Golden Girl

by Cathy Hopkins

  JJ followed my gaze. ‘That’s the City Palace,’ he replied. ‘Actually, it’s a series of palaces, the first one built in 1559. There’s a scene in Dad’s movie which is being shot inside it, so I’m sure we’ll have a chance to go and take a look around tomorrow before the cameras start rolling. It’s amazing, full of great art and wall paintings. There are actually two hotels in there too. They used to be royal guesthouses. One of the palaces was apparently built in memory of a beautiful princess who poisoned herself to stop rival princes battling for her hand in marriage.’

  ‘She poisoned herself?’ asked Alisha.

  ‘So the story goes,’ said JJ.

  Alisha rolled her eyes. ‘I would have told them all to stop squabbling and get a life. Fancy killing yourself over a load of dumb boys.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Pia. ‘So sixteenth century.’

  ‘Lots of the hotels here used to be palaces, and homes to maharajas,’ JJ said, ‘and Udaipur is known as the most romantic city in India.’ He squeezed my hand as he said ‘romantic’, a slight movement that Alisha clocked immediately.

  She put two fingers in her mouth and fake-gagged. ‘Oh God, slush alert. Are you two going to be mooning over each other the whole time we’re here?’

  I laughed but from the small bit of Udaipur I’d seen, I could already see why it was known for being romantic. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever been to and the City Palace had immediately captured my imagination. I wondered what had gone on there over the centuries – apart from the princess who’d poisoned herself – what other dramas and love affairs. I am going to love it here, I thought, as I got out my sunglasses. Even the weather felt perfect: sunshine with a gentle breeze. I breathed in deeply, I wanted to remember this moment forever. All I needed to make it a hundred per cent perfect would be some time alone with JJ, maybe on a balcony at one of the palaces, maybe on a terrace overlooking the lake.

  ‘The boat’s ready,’ Mrs Lewis called from inside the tented area, so we trooped in to join her and Vanya who had travelled in a car just behind ours.

  Minutes later, we took our places in a small speedboat which was open at the sides but canopied on top. The padded seats were covered with Indian cushions and we sat back to enjoy the ride.

  ‘What a great way to get there,’ I said, as we whooshed through the water towards the hotel.

  ‘It’s the only way to get there,’ said JJ. ‘The hotel owns the boats. They don’t allow non-residents to come ashore, unless they are guests of people staying there, so you can’t just pop over for a look around.’

  ‘I really do feel like I’m in a Bond movie,’ said Pia, as she stood up and let the breeze blow through her hair.

  Alisha stood beside her. ‘You only live twice . . .’ she sang. ‘Dad was in one of the Bond movies, you know. Just a small part, before he was really famous.’

  ‘Will he be at the hotel?’

  ‘He will,’ said Mrs Lewis. ‘Maybe we can get some tea, then I suggest we all order room service and get an early night as I doubt any of us slept much last night.’ She looked at Pia, then me. ‘And you two have to keep your minds fresh for studying.’

  Pia grimaced. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

  Mrs Lewis raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘Well, I hadn’t. I promised your parents.’

  JJ shot me a glance. ‘I . . . I might show Jess around a bit if that’s OK,’ he said.

  Behind him, and out of their mother’s line of sight, Alisha turned away from us and wrapped her arms around herself, doing a mock smooch. Pia cracked up and JJ smiled. I knew he was thinking the same as I was. Time alone in the most romantic city in India . . . Who wouldn’t want it? It seemed like we’d have to wait, though, because Mrs Lewis shook her head. ‘Plenty of time for looking around tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’m not only headmistress for your stay but also your chaperone.’ She was smiling as she said it but I knew she was serious too. Dad wouldn’t have let me travel to the other side of the world unless he felt completely confident that I wouldn’t be left alone, especially with a teenage boy, even if he was JJ Lewis.

  Our boat arrived at the hotel jetty where an Indian man in a red turban and smart navy traditional uniform stepped forward to help us up onto the wide marble terrace outside the hotel. A red carpet led across the open area to the hotel reception, which we could see behind a wall of glass. From an open balcony on the floor above came a shower of rose petals, filling the air with their gentle scent. I looked up to see the smiling face of a young Indian girl. She put down her basket when she saw me look up. ‘Welcome,’ she called.

