PARTY FOR THREE
Chapter One
"Why do they say you are over the hill when you turn forty?" Sherry's voice held a note of despair in it. A sense of worry accompanied her voice that knotted the pit of her stomach. It was something she couldn't shake with her own impending fortieth birthday coming up on Saturday. She didn't feel over the hill and yet that birthday always had a stigma attached to it, forty was the dreaded over the hill age. The black birthday. The halfway mark to death.
She never really cared before, and didn't feel old now, but her friends were not going to let her escape this birthday without celebrating in a way she would rather forget.
"I don't know. You are only as old as you feel." Karen picked up a cheesecake for her lunch tray in the cafeteria line.
"Well I feel like I am still in my twenties. Can I still tell people I am twenty when they ask me how old I am?" Sherry questioned.
"Only if you think you can get away with it."
"They won't believe me if I ever stop dying my hair jet black. I used to just highlight my hair for fun. Now it is to cover those stray gray hairs."
“We all get gray hairs eventually. I got my first gray hairs in my early twenties." Karen held a lock of her long brown hair between two fingers. "A gentleman should never ask you your age anyways."
“I hate getting old Karen. I don' want to get old. It's not fair, and I feel like it's hitting me all at once. Now that I am forty, it's official. I don't even want to go to my own over the hill party. Remind me why I am going again?"
"Because you love your friends enough to show up." Karen said with a smile.
"I didn't feel old before but Sean threatened to get me some black roses and all kinds of cheesy over the hill party supplies." Sherry let out a sigh but her voice was resigned. She knew she was still not going to miss the party.
“You shouldn't let Sean get to you too much when he teases you about your age."
"I guess not. After all, he will turn forty too one day."
Karen laughed. "Yeah in twenty years." Sean was the office know-it-all, straight out of college, too cute for his own good. He had a cocky grin that said he knew exactly how he made the women feel.
He was one of those men who could look at you and make you weak in the knees, and your hormones would go up a notch just looking at him. Maybe he wouldn't have that effect on everyone, but he had that affect on her. Sherry's heart always sped up a little when she snuck glances at him, but she was old enough to know it was only lust and such thoughts should not be entertained for long. He was far too young to consider seriously and far too immature to consider for anything more than a passing dalliance. So she had kept it friendly but she kept all of her hidden desires and feelings secret.
As if on cue, Sherry felt a pair of masculine hands grip her waist, pressing her to the side. Sean's voice interrupted their conversation. "You ladies weren't talking about me were you?"
Sherry's cheeks turned pink. He would have the nerve to interrupt a conversation about him. "Yes, we were just saying how I would much rather go to celebrate my birthday dancing in a nightclub or drinking." Anything but some cheesy party with black deathlike decorations mocking her age.
"Don't worry you can have drinks with me on the veranda and we'll dance to our own music, Sherry." Sean caught her eyes with his and then he teased her with a cocky grin, "As long as you can stay awake."
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