Summer, 2000
Chapter 1
It’s not. It can’t be. It bloody well can’t be! Oh my goodness; it is! It’s Emilio Caliente! Why is someone like him sitting next to someone like me? Why is he in economy? He should be up front, behind the curtain, hidden away in first class. Why now? Why him? Why me?
Without so much as a glance in my direction he’s short-circuited weeks of life changing, positive affirmations. Hiding behind my hair, I clench my fists, shut my eyes and silently recite, “My name is Gemma. I’m a beautiful, intelligent, newly single woman and I’m moving to Ibiza and taking control of my life”. Yeah, right. What a joke. I’m sweating. I’m fidgeting. I’m finger combing my hair, smoothing my eyebrows, and wishing I’d retouched my makeup before boarding.
Can’t he go away for a few minutes and come back when I’ve had time to pull myself together, both mentally and physically? Planes should have an emergency hatch with a twisty staircase from the passenger area down into the hold, so you can get to your suitcase, grab a change of clothes, a more appropriate pair of shoes, and maybe even a change of underwear. There should be a decent sized bathroom with pink, soft-tone lights to flatter your complexion and boost your self-confidence, not that vile, green, fluorescent glare that only emphasizes your enlarged pores, your premature lines, your facial hair. There should be baskets of complimentary upmarket cosmetics, sample freebies of the greatest and latest scientific breakthroughs in moisturisers and makeup. Yes, even on a forty-minute flight from Barcelona to Ibiza. On this flight especially.
As it is, the bathroom has just been vacated by a rotund, ashen-faced, sickly-looking man sporting blotchy bum cleavage, so the thought of following in his footsteps isn’t exactly appealing. I rummage through my bag, praying I won’t accidentally pull out a bedraggled tampon instead of a bruised and battered lip-gloss. I don’t usually look like this. Should I explain to him that, under normal circumstances, I’m quite a babe even if I’m old enough to be, if not his mother, then at least his big sister? I’m usually impeccable. It wasn’t me who spilled Coca-Cola on my white linen trousers. It was the woman sitting next to me on my previous flight from Geneva to Barcelona. Her feisty Iberian origins led to partial loss of body control when she started telling me all about her exasperating Scandinavian daughter-in-law who couldn’t even cook a decent tortilla. As for my T-shirt, it seemed to possess that casual, cool, worn-in look when I left home today, whereas it’s clear to me now that it should have been retired months ago and used as a duster. What on earth was I thinking? Oh, thank goodness; here’s my lip-gloss.
My lips taken care of, I fumble through the pocket of the seat in front of me, searching for an in-flight magazine, but there isn’t one. So I grab the emergency procedures card and start studying it with exaggerated interest, then get all flustered again, as though I’ve been caught reading the Special K cereal package.
What must he be thinking? I’m no first-time flyer. I’m an air-sophisticate. I shake my long brown hair over my face and sneak a sideways glance at el divino, as the women’s glossies call him. Maybe I’ve just imagined the whole thing and seat 12B is currently occupied by an obnoxious lager lout with spots and halitosis.
But no. It’s him, pop music’s Latino superstar, looking a little dishevelled and not as glamorous as on his album covers, calendars and posters. He’s obviously wearing some kind of hastily thrown together disguise. However, if the other passengers on Iberia flight 243 to Ibiza are fooled by the navy-blue baseball cap, the wraparound sunglasses, and the prickly, golden chestnut stubble, a connoisseur like me is not. I am the princess of pop music, the FM queen. I know my popstars.
It may seem sad that at the age of 37 I’m still addicted to bubble-gum music. At my age, most people seem to have either moved on to cooler, more sophisticated musical spheres or remained faithful to the likes of Céline Dion, Phil Collins and Sting. Not that I dislike Céline Dion, Phil Collins or Sting. They’re great. But when it comes to music, I’ll always be a teenybopper at heart. Boy bands may be passé, but they still do it for me. I’m a sucker for cheesy harmonies and all those slick, over-choreographed, step-step-shrug moves.
Crazy at it may sound, my taste in music was one of the irreconcilable differences that destroyed my marriage. I think it was an overdose of step-step-shrug that finally pushed my husband a step too far. He went and dumped me for an older woman.
Richard left me for Wilhelmina, a poker-faced, peroxided meanie from Munich, whom I only ever saw from a distance, yet whose sense of style made quite an impression nevertheless: black leather trousers, sequined sweaters featuring cartoon characters, daredevil heels and a hairstyle presumably influenced by lion tamers in circuses. Interesting choice for a conservative stick-in-the-mud like Richard. They probably have sex while listening to Metallica. “Jawohl, mein Schnitzel, da ist SO gut, ja ja schneller bitte, schneller”.
