by Lulu Pratt
I’d thought I might get some pushback on this when the girls discovered where we were going, but much to my surprise, they all clapped their hands together and raced inside the gates. I guess dolphins are the universal unifier.
Finn and I climbed out after them, and I stopped at the gate to greet the workers, tell them that we were the team with BeYou Magazine. They gladly led us through the facility, out to the pool where the dolphins were frolicking.
“Oh my God,” Bebe was bubbling. “I love this. I love this!” To me: “Literally, thank you so much, Poppy, I could cry.”
Kareen chirped up. “Dolphins are my favorite, how did you know?”
“Yay!” I replied, happy to have gotten this right. “We’re just here for a little good work, to showcase this awesome charity. Hope ya’ll have fun.”
Both girls wrapped me in a hug, and for a split second, I thought, maybe I can fit in with these people.
But then we straightened up and I caught sight of Chrissy, running her eyes over me like I was a particularly disgusting cockroach.
I could feel that I was nearing my breaking point with her and her judgment, but I reminded myself of my old standby: Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.
So I shot her a small, tight smile and kept my frustrated thoughts to myself. That’d show her.
Finn came to my side, and even though I wasn’t sure we were on friendly terms, he leaned close to my ear, saying, “Ignore her. She’s not worth it.”
“Yeah,” I replied, my voice thin. “That was the conclusion I’d pretty much come to.”
He nodded and was about to say more, but then I saw that the models were disrobing, slipping down to their bathing suits and moving to the pool.
Finn lifted up his camera, and began to shoot them.
Unable to help myself, I said, “You know, we’re not here for a bikini shoot. I wanted this visit to be about charity.”
He shrugged, his tongue sliding around his lips. “Sorry, lass, bikinis pay the bills. Besides, Regency needs photos of their new swimsuit line. This is a work trip.”
“This isn’t respectful,” I argued. “The sanctuary agreed to let us in on the day it’s normally closed with the understanding that we’d give them a little publicity.”
“And we will,” Finn finished, the conversation clearly over. “And we’ll get our coin. Is that so bad?”
I sighed, shaking my head. This was why I couldn’t have romantic thoughts about him. I replied, “Is it always about money with you, Finn? Can’t things ever just be for the greater good?”
He let the camera rest against his chest and took a deep breath before saying, “You don’t know me. You don’t know what money is to me. So don’t pretend like you do, okay?”
With that he stormed off to the pool, dropped to a knee, and began taking pictures of the bikini-clad models, leaving me to watch the dolphins swim in the water without a care in the world.
Chapter 13
POPPY
WHILE THE models and Finn shot pics at the pool, I chatted with the locals who staffed the place, getting more info on the sanctuary for my write-up. The staff told me about their favorite products from the island, recommended some restaurants and even whispered the names of the best secret beaches. Soon, my frustration with Finn was subsumed by my gratitude to these strangers, who had been so unflaggingly kind.
Plus, it’s hard to stay mad when there are about twenty dolphins splashing around you.
After Bebe and Kareen gave the dolphins some final kisses on their sweet little faces, everyone toweled off and we headed back in the van.
“Where to now?” Kareen asked, unknotting her hair from its careful bun.
I replied, “We’re headed to a beach I heard about. No tourists, super private. Apparently gorgeous. I’m going to style you all with some of the products I found at the market. Sound good?”
“Um, fuck yes!” Bebe crowed.
Well, at least I’ve made some friends, I think. Even if Chrissy unnecessarily hates me and Finn believes I’m wildly judgmental.
I’d take the good with the bad, I figured, and try to make my peace.
Soon enough, we were stepping onto the white sands of an immaculate beach. The afternoon sun was low in the sky, kissing the horizon’s edge and lighting everything in a hazy glow. The water was an uncanny blue, like something you’d see on an accountant’s computer desktop – so picturesque it didn’t seem real.
As the models traipsed onto the beach, Finn slipped off his Birkenstocks. I lingered behind, waiting with him for no reason. Or at least, not one I could decipher – my own mind was a mystery, lately.
He palmed the shoes then stood up and whistled, gazing out onto the beach. “What a beaut,” he murmured. “Good pick.”
“Thanks,” I replied, more proud of myself than I had any right to be, and we began to follow the girls down the slim path between palms that led out to the water.
We were silent as we picked through the trees, but as the path opened up and we were deposited on the beach proper, Finn said, “I’m sorry. About earlier. For snapping on you.”
“Apology accepted,” I replied immediately. “And I’m sorry that I’ve – that I can be like that. Demanding.”
He shook his head. “You just see the best in people, Poppy, and want that from them. It’s not a bad thing.”
My heart swelled. That was about the kindest thing anyone’d ever said about me. Or at least, coming from his lips, in that low accent, it sounded like the kindest. I imagine he could’ve told me to write a grocery list and I would have swooned.
Oh, I was in deep.
Once we were on the beach, I cornered the models, who were once again down to their bikinis, and began to apply some of the products I’d picked up – natural oils, serums, plant-based tints.
At last, I stepped back to admire my work, and puffed out my chest with pride. They were stunning, even more so than usual, I thought. Their faces shone, and something about my make-under, as it were, made them look almost Amazonian.
