...arranged around the coffee table in the living room of Mary Jane’s condo in Yorkville. It was a tastefully decorated room, with green-gray walls and brilliant white baseboards and trim. It wasn’t an especially feminine room except for the well-placed assortment of tropical plants in bloom – Birds of Paradise, Dahlias, Frangipani – creating a colourful and fragrant feng shui.
Seated and standing about the room, including herself were seven women – her colleagues and friends – from Pyrotechnique.
In the few minutes available to her between her arrival at home and the arrival of her guests, Mary Jane had prepared and set out trays of vegetable crudités and dip, a variety of cheeses and water crackers, smoked oysters, and cubes of melon, strawberries and cherries.
The women had come straight from the office so wore their work outfits, but high heels had been kicked off at the front door and jackets lay on the backs of chairs, and the women chatted and laughed in blouses and camisoles.
Judy was doing a pitch perfect impression of one of the particularly obnoxious men at work, topped off with a simulated horking and spitting – which none of the women had ever actually seen, but all of whom could well imagine from this handsy mansplainer, and they laughed and wiped at tears, restored by a shared catharsis, girding themselves for another day.
Mary Jane entered the living room from the kitchen carrying a tray with eight martini glasses, a shaker filled with a beautiful blue liquid, and a bottle of Grenadine. She set the tray on the coffee table, then picked up the shaker and shook it vigorously.
“Ladies can I interest anyone in a Blue Balls martini?”
“Does it cause blue balls, or cure them?” Judy inquired.
“Wow, what’s in it?” Seema Jindal, asked.
“Ice cold vodka – which plays well with anything – and Curacao, in classic martini proportions, with a touch of Triple Sec.”
With a practiced hand, Mary Jane poured out the beautiful blue liquid from the shaker into the eight glasses, joggling it over the last glass to make sure the shaker was drained.
“And the secret ingredient…”
She then tipped the bottle of Grenadine to pour a drop into each glass, releasing red swirls into them. The deep blue of the vodka and Curacao mix contrasted dramatically with the ruby Grenadine eddying down through the glasses as Mary Jane offered the tray among the women.
Kelly picked hers up, held it up to the light and marvelled at the colours and contrast.
“This is too beautiful to drink, MJ.”
Mary Jane picked hers up. “I think you’re right, Kelly.”
She rotated it on its stem as she considered it.
“But, I’ve had a long day, so what the fuck,” which was met with laughter and affirmation among the women.
“A toast,” said Judy. “To what the fuck.”
A chorus of “what the fuck” responded – Kelly mouthed but didn’t voice the sentiment, having never actually spoken the f-word aloud – and everyone took a long pull at their glasses.
Kelly glanced around the room and giggled at the sight of a room full of women with blue moustaches.
She wiped at her own with the back of her hand and enjoyed the buzz.
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