Gross.
Well, they’re welcome to it. They can have Metallica and schnitzels, with or without noodles. Screw them! I’m going to Ibiza to get myself a new life. But please, God, right now, give me something cool to say to Emilio Caliente. Send me instant smooth moves, oodles of charm, irresistible flickety hair.
I try to arrange myself a little more attractively, cross my legs. I’d offer him my best profile, but doing so would require odd contortions since it’s the one against the window. I rub my nose, making sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hanging off the end.
He takes off his baseball cap and his sunglasses, removes his brown leather sandals (hairy toes, I notice), checks his phone, switches it off and puts it in the duty-free bag by his feet. He then turns to me, gives me the once over, let’s-see-what-we-have-here, oh-yes, oh-well, never-mind-then, graces me with a quick smile (Yes! This is good! Initial contact established!), puts his sunglasses back on and closes his eyes.
So much for contact.
It’s almost eleven when we take-off. The flight has been delayed for nearly two hours. Most of the other passengers are either dozing or flicking through the kind of magazines you tend to buy at airports when you’re bored and need cheap, easy distractions. Even I had a copy of No Way! magazine in my duty-free bag. But now, with Emilio sitting next to me, I’m a little embarrassed to pull it out and have him think I saunter down the superficial side of life.
A bored, exhausted flight attendant passes down the aisle with a basket of boiled sweets. I smile at her smugly, willing her to believe that I’m travelling with Mr. Caliente, that we’re a couple. But as she reaches our level and I lean over to grab something to combat potential gorilla breath, the plane hits turbulence and the basket and most of its contents fly through the air and land on Emilio Caliente’s crotch. The flight attendant gasps, and I freeze, wide-eyed, but Emilio doesn’t stir. Is he asleep or is he deliberately ignoring what he thinks is a desperate plea for attention from his moronic, past-her-sell-by-date neighbour? What kind of a person doesn’t acknowledge an unfortunate accident? Why can’t he just smile politely, say “no harm done” and offer me a cellophane wrapped windfall?
It’s now obvious to the flight attendant that we are not an item. Aghast, she suppresses a giggle and points a discreet finger at the multicoloured sweets decorating Emilio’s khaki clad, drawstring secured, rather impressive crotch. With her eyes she asks me, “Do we leave them or pick them up?”
I shrug, quickly shake my head, utterly mortified. Better to leave them than disturb the sleeping demigod and have him open his eyes to find four unfamiliar hands groping his testicles.
Still grinning, and doing her best not to giggle, she carries on down the aisle, offering the few remaining sweets to the rest of the passengers.
I glance at Emilio again. His eyes are still closed. Contact is over and out. Bummer. What will Celeste say when I tell her? Knowing her, she’d probably have gone straight for the strategically placed sweets and got away with it. Celeste makes friends with everyone she meets, a characteristic supposedly linked to her bright pink aura.
To pass the time I decide to read all about the latest happenings in celebrity-land. As I flick through the pages of No Way!, skipping over something about some obscure celebrity’s scandalous fling, I spot a small, fuzzy, rather unflattering photograph of a scowling Emilio Caliente. Below it the article reads:
“Latino heart-throb Emilio Caliente doesn’t have a whole lot to smile about these days. His latest single, Corazon Loco, has flopped miserably, barely reaching number 54 in the charts before sinking without a trace. Rodrigo Del Fuego and Alejandro Tampoco, founders of record label Latin Hard Beat, have announced that they are not satisfied with Caliente’s new album, Solo Yo, scheduled for release in September, which the gorgeous Emilio insisted on producing himself. They stated that the album will not be released unless el divino agrees to re-record eight of the tracks under the direction of hot-shot Miami producer El Gordoncito. Could this compromise Latin Hard Beat’s long-standing collaboration with the hip swivelling Latin lover? Will Emilio swallow his pride and do as he’s told? Watch this space!”
“Bastards,” mutters a sexy, throaty voice in seat 12B. “They know nothing. It’s crap. Bullshit.”
I turn to look at him. His eyes are still closed but he’s unwrapping a pink sweet, which he pops between a set of flawless white teeth, flashing an utterly delectable morsel of pink tongue at the same time. How come even his tongue is perfect? I thought they airbrushed it pink in his photographs.
I swallow. Come on now, say something, Gemma. Something that will start a decent conversation. Something interesting. What would Celeste say? “I loved Corazon Loco”, I hear myself squeak. My temperature turns tropical. I feel a blush spread from my ears to my chest. Not exactly celestial. More Minnie Mouse on helium.