Finn, who’d been fiddling nearby with his camera, looked up and exhaled appreciatively. “Wow,” he said, eyes running over their faces.
I guess I should have expected him to find them beautiful. After all, the rest of the world did. So why was I feeling such pointed jealousy?
But then he finished, “Poppy, you did an amazing job.”
And just like that, my jealousy dissipated. Gosh, it wasn’t like me to need compliments so desperately from a man – I know who I am, and am proud of it – but Finn turned me inside out, reconfigured my whole world. I was putty in his hands.
The models held up their phones in selfie mode to see the make-up, and even Chrissy turned appreciative. They cooed over my work, and begged me to teach them the secrets. Finn interrupted their applause, though, saying we needed to get shooting while the lighting was this good. Much as I like praise, I knew he was right.
They all scattered along the beach, into the sand, into the ocean. I averted my eyes as they made increasingly sexual poses. I felt almost like I would violate their privacy just by looking at them. Was I being a prude, or were these shoots not about the women, but about the men who would, theoretically, buy the underwear for their girlfriends and wives?
After I’d watched – or rather, pointedly not watched – from the sidelines for an hour or so, Finn called me over from the water’s edge. He was on his knees, taking a photo of Kareen bent in the waves, his camera trained right on her breasts.
“Poppy,” he instructed, “get over here.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
With a sigh, I stood up from the sand, brushed my skirt off, and walked over to him. As I approached, he told the models to take a break and get some water. Not the salty kind.
“Yes?” I asked, as they moved to the drier, fluffier sand and Finn arose from his kneeling position.
“I want to take some photos of you.”
“More?”
He laughed. “Weren’t the ones earlier any good?”
Okay, I had to give him that. “All right, but I’m not gonna pose like any of the girls.”
“That’s fine,” he agreed readily. “Pose like you.”
I took one step into the waves, and felt a gust of wind push my skirt behind me. Finn snapped a photo.
“Now, turn to me,” he ordered. “Curve your body.”
“What does that mean?” I asked as I took my skirt in hand, lifting it up.
“Make shapes. Don’t just exist, but create lines.”
I processed this for a moment, then tried to take enact it – I thrust my hips to the right, curved my waist in the opposite direction, then arched my back and threw my arms into the air, like I was about to take flight. I closed my eyes, spread my lips, and for a single, spectacular moment felt the world swirling around me and me alone. All it had taken was Finn.
The camera clicked once.
I waited for another click, but none came. There was just a massive silence – if you discount the ocean breeze and the crashing waves.
I opened my eyes.
Finn was standing several yards away from me, camera in his hand, steadied around his chest, his eye nowhere near the viewfinder. And he was looking at me as if he couldn’t see the beautiful beach, the majestic ocean, or even the supermodels.
He was looking at me and absolutely nothing else.
I lowered my arms, abashed. “Is something wrong?” I asked, suddenly quite shy.
Finn shook his head, but said nothing. He seemed almost stunned, like he’d received a blow to the chest and was now lying flat on his back.
“There’s nothing wrong,” he said after what seemed like ages. “Let me just–”
Without any further words, he approached me, his bare feet sinking into the sand and long hair buffeted by the breeze. One foot, another, another. We were close, close enough that he could reach out and touch me, grab me, pull me in, sunset could spread between our lips.
And I knew, with a sudden, unnerving clarity, that I wanted him to. Whether it was a good idea or not, well, that I couldn’t speak to.
Just as I’d hoped, Finn reached out a single hand to my face, his long, pale fingers approaching my cheek as if to cup it. I tilted my chin in anticipation, urging him forward.
His fingers brushed my skin, and I shivered, thinking, this is what I’ve been waiting for.
Then his fingers moved past my skin and into my hair, tucking it behind my ear.
“You had a stray curl,” he explained in a low voice, before retreating back to his previous spot.
My heart sank. No, it plummeted out of my body and was swept away in the wave that lapped at my ankles.
Finn hadn’t wanted me. He’d never wanted me. This had all been in my head. This was professional for him. This is what happens when you open your mind to guys like this, I thought angrily. They hurt you.
Besides, why would he want to be with someone like me, just a nobody country girl, when he could have any of the most covetable women in the world? The answer is he wouldn’t want to. I’d imagined things. Oh, I felt naïve. Naïve and just a little heartbroken. In fact, I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted him until I distinctly couldn’t have him.
Finn’s camera began to click away once more, but my heart was no longer in it.
“Can you move like you were moving before?” he asked from behind the camera.
I tried to replicate it, but the magic was gone. Finn kept clicking, even though we both knew that there was nothing left to photograph.
Chrissy ambled up to our little shoot, evidently done with her rehydrating. She watched Finn click once, twice, with a perfectly tweezed eyebrow raised on high. I waited for her to make a snide remark about my modeling abilities, to say that my feet weren’t pointed, to tell me to straighten my shoulders.
What she actually said was ten times worse.
With a backwards glance to Finn, Chrissy said to him, “Babe, what are you doing? You know fat girls don’t like to be photographed. It makes them so much more self-conscious about their horrible bodies. I mean, if I was like her, I’d burn any pictures of myself.”
