The Honesty Rule

6:: Spilt paint

"Kate! How soon can you get here?" Chloe greeted me when I answered my phone.

"Um..." I said, looking at the time on my phone. It was 11 am. "In about half an hour, why?"

"Well. The dinner party tonight; Hunter's parents just called to say that they would be in town tonight, so now they're coming to dinner. And Krista, Hunter's mum asked what I would be making, and I blurted out panna cotta. Freaking panna cotta, Kate! I have no clue how to make that! I didn't have a plan for tonight, I was just going to wing it and now I have to make a-"

"Whoa, Chloe, calm down. I'm sure we can Google a recipe or something. It'll be fine, alright? I mean, how hard can it be?" I paused to look at the time again. "I'll be over in thirty minutes. We can figure something out, okay?"

"Okay."

I hung up the phone, and quickly ran a brush through my hair. I could borrow Chloe's stuff to do my hair and makeup for tonight, but there was no way I'd be able to fit into one of her dresses because she was so little, so I went to my room to find a dress. I had been tossing up between my black maxi dress that had the gold detailing around the neck, and a navy skater dress made of neoprene. I looked at both where I had laid them out on the armchair last night, and then grabbed the maxi dress. Which was just as well, because I'd forgotten to shave my legs last night. Whoops.

***

"Kate, thank god you're here," Chloe greeted me, pulling me to the kitchen where her laptop was set up on the bench. "I don't think I have all the stuff for a panna cotta. Maybe we could substitute a few of the ingredients?"

"Ooh, I don't know if you can do that with panna cotta, I think it's pretty exact. And we don't really want to risk it. When is everyone coming over?"

"Um..." Chloe pulled her phone out of her back pocket to check it. "About four hours."

"Well then! We have plenty of time to go down to the shops and get a few bits and pieces. Come on, we'll take my car."

Chloe though about it for a second, than nodded. "Okay. Just wait a sec and I'll find a recipe on Google."

A few minutes later, we had found a recipe, and had all the ingredients we needed written down, as well as what we would need for the lasagne for main.

"Okay, perfect. Let's go!" We hurried out of the apartment to my car parked on the street outside, and then drove the five minutes to the grocery store.

We were just walking through the baking section when Chloe stopped and grabbed my arm with a vice like grip.

"What?" I asked her, still looking at the label of the vanilla essence.

"Don't look now, but I think that may be spilt paint girl behind us," Chloe whispered.

Totally ignoring her advice, I looked, than immediately wished I hadn't. Because it was indeed spilt paint girl, and she just happened to look in our direction as I was looking, and our eyes met. She gave me the evil eye, than turned back to the packet of cake mix she was holding. I cringed.

Her real name was Izzy Meyers, but we all called her spilt paint girl, which to be honest made me feel even worse about what had happened. In year ten, there was this huge arts show that our school had been invited to be part of. Along with three of the year twelves, Izzy and I were the only ones in the show. Izzy had done a huge watercolour piece, and I had done a landscape in acrylic. On the day of the show, I was quickly touching up a spot on my painting, and as I was walking past her piece, I tripped, and the easel I was carrying went straight into her painting. There was acrylic smeared all across her piece and there was no saving it. I had wanted to die, but there was nothing to be done. I went and explained what had happened to the judging panel but they wouldn't even consider Izzy's piece. Izzy freaked, and I had felt so bad. I still do, because the worst thing was, I won the whole competition! Even though the judges knew what I had done to Izzy's piece, they didn't even disqualify me or anything.