He smiles, shakes his head. Static electricity makes his dark brown hair cling to the paper headrest. Then he yawns loudly (cue more pink tongue), lazily runs his fingers through his hair, musses it to a sexy, spiky style, pushes his sunglasses onto the top of his head, and looks at me.
His eyes should come with a warning from the Surgeon General: “Gazing into Emilio Caliente’s eyes can seriously damage your mental health.” They are the colour of warm caramel and edged with long, thick, black lashes. Is that the outline of a gold-flecked star etched within the pupil of his right eye? How amazing is that? He looks as though he’s wearing eyeliner, but of course he isn’t. Or is he? What’s more, his eyes are almond shaped, giving him a slightly mysterious, slightly naughty look. He does have dark, purplish circles underneath them, and, I notice happily, a couple of blackheads on his nose. But he’s very good looking. Very. Maybe a little too pretty. Maybe not. On second thought, definitely not. How old is he?
“I thought it was pretty good too”, he says, sucking noisily on his sweet. Anyone else making such a noise would give me instant gross-out because I’ve always hated noisy eaters. The sound of someone biting into an apple makes me cringe; it’s as bad as chalk squeaking on a blackboard. But I must say, Emilio’s sweet sucking technique is quite mesmerizing.
“Hola, I’m Emilio,” he says, holding out a surprisingly small hand for me to shake. What is it they say about small hands? Or is it small feet? Crap, for sure.
“Hi Emilio, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Gemma,” I reply. And I, Gemma Talbot, 37-year-old teenybopper, shake Emilio Caliente’s hand. Small it may be, but he has a nice, firm, manly handshake, not a mushy wimpy one. And it’s definitely not eyeliner, I decide. Now what do I say?
I manage to curb a suicidal urge to lean over, place a hand on his shoulder and, in a dorky voice, say “I’m your biggest fan,” thus narrowly sparing him from having to grab the vomit bag and gag.
Say something, Gemma.
“Are you going to Ibiza?”
Duh.
Shit, that’s it. Ten years from now, I definitely won’t be remembered as that rather sexy, rather interesting, somewhat older woman he enjoyed chatting to on his way to Ibiza. You know; the woman who brightened his darkest hour, made him see that things can only get better, who spent ages showing him around the island with her cool friends. No. Typical. Had my chance and blew it.
He smiles. “Actually, I’m stopping over in Ibiza but planning on heading over to Formentera in a couple of days.” Saved by a detail! I could kiss him. In fact, I’d love to smooch him senseless.
“You?” he asks coolly, unwrapping another sweet while my stomach does a series of back-flips like circus tumblers.
“Uhm, yes. Ibiza. I’m moving there. To start my own business. I paint. Old chandeliers, not pictures. In bright colours. Well, mostly chandeliers, but I paint old furniture too.” I’m inwardly cringing because, all of a sudden, painting chandeliers sounds like a silly, pseudo-artistic thing to do. But he’s gazing at me with what I hope isn’t just polite interest, so I blunder on.
“I’m staying with my friend Celeste. In Santa Agnes. Well Santa Inès, depending on how you spell it. Or how you pronounce it. In the campo. That’s Spanish for countryside. But you knew that.” Am I excessively happy to meet him or is it excessively hot in here?
“Where were you living until now?”
Is he just being polite? Why is he asking me stuff?
“Switzerland.” I hope I sound worldly as I say it. “My ex-husband and I lived in Geneva, but he left me. For an older woman.” I throw in the “older” just for good measure. To let him know that it’s possible for men to leave bimbos for older women. Not that I’m a bimbo. But I’m older than Emilio. Anything is possible. I want him to know that.
“You don’t look old enough to be married, let alone divorced.” His voice is like raw silk. “Sweet?” He selects a blue one from his crotch and hands it to me with a cheeky grin.
What’s going on here? Is he just being himself? Could he be flirting with me? Pff! Flirting? No way. I’m hot enough to steam up the plane windows. Why do my sweat glands go ballistic when I’m with men I fancy? My earliest memory of excessive sweating dates back to when I was 16. I had a crush on an ultra-gorgeous 29-year-old with a black Golf GTI.
One cold evening after school, I was wandering around town when I saw him hot wheel his way around a corner, bass box booming out some infernal disco anthem. I knew he was going to come to a squealing stop at a red light, so I raced over, heaving my schoolbag, and hid behind a telephone box. When he stopped at the light, I crossed the road casually on the pedestrian crossing, did a fake double-take as in, “Wow, what a coincidence!”. Then, before I realized what I was doing, I’d rushed towards his car and hopped in beside him. Unfortunately, the combination of nerves and sprinting around in my down jacket had made me so hot that within seconds we were fogged in. He had to crank up the defogger to the max. I wanted to die. But I guess he just thought I was a hot young chick, because he smooched me outside my apartment building about ten days later.