Then, much to my own dismay and horror, I began to cry.
Chapter 14
FINN
IT TOOK me a full five seconds to process the vile bullshit Chrissy had just spewed.
Had she actually said that about Poppy, a girl so brilliant she outshone the damn sun, whose curves seemed to stretch on to infinity? No, she couldn’t have said it. That would be like telling the sun to cast less light.
But after a moment, I realized she had indeed said that.
So I flew off the fucking handle.
“Are you kidding, Chrissy?” I replied, rage filling the corners of my vision. “Go fuck yourself.”
“You can’t talk to me like that,” she said, examining her nailbeds. “Besides, I’m right. She’s a cow, Finn. Why waste time on her?”
I was within a foot of Chrissy, who was looking mighty pleased with herself. I roared, “She is more beautiful than you will ever be. Apologize. Now. Or I’ll make you.”
Chrissy flicked her eyes in Poppy’s direction, and so did I. That’s when I realized Poppy was crying, her blue eyes even brighter against the now-red background. Chrissy looked back to me, an evil little sneer on her face.
“I won’t apologize,” Chrissy said. “Women like her need to hear honest feedback. They need to take control of their lives and lose some weight. I mean, seriously.”
The rage filling my field of vision was taking me to a point of near blackout. I had to get out of this, and stat, before I punched one of the world’s highest paid supermodels and ended my career.
I spat on the ground, right next to Chrissy’s foot, then turned around and jogged up to Poppy. As I approached, she sobbed:
“It’s all right, Finn, really, I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t have to be fine.”
I slung a protective arm around her shoulder, and whispered into her ear, “I’m gonna get you out of here, okay?”
She hesitated, then I felt her head nodding against me. “Okay,” she said, so soft I almost missed the words.
I led her up the gently sloping beach, with Bebe and Kareen calling out behind us, ‘What’s wrong?’ and ‘Is she all right?’ Guess they missed the whole kerfuffle. I wasn’t about to double back and explain it to them. Chrissy was probably already busy telling her side of the story, though how you could spin that nasty shit, I couldn’t say.
Poppy was still sobbing into my clavicle when we exited the beach path, and were back on the tiny road.
“Shit,” I muttered. We couldn’t take the company car – that was for the models, whose bodies were quite literally insured – but we most certainly couldn’t just sit here until tensions calmed down because that could take hours.
But we were in luck, because just as I was wondering what the fuck we were gonna do about transportation, a tiny rickshaw ambled rounded the corner, bells clanging and music playing from a boombox. Perfect.
I flagged the guy down, and he veered over to us with such gusto and total disregard for driving laws that I thought perhaps it wasn’t worth getting into his vehicle. Then again, beggars can’t be choosers.
I extended an arm to Poppy, who used it to balance herself as she climbed into the rickshaw. I followed shortly after her, settling down into the small seat, our thighs pressed against one another. We’d sat in the back of the van together all day, but we’d never been this close, and much to my chagrin, my cock was responding to the newfound touch. Now’s not the time, I mentally hissed. Simmer down.
To the driver, I said, “Take us anywhere fun with alcohol.”
The driver – or is it biker? – waved a hand to acknowledge that he’d heard me, and immediately the rickshaw jolted back onto the road.
Poppy and I didn’t speak for the remainder of the ride, but our thighs remained touching. I noticed that she d
idn’t even attempt to cross her legs, which gave me a little shiver of pleasure.
I managed to find a couple of unused Kleenexes in my pockets and handed them to Poppy as she calmed herself down.
After a few neck-breaking corners, we arrived in front of a small building. Well, not so much a ‘building,’ per se, as an elaborate straw hut, covered in multi-colored string lights. It appeared to be abandoned, which made me fleetingly suspicious, before I thought that perhaps it was for the best if Poppy and I were somewhere secluded. After all, she embarrassed easily, and probably wouldn’t be thrilled at the notion of people staring at her while she had a cry.
“Thanks,” I said, tipping the driver and helping Poppy out of the seat.
She looked up at the building, her eyes seeming to focus for the first time since Chrissy’s polemic.
“Where are we?” she asked, her voice regaining its strength through skepticism alone.
I laughed. “I have no bloody idea. Is that all right?”
On a normal day, I’d venture to guess that Poppy would’ve nixed this immediately. Under the circumstances, she sighed, wiped a stray tear, and muttered, “It’ll do.”
I pulled open the creaky door, and we walked inside.
The bar was bigger on the inside than it’d appeared from the rickshaw. There were about ten tiny tables, just countertops, with stools, a stage big enough for maybe two singers, but which was currently housing an entire band, and a small dance floor. It was like Disneyland – all in miniature. Though unlike Disneyland, it was dead silent. The band was seemed to be on a permanent break, necking beers and smoking old cigars.
I led Poppy to a table and pulled out her chair. “You want a drink? It’s on me.” Then I thought for a moment, and added, “Unless you don’t drink.”
She sighed, “I’m not usually much of a drinker and never this early in the day, but I think today will have to be an exception. Could you get me a margarita?”
