About a Girl Read online

  ‘Let’s not have this conversation right now.’ Nick’s tone shifted immediately. He laid his hands over mine and leaned towards me until our noses were almost touching. ‘Let’s not have any conversation right now.’

  I closed my eyes and parted my lips, just ever so slightly. He smelled good. He felt warm. Through the warm, fuzzy rum haze my body reacted and suddenly woke up. Luckily, so did my brain.

  ‘No,’ I said sharply, pushing him away. Dear God, my face was sore. I tried to stand up but was too confident in my abilities and immediately fell back down onto the chair. ‘No, I am not having sex with you.’

  ‘Why not?’ Nick was still doing his best to sound playful but I could see he wasn’t sure whether or not I was teasing. ‘Come to bed, Vanessa. I’ve been thinking about you all evening. I think I might actually be going mad.’

  ‘No,’ I repeated, looking at the floor. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to stick to my guns if I actually looked at him. The shock of the pretty was still too powerful. ‘You don’t just have sex with people. You think you do, but you’re sad and I’m sad and you don’t.’

  ‘All right, you’re just not making sense now,’ he said. Even his feet were good feet. I looked at my feet. They were not good feet. ‘Let’s just get you into bed and I’ll leave you in peace, OK?’

  ‘I can get myself into bed,’ I replied, slapping his hands off me as he tried to pull me upright. ‘You’re not in charge of me. You don’t know best. You’re not my boyfriend. You’re not anything.’

  ‘You are a fun drunk,’ he groaned, pressing my wind-milling arms to my side and directing me towards the bedroom. ‘Fingers crossed you’re a forgetful one. You’re not going to feel good about this in the morning.’

  ‘You’re not going to feel good about this in the morning,’ I repeated. As insults went, it wasn’t my best of the evening. Eventually I gave up and let him walk me back towards the bed. I was shattered. ‘You think you can just do it and it’ll be fine because you’re handsome and clever and blah blah blah, but it’s stupid because you don’t love me and it’s stupid. You shouldn’t have sex with people you don’t love because they love you and then everyone is sad and you’re sad. And stupid.’

  ‘Is this even about me?’ Nick yanked the covers off the bed and plonked me onto the mattress, sans ceremony. ‘Or is this about your mate back home? Because I genuinely have no idea what you’re on about now. Do you want some water?’

  ‘Not Charlie,’ I said, pulling a most attractive face. I wrestled with my dress, trying to pull it over my head gracefully, but the tiny fraction of my brain that was sober and awake knew that ship had already sailed. ‘We don’t talk about Charlie.’

  ‘His name is Charlie, then.’ I heard a zip unfastening and then felt my dress whizzing over my head. Oh. It had a zip. Nick dropped the dress onto the floor and and draped the covers over me. ‘I’m going to get you some water and you’re going to drink it all. Then you’re going to sleep, right?’

  ‘I might be sick,’ I said in a tiny voice. All the fight had gone out of me, and when I closed my eyes, the room spun round and round and round.

  ‘You won’t be sick,’ Nick sighed, kissing my forehead before disappearing off into the kitchen. ‘I promise.’

  He hadn’t even started running the tap before I realized that was not a promise that he could possibly be expected to keep. Because I was absolutely, positively about to be sick. With new-found energy I pushed away the covers, scrambled into the bathroom and managed to lose my entire late-night snack into the toilet before he realized what was happening. I flushed quickly, not wanting Nick to see, and sat sweating on the cold tiles, waiting to see if there would be a second wave.

  ‘Well.’ Nick stood in the bathroom doorway, glass of water in one hand, bottle of Advil in the other. Damp, pale and red-eyed, I looked up at him and sniffed. Tall, tanned and hopelessly handsome, he looked down at me and smiled. I could have been mistaken, but it even seemed to be a real smile that made it all the way up to his eyes. ‘Feel better?’

  I shrugged, trying not to let any mewing sounds escape from my mouth, and held my hand out for the water.

  ‘Sip it,’ he ordered, passing me two Advil. ‘Bed?’

  ‘Bed,’ I confirmed, handing the glass back and letting him help me to my feet without struggling. ‘I want to go to sleep.’

