The room was packed with dozens of fashion conscious twenty-somethings spewing smoke inhaled from the stylishly black or thin cigarettes they waved jauntily about to emphasize their weighty comments between drags.
"Now get this," Ratna snickered. "He really thought she meant it! Can you imagine that?"
"Meant what?" Ricky paused as he sauntered by a trio of scantily clad females, cigarettes and beer glasses adorning their hands.
"Marko is in the hospital," Mira spewed.
"That she was breaking off their engagement!" Ratna clarified, with a daggered glance at Mira.
"What's wrong with Marko," Ricky asked Mira.
"Tried to off himself," Lita confided with a knowing nudge of her shoulder against Ricky's arm.
"Say what?" Ricky stopped in his tracks as the girls circled in around him.
"Can you imagine . she didn't mean it," Ratna shook her head emphatically. "Just wanted to get his reaction. And on his birthday of all things."
"Just wanted to make him prove he lurved her," Lita purred.
"He just got out of ICU," Mira announced as she shut down her Blackberry. "How sad; Andi says he is pretty sure his family won't let her see him. And she was planning a special present for him tonight. To make things up."
"Which hospital? Where is Sari?" Ricky asked in confusion.
"Dharmais," Mira said.
"Over there in the corner," Lita spun about to point her shiny black nails into the murk beside the open balcony door.
"Where?" Ricky asked, squinting into the smoky gloom between the carefully coutured figures milling about to achieve best affect.
"Well, she was there," Lita sputtered.
"Sari!" Mira screamed, her phone almost slipping from her hand.
"Sari!" Ricky echoed as he leapt between slithering bodies and slammed his way through onto the balcony where a tiny, slim female form stood unsteadily on a chair jammed up against the railing.
"Leave me alone," Sari moaned as Ricky grabbed her arm and jerked her off her perch.
"Get that away from there," Ratna commanded as Mira and Lita began tugging the overstuffed seat back into the room and into the corner where it belonged.
"What's the fuss, it's only two floors down into the swimming pool," Lita sighed as she slumped into the chair.
"Get up and let her sit down," Ricky said, guiding his sobbing sister Sari to safer surroundings and pulling the reluctant Lita up and out of the chair.
"What were you thinking," Ricky asked as he eased the shaken Sari into the chair and sat down on the arm, Sari's shoulder firmly in his grip.
"I told you," Ratna said. "She just wanted to get his reaction; she didn't mean it."
"I almost killed him," Sari whispered up at Ricky. "I don't deserve to live."
"Yeah, while we're at it, why don't we all just off ourselves, and put a grand end to the evening," Lita said as she stood in the balcony door teetering on her 10-inch stilettos.
"I can text and see if he wants you to come over," Mira said holding up her phone. "You can explain it all, and everything will be okay again."
"He won't want to see me, and his mom will kill me," wailed Sari. "What am I going to do?"
"Drink this," Ratna said, proffering a glass of water.
"Aw, cmon', doncha have anything stronger," Lita slurred as she stumbled off in the direction of the makeshift bar by the door.
"This will do," Ricky bellowed in her wake.
"What can I do?" Sari sighed as she shakily reached for the glass, her eyes red around their rims.
"Nothing for now," Ratna cautioned, as she glanced at Ricky for support.
"Ratna and I can go see him tomorrow if he can have visitors," Ricky cast an inquiring look at Mira.
"Andi says he's fine now; didn't really take enough pills to kill him, just enough to knock him out for awhile," Mira responded turning toward Sari.
"He also said Marko really does want to see you, he keeps asking where you are," Mira told Sari.
"Then I have to go there right now," said Sari as she struggled to rise from Ricky's vise-like grasp.
"You are not going anywhere until I say so, Sis," Ricky mustered up his best big-brother voice. "Let me call him first and see if he really is up to seeing you now. Then we'll figure out when would be best."
"I want to go now," Sari whined. "Make him want to see me now."
"Okay. I'll call him right away," Ricky said as he stood to pull his phone from his pants' pocket, pausing as another phone began ringing.
"That's you, Sari," Mira said, reaching down to grab Sari's purse from the floor and pull out the phone. "It's Marko."
Sari leapt up and grabbed the phone from her friend's hand. "Hello, Marko ."
"Oh, hello Mom . I thought it was Marko," Sari stuttered into the phone.
"Yes, I do want to talk to him. I want to tell him I made a mistake; I was just nervous about . Okay, I will tell it to him," Sari said, a dazed look on her face.
Sari sank back into the chair, drawing up her legs, ducking down her head, and cradling her phone close to her ear, murmuring softly, "Marko ."
Ricky, Mira and Ratna backed off, mixing back into the crowd of partiers and leaving the girl once again alone in the corner.
