The air
churned with the morning peak hour transit noise. Raf’s white Chrysler sat at
the red light as cars on the perpendicular road streamed into the junction. It
was Monday, and I was on my way to the set, glancing ahead at the traffic
streaming right past the front window. A car slunk up next to us into the
neighboring lane. In my elevated booster seat I was plainly visible to the
driver, who was using the red light to apply lipstick in the mirror. Then, as
the traffic lights continued to stall on red, she checked her phone and put it
back. I shrank a little in my seat, but she didn’t see me.
“Have you
seen any media on me from last night?” I said.
“LIKE,
REPORTERS?” Raf asked. “I DIDN’T SEE ANYONE. WHY?”
“Like…” I
gestured vaguely, though, to avoid drawing attention to me, he didn’t look down
at me, “…photos....”
“NO CRIME
IN BEING OUT, BRO, HAVING FUN.”
“I’m just a
discreet person, that’s all.”
“SKYROS IS
REAL EXCLUSIVE. IF PEOPLE SAW YOU THERE, IT ADDS DIMENSION TO YOUR PROFILE. A
LITTLE MYSTERY’S A GOOD THING, YOU KNOW?”
“I’ll take
a lot of mystery. There are things
about my life I’d love the public to not see.”
He wrinkled
his eyebrows at me.
“BUT I CAN
LET MY BUDDIES KNOW I WAS VIP AT SKYROS WITH YOU?”
“Sure,” I shrugged.
“I just don’t want my fiancée finding out about it.”
“ME, TELL?
BARELY EVEN SAID WORDS TO YOUR GIRL.”
“If she
found out I was strolling around on the floor of a big nightclub and diving
into women’s purses, I don’t think she’d let me near any nightclub ever again.”
“WOMEN’S
PURSES—?”
“Forget I
said anything.”
“KNOW IT
EXACTLY, LITTLEST BROTINO – BEEN THERE. GIRL’S BUZZING, TRYIN’ TO FIGURE OUT
WHERE YOU ARE, WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO.”
“The
problem is…she usually knows exactly where I am…most times.”
Then I
stammered out:
“I don’t
need her permission, just…I had a really cool time last night and I want to
have more nights like that. Maybe a quieter place that’s not going to get me
into trouble.”
“YOU’RE THE
MAN. I KNOW PLACES. JUST GIVE ME A TIME AND I’LL TAKE YOU THERE. GOT A PLACE IN
MIND, ACTUALLY.”
“Cool.
Whatever it is, next time I get a break, we’ll do it.”
Speaking of
things I didn’t want my fiancée finding out, later that week during a shooting
break, I checked my phone to find a message from Darcy:
Thrilled to meet you last week
and thinking you could come over
this Fri night if not busy,
we cook, you eat,
you know you want to ;)
xx Darcy and Sam
I was going
to be in St Palma over the weekend and didn’t have other plans, the distraction
might be welcome.
On Friday,
while on set between shooting, I worked the phone keys with my whole palms,
writing out another text, letting her know I’d still be coming but might be a
little late due to shooting stretching on past originally prediction.
*
Finally,
the director called a wrap on my last scene of the day and I texted Raf,
letting him know I was done. An aide carried me into the holding area room,
where Raf appeared and took me out to the parking lot to his car.
It was a hazy
evening, the sky was gas flame blue and the clouds moist and intense pink like
candy floss, burning with the last remaining rays of sun, and warm rain
sprinkled over the car windows. The streets were full of grumbling
cars anxious to get home for the weekend, motorists’ hands hovering reactively
close to their horns. I settled back into my booster seat, trying to remain
relaxed as Raf cussed and gesticulated at other drivers.
The air was
thick with hot gas fumes, and made my head spin. My mind began to drift as the
streets scrolled past the window as the sun slunk lower below the shop blocks
and terracotta roof tops. The old-fashioned, iron-wrought streetlamps flicked
on, one by one.
Before
leaving the set I had changed into a smart casual outfit – a gift for the
modelling shoot – my hair looked good thanks to the set stylist, and Raf had
even sprayed me with one of his colognes, practically turning me into a walking
bag of scent. If anything, I was overdone – this wasn’t a date, just a friendly
visit. But I had a public image now, even in private settings I was anxious to
impress.
The neon
yellows of a restaurant flashed out of the darkness, advertising its licence to
serve, and giving my brain the bright flash of realization that I was
forgetting something. Helpless to stop the car, I began to bounce against my
booster harness like an impertinent baby.
“Pull
over!”
