by Victoria Fox
‘All I’m asking,’ she said, ‘is that you let me set you up. And I’m doing it as your friend, not your publicist.’
‘Thanks, but no.’ Lori resumed the run. Jacqueline moved to catch her up.
‘Come on, what’s the problem?’ She came level and they slowed the pace. ‘In honesty, it’s a bit of both—the publicist/friend thing, I mean. I really think you’ll like him, I really do. And, yeah, while it wouldn’t exactly be bad for you to start dating one of the most handsome men I’ve ever laid eyes on—’
‘He’s still an actor, and it’s still in the interests of his career.’
‘You’re right on both counts. But what I’m saying is you might find you want to see him again regardless of anything else.’
‘I doubt it.’
Jacqueline appraised her sideways: the wild black hair pulled back in a ponytail, gaze fixed on the beach with a contained sort of determination. What was going on? If she didn’t know better she’d say Lori had a boyfriend hidden away. She certainly had that glow—the first flush of a new affair?—and kept zoning out while they were talking, her eyes misting over, remembering some past encounter. If this were true, they were going to have to work harder than ever to protect her virginity—or the illusion of it. Her innocence went hand in hand with her appeal. If the press caught on that she was jumping into bed with an unsuitable man, most likely someone working down the local minimart (for judging by Lori’s distaste for celebrities, it had to be), they’d have a nightmare on their hands. Deceptions like this one were magic tricks. They needed to be practised, managed and delivered with precision timing. They also needed to exist under a controlled environment, meaning her wild-card lover, whoever he was, had to take a step into the wings. And enter Maximo Diaz.
‘Just say you’ll meet him for coffee.’ Jacqueline slowed to a walk, forcing Lori to do the same. ‘Please? For me?’
Lori put her hands on her hips. She kicked gently at the sand.
‘Fine,’ she said, ‘I’ll meet him. But only so you’ll quit hassling me.’
Jacqueline was pleased.
‘And just once, OK? I meant it when I said I wasn’t interested.’
Her publicist nodded. ‘Understood. You won’t regret it, Lori.’
At Jacqueline’s beachside apartment, Lori showered and changed before taking a car downtown. She and Desideria were meeting with a global fragrance company. Lori’s contract with Mac Valerie was coming to a close and several brands were queuing to sign her.
It was Tuesday, a little after eight a.m. Twenty-nine days, two hours and seventeen minutes since she had last been with JB Moreau.
In that time, her weeks on Cacatra Island had acquired a dreamlike quality, soft-edged in her memory like the melting contours of a surrealist painting. She thought of him incessantly, wanting him more than she knew she could. Their lovemaking didn’t feel like something that had happened to her, too perfect, too passionate, too long-time her fantasy so that when it materialised she didn’t altogether trust it was real.
Yet it was. Those hours in JB’s bed had been the truest she had known. She remembered his honesty, his vulnerability: the things that had brought him within reach.
I’m leaving my wife …
And then she would recall the document she had found in his villa. Part of Lori wished she’d asked him then and there what it meant, what he was doing carrying information about her life—private, personal details—but she had stopped herself. She’d been prying, and to be caught in the act would have risked his trust, everything she had in that moment cherished. The most exquisite night of her life hadn’t been one she was prepared to blemish.
But the mystery continued to bother her. Whichever way she turned it, it made no sense.
LA864. The number stayed in her mind and troubled her most. Lori played it over and over, like a pin she had been given to wear: her name, her identity.
Perhaps La Lumière kept details on their girls; it wouldn’t be unheard of. But that sounded feeble, even to her. Why the secrecy? Why the hidden key? Why her?
Lori resolved to ask him direct. If their acquaintance had proved anything, it was that she could not be kept in the dark. Were they to make a go of things, they would need to be truthful with each other, right from the beginning.
In the meantime, she decided to put it from her mind. To conclude that what she had found was in any way sinister was to commit to a suggestion she could not begin to understand—and to believe it was to think badly of the man she adored.
