Kitabı oku: «Temptation Island», sayfa 3

5 Aurora

Aurora gunned the engine of her cherry-red Ferrari Spider. It purred beneath her as she waited at the lights. The sky was apricot and the air smelled sugary, the sun a melting orb that dipped hot below the horizon.

She and her girlfriends were on their way to Basement, their favourite Hollywood hangout. It was Friday night, which meant all the names that meant anything would be out and ready to party. Kids of famous parents, heiresses and socialites, child stars, models, they’d all be there: wholesome favourites with secret coke addictions, virgin starlets who’d spend the night promising a blow job to their managers, alpha-male young actors with an eye for the boys as well as the girls … Inside the car, a bottle of vodka was being passed round. Joints were being rolled. Lines being cut. They were totally baked and the night hadn’t even begun.

At a red light, Aurora caught sight of a super-hot Latino guy on a bike next to her. He had more than a passing resemblance to Rafael Nadal, who she had a major thing for. A pretty girl was clinging to his waist—she looked like a gypsy, with masses of black hair and long, tanned legs. For a fleeting moment Aurora imagined being in bed with both of them at the same time. Maybe she was a fucking nympho—the thought had occurred to her before.

The lights changed and the boy sped off. In his place, an open-top Jeep packed with surfers on their way back from the beach. They were shirtless, still wet, whooping at the girls to get their attention, their piercings glinting in the fading light. One of them made an obscene gesture at Aurora.

‘You strapped in?’ she asked the others. Farrah Michaels, her best friend and daughter of the head of a mega Hollywood production studio, sniffed and coughed. Her eyes were glassy.

‘Your dad’s gonna freak if you waste the car.’

Aurora revved the engine. Someone beeped. The driver of the Jeep winked. One of the guys stood up, pulled down his shorts and slapped his bare ass. The girls squealed. Jenna Reynolds, in the back, lifted her top and jiggled two enormous breasts in response.

‘Jerk-offs.’ Aurora floored it and the Ferrari roared to life, nought to sixty in a matter of seconds. The other car didn’t stand a chance. In the rear-view mirror Aurora saw the Jeep recede to a pinpoint before vanishing completely.

Jenna was thrown back against the seat. She struggled to get her top down. ‘Ow!’ she complained. ‘Fucking hell.’ Farrah was laughing.

Aurora took another swig from the bottle. She turned on to Sunset at speed. The Ferrari’s tyres squealed.

‘Uh, hello?’ complained Farrah, grappling to retrieve her smoking paraphernalia. ‘Some of us are trying to get high?’

Moments later they pulled up outside Basement. Aurora was striking in a clinging white minidress, killer heels and statement arm jewellery. Her pale blonde crop looked incredible against her bronzed skin. Her blue eyes were lined with kohl. The other girls, though each attractive in her own right, paled in comparison.

The paparazzi were out in force. They clamoured for Aurora the instant she exited the vehicle. ‘Aurora! This way! Look this way, Aurora! Aurora, over here!’

She chucked her keys at a waiting valet. He fumbled the catch and dived to the floor to retrieve them. Aurora led the way inside.

The club was pounding. She headed for the VIP area and proceeded to order them all shots. Farrah, a pretty redhead, scoped the place for the member of a teen boy-band sensation she’d heard would be making an appearance. To the public the band were all good innocent Christians, but rumour said different of at least one. Apparently he was into dildos.

Aurora was used to the looks she got. Everyone in this town knew who she was and who her parents were. A British DJ had remixed one of Sherilyn Rose’s songs and it was currently storming the download charts. No doubt they’d play it tonight in her honour. Secretly she found it embarrassing. She was tight with her dad but her mom was another matter. Maybe it was the same with all moms: they were a reminder of what you could look like in fifty years or whatever. OK, not fifty, but close. She shuddered.

Last week had been her parents’ anniversary. For some reason, every year, they celebrated it by buying her a gift, like she was the reason they were still together, or something. It was messed up. But she wasn’t about to say no to a two-hundred-thousand-dollar ride, was she? Hence the Ferrari. Farrah had been right: Tom would throw a shit fit if he knew she was using it to party, but, still, what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Aurora was his little girl and nothing she did could be anything short of wonderful. Did he even know where she was tonight? She couldn’t work out if he and Sherilyn genuinely had no idea about her lifestyle or if it suited them to be ignorant. She guessed they had enough else to think about without a tearaway daughter who was bedding everything in sight.

