Page 1 of Pomegranates and Olive

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Olive vs. The Wedding Proposal

“I think I'm having a nervous breakdown."

"Is that what you want to call it?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"I don't know, maybe. You do seem to be making some very rash decisions."

Rash decisions?

My name is Olive Giulietta Russo (or Liv to my friends and family) of which I have fewer every day. I’m a 28-year-old woman sitting on the floor of my old bedroom in my parent's red-brick, two-storey, mock-Roman home (complete with Corinthian columns) in Warriewood, one of Sydney's northern suburbs having arrived last night on their doorstep, hysterical and covered in vomit. I'm now wearing my mother's blue, floral nightgown. I look at the tumbler-sized glass of red wine in my hand and take a long sip.

Yep, rash decisions seem to be something of a character trait that I have developed over the past few days.

"Take a deep breath and explain to me what happened."

On the verge of tears, I drain my tumbler in a half-assed effort to calm myself. I take a deep breath and begin my story with my cousin, Ginger, via FaceTime.

"You know in those horror movies when the girl goes into the woods and you scream at her, 'DON'T GO INTO THE WOODS' but she ignores you and then somehow she ends up in her underwear, so she's now in the woods in her underwear, and then she's crazy murdered and you're like, well, duh?"

"Yeah?"

“Well that's what happened last night."

"You were in the woods in your underwear?"

"No, but the night was a total blood bath anyway."

"That still doesn’t explain what happened, Olive."

"Okay, okay. It all started with Chiara's 30th birthday party last month."

“I can’t believe I missed Chiara’s birthday.” Ginny moans into the computer. "It looked epic."

"It was epic. We stayed in the city in this fabulous penthouse apartment. It was gorgeous. Massages. A personal chef. There was a stripper..."

My younger sister, Rosalia, who was stretched out beside me on the floor, butted in. "Two strippers! And they were both totally hot!"

I wink at the camera. "Yeah, they were hot."

"There was also a psychic who gave each of us a reading."

From the computer I can sense Ginger's mirth as she rolls her eyes. "Jeeze. Come on now."

"Honestly, Ginny, she was totally full of shit. Psycho Magda —" Rosie snorts at her own joke and shoves her face in front of mine, "— told me that I was going to marry the man that I had been in love with my whole life!"

"Zac Efron?"

Rosie fell back onto the floor, laughing, her long sun-kissed curls spreading across the keyboard of my laptop. "Oh man, I wish. He's morphed into one hot daddy."

"Can you shut up, Rosie?" I drag the laptop toward me and away from her and her hair. "Look, I might've had a lot to drink that night, but at that moment Madam Magda really spoke to me! It was as though she could read all my fears that I'd been having about my relationship with Luca."

Ginny opens her mouth to say something, but I put my hand up. "I know, I know. She's psychic. Ha-ha. Madam Magda said I was at a crossroads and whichever path I chose will determine the course of the rest of my life. She said that if I wanted to find true happiness, I needed to walk down a new path, a fork in the road and all that."

"She also said something about being naked at some point in your future and I can't really see that happening anytime soon, can you?” Rosie drops to the ground beside me. “Honestly Liv, you really screwed the pooch, and why? Because some psycho psychic gave you some really shitty advice!"

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