The Aftermath Of You

Chapter Thirty Nine

Purple goo covered Toni's forehead. She frantically tried to wipe it off with a dish cloth, which seemed to make her situation worse.

TOOT TOOT.

Her yellow V-Dub pulled up in the drive way. Horror clutched her stomach; there was something different about her car. It was luminous; sparkling in the sunlight, even the patches of rust glowed. But it wasn't that. It was the appalling neon pink stripes emblazoned along the sides and the writing ... the horrible pink squiggly writing.

Lulu knocked on the window. 'Open up,' she mouthed.

Toni opened the window in trepidation.

"What do you think?" Lulu cried. It was a rhetorical question; knowing Lulu, she couldn't imagine that there was anything wrong with what she'd done. "I got them to write your slogan on it too."

There it was for all to see. Try the Handcock experience.

"Why?"

"Marketing. Advertising for your business is the most important thing."

Advertising what? Could the woman not read? "That's my car. You can't just take my car and get it painted."

"Don't worry, you don't have to pay the panel beater. Your father and I decided that it's your birthday money ... for your thirtieth."

"But why?"

"It just looks more professional."

"Professional, it looks ludicrous! I hate it; you're going to have to get someone to peel it off."

A thunder cloud lowered over Lulu's brow. "You can't peel it off. It's painted it on."

Great. "Look, this is too much, I have to go." Toni shut the window abruptly and returned to the sink.

She rinsed the ash blonde dye out of her hair, which was meant to turn her hair a stunning shade of Platinum Blonde. Instead, it had rendered her ultra-blonde roots a bright shade of sky blue. Her orange ends were now a funny shade of orange and blue. Borange, Toni decided in horror. It was impossible to understand how her hair could be worse than before.

Toni was about to pull the pink woolly hat back on when she saw the woman out of her kitchen window the same wild eyed woman she'd seen driving past. She stood in front of Toni's garden gate, leering in the window. Her neck was as wide as Hulk Hogan's upper arm and it disappeared into a large mass of bosom.

Toni gave her a forced cheery wave. The woman gave her one long hard look before lifting up her hand and displaying her middle finger. The movement revealed the hand that had been hidden behind her back, in which Toni can see a large knife - the kind of knife Toni expected to see at a meat works. It was enormous, with its large silver blade sparkling in the sunlight. Toni's heart caught in her throat. This is the moment, she decided. It has finally arrived. My last ten minutes of life. She's probably going to storm in here and chop me up like some kind of daytime horror movie. Toni tried some deep breathing, it didn't work. The woman began to stride forward; turning, Toni bolted for the back door as quickly as her broken ankle would allow her. Outside, she began running across the lawn towards Danny's house. It was a Sunday and hopefully he'd be home. She dared to look back over her shoulder at the mad woman, whereupon it became clear that the crazy had no intention of carving patterns into her at all. Instead, she was slashing open Toni's tyres.

Toni stopped and shouted, "Hey, what the hell did you do that for?"

The woman glared up at Toni, her eyes hot and blazing. "I think you know why!"

"I haven't a clue! Is it the slogan? I don't like it either."

"You're seeing my husband," the chubby lady snarled.

Toni bit her lip, seeing her husband? "Wayne Kerr? I'm hardly ..."

"Athol Russ."

"Shit!"

"I don't know why he'd be interested in someone like you. Look at your hair. It's like fucking Barney the Dinosaur after he's lost all of his Christmas kilos. You're a stick; shit ... you make me sick!"

Charming. So not only was Athol a pig, but it was all Toni's fault. "What the hell is your problem?" she yelled. "You come around here and slash my tires because I'm going on a date with a man that to my knowledge is single. I didn't even know about you. What was I supposed to do? Ring around? Broadcast on the local radio?" Toni stopped shouting hysterically and felt a small surge of pride. Hey, I can do emotional!

"Shut up!" the woman screamed. "Just shut the fuck up, you anorexic whore!"

"I think that you should tell Athol how you feel – not me!" Toni said, stopping herself from responding in kind and shouting out nasty comments about the woman's structure. She didn't want to be too cruel, and after all, the woman's husband had just cheated on her. Or he'd tried ...

"You're completely to blame!" the woman hissed.

With the hand clutching the knife turning white around the knuckles, she moved purposefully toward Toni, her long legs closing the gap between them rapidly. Toni couldn't move, her feet frozen cruelly to the spot. She closed her eyes, and felt the blood pulsing in her ears, her nose. This is it, it's all over now. Toni could have cried at the irony ... just when she'd begun to live again.

But she never felt the pressure of the knife plunging into her body. Instead her ears were assaulted by the sound of three cop cars drive at her from all directions. Opening her eyes, Toni could see the cars with all of their lights flashing and sirens blaring, and after a minute or two of the policemen running to and fro, the chubby woman had her wrists handcuffed.

"Would you like to press charges?" a police woman asked as her colleagues bundled Athol's crazed wife into the car, a policeman reading out her rights.

"No. No!" Toni said in shock. "I want to go inside and never see this woman again for the rest of my life."

Besides, she felt sorry for her. Who'd want to be going home to Athol Ross after all that? Not Toni, that was for sure.