  We stepped through an open door into the reception area where three ladies in green saris were waiting with round brass trays in their hands. One came forward and placed a garland of golden flowers around each of our necks. The second, who was carrying a lit candle on her tray, dotted red powder on our foreheads. The third handed each of us an iced pink drink in a tall glass. ‘Passionfruit,’ she said. ‘You like.’

  ‘Now that’s what I call a royal welcome,’ I whispered to Pia.

  ‘I still feel like I’m in a movie,’ she replied and peeled off her jacket. ‘And it’s so wonderfully hot here. Love, love, love it.’

  The architecture of the hotel was a mix of old and new with white arches and pillars along corridors, Indian statues placed in alcoves, polished marble floors, open rooms leading into each other and . . . Oh. My. God. It was Shreya, and she was coming our way. She looked like she’d stepped out of Hello magazine, dressed in wide white linen trousers and a low-cut, short, silk turquoise top showing off a perfectly toned midriff, with loads of silver bling on her ears and around her neck and a big smile on her perfect, goddess face.

  ‘Hey, JJ,’ she called and tottered towards us on impossibly high silver mules. She flung her arms around him, then turned to Alisha and air-kissed her. ‘Alisha. Mwah, mwah.’ I noticed that Alisha didn’t mwah, mwah Shreya back.

  She exuded glamour from every pore. I stood there feeling like a lily-white frump in my crumpled shirt, jeans and scuffed red Converse.

  ‘This is Jess and Pia,’ said JJ.

  Shreya looked us up and down. The tiniest flicker of an eyelid showed that she wasn’t impressed but then she flashed us a big smile. ‘Friends of Alisha’s from England?’

  JJ came and put his arm around me. ‘Friends of both of ours.’

  Again a flicker, this time of annoyance. She linked arms with JJ and pulled him aside. ‘How fabulous,’ she said over her shoulder to me and Pia. ‘We’re going to have such fun showing them around, aren’t we, JJ?’

  So much for getting time alone, I thought, as I pasted a smile on my face. ‘Can’t wait,’ I lied.

  After we’d checked in, we had tea with the Lewises and Shreya in an area called the reading room. All the Lewises. Jefferson Lewis too. All six-foot-four, super-duper, charismatic, handsome movie star of him. The man definitely has the X factor. It’s as if he’s been polished to give off an extra glow the rest of us mortals don’t have. Actually, that’s not true; JJ has it too. He looks like a somebody. I always notice a few people looking at him when we’re out in public.

  I enjoyed the tea but it felt unreal being in such an amazingly pretty room with marble floors and arches along the wall inlaid with coloured glass patterns of flowers and plants. We sipped tea out of china cups, ate freshly-baked almond cookies and were waited on by smiling staff who were clearly as much in awe of Mr Lewis as I was.

  Seated on the floor behind our table were three musicians, one beating tabla drums, one playing a sitar and one with a wooden stringed instrument that I didn’t recognise. I wanted to ask what it was but I couldn’t help feeling tongue-tied in front of Mr Lewis, even though he went out of his way to welcome me and Pia and put us at ease. I tried to relax but I couldn’t get the fact out of my head that I was sitting with one of the biggest movie stars in the world, plus Shreya was talking enough for all of us. Pia was much better than I was and chatted away like she’d known Mr Lewis
all her life, totally at home with him and her surroundings. Shreya did her best to monopolise JJ but he always tried to bring me into the conversation. She clearly didn’t like that. I could tell that to her I was a nobody who was in her way, and I couldn’t help feeling shy. When the waiter brought a tray with refills for the tea, I finally plucked up courage to ask about the musicians behind us. I pointed at the unfamiliar stringed instrument behind him.

  ‘Excuse me. What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘A milkosi,’ he said. At least, that what I thought he said.

  ‘A milkosi. Oh, I’ve never heard of that before. How do you pronounce it again?’

  ‘Milkosi,’ the waiter repeated.

  ‘I’ll tell my brother,’ I said. ‘He’s really interested in unusual musical instruments.’

  The waiter looked baffled.