  We walked back to the bed in silence, Nick turning out the lights as we went and holding my hand until I was safely off my feet and in the bed. I lay in the semi-darkness, watching him unbuckle his belt and step out of his shorts. He pulled his shirt over his head without unbuttoning it and laid both things carefully on the back of my leather office chair.

  ‘I’m staying to make sure you’re OK,’ he said, pulling the covers back on the opposite side of the bed. I rolled over to look at him with big, watery eyes. Oh, the crazy emotional rollercoaster that was a night on the lash. ‘I’m not going to try to have sex with you because I’m sad.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, pulling the sheets up underneath my chin. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Nick said with a sigh, curling his arm underneath my shoulders and resting my head against his warm chest. ‘Neither do I.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In all of my days, I’d never been a good drinker. The first time I’d ever got properly wasted was at university during Fresher’s Week. A sophisticated combination of Archers and lemonade cocktails mixed with shots of Aftershock led to my first ever puking-in-the-park extravaganza. The only reason I knew that I’d passed out in the student union toilets with my knickers round my ankles after dancing on the bar and singing ‘Oops! … I Did it Again’ by Britney over and over and over was because Amy took lots and lots of photos. I lost the will to live and she lost a shoe. After that, I tried to lay off the sauce as much as was humanly possible for a student, but I was terrible in the face of peer pressure and Charlie and Amy were not good peers for a bad drinker.

  So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I woke up on Thursday morning with a headache that felt like it could only be cured by a guillotine. Prising one eye open, I turned off an alarm I didn’t remember setting and rolled carefully over to squint at my empty bed. Wasn’t there someone else in it when I fell asleep? I was almost certain I hadn’t imagined Nick’s nursemaiding, but then again, I was entirely certain I could pull off a red PVC catsuit ten years ago. And I could not. Regardless, he definitely wasn’t there now. I peered under the covers to see that my underwear was still safely upon my person, and even though I felt like I might actually just die at any second, I did have both my eyes open and, seemingly, full control of all my faculties. Slowly, the events of the night started to come back. Cocktails, Kekipi, karaoke. McDonald’s, shouting, puking and then sleeping. Yep, Nick had definitely been in my bed before. And now he’d vamoosed. What a shock. I just wished I could remember the pertinent details of our conversation aside from my yelling, his sighing and my throwing up. I had a nagging feeling we’d discussed something important ? I just didn’t know what it was.

  When I regained the ability to focus properly, I looked at the phone in my hand and saw several missed calls from Amy. As well as three voicemails, there were more than half a dozen texts, emails and Facebook messages that were borderline death threats. I felt like calling my mum and telling her I was being cyberbullied. Then I remembered me and my mum weren’t talking and I just stuck the phone back on its charger and had a little cry. It lasted for about seven seconds before I realized I needed a wee far more than I needed to cry and I only had enough energy to do one thing at a time.

  ‘Aloha, Vanessa?’

  From the bathroom I heard a knock at the front door, followed by a familiar voice that split my head in two. I grabbed onto the bathroom sink while washing my hands and retched, but nothing happened. At least I seemed to be fully puked out. Silver lining to every desperately pathetic cloud.

  ‘I have coffee and breakfast and many hea
dache remedies.’

  The look on Kekipi’s face as I appeared in the doorway was priceless.

  ‘Are you dying?’ he asked. ‘Did you and Mr Miller do crack after I left?’

  ‘I think I just shouted at him a lot and then threw up on myself a bit,’ I said, staggering over to the coffee. It smelled so good. I had no idea whether or not I’d be able to keep it down. ‘Thanks for this.’

  ‘No problem.’ He took a short step backwards. ‘The cars are leaving for the shoot in forty-five minutes. Are you going to be OK? I feel dreadful.’

  He felt dreadful? Wait, what? Cars? It took a moment before it dawned on me what he could possibly be talking about. The cars were leaving. For the shoot. The shoot was actually happening. Oh dear God.

  ‘I will not be OK,’ I said, pouring the coffee and trying to suppress the rising panic that was threatening to give me a heart attack. ‘But I’ll be dressed and holding a camera and hoping that somehow this thing gets cancelled again today.’

