Getting Hitched Fiction - Sheena's Last Wish

By Debbie Richardson

Twenty: The number of years I’d had to forgive Sheena for running off with my husband Bruce.

Zero: The number of times I’d actually considered forgiving her.

Two hundred and forty eight: The number of times Sheena had told me she was sorry.

The she-devil herself was slapping sunscreen on her leathery thighs to protect her delicate skin. Her words, not mine.

It’s too late to worry about sunburn, I thought. Sheena’s skin was so weathered by the sun she could have been sewn up and passed off as a baby elephant. Plus she had more important things to worry about today than sunburn.

"Not a day went by where I wish it never happened," Sheena said to me.

I had to lean in close to hear her. My hearing was getting worse. And the noise cranking from the air conditioning unit wasn’t helping. "What? You say the fish were never happy?"

"No, you twit. Oh, never mind."

We were seated on the edge of the big double bed. Sheena shoved the sun lotion into my hand and turned her back to me. I knew what she wanted me to do. But acting dumb suited my sourpuss mood better.

Besides, she seemed to be forgetting that I didn’t like her.

Sheena turned her neck. "You rub it on my back," she said slowly, as though I was from the deepest, darkest jungles of Africa.

As I lazily rubbed the lotion in, I said, "I shouldn’t have come."

"I’m dying, you fat cow!" Sheena shrieked. "You’re supposed to grant me my dying wish."

Twenty years was a long time to hold onto anger. But I clutched it to my breast like I was carrying an expensive purse through a ghetto. My rubbing motions became frenzied as I lathered Sheena’s back and remembered how angry I still was. My nails dug into the very spot I imagined a dagger’s scar should be.

"So why did you come?" Sheena squirmed out from beneath my hands.

"I thought I could be the bigger person. I was wrong."

I struggled to get up off the bed. It was stupid of me to think this trip would fix things. I could live with the dull ache in my big toe from arthritis. I could live with the fuzzy vision that was deteriorating each week. I could even live with the constant swelling of joints from water retention and the subsequent hourly trips to the bathroom from the tablets. But I could not live with the pain I’d suffered when my best friend Sheena and my husband Bruce had run off together.       

"Don’t go, you fool. It’s nearly time for us to make our grand entrance," Sheena said.

"I don’t see why we couldn’t have bought a horrible gift instead," I said. "That flight nearly wrecked me."

"I told you, this is my dying wish. You owe it to me as my best friend. Now, hurry up and get undressed."

"This is ridiculous. We’re no longer best friends. Besides, I don’t have the figure anymore for this nonsense." Despite my objections, I stripped out of my floral top and pants suit and folded my garments neatly in the drawers.

"Here. Put this on." Sheena handed me the sunscreen as she yanked off her bra and underpants. "You need it to protect your delicate flesh from this tropical heat."

I reluctantly rubbed the lotion over my old body. I hated how my flesh wobbled. "Why can’t we paint ourselves blue? At least no one would recognize us," I said. When I was finished, I stripped off my underpants and bra as Sheena had done.

"This will be so much more fun. Now, let’s go show that two timing weasel exactly the kind of wild and crazy gals he gave up."

Bruce almost choked on the prawn cocktail as Sheena and I walked naked through his outdoor Fijian wedding reception. Nobody laughed, like I thought they would. But everything went quiet. Music stopped playing. People stopped talking. I had to squeeze my butt cheeks together so I didn’t let one off because there would have been no hiding the culprit in the ethereal quietness we caused.

We got a few wolf whistles. More surprisingly, we got a few phone numbers. And a couple of old geezers almost had heart attacks chasing us back to our hotel room.

Boy, we had fun at Bruce’s third wedding.

A week later Sheena died from cancer. It seemed fitting to invite Bruce and the third Mrs Waters along to the funeral. Sheena was more forgiving than me, but I’m learning to let go. It was Sheena’s last wish that I learn to love again.

***

© Debbie Richardson 2008

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