She loved him and her love made her blind.
‘You were phenomenal,’ enthused Desideria when they emerged on to Olympic Boulevard. ‘Want to celebrate? I know a gorgeous little place …’
Celebration was the last thing on Lori’s mind. After her run she had started to feel ill, a gradual sickness that had over the past couple of hours reached debilitating heights. All through the meeting she’d been primed to make her excuses and dash to the bathroom. Funny, because after Cacatra exercise always made her feel better, as if she could run so far or so fast that she could end up back in his arms, running across oceans, if that’s what it took. Now, out in the heat with the sunlight searing, nausea rushed at her like a tidal wave.
She stopped. Her mouth stung with saliva, like she was about to puke.
‘Honey?’ Desideria leaned in. She smelled of cigarettes and sour musk that turned Lori’s stomach. ‘Are you OK?’
‘No.’ She blinked back panic. ‘I—I don’t feel well. I need to go home.’
‘Here.’ Desideria steered Lori into a nearby café. ‘You’re going nowhere.’ She was deposited at an outside table, where several diners turned to stare. ‘I’m going to go get you some water, sweetheart. Don’t move.’
Beneath Lori’s feet, the ground had turned to mush. Pinpricks of stinging colour scattered behind her eyes. Perhaps she’d overdone it. She’d had a lot on her mind, wasn’t sleeping more than a few hours a night and her schedule meant she’d taken to skipping the occasional meal.
When Desideria returned, Lori sipped with caution. What was wrong with her? With every drop she thought she was done for.
‘You really don’t look good,’ observed Desideria, her face creased with worry. ‘What’s the matter? What can I do?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Lori managed. ‘It’s just a bug.’ She was due her period. Actually, she was overdue. Maybe that was it, finally arrived. She didn’t think she had ever before felt so wretched.
Desideria frowned, full of concern. ‘Are you sure …?’
‘Sorry.’ Lori pushed her chair back. ‘I have to leave.’
‘You want me to come with you?’
‘No.’
‘But what if you—?’
‘I’ll call you. Sorry.’ She fled the café, catching her bag on the back of someone’s chair and apologising, wishing for today she were invisible.
London was going through a heatwave. On Charing Cross Road, tourists sweated in shorts and sun hats, drowning under maps of the Underground and swarming outside Leicester Square like bewildered children on a school trip, blinking into the light as moles emerged from the earth, waiting for direction. Most people were waiting for direction. They craved the certainty. He’d seen it enough times. He knew the susceptible ones.
JB Moreau passed through the crowds like a stream across the desert. He took a left on to Shaftesbury Avenue and up towards Soho, the destination clear in his mind. In possession of a memory so honed that he need only ever glance once at the facts, in his mind was a chart of the area, street by street, the address he was heading for a red pin to which he was edging ever closer. He moved quickly but without haste.
The woman he was meeting showed potential. A scout had sourced her some time ago, compiling the file that JB had spent the past month studying. Eighteen years old, a runaway from the south of the country, hitting the big city in hope of a brighter future when what she was really heading for was a struggle on a bigger scale. He’d explain all tha
t. London, like any indifferent metropolis, exacerbated things. Without money, without prospects, it was a lost cause.
It shouldn’t be difficult. From her photo he knew she was a perfect fit. Their clients, Arizona politicians, would be pleased. The prospect would be hardened, of course—but when he set forth the proposal he felt certain she would take the bait. It was win-win. The politicians got their child and the runaway got her happy ending. More money than she knew what to do with: a new start in life and one she deserved. JB knew she deserved it, even if she didn’t.
As he made his way through Chinatown—dark meat hanging in windows and the deep aroma of spices, red and gold lanterns blowing in the warm breeze like paper gourds—he considered what might have happened if he had ever reached this stage with Lori Garcia. He’d have approached her in the exact same way, an examination of her profile and then in at the optimum moment, targeting her alone at her family’s salon. Two days before he was meant to move, Lori had been paid a different visit and the rest was history.