  ‘Sadly, I don’t think you’re going to be so lucky,’ he said, heaping three giant spoons of sugar into my cup and stirring for me. ‘It would seem Ms Sullivan and Mr Bennett Junior have decided to press ahead without Mr Bennett senior.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ I muttered and took one tiny sip of the sugary sludge in my cup. It was magical. ‘Well, it’s not like I haven’t got this far on horrible decisions, is it? Who knows, I might be a better photographer when I’m hammered.’

  ‘I’ll make a hangover picnic, and you make this human again,’ he replied, waving his hand in my general direction. ‘It’s going to be a great day. And at least you don’t smell of vomit.’

  Once I was certain I could keep the coffee down, I drank it as quickly as I could and chased it with a sip of water and two headache tablets. After scrubbing myself down and cleaning my teeth for about seventeen minutes, I plaited my hair, pulled on my jeans, a little black T-shirt and my Converse, then carefully applied as much mascara as my eyelashes would hold. Putting on make-up seemed to be the only way to prove that I actually had eyes. With five minutes to go, I checked my camera bag. I had a million battery packs fully charged, I had all my lenses, all my memory cards, my tripod, my reflectors, light monitor, flash and a few other things that I wasn’t entirely sure of but assumed were something a professional photographer was supposed to have. It was time.

  ‘Right then,’ I said to the mirror. My reflection, laden with bags, looked resolute and, oddly, not nearly as bad as I felt. But to be fair, that probably wasn’t actually possible. ‘Everything’s been fine so far, hasn’t it?’

  My reflection didn’t reply, but it did throw me a look that just seemed to say, ‘Really, Tess?’

  ‘Look at you,’ Kekipi declared when I reappeared in the kitchen fully dressed and not on the verge of falling down. ‘You look just like someone who went out and got wasted last night but is almost certainly capable of doing an adequate day’s work.’

  ‘That’s the best I could hope for,’ I replied, grabbing another cup of coffee and a second pastry. Pastries were good. Cocktails were bad. ‘Are the cars here?’

  ‘They are,’ he said, craning his neck to look out of the window. ‘You’re in with Ms Sullivan. The models are in together and I’ll be travelling with Mr Bennett.

  ‘You’re coming?’ I asked. He nodded and clapped. ‘I’m so glad. If I go missing at all, can you just tell everyone I’m dead?’

  ‘Sure thing,’ he replied. ‘But don’t worry, really. You’ll be fine ? you’re just a little hungover. Everyone’s a professional here. What’s the worst that could happen?’

  ‘Oh my God, this is a complete fucking disaster.’ Paige buried her face in her hands and stifled a scream. ‘Tell me this isn’t happening.’

  ‘It’s not happening?’ I offered, resting my hand on her back and making small soothing circles. ‘It’s definitely not happening.’

  But it was happening. As it turned out, I really shouldn’t have been worried about my hangover. What I should have been worried about was an unforecast tropical storm, a model so doped up on whatever sleep aids she’d taken she couldn’t stand up straight, a wardrobe selection so horrifying they made Lady Gaga’s stage costumes look too conservative, and a location that had seemingly forgotten we were coming. There was something about a soggy, obese man from Arkansas in a neon-orange bumbag that really took the shine off an haute couture photo shoot. By eleven a.m. I was still in the back of the SUV drinking my fifth cup of coffee, and I hadn’t even taken my camera out of its bag. Apart from to take a picture of the obese man from Arkansas. You didn’t see a sight like him round Old Street.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Paige whispered at me, her face fearful and tear-stained. ‘I’m amazing at this. I’ve directed shoots on the top of volcanoes, I’ve had the Eiffel Tower closed down so Naomi fucking Campbell can have her picture taken in peace, I did an entire editorial on a yacht on Lake Como with an entirely Italian crew. I don’t speak a word of Italian and I had violent seasickness all the way through it and still came home with the best pictures the magazine had ever seen. What am I going to do?’

