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.