Party

Air Date: 29/01/2001

26 Aug 2000, Saturday

Jayde and Gemma do party preparation and go to the salon to get their hair done.

Mary and Casey go to their Copwatch meeting. Mary helps out with their list of "bad cops" and asks about any strange reports lately, especially around the university and from the homeless in the park. Apparently there was the cops trying to pull down the freebox again but that is a fairly common occurrence. Mary gives them details of the guy who she saw being beaten up and how the cops didn’t care. Mary and Casey join up and talk to lots of people about various things.

Around five o’clock David comes downstairs and wants to have a "chat" with the twins. The girls get concerned that this is gonna be about boys but mostly he just re-iterates that he doesn’t want them going into the attic and to please respect his privacy. Faith comes downstairs around six and gives each of the girls a gift – a pair of leather wrist cuffs for Jayde (Faith once fought a demon and her wrists would hurt and she found the cuffs helped) and a small silver pentagram for Gemma (for protection). She also agrees to hang around tonight for the party.

Everyone gets dressed:

Jonathan wears: The one grey suit his mum bought him for his cousin’s wedding last year

Jayde wears: A mini one-off designer dress ("Who calls that a dress?" – Cher’s dad in Clueless)

Mary wears: Not quite tight enough to be interesting leather, like Trinity from The Matrix but not as revealing

Gemma wears: A very nice off-the-rack formal dress that shows much less leg and cleavage than Jayde’s dress

Casey wears: Whatever was on the floor and smelled vaguely cleanish at the time (jeans and a faded t-shirt)

At the party:

People start rolling up around 7:30ish, mostly the older people to spend time with David and Stella in the other room. The twins’ friends start arriving around 8:30 but Jonathan (Mr Punctuality) is there at 8pm on the dot and gets bowled up by the twins’ grandparents who think him a "lovely young man". Gemma points him at the video recorder upstairs to get him out of there before he can slip up on anything important. Casey and Mary spend some time at the video arcade playing "Copkiller" before showing up around 9ish.

Social intrigues:

Lucy and Hoshi turn up wearing the same dress! Jayde chats to Lucy and offers for her to borrow something else but Lucy doesn’t want to because she bought the dress when she was shopping with Belinda who, incidentally, turns up not with Hank but with Dustin, Billy and Portia. Hank, meanwhile, turned up with Thomas and Hoshi and he and Hoshi seem to be spending a lot of time together. Jayde asks Hole and Petra about this new turn of events and they tell her that Hank broke up with Belinda and she’s pretty upset about it. Jayde’s annoyed that she didn’t know already.

As the party progresses:

Jayde spends time consoling Belinda about Hank and telling her not to throw herself at Dustin to get back at him. Mary chats to Petra. Jonathan looks uncomfortable around the outskirts of the party and loiters by the chips until Casey sneaks up on him and they chat for a while. Gemma talks poetry with Pierce and Lucy. Faith comes downstairs to much curious "who’s that?" sort of talk from various corners. She spots the little poetry group, decides the conversation is boring and heads on outside see what’s around. Casey spots the cute buff brunette and follows. Jonathan wanders around making sure to be seen at the party by everyone but actually talks to no-one. Pierce wanders off to chat to Billy and Dustin who have settled in by the pool with the beer keg. Gemma wanders on out to talk with Mary and Petra. Faith grabs a bottle of vodka and heads over to Billy and Dustin. Random extras arrive, including Miram who is greeted by Jayde. Faith challenges Billy and Dustin to a drinking contest. Various people watch to see what happens, including Pierce and Casey. Gemma and Mary and other random stoners have a bit of a smoke. Faith reaches half a bottle of vodka and pauses to let the others catch up. Billy passes out. Faith is looking pretty hammered but Dustin is looking very unwell. Jayde goes to chat with Portia, there’s an unpleasant splashing noise coming from Dustin’s direction, and they head inside before the smell hits. Faith leaves Dustin to his praying to the garden gods, stands up, grabs the rest of her bottle, throws an arm around Casey’s shoulder and slurs "Let’s go inside!" He cheerfully slips his arm around her waist and takes her to the kitchen for water. Mary pouts a lot and follows before settling into the couches upstairs. Gemma goes and rescues DMS from where he’s been trapped in with the oldies and he points out that she smells of dope. She goes and burns a lot of incense to try and overpower the smell in her clothes. Hank wanders in to the kitchen, spots Faith and Casey who really don’t seem to fit in with the rest of the party, grabs a drink from the fridge and leaves with a purpose. Jonathan finds Mary smoking copiously in order to not think about Casey and Faith, and ends up getting very stoned himself on her second-hand smoke. Mary angsts. Gemma dances with random extras. Mary falls asleep for a couple of hours. Jonathan feels the walls pulse. Jayde plays social machination games and dances with everyone cute and available. Gemma talks philosophy with microbrew-drinking wankers. Faith recovers reasonably quickly and she and Casey go party.

The set-up:

Gemma, Casey and Faith take a break from dancing and end up in the kitchen. Faith goes through the fridge looking for drinks and pinches whatever looks good, regardless of who brought it with them. Mary and Jonathan head downstairs in search of bread (Jonathan) and water (Mary) and find themselves in the kitchen. Casey and Gemma get talking about society, government and law.

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