JB had been there every day that week. He’d been with Lori for months, under the guise of awaiting opportunity when in fact it was because he could not tear himself away.
Things would change. Lori Garcia made it so he could turn back the clock, back to before things had moved beyond his grasp, and however illusive that might be it was enough to console what he’d decided was inconsolable. A part of him closed, a part he’d never thought he’d get back, glowed now as hesitant as an ember, smouldering from a core, willing to catch light.
He would leave Rebecca and then he would come clean: about his past, about the island, about it all. If Lori was truth, if she was loyalty, then he had to match her intentions. It was time.
The building, tucked into a sidestreet, was derelict. Most of the windows were boarded and a guy was crouched in the entrance, rolling a smoke with cracked, blistered fingers.
JB stepped past him. Inside, a couple of mattresses on which were slumped the dreaming or the dead. Concrete steps led up to a second level, and as he reached the top he saw her straight away, in the shadows, crouched with her knees under her chin. He recognised her from her photograph, but more than that he sensed her desperation, glinting like a beacon.
Green eyes, whose light had been extinguished. Lank, matted hair that had once been blonde. Sadness that he knew he could take away.
‘Hello.’ He went to her, held out his hand. ‘You don’t know me but I know you.’
The mansion was quiet, cooled by the air con.
Lori dumped her stuff, headed to the kitchen and fixed herself a soda, concentrating on each mouthful and the sole aim of holding it down. She felt odd, sick and ravenous at the same time. It was an alien sensation and she hoped she hadn’t got food poisoning—she had a busy few weeks and couldn’t afford to spend them with her head stuck down a toilet bowl. Every so often she experienced a twinge in her belly and decided to go see if her period had come.
On her way through the hall, a plain white envelope, slipped or pushed under the door, caught her attention. In her haste, she must have walked straight past it.
Confused, Lori bent to retrieve it.
There was nothing written on the front. Running her thumb along its seal, she peeled it open. Inside was a note pressed into precise quarters, which she unfolded and flattened.
Individual cut-out letters covered the sheet from left to right.
On E d AY A V IrG In
N e XT d A Y A WH O RE
She examined the letters, some of them matte, black and white, from a newspaper; others were glossy, a variety of types. The letters were different-sized, arranged haphazardly across the page, some mashed up close and others set further apart.
Lori had received weird mail in the past. It went hand in hand with her celebrity. But this one bothered her. First, it had been hand-delivered. Second, most of what she saw was dirty, sexual, some more twisted than others, but rarely was it personal.
Disgusted, she ripped it to pieces and threw it in the trash. A fan who had got carried away; it wouldn’t be the first time. She would talk to her security, have them look into it.
The buzzer on the gate went. Lori kept her nerves in check. Hollywood was rife with tales of stalkers, women afraid to step outside their house and more afraid to stay in it, ardent fans whose fantasies spilled into warped realities by the spotlight of their fixation.
To her relief, it was only her father. She and Tony had been seeing more of each other since his last visit, forging a new relationship that to her happiness was separate from Angélica and the girls. Thanks to Lori’s regular contributions, Tres Hermanas was slowly getting back off the ground. She knew what it symbolised to him—her mother’s legacy finally restored. If that was the only thing her modelling was good for, it was enough.
But relief was quickly replaced by unease when she saw Tony looked as bad as she felt.
‘I’ve had some news.’ He shook his head, taking her hands. ‘I’m sorry, Loriana. Your grandmother passed away last night. Corazón’s dead.’
44
Aurora
Aurora breathed in smoke, prickly warmth seeping up from her toes. She leaned back. Next to her was a guy with sleeve tattoos, a few years older, and he raised one of the sleeves now and slid it behind her shoulders. He was Casey Amos, the twenty-year-old son of Roland Amos, the renowned music producer who had soared to fame by spearheading a host of TV talent shows. The skin in Casey’s armpit was pale and papery, with lots of soft chestnut hair, and she found herself staring at it for a long time, stoned.