  Shreya burst out laughing and pointed at the tray he had in his hand where there was a teapot and a little silver jug, both covered with a tea cosy. ‘Milk cosy,’ she said. ‘A milk cosy. We use them here to keep the milk warm, as well as the tea.’

  The waiter had thought I was pointing to the jug on his tea tray. I felt so stupid and went bright red. ‘Oh.’

  Even the Lewises laughed, but JJ reached over and squeezed my hand. ‘Easy mistake,’ he said.

  Shreya wouldn’t let it go. ‘Milkosi. Milkosi,’ she kept repeating. ‘Hysterical. I love it.’

  Pia flashed me a look of sympathy. She knew I got nervous around people sometimes and acted like an idiot.

  Alisha didn’t seem to have much time for Shreya at all and virtually ignored her to talk with her dad and Pia.

  When Mrs Lewis repeated her earlier suggestion that we go to our rooms, unpack, order room service and get an early night so we’d be fresh for the morning, I was glad to get away from Shreya. Alisha and JJ seemed happy with the suggestion too and disappeared off to their own rooms with a promise to catch up in the morning.

  Pia and I were bowled over when we saw our room and, although at tea I’d felt out of sorts, seeing where we were staying gave me a fresh burst of energy and all thoughts of the stupid milk cosy were forgotten. Mrs Lewis said she’d picked the room especially with us in mind and it was perfect, decorated in pink and gold, with ivory and gold bedspreads on divinely comfortable beds. It also had an alcove with a table and two chairs where we could sit and work and a padded window seat where we could look out over the lake to the City Palace.

  ‘I don’t know if I can take roughing it like this much longer,’ said Pia through the open door of the bathroom in our room a short time later, where she was soaking up to her neck in a bath of jasmine-scented bubbles, with a glass of sparkling elderflower juice on the side and a lotus-shaped candle burning on a ledge by the basin.

  ‘I know,’ I replied. ‘It’s a tough life, isn’t it?’ I was lying on an enormous bed, wrapped in one of the hotel’s white fluffy towelling robes, my skin all perfumed and soft after a bath where I’d used every body product I could find.

  ‘So, what do you want to happen with JJ on this holiday?’

  I got up to look out of the window. Across the water, the lights of Udaipur twinkled. ‘For us to visit all the most romantic spots in the area. Have some time alone. Oh. I don’t mean leave you out, but—’

  ‘I know what you mean, dozo. I’d be the same if Henry was here. We’re in the city of romance, you’ve got to make the most of it. Mates come first, we both know that, but I have Alisha, so don’t worry about me. What else?’

  ‘Get to know him better,’ I replied. ‘Have him fall totally in love with me and write poems about me so that I’ll be immortalised forever.’

  Pia laughed. ‘You don’t want a lot, then.’

  ‘I’m joking about being immortalised. I don’t know. Basically not to blow it. Don’t forget I’m a relationship newbie.’

  ‘You’re worried about Shreya, aren’t you?’ said Pia, as she got out of the bath and wrapped herself in a huge bath towel that had been laid out in the bathroom. She padded in to join me, threw herself back on her bed which, like mine, had been covered in red rose petals like those showered on us in reception. She propped herself up with cushions.

  ‘A bit,’ I replied. ‘I mean, she’s stunning and she was clearly put out by the fact that he’d brought me along.’

  ‘Trust,’ said Pia. ‘I think it’s number one in any relationship. Can he trust you?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘So chill. Rule one in the book of keeping a relationship alive is trust. Trust each other and in that trust, you can be secure that you’re the One. Rule number two – don’t get all needy and insecure the moment another girl comes along. There will always be other girls who will fancy JJ. I don’t think you need to worry, though. He clearly only has eyes for you and no way would he have invited you all this way if he wanted something to happen with Shreya. Also, remember JJ isn’t Tom.’

