in my brain making a few observations.
She was wearing a cream short-sleeved dress with a scoop neck that gave slightly more than a faint hint of cleavage. It was slim-fitting to the waist and then flared to finish mid-thigh and when she walked it swirled around her legs in a way that was totally captivating.
She was confident and clearly comfortable in her skin and I was blown away by her smile. It was warm and inviting and, when she smiled at me, it was as if she had just given me an amazingly warm and sensual hug.
And then there were her bright green eyes. I tried to look everywhere but at them and I kept failing. Every time I came back to them she would smile and her eyes would sparkle and I wanted to swing from the trees and beat my chest.
She was easy to talk to and she listened too. She was articulate and intelligent and when she had a different opinion than you about something she would express her views without putting you or your opposing views down.
We talked, we laughed, we drank, we ate and I began to feel good about myself ... and feel good to be sitting across the table from such an attractive woman. At one point I noticed that Cathy was smiling at me and when I frowned she started to laugh.
"Perhaps I should send Grace a message to tell her that it's mission accomplished?" I scowled at her and said nothing until Angela looked at me.