This was the way it went, ever since Cacatra. Aurora was so far out of it she hardly knew where she lived. She was unable to face reality; the hours rolled into days rolled into weeks as she bottled her emotions in, suppressing her fears and suspicions and shattering them with a cocktail of narcotics. It was like her old life, all over again. Except now, as far as she was concerned, her parents no longer existed. The word itself meant nothing. Mom. Dad. Nothing.
‘Casey, over here.’ Farrah Michaels was dancing in a pair of frilly knickers. The party was at her parents’ Malibu apartment. Dirk and Christina were in New York and had left their only daughter to her own devices. Currently their lounge was packed with OC royalty getting smashed and taking each other’s clothes off.
Casey obliged, clearly disinterested. Farrah’s perky tits bounced as she wound to the soundtrack of Rihanna. ‘Want summa this?’ she purred.
Bored, he turned to Aurora with a lascivious grin, said ‘Hey’ by way of a greeting then abruptly moved to kiss her. She let him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Farrah stomp off.
Casey was a good kisser, but Aurora was too high to notice the details.
‘Bitch!’
Sudden, freezing cold. Before she knew what was happening, Aurora was drenched. An empty bucket dangled from Farrah’s arm, dregs of icy water dripping on to the parquet flooring.
‘What the hell?’ Aurora blinked once, twice, totally soaked through.
Farrah had the nerve to laugh. ‘Whore!’ she snarled, her mouth an ugly coil of jealousy. The rest of the room had gone quiet, numbly observing the spat.
Aurora stood. ‘Fuck off,’ she told Farrah, in an infuriatingly reasonable voice. ‘It’s not my fault Casey’s got taste.’
Farrah was scowling so much her eyes were like slots in a pinball machine. ‘Get yourself a towel,’ she said menacingly. ‘You’re ruining the place. But I guess you’re used to ruining things, huh, Aurora? Nothing much matters so long as you’re all right.’
The room awaited her response. Someone turned the music off.
Aurora felt tired. She always felt tired these days, as if her bones had got old and she couldn’t be bothered to do anything. Sometimes it was too much effort to even get out of bed so she just stayed there, all day, in a dark room, her thoughts taking her to a dark place. But Farrah’s moany bitchface ignited her wrath. Her so-called friend had no idea what she was dealing with—or not dealing with, a
s the case may have been—and instead had the nerve to whine like a piglet about some jock she could frankly take or leave.
She slapped Farrah. It was sharp and satisfying and left a pleasing pink blotch. Then, with the weird dragging lethargy of a slo-mo action scene, Farrah went for her, grabbing Aurora’s sodden hair and pulling her to the ground, where she began attacking her with her nails. Distantly Aurora realised she was in a fight. She hadn’t been in one before, which in itself was surprising. Farrah’s knee was pressed to Aurora’s chest and her bare tits jiggled violently with the effort.
‘Get off me!’ Aurora managed, as Farrah dug in and scratched, sharp as a cat. She shoved her with force, sending her careening back into a glass coffee table, which duly smashed.
There was a horrible silence.
‘What the hell is your problem?’ Aurora was breathing hard, her body flushing hot and cold. She realised her friend was sitting practically naked in a pool of broken glass and reached out to take her arm. ‘Get up, come on.’
Casey seized Aurora’s hand. ‘Let’s split.’
Clearly no one else here was going to help Farrah. They were all looking on, dazed: lobotomised onlookers at a tasteless pantomime. The life she was living.
Farrah was a pathetic figure in her underwear. ‘Get up,’ Aurora said again. ‘I mean it.’
‘Fuck you,’ came the response.
Aurora wasn’t fussed about leaving with Casey but the look on Farrah’s selfish little face more than made up for that.