  Tom is the babe magnet in the Sixth Form at our school. I’d had a crush on him ever since he arrived at the beginning of the school year and although he’d appeared interested and flirted for England at first, I soon found out that he was a player and didn’t do commitment. All my hopes for anything happening with him had been well squashed when I found out that he’d been seeing Keira, a girl I used to know in junior school who had come back to live in London and seemed to have it in for me. Not just seemed to, she did have it in for me. She did her best to ruin any chance that I had with Tom and also in a modelling competition that we had both entered earlier in the year. Sadly for her, it all backfired and she was asked to leave the competition. She lost Tom too when he realised what she was really like. Lately Tom has been pursuing me again, saying he wants to get serious, but I don’t trust him any longer. I’m pretty sure he only wants me because I’m with someone else now and he doesn’t like that. He’s the kind of boy who likes a challenge but I know that the moment I give in, he’ll drop me and move on to another conquest. I’m not into playing games and part of the reason I like JJ so much is that he isn’t either. He plays it straight and I do too. Tom still sends me texts, like he’s fishing to see if there’s any hope for us. I haven’t told JJ about the messages but I don’t feel that I’m being dishonest because I don’t answer them. It isn’t as if anything’s happening with Tom or is ever going to.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think Shreya sees it that way. I saw the way her face lit up when she saw JJ and how she didn’t like it when she saw me. But OK, I get it. Rule one, trust. Rule two, don’t be needy. What’s rule three?’

  ‘Enjoy being with each other,’ said Pia. She looked around the room and spied the mini bar. ‘Now, what haven’t we tried out in here? I bet there’s some chocolate . . .’

  As Pia raided the tiny fridge, someone pushed an envelope under the door. I leapt up, hoping that it might be a note from JJ. I ripped open the envelope. It was from Mrs Lewis. Our itinerary for the week, partly typed, partly handwritten.

  I shook my head and sighed. ‘Study, study, study,’ I said as I read the message. ‘Sorry, Pia. No trips out for us, I’m afraid.’

  She got up and grabbed the paper from me, then picked up a pillow and biffed me with it.

  She read the schedule out loud. ‘Tuesday: morning, study. Bleurgh. No, we can do it. I suppose we have to if we’re going to get good grades. Afternoon, explore part of the City Palace. Yay. Evening, oh my God! Watch filming at the City Palace. Did you see this, Jess? We get to go and see Jefferson Lewis in action!’

  ‘Shreya’s playing the Maharaja’s daughter, isn’t she?’ I asked.

  Pia nodded. ‘A part I feel she plays in real life too,’ she said, then read on. ‘Wednesday: morning, study. Hmm. Can’t wait. Afternoon, visit to Udaipur. Wow. It gets better. Treatments in the spa ready for the party. Evening, movie wrap party at the Shiv Niwas hotel which is in the City Palace complex.’

  She read on. Thursday mornin
g was more study, followed by a trip to Jaipur. Friday morning, studying again, then exploring the region in the afternoon. Then on Saturday we were all going to Deogarh, to celebrate JJ’s birthday with dinner on the Imperial Barge. Sunday was the day we headed home.

  ‘Awesome,’ said Pia. ‘This is easily the most amazing place I’ve ever been to.’

  ‘And it’s only just begun,’ I said.

  Pia switched on the TV, sat back on the bed and began flicking channels. She finally settled on one showing Indian dancers doing line dancing. They were dressed in cowboy outfits but it was still pure Bollywood. ‘Perfect,’ she said, as she made herself comfy.

  I looked at my watch. It said midnight but I wasn’t tired as it was only around seven p.m. UK time and I hadn’t adjusted to Indian time yet. ‘I’m going to go for a bit of an explore. Might even go and find JJ,’ I said. ‘Want to come?’

  Pia stretched and yawned. ‘Not tonight. I can’t be bothered with putting my clothes back on and I think I might try and Skype Henry before I go to sleep. But Jess, I’d leave JJ. Another rule about having a relationship is to give each other space. I think you need to be cool after today, not that I think you have anything to worry about with Shreya, but you need to show that it didn’t bother you at all. You went to bed and slept without a care in your mind. Because you are the One.’

  I stepped out onto the small balcony leading off the alcove and marvelled again at where I was. I felt like I’d stepped onto another planet. As I gazed over the water towards the City Palace, I wondered again what had gone on there. Who the people were who’d lived there and what their stories were. It looked so ancient. It was so ancient. A few boats with soft lights moved around the lake under a canopy of stars. The whole atmosphere was completely magical.

  A movement to my left made me realise that there was someone on the jetty, where a boat was waiting. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw that it was JJ with, by the shape of the other person, Shreya. Before she got onto the boat, she moved towards him.