I was educating them on English English versus American English, I’d been doing this awhile and they thought it was fascinating.
“Um…” I mumbled, sucking back more beer, of which I’d lost count how many I’d had, I swallowed, dropped my hand with bottle to the table and stated, “Rubbish.”
“Trash, you said that one already,” Arlene told me.
“Bunged up!” I cried.
“What?” Mindy giggled.
“Means you have a stuffy nose.”
“Love it! Bunged up!” Arlene said on a near shout.
“They also say ‘head full of cold’ when you’ve got a cold,” I shared and then carried on. “Pants are underwear, trousers are pants. Vests are called waistcoats, tank tops are called vests and robes are called dressing gowns!”
“We speak the same language at all?” Arlene asked and I smiled at her.
“Not much,” I answered. “But it works anyway, though never, but never, tell someone you were rear-ended. Ever,” I advised. “They don’t say that but what they think when you say it is very rude because they aren’t thinking of cars at all.”
We all laughed uproariously as if this was the height of comedy.
“I like you,” Arlene declared, grinning broadly. “Never thought I’d say this in my lifetime but I may even like you better than I liked Anna and she was a hoot.”
“Anna?” I asked, wiping a tear of laughter from under my eye.
“Max’s wife,” Arlene replied.
I stopped laughing, her words hitting me like I was a cartoon character standing at the bottom of the cliff and the anvil fell on my head.
I didn’t get the chance to crawl out from under because, shockingly, Mindy was suddenly yanked violently from the table.
“Hey!” Arlene exclaimed, hopping off her stool and I turned.
A tall, good-looking, dark-haired boy-man with scarily bulging biceps that did not look attractively powerful, just scary, had his fingers wrapped tight around Mindy’s upper arm.
“Big, bad Max moved you out today, did he?” he sneered in Mindy’s face, giving her a shake.
I hopped off my stool too as Arlene rounded on Mindy and the man.
“Damon, leave her be,” Arlene ordered.
“Fuck off, Arlene,” he clipped at Arlene and her upper body drew back in visible affront.
“You eat with that mouth, Damon Matthews?” she demanded to know.
“This ain’t your business.”
“Well,” I got up close to them and declared quietly, “it’s mine.”
He swung to me and gave me a head to toe. “Yeah? Who’re you?”
“I’m Nina Sheridan,” I announced like I was saying, “I’m SuperGirl.”
Damon was not impressed. “So?”
“She’s Max’s woman,” Arlene proclaimed and this wasn’t taken favorably by Damon.
“Fuck,” he muttered low, his eyes narrow and not leaving me. “That ass**le gets all the sweet pieces.”