Aurora ended up on the lap of Olympic idol Jax Jackson, who had a cock that was allegedly so huge it had acquired a myth-like status. From where she was perched it didn’t feel like much. He had masses of bling around his neck and a solid-gold watch that probably cost more than the car. Across the bar she spotted Farrah pressed up against Boy-Band-Christian. Jenna, who’d starred in several kids’ adventures when she was seven but had never lost the puppy fat, was dancing in a circle of admiring males. Aurora felt bored.

‘Why’n’t we skip the bullshit,’ proposed Jax, ‘an’ you come home with me?’ He shifted on the banquette, pressing his growing erection into her backside. ‘Throw our own little party, whaddaya say?’

Aurora had never done it with a black guy; it’d make a change. But she was wasted, properly wasted. She felt kind of sick. Abruptly, she stood up. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘Jeez.’ He slid his attentions to an adjacent blonde. ‘Suit yourself.’ It was an effort to get across the club. She managed to peel Farrah away from her boyfriend—’boy’ being the operative word—and shout in her ear that she was going.

‘Already?’ Farrah was shocked. ‘How’m I gonna get home?’

Aurora couldn’t be bothered to answer. That was Farrah’s problem. Either she was coming or she wasn’t.

‘I’m not coming,’ said Farrah. Boy-Band-Christian grabbed her chin and stuck his tongue in her mouth. Aurora saw it slide in like a horrible slug and she experienced an intense rush of disliking her best friend. This whole scene was tired out. She’d had enough of it. Every day the same: endless partying, endless guys, endless everything.

If Farrah was staying, she could sort Jenna out, too.

Outside, the cameras lunged at her. In seconds her car was brought round and she jumped in, switching the ignition. Fuck. She was out of her head, shouldn’t be driving, probably. But no one told her so. No one ever told her so.

She’d been on Sunset for a minute, maybe two, when she started feeling properly like shit. She’d done too much: her eyelids were heavy, her limbs shutting down.

I’m going to pass out, she thought. Car horns blared.

The last thing she remembered was her head hitting the wheel, hard, painfully. Then everything went black.

6 Stevie

Bibi Reiner was a firework. She was tiny, everything about her compact, with this amazing scrawl of frizzy auburn hair and huge, wide green eyes. Since welcoming Stevie at the door of her apartment over a month ago, she had barely stopped talking.

‘You and me are gonna have such a blast!’ she’d gabbled as she led Stevie through her place on West 54th, at once assuming their living together was a done deal, something Stevie found incredibly friendly. They were at the top of an impressive redbrick with views over Central Park, and inside were bright white walls, spotlights and parquet flooring. Stevie’s room was spacious, light and airy, with tons of storage and a luxurious king-size bed. Over the summer it had been occupied by Bibi’s brother, like her an aspiring actor, but he’d since relocated to LA, leaving the room free. Stevie had called at the right time. She couldn’t believe her luck.

‘How was your flight?’ Bibi had chattered. ‘What’s going on in London? I love London. What do you do? What do you eat? I’m a vegan, which means I don’t eat meat or dairy, but I will have a hot dog once a year because I love them. Also, I’m a Buddhist. I don’t drink alcohol but I do drink champagne. I have to get nine hours’ sleep every night otherwise I don’t function and my skin turns to crap. Your skin’s amazing, what do you use? You’re so pretty, far prettier than me. I’d love to have hair like yours; it’s so straight. Mine’s a total mess. Don’t you think? I’ve tried everything. Go on, be honest, it’s too much, isn’t it? I should dye it. Red? Or pink. I was thinking pink. And I want to get a tattoo on my back, here, of a butterfly.’ She’d reached awkwardly around, failing to get to the exact spot and laughing at herself. ‘Just a little one because they’re cute. But my agent says I’m limiting roles. I just wanna stand out, ya know?’

Bibi didn’t stop. But she was lovely, she was funny; she was sweet and she was kind. And for Stevie, who only talked when there was something to say, she was in many ways the ideal person to share with. The girls were different but they clicked instantly. Bibi thought Stevie was the most gorgeous creature she had ever seen because she had this air of calm and wisdom, something Bibi had always coveted in others because she herself was a ditz: things popped into her head and she just blurted them out, pouf!

Despite the fact that Stevie had moved in five weeks ago, she was still struggling to find work. Her rent was fair, in fact it was better than fair, but she was already scraping the barrel of her savings. It wasn’t for lack of trying—she’d walked the city till her feet gave in, leaving her CV anywhere that looked as if it might need staff—but in honesty her lack of progress was more down to the fact that Bibi was constantly suggesting lunches out, parties, shopping and coffee with her friends so Stevie could be introduced. She was infinitely generous, with everything.

