The Honesty Rule

5:: Overnight

"Kate, can you help me with my eyeliner?" Chloe asked. I took the brown pencil from her, and she closed her eyes for me so I could draw a thin line on her upper lid. She looked in the mirror when I was finished. "Thanks Kate! You're so good at it, I always end up looking like a panda," she sighed.

"You're welcome," I said, smiling. "It's just practise."

That night we were going to some fancy restaurant to celebrate Madeline- yesterday she received a late acceptance letter to the university she had wanted to go to since she was little. That's mostly why she moved to Melbourne; to go to this university. She was going to be doing a course in Business Management and she was so excited it had been all she could talk about for the past few days.

***

We arrived at the restaurant and went in. "Hi," Harry said to the person that takes people to their seats. "We have a reservation for five? It should be under the name Harry Grant."

The girl flipped through her little book. "Mr. Grant... Oh, here we are," she muttered as he found his name. She looked up with an apologetic look on her face. "I'm so sorry. Mr. Grant, but I'm afraid we've overbooked. We can move your reservation up to this coming weekend, if you'd like?"

Harry looked at the rest of us. "What do we want to do?"

"Well, I suppose we could do it next weekend," I said.

"Or we could go to Wool," Hunter said.

"But this is a special occasion! We have to do something at least a little special-"

"Wool's special!" Madeline argued. "And we're all wearing fancy clothes, so it would be different to normal. Come on, let's go to Wool."

The rest of us shrugged. "I'm perfectly happy with Wool if you are," I said.

"Wool it is!" Madeline cheered.

***

Wool was busy that night, but our booth was free, as per usual. I sat down in between Chloe and Harry, and Hunter and Madeline sat on the other side.

"So," Madeline said once Phil had left after taking our order. It was so busy that he couldn't even hang around to chat. "I went on a date with this nut job last night," she said.

"Ooh, details?" I asked, my ears perking up. Madeline always had the best stories from dates. She managed to attract the craziest people, but it always made for a good story. She had dated the odd nice person that she really liked, but not since she had moved here. And I don't think she was really the type of person for a serious relationship.

"Well, his name was Daniel. And he works in the media, he does the silly voices you hear on radio and tv ads. He was the deep voice that says 'it's just like home' for that hotel chain ad that used to be on the radio every five minutes a while back."

"Really? I loved that ad!" Hunter said.

"Well, you wouldn't of after this date. After I said that I knew him from that ad, he insisted on talking in that stupid, deep voice all night long. It was like being on a date with a lion."

"So no goodnight kiss for him, then?" Chloe teased.

"Most definitely not."

"Aw, Madeline, which poor sod didn't get a kiss?" Phil asked as he arrived with the drinks, overhearing the end of the conversation.

"Some idiot I went on a date with, Philip," she replied.

"Ah," he said with a knowing smile. "Sorry, who had the Chardonnay?"