  As a photographer, there was really nothing I could say that would help. As a creative director, I was in agony for her. I’d had shoots and projects go wrong, but this was just chaos. She had managed to pull a feature out of her arse when Bertie went AWOL, and now she was stuck in the back of a car with no location, an amateur photographer, a stoned model and a disgruntled middle-aged man who had brought half of Lily Savage’s wardrobe with him. I looked out of the window at the Iolani Palace. All the way here, Paige had been telling me about her concept, how amazingly beautiful it was, how we would have the models and Artie reclining on the white stone steps, leaning against palm trees, posing in the throne room. That it combined all the elegance and glamour of high fashion with the cultural significance of Hawaiian royalty. Right now, it looked like a wet weekend in Brighton. Even the fountain on the driveway looked sad. It must be tough to be a water feature when you’re competing with a storm so scary. I was a little bit afraid our car might wash away.

  ‘Ms Sullivan.’ The car door opened and Kekipi stuck a soggy head inside. ‘I’ve spoken with the manager on duty and he says he has no record of the booking and can’t get in touch with the events coordinator. I think we’re going to have to find a second venue.’

  ‘I had one.’ Paige rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. ‘But we’re so behind schedule, I didn’t reconfirm. Shit, I had a third and fourth venue, but they’re all outdoors. And I can’t rely on this stopping, can I?’

  ‘I think it will, but we shouldn’t bank on it,’ he replied, looking up at the dark grey sky. ‘I have an idea. Wait just a moment.’

  ‘Not bloody going anywhere, am I?’ she muttered, pulling out an iPad and scrolling madly up and down an email inbox. I had a feeling it wasn’t really helping but I didn’t want to say. I didn’t dare say.

  ‘You look nice.’

  If in doubt, go with compliments.

  ‘Thanks,’ she replied without taking her eyes off the screen. ‘It’s Rag & Bone.’

  ‘What did you get up to last night?’ I asked, adding a little yawn to show how casual I was about the question. I didn’t quite know whether or not to believe Nick’s version of events when he’d shown up on my doorstep, but given that he was on my doorstep in the first place, I had to assume things hadn’t gone quite to Paige’s plans. ‘Anything fun?’

  ‘I don’t really want to talk about it right now,’ she said, looking up at me at last. Her black liquid liner and scarlet lipstick hadn’t even thought about smudging, even through her tantrum. Cow. ‘Can we get dinner tonight? If I don’t kill myself and everyone on the shoot?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I promised. ‘Can you make mine a quick death?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she promised.

  ‘I think I have a solution.’ Kekipi opened the door with a big smile and jazz hands. ‘My friend is the events manager at the Royal Hawa
iian. It’s very old Hawaii, very stately. They have a space we can use and some props. It might take a little creativity, but we have a location.’

  ‘Kekipi, if it wouldn’t turn your stomach, I would kiss you,’ Paige said, her face a picture of relief.

  ‘Ms Sullivan,’ he replied, ‘if we could take a picture and send it to my grandmother, I might let you.’

  ‘Shall we have a look at the venue first?’ she suggested, slipping the iPad back in her bag. ‘And we’ll pose for engagement photos later.’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ he said, closing the car door and banging on the roof.

  ‘If you could just turn to the left a little?’ I called to the blonde model. ‘So I can see more of the feathers?’

  Kekipi had come through on the location. The hotel was almost as palatial as the actual palace. Unfortunately, it was also pink. Bright, Pepto-Bismol pink. We were stuck in a courtyard right off the beach, which would have given me great light to shoot with if we’d been there three hours earlier, but instead, all I had were doomsdayesque shadows from the overhead midday sun. The storm had passed but that was the only thing that felt like it was going our way.

  Our blonde model, Ana, had woken up from her sleeping pill haze, and, if it were in any way possible, was behaving even worse than she had during our brief meeting the night before. She swore at the local make-up artist, she gave me the finger when I went to say hi, and she actually hissed at Paige. Hissed like an angry cat. The other model, Martha, a stupidly beautiful black girl with eyes so enormous I kept worrying that she was hypnotizing me, just looked like she might cry. Whether something was wrong or Ana was pinching her while we weren’t looking I wasn’t sure, but I suspected the latter. Paige had tried to talk to her approximately eighteen thousand times, but she just sniffed, shrugged and sat there quietly having her mascara reapplied. Again. And again. And again.