It was a
small liquor store down the street. Inside, Raf strode up and down the aisles
while I perused the wine offerings from my position in his hand; my head
turning back and forth in futile effort to make sense of so many lines of giant
bottles. Different wines went with different foods, the problem was, I didn’t
know what was on the menu.
“Recommendations?”
I asked, feeling lost amidst countless missile-shaped bottles that could have
squashed me flat like glass logs if I’d tried to pick one of them up to present
as a dinner gift to anyone.
“FOR A
WOMAN?” He cut in over himself: “DOES YOUR fiancée
KNOW ABOUT THIS?”
“Two women.” I quickly added before he
got the wrong idea: “Dating. I’m invited as a friend.”
“OH,” his
tone completely changed, ignoring that I hadn’t answered his question.
“Yeah.”
“ALL COOL.”
He deliberated. “BUT…THE LADIES FROM
SKYROS, RIGHT?”
“That’s
them.”
“OH,” he
said again. “SEE, I READ THAT SITUATION ALL WRONG. IT LOOKED LIKE, UH…”
His steady
pace halted as he became distracted scrutinizing some bottles.
“THIS,” he
said suddenly, pulling a bottle up off the shelf. “NOT ME, BUT MY EX LOVES IT.”
“Larissa?”
He made a
flippant swatting motion with his hand.
“THE ONE
AND ONLY.” He scanned the label, then took the bottle up to the front, placing
it down on the service counter, but the server was nowhere in sight.
Suddenly, I
was coming down to rest on the counter, too, while the warm, reassuring squeeze
of his huge hand departed. I spun around to stare up at him inquiringly.
“TWO
SECONDS, LITTLE BUDDY!” He appeared to be getting something for himself; it was
Friday evening after all. I turned back, putting my hands in my pockets, rocking
on my feet.
The store’s
automatic sensor doors swished open, admitting a rush of surprisingly warm air
into the cooled, temperature controlled shop interior. At the same time, a
flurry of chatting and laughter bowled in through the glass doors as a gaggle
of young women entered, dressed up as if they were going to, or coming from, a
party.
The girls
began to stride past the counter towards the aisle. As the flock passed by, one
of them tossed her head sideways at the last second, her eyes glancing over me.
Then she demurred, the head whipping back around and stopping, her high heels
pounding the floor in an arrhythmic way as she jarred to a standstill. Her
friends noticed her, vaguely at first, but slowing, and finally noticing me.
Then the murmurs started:
“IS THAT—?”
“THAT’S—!”
“OH MY GOD
IT’S JERRY MOUSSEAU!”
“HE’S SO
TINY!”
“SOMEONE
STOP HIM – GRAB HIM!”
In an
instant, there was a storm of bodies clouding around the counter, I began to
back away but there was nowhere to run, and now the wall of young women had
eclipsed the last known sighting of Raf at the beer fridge, and the tall
shifting forms closed me off from him.
“Uh, Raf…?”
I squeaked.
Arms were
shooting out over the counter which had now turned into a military zone with
giant hands launching out of the sky to seize me. I ran and dived and pivoted
out of the hands crashing out of the sky and snatching for me, as the girls
jostled and shoved each other, giggling and squealing.
A pair of
fingertips plucked at my waist, sending me up into the air, but I narrowly
slipped out again and tumbled back down onto the counter. Then another hand was
barrelling towards me, sliding in a cupping gesture to sweep me over to the
towering form of the hand’s owner.
“LADIES!”
Raf gaped, striding over, “LADIES! BACK UP, PLEASE! WE’RE JUST TRYING TO BUY
SOME DRINKS!”
His hand
dropped through the air and snatched around my torso as tight as a life jacket,
before I was whisked off the counter and zoomed through the air towards his
chest. Then the front of his t-shirt blocked out everything as his hand
enfolded me against his firm chest wall, cupping around me completely so I
couldn’t be seen and kept out of reach by the women.
The server
must have appeared at the noise, a barcode scanner beeped and I was shifted
slightly against Raf’s chest as his other hand dove into his pant pocket for
his wallet, which he juggled to extract money, while keeping me shielded behind
his cupped hand. Then I was bumping against the inside of his palm to the
syncopation of his gait, speedier than usual as he sought to escape the store.
We broke
away from the lines of traffic and were then passing open paved walking areas,
people walking their dogs home, rounding into a residential area as we then
came to a wide road lined by the shade of trees shading the road and fences
bordering yards. Meanwhile, with my phone sat up in my lap, I texted Darcy to
assure her I was still coming.
When I
looked up out the window, I could see only black. My eyes had to adjust from
the bright phone screen. The street seemed to keep going and going, straight
into the night like a highway, but then we swerved off down a side-street and
pulled up outside the house just one of several receded on razored, manicured
lawns.