It was a Thursday. Stevie was lying on her front on the bed, intermittently yawning, her chin resting in the cup of one hand while the other tapped aimlessly through job sites. She didn’t even know any longer what she was looking for. Every time she landed on one that seemed suitable, she’d spot that the closing date had already expired, or she had to be based in a different city, or it required a proven qualification she didn’t have.

Always academic at school, she’d opted out of university to the disappointment of her teachers. Her dad had walked when she was fifteen and there followed an awkward few years: she’d wanted to get out into the real world and earn a living, because he’d left them with next to nothing and she’d decided that never again would she be in a position of dependency. Well, that was the reason she gave herself. More likely was that her mum was trying to raise and provide for an army of kids and a slug of university fees was the last thing they could sustain.

Working life hadn’t been as glamorous or as productive as Stevie had imagined, however she’d found a niche that paid well and played to her skills. She’d been a PA now, in varying degrees of responsibility, for nearly ten years. She was efficient, organised and unflustered. Or, she had been, up until a year ago. But that depended on who you were working for.

There was a knock at the door. A beaming Bibi stuck her head round.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure.’ Stevie smiled back. Her smile was one of the best things about her, the sort of smile she gave her whole face to. In repose she could appear quite solemn: it was more concentration than anything else, but all the same it made the contrast a dazzling surprise.

Bibi, dressed in faded dungarees and an eighties-style bandana, bustled in with two mugs of coffee. She laid them down and flopped backwards on to the bed.

‘I need a boyfriend!’ she announced dramatically.

Stevie snapped shut her laptop. ‘You don’t need a boyfriend; you want a boyfriend. There’s a difference.’

‘Are you a feminist?’

‘Aren’t you?’

Bibi shrugged and looked at the ceiling. She covered one eye, then the other, and did this a few times. ‘I can see better out my left.’

‘Maybe you need glasses.’

‘Maybe. Wanna go out?’

Stevie sat up. ‘I can’t afford it, B.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘I need to find a job.’

‘You need to?’

‘Yes. Otherwise what am I going to pay you with at the end of the month?’

‘Come on,’ said Bibi, not listening. She yawned in her usual theatrical way, stretching her arms wide. She’d assured Stevie that the apartment belonged to some distant aunt and she was getting a ‘ridiculously sweet’ deal, but Stevie saw no reason why she should take advantage of this, and anyway she disliked not having work, it made her feel like a waster.

‘Oh my God!’

Stevie was alarmed. ‘What?’

‘My friend’s having a party tonight!’ She sprang up. ‘I just remembered! We should go!’

Stevie stared balefully at her laptop.

‘Let’s go now!’ And she bounced off the bed.

‘It’s three o’clock.’

‘So? We’ll go shopping on the way.’ At Stevie’s expression, she added slyly, ‘There’ll be guys there. And you know what guys mean? Flirting. And you know what flirting means?’

‘Waking up in someone’s bed the next day without a clue what their name is?’

Bibi looked innocent. ‘I was going to say a bit of banter, but if you—’

Stevie threw a cushion at her.

‘Come on—’ Bibi checked her reflection in the mirror and adjusted the bandana above her ears ‘—they’re actors, it’ll be fun!’

This was a further disincentive. Stevie loved Bibi and had no doubt that one day she’d be a famous and very talented actress—it was all she had ever wanted to do, Bibi vowed, her whole entire life—but she had, apart from where Bibi was concerned, a slight phobia of that world. Take the Aurora Nash scandal, for instance. Stevie felt sorry for the girl, she was only fifteen or something, and her mug shot had been all over the papers. Last month she’d crashed the car Daddy had bought her and ended up getting arrested. She’d had enough drugs in her system to tranquillise a horse. In fact one of the drugs was for tranquillising horses. It was a spoiled, desperate scene. All that mindless excess, it wasn’t her thing.

Stevie’s last job had been working as PA to the director of a firm dealing in high-profile celebrity court cases: divorces, injunctions, political scandals, they’d handled it all. As part of that she’d been obliged to attend the occasional industry bash and had found each one unbearable. Cash made these people invincible, or so they thought. Stevie recalled him working flat out on a case shortly after she joined involving a married news anchor who’d been filmed dressing up four twenty-something Russian prostitutes as characters from The Wizard of Oz—it was their job to keep the press off the scent. She resisted the memory. That had been the case that started it. The late nights … the way he’d stand at the window loosening his tie, the spires of London behind, silhouetted in gold … the invitation of a drink, and then.

