Free All Inclusive by Judy Astley Page B

are they coming then if they’re not invited?’ Funny people, Delilah thought, gatecrashing a wedding thousands of miles from home.
    â€˜Because they think of us like we’re their extra kids. They’ve got a son of their own but he’s gone to live in Sydney with his friend, if you get my drift.’ Sadie nudged her in the side and grinned.
    â€˜Huh?’ Delilah felt confused. ‘Oh, you mean he’s gay.’ She hadn’t come across many gay boys yet – at least she didn’t think so. The ones at school used to call each other ‘gay’ all the time, whenever someone knew the answer to a question in Eng. Lit. or actually did their maths coursework, or admitted to liking cricket. They’d calmed down a bit since GCSEs – now it was more like a term of affection. Pretty hard going for them if they really
were
gay though, and statistically some of them not only must be, but should know it perfectly well by now. Oliver Willis wasn’t, she knew that for sure. Delilah was at least the fourth girl in their year that he’d managed to persuade out of her pants. Unless . . . well he might just have been trying out what it was like with girls, so he could make what her mother would call an informed choice. She hoped she hadn’t been so crap at sex that she’d been the one to sway the balance. By next term he might be going out with Pink Paul in year eleven and it could all be down to her.
    â€˜Yeah – he was a trolley dolly on Quantas for a while,’ Sadie went on, sounding, to Delilah, impressively breezy. ‘But now he and his mate run a bar in Darling Harbour.’
    â€˜Right.’ Delilah was lost, though flattered to be assumed to be following Sadie’s worldly-wise trail. What the buggery was Darling Harbour? Was that an exclusively gay hang-out? She’d have to e-mail Nick and find out.
    â€˜We’re getting married over there.’ Sadie pointed her cigarette out to sea, towards Dragon Island. ‘Classic innit? So even though we’re here and not in the Seychelles we still get our little desert island, all palm trees and white sand.’
    â€˜And snorkellers. They go out there by the boatload, from the water-sports hut. I’ve just seen them.’
    â€˜Not on my wedding day they won’t, not on that afternoon anyway. We’ve been promised,’ Sadie growled, then turned to Delilah with a big bright smile. ‘You can come if you want! Why don’t you? Be my best woman! You’ll look really pretty in the photos.’
    Glad to be of use, Delilah thought. And what exactly, she wondered, was a best woman supposed to do? She hoped it wasn’t the same as being a bridesmaid. She’d been one of those twice before, and if you did it three times it meant you weren’t ever going to be a bride. Glad as she was to have made a new friend, there was no way she was going to muck up her chance of being Princess Delilah.
    They’d picked the wrong moment. As Beth and Lesley walked into the air-cooled, jojoba-scented reception area of the Haven spa, a piercingly raised voice was splintering the calm.
    â€˜There’s nothing wrong with my blood pressure!’ The mother of the bride was slapping her hand on the desk. Miriam, cool and calm and in charge of taking the bookings, continued to smile at her, refusing to fuel the fury.
    â€˜For Christ’s sake, look, it says “Seaweed and Scented Oil Head Wrap”. It’s only a hair-conditioning treatment! There’s nothing to get my blood boiling about! I’ve never heard of anything so absurd!’
    Bride’s mother stabbed her finger hard against the spa treatment brochure she was waving at the still unruffled and smiling Miriam, who must have been through this a hundred times.
    â€˜Lordy, how that woman rants and raves!’ Lesley murmured to Beth. ‘Shall we come back later?’
    â€˜No way,’ Beth hissed back,