Raf stopped
the car and came around the other side to my door, released me from the booster
seat and lifted me out of the car in one huge hand; and I went eagerly, not wanting
to be seen by the women strapped up like a tiny tot. The sky had now darkened
further to indigo, the shadows stretched down the street, which was empty, and
quiet enough to hear the faint insectoid whine. From the end of the street, a
dog barked from a back yard.
In brisk
steps, the house got progressively larger as Raf strode up to the front door, with
me in one hand and the wine in the other, and stopping on the landing, rang the
doorbell, and then we both waited.
The door
swung in, revealing Darcy slim pants and a stylishly baggy sweater. In the
bright clean light of the foyer, rather than the dim, accented night club, I
realized how attractive she was; high cheekbones, bright inquiring eyes, and
soft pouty lips. Her eyes flew down to me, cradled against Raf’s chest, and she
grinned.
“HEY! COME
ON IN! – OH, NOT NECESSARY!” she exclaimed kindly, as Raf handed her the wine,
and then, his muscular thumb hooking around my midsection and the inside of his
hand curving around my back, I was separated from the wall of his chest and
flew through the air, before my butt landed on Darcy’s soft upturned palm, warm
and scented. I blushed a little, his perfunctory transfer made me feel – like
the wine – as just another dinner gift being handed over.
“LET ME
KNOW WHEN YOU’RE READY,” Raf said, “AND I’LL PICK YOU UP.”
“Sure, Raf.
Thanks.”
He closed
the door for Darcy as she had her hands full, and as she turned from the
doorway, the foyer rotated into view. The house was clean and roomy, faintly
sultry with perfume, not personable but welcoming, somehow like a hotel room
conveying the sense it had been waiting for me and some part of it was
indefinably mine for the duration of my stay.
Then, from
the foyer we swept into an adjoining walkway laid with a red and black Afghan
rug, where the wine bottle was put down on a side table, Darcy anxious to get
me in a more secure clasp than simply sitting on her open palm. Her freed up
hand came for me, the fingerpads sliding around my chest, under my armpits, and
then hefting me up into the air towards her face.
Lips
brushed over the side of my head as she didn’t hesitate to press a greeting
kiss against my cheek, giving me a rush of the wine spritzer on her breath. Half
buried against the warm weight of her lips, I got a fluttery feeling, and
stroked her thumbnail, since I couldn’t squeeze her shoulder or hug her back or
some other polite reciprocal gesture.
“Nice to
see you too, Darcy,” I mumbled. “Sorry for being late. Work—”
“IT’S
NOTHING!” she said, drawing me back and giving me a megawatt smile. “COME ON,
HAVE A DRINK, SAM WILL BE AMPED YOU CAME—”
Then I was
being swept through the rooms, along with the wine, and on into a dining area
adjoining a stainless chrome and white kitchen.
“AND LOOK
WHAT JUST SHOWED UP ON YOUR DOORSTEP…!” Darcy announced, confirming that this sterile
palace was in fact Samantha’s house, or at least her current place of residence.
“—THIS
SPARKLING, DELICIOUS LITTLE NUMBER, AND – WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE HERE – OH, CAN’T
FORGET, THIS BOTTLE OF WINE.”
I instantly
blushed at Darcy’s effusive voice, which rang with the grand proclamation of
someone announcing a birthday, and – as I was flourished through the air –
inadvertently putting me in the position of the birthday present being given.
Across the
steamy kitchen, stood Samantha, wearing an ecru sleeveless turtleneck halter,
her raven hair down her back in a tight braid with a very long loose tail. She
looked up and surveyed me with a practiced eye, holding my gaze for just a
fraction longer than a polite greeting. Either Darcy’s joke had elicited an amused
smile or she had just sent me some kind of obscure look that had melted away
again the moment I registered it. I dismissed it was a mirage caused by the
wavy steamy kitchen air.
Darcy slid
onto a bar stool, bringing me down onto the end of the snow white granite
counter surface, like a slab of fractured ice, cool despite the warmth on the
ceiling. She nodded at the kitchen,
uttering with mock grandiosity:
“OUR
COOKTOP QUEEN WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE IT READY WHEN YOU GOT HERE BUT SHE’S LAZY AS
SIN.”
Samantha
made a ‘shoo’ gesture with her hand, while her back was turned.
“BOTH OF
YOU.”
Darcy then
made a show of whispering down to me in a poorly concealed way intended for the
other woman to overhear:
“IT’S
VEAL,” she said this like it wouldn’t have been her first choice of meat. “FINGERS
CROSSED.”