‘You do like men, don’t you?’ Bibi interrupted her train of thought. ‘Because this one time I kissed my best friend, who’s a girl, at holiday camp when I was, like, sixteen.’

Stevie shook her head. ‘So …?’

‘So are you gay?’

‘No.’

‘Just checking. Cos there are plenty of girls I could set you up with.’

‘Who says I want to get set up?’ Stevie removed her glasses and went to clean one of the lenses on her T-shirt. ‘Believe it or not, I like being by myself.’

Bibi bit her thumbnail. ‘Can you see without those on?’

‘Pretty much. I just can’t see things far away.’

‘You should get contacts.’

‘Hmm.’ She slipped them back on, returning to her computer.

‘You’re really not coming, then?’ Bibi folded her arms.

‘I’m really not coming.’

‘OK.’ One of the nice things about Bibi was that she’d try for her own way, but was quick to identify defeat and get over it without a struggle. ‘I guess you need to save yourself for Linus Posen’s party, anyway.’

‘Who?’

Bibi had made to leave, and turned now, feigning surprise. ‘Oh! Didn’t I mention it?’

Stevie raised an eyebrow. ‘No.’

‘You must have heard of Linus Posen.’

She hazarded a guess based on Bibi’s usual array of friends—and the more the name settled, the more she thought she recognised it. ‘Director? Producer?’

‘The first. My rep’s going, she’ll get us in. Honest, it’s the party of the season. And Linus is a very big deal.’ She clapped her hands together excitedly. ‘If I play this right, he could really make things happen! So you will come, won’t you? For moral support?’

Stevie cringed.

‘For me?’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘You’re in New York City, now, sugar, you’ve got to live a little.’ Bibi winked as she closed the door behind her. ‘Stick with me and you’ll be just fine.’

7 Lori

Tony Garcia folded his copy of La Opinión and slid it quietly on to the table. Lori noticed the stack of unopened envelopes gathered there, the red-stamped final warnings just visible in the windows. Dark circles shadowed her father’s eyes.

‘The shame!’ Angélica, at her husband’s wilted shoulder, had her thin arms folded and her black hair secured in a tight bun. Her lips were a bloody shade.

‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Lori replied coldly. She still had her bag slung over one shoulder, had scarcely returned from Tres Hermanas before Angélica embarked on her tirade. Anita and Rosa—those bitches, those putas—had grassed her up.

The tiny kitchen was the scene of their dispute. The house had barely been big enough for three when her mother was alive, but they had loved each other so it hadn’t mattered. Now, Lori felt the walls closing in on her, unbearably close. Dirty plates piled up in the sink, awaiting her attention; laundry heaped in a corner, a pair of Anita’s knickers thrown carelessly over the top; grime and squalor on every surface, tasks the women deemed beneath them.

‘Rico loves me,’ she attested, lifting her chin. ‘He takes care of me.’

‘Enrique Marquez is not one of us,’ spat Angélica, as if this closed the matter. ‘You are a disgrace to this family, Loriana.’

‘What family? You’re not my family. You’ll never be.’

Angélica’s eyes blazed. ‘Tony, tell your daughter to show me some respect!’

Tony was an echo. ‘You heard her, Lori. Show some respect.’

She wanted to hit him. Come on, she willed her father, stand up for yourself! Grief changed a man—but how much longer till she got him back?

‘His people are dangerous,’ blasted Angélica.

‘You know nothing about Rico and his family.’

‘I know about the dead baby!’ she rasped triumphantly. ‘Don’t think for a second we don’t know about her.’ Rico’s mother had given birth to a stillborn daughter the previous year: everyone knew it was the drugs.

‘His brother will go the same way, you can be sure of that,’ Angélica raged on. ‘They are dirty, Loriana. They are immigrants.’

‘And what does that make us?’

‘Tony!’ Angélica put a hand out to steady herself, appalled by the mere suggestion that she and her daughters should be classed in the same way.

Lori knew Anita and Rosa were behind her in the hallway, listening in. She pictured their rapt expressions and experienced a fresh surge of injustice. Nothing they did was ever wrong; everything she did was. She was an outcast in this house.

‘You want to complain about people who don’t work to support themselves? Fine. Ask your daughters. They’re lazy; they do nothing. Nada. The work falls to me—just as it does here.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Mama would be so disappointed.’

There was a flicker in Tony’s expression, but as soon as it appeared it was gone. Fury reignited Angélica, who was unable to tolerate reference to her predecessor.

‘You ungrateful puta!’ she spat. ‘Do you think you would fare better on your own? Go ahead, then—try! You’re living under our roof, remember—’

‘I don’t recall this house being yours,’ interrupted Lori. ‘And anyway, if you’d had your way I wouldn’t even be here, I’d never have been born. So why don’t you let me go out with a dangerous boy? See if I might wind up dead sometime. You never know, you might get lucky!’

‘Stop!’ At last, Tony snapped. The kitchen plunged into silence. Lori knew she had gone too far, but she had wanted a reaction, any reaction. Now she had got one.

But it wasn’t the one she expected.

‘If that is the way you feel,’ said Tony evenly, ‘then we will not stop you leaving. In fact, we will encourage it.’ He rubbed his eyes, and when they met hers, red-rimmed with fatigue, she saw they were empty as a well.

‘If you insist on seeing this boy, we will have no choice but to send you to Corazón.’

She was appalled. ‘In Spain?’ Corazón was Lori’s elderly grandmother on Tony’s side. The woman lived in the middle of nowhere in a remote mountainous part of the country.

Tony nodded. ‘Angélica and I believe it is for the best.’

It made sense. ‘That’s exactly the way you want it,’ she told her stepmother, almost admiring her nerve. ‘Get me out of the way, maybe I’ll never come back.’

‘We are giving you a choice,’ said Angélica, dripping mock-fairness. ‘If you continue to see Enrique Marquez, you will leave us with none.’

Lori pushed her way through to the hall. Anita and Rosa scurried out of sight; Rosa’s large behind waddling noisily up the stairs to the bedroom she shared with her sister.

She was blind with anger. It was unthinkable to split from Rico—he was her only refuge, the only thing in life that made her feel there was some escape, however, whenever. But equally she could not risk being sent to Spain. Her grandmother was about to die, she must be a hundred at least, and it would be like being sent to the graveyard herself.

‘Loriana, you come back here!’ screamed Angélica from inside the house, furious that she should be walked out on. ‘I haven’t finished with you!’

The beach drew her, the only place she could think of to go. She was desperate to call Rico but couldn’t bring herself to tell him what had been said. Angélica’s cruel words echoed, chaotic, in her memory, like a bird she had seen once, trapped in a room.

A truck horn sounded as she crossed Ocean Boulevard. A guy stuck his head out of the window and shouted something appreciative. In frayed denim shorts and a plain string vest, two thin hoops glinting in her wild black hair, Lori was a siren without a clue how to use her beauty—and that was the best use of all.

The ocean was still. It wasn’t yet dark. Lori removed her shoes and padded across the golden sand. At the water’s edge, she stopped.

So this was the choice: quit seeing Rico or go to Spain. The irony was that if it were anywhere else she would have jumped at the chance—wasn’t it the breakout she’d been wishing for?—but if she felt now like her life was moving nowhere, it would be nothing compared with the situation at Corazón’s. Lori recalled the house in Spain only distantly, in the mists of her childhood, but the fragments she assembled created an image of quiet and loneliness and loss. What could there possibly be for her there? More waiting … waiting for her life to pass her by.

Mierda! Frustration gave way to unhappiness. She refused to weep; she was stronger than that. Tears achieved nothing. She needed a plan.

In the distance, a boat edged slowly across the horizon. Lori closed her eyes. In the months following her mother’s death, she had pictured an island, somewhere remote and far away, the place she always went to when she needed to remember there was a wider world waiting to be found. She could picture it so clearly: its sweeping white shores and sparkling green waters, the chalky heat and the blazing sun. Now, at the ocean’s lip, sensing the great expanse at her feet, she could almost believe such a place existed. An island that was all hers, her fantasy alone, which nobody else could touch.

One day …

Hers was a different fate. Maybe she knew it because of her mother: she had to live a life that was big enough for two. Maybe it was because she spent too much time poring over romance novels, gateways to those other glittering treasure-filled worlds. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because she was right. Her heart believed it and she trusted her heart.

Lori breathed the salty air deep into her lungs. One day she would visit her island, see it made real. See the destiny that awaited her there.

It was obvious what had to happen.

She and Rico had talked about it. Now they just had to do it.

They were going to run away.