Shaking her
head, Samantha muttered some inaudible Italian. Then she changed her mind and
decided to call on Darcy’s help. I was placed down onto a placemat on the
dining table while Darcy went back into the kitchen to help serve up.
The
sizzling sounds dampened and dishware clattered. Some moments later the women
ushered into the dining room to serve up.
Laid on the
table before me was a bone white replica of a ceramic dinner plate, almost
perfectly fit for my size. I wondered where it had come from – dollhouse? But
it seemed like a proper piece of china, albeit greatly undersized. It was so
small that Samantha had the edges of the plate between her forefinger and thumb;
the perfume on the inside of her wrist caught my attention for an instant
before her hand drew back. My portion of food had been fastidiously cut small.
I was
seated at one end of the table, with each of the women at a right angle from
me, facing each other. As we ate, the conversation quickly turned to my work as
Darcy quizzed me about my experiences on the movie sets and how I operated
around the normal sized actors and crew. I fielded the questions, and Darcy
talked shop about modelling, while Samantha made the occasional understated remark.
While Darcy
launched into a story about some overseas travel she’d done when she’d been
modelling, I became aware of a growing ache in my stomach. My serving had
slightly overestimated my appetite. It was an easy mistake; people struggled to
apprehend how truly small my stomach was. Even Jennifer still tripped up from
time, concerned I wasn’t eating enough.
Darcy was
describing the time she’d walked into a glass door and the bruise started
blooming mid-shoot. Samantha upped her with a shoot when the fire alarm accidentally
triggered during a shoot, the sprinklers flicked on, and everyone had to run
out of the building before a five minute timeout for the electrical strike
security doors trapped the photo team inside. Unbeknownst to everyone, the
building was a former vault. The photographer later sheepishly admitted he’d
gone ahead without getting the proper access code to be in the building, his
friend had let him inside.
When I joked it would be cool to play James Bond Darcy brought me a tiny novelty
martini glass (plastic) filled with water. She scooped up an olive from the
salad and put it in. The olive was so big it filled up the entire thing,
leaving virtually no space for the water. I stuffed some salad feta inside and poked
the olive with a toothpick and ate it.
The
conversation shifted and there was a lull. I paused from my meal and lifted my
head. Samantha was observing me, in between long, deliberate draughts of wine.
Resting the glass on the table, her hand slid up to me and gave my hand,
resting on the table surface, a tentative prod with the tip of a nail.
“TOO
POLITE,” she said, “YOU EAT SO LITTLE.”
“I’m on one
of these St Palma fad diets,” I said. Then, seriously: "It’s great. I just
– I honestly can't eat any more."
Darcy
intercepted with a ribbing:
“DON’T MIND
HER. SHE’S ON A MISSION TO MAKE YOU ROUNDER THAN THE MOON.”
She paused
to giggle at the thought – this even provoked mutual laughter from Samantha –
and I repressed a shudder, recalling Remy overstuffing on pizza.
My phone,
on the table, across from me, buzzed. There was a text from Jen, with an
attached jpg.
my taco is missing its meat. what r u up to?
Yikes. Leaving
the jpg unopened, I scrolled the screen away and edgily took a big gulp of
water from a tiny plastic medicine cup, and for the first time wondered if I
should be here. And then pondered what I would have been doing if I wasn’t
here. I gazed across the room at the tall dining room windows, curtains drawn
over both, with slits revealing the black night outside. It was difficult to
excuse yourself when you couldn’t open the door to leave the room.
As dinner
finished, I announced:
“I
shouldn’t be hanging around like a stray animal. Probably the time I should be letting
you guys go.”
Abruptly, Samantha
shook her head, and without a word, pushed her chair out and left the room,
sweeping my plate away.
“YOU AREN’T
STAYING FOR DESSERT?” Darcy fired back. She nodded down at me, giving me a
gentle poke in the chest: “SWEET ENOUGH, RIGHT?”
“Oh,” I
said, not realizing there was more. “Guess I’m staying.”
The sound
of Samantha swishing back into the dining room cut through my thoughts. She had
dessert bowls on a long wooden board; two normal sized and one tiny one. Like
the plate, the bowl put down in front of me was a perfect replica of a normal
bowl, down to proportionate weight and texture. Even though I was full I wanted
to respond to the effort by eating the entire serving, or trying to.
I dug my
spoon in. The first spoonful was rich, but I treated it like a medicine, taking
in measured mouthfuls. Then everything after went down light and buttery smooth
until I found myself at the bottom of the bowl, scooping up the last crumbs.