Could I be a hot older chick? I take Emilio’s sweet. It’s disgusting, one of those sour banana-type flavours that you wonder what whoever invented it was thinking when they boiled it up and had a taste, but I eat it anyway. We’re probably halfway to Ibiza now and I urgently need to make conversational progress. I want a phone number. I want to – and now my imagination is off to a rave party – invite him for dinner!
“How old do you think I am?” I ask, all coy and cutesy. This is the zillion dollar question. If he guesses right, it is what it is. If he guesses younger, it’s yippedy skippedy. If he guesses older, it’s up there with natural disasters.
He studies me and I squirm beneath my seatbelt. His eyes make my stomach fall into my knickers. I’d like him to study me even more closely. I’d like him to do a project on me. Even a small one.
“Early thirties? I’ve never been good at guessing ages. And I don’t think age is important.”
Right answer. Right answer. Right answer. Cliché, but right answer.
“I’m 36,” I lie. Well, didn’t he just say that age isn’t important? Wrinkles and receding gums sort of are. I have some of the former but none of the latter. “And you?”
He smiles slyly. “Trade secret. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Okay, I’ll tell you. I’m officially 27, legally 29.”
This is good. He’s not even ten years younger than me! I’m beginning to relax. He’s quite easy to talk to. He has dimples in his cheeks. There’s definitely a star in his eye. Should I mention it to him? No, he’ll think I’m coming on to him, which I am. Sort of. To be honest, I’m feeling fabulously flirtatious and surprisingly bold.
The fasten your seatbelts sign lights up. I’m running out of time.
“Have you been to Formentera before?” I’m picturing him in a swimsuit against a backdrop of turquoise water and white sand, going gooey as the pixels connect and the image downloads in my mind. What’s going on? I haven’t felt this lecherous in years! “How are you getting there?” I can’t imagine him on the ferry. And why is he travelling Economy on Iberia?
“To tell you the truth, I don’t have anything planned. I haven’t even booked a hotel. Can you believe that? I mean, Ibiza and Formentera in July, with no hotel reservations?” He shakes his head, rolls his toffee eyes. “I was supposed to fly over with my manager in a few days, but things got a little ugly between us. I just wanted out. Too much crazy shit. Bad energy. Negative vibes. I was lucky to get on this plane. And I’ll be crazy lucky if I manage to rent a car.”
Hence the eco fare.
Hence the possibility of giving him a lift! A room? Yeah right, Gemma! I can just see him in a tiny, eclectically cluttered old almond mill conversion with no electricity, located way out in the boonies. He probably can’t live without his hairdryer.
But I can’t help myself. “Celeste is picking me up at the airport. If you can’t get a car, we could give you a lift somewhere. Try to find you a hotel.”
He smiles another slow, lazy smile. I feel like an idiot again but try my best not to show it. He probably knows loads of people with amazing houses in Ibiza. He probably has a stable full of gorgeous, 22-year-old sun kissed blondes with tousled hair and salty skin. They’ll be tossing their manes and baring their teeth at each other, squabbling over who gets to pick him up at the airport the minute he issues a ‘Mayday’ signal on his phone.
I smile to myself, imagining Emilio Caliente squashed into the back of Celeste’s battered, filthy, red Deux-Chevaux, bumping around as we fly along the rocky camino that leads to her little house in the hills. I see Celeste dancing in her seat to the syncopated electro beat torturing the tinny old speakers. She’s babbling away in her usual effervescent manner, her long honey-blonde, sun-streaked hair whipping around her face willy-nilly. Such fun imagery. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. Shame.
And as we land, I hear him say, “Did you mean what you said about that lift?”
Chapter 2
While all the dreadlocked dopeheads lope through customs with the blessings of the officials, I get pulled over. I always get stopped at customs. I’ve never figured it out. I must have been a smuggler in another lifetime and have bad customs karma. Emilio, aloof and gorgeous, walks straight out, but since I’m coming from Switzerland, I get the waggly finger from Weasel Man with the bad toupee and crater-skin.
“Inglesa? Suiza?” he barks, scrutinizing my passport. “Where you stay? What’s in here?” He leans over my three suitcases and squints. It’s as though he’s trying to tell me he was recruited because he has a unique talent: Weasel Man has X-ray eyes.
It’s not like I have anything to hide, but I’ve always had a problem with authorities. A policeman walking down the street can make me feel certain he knows that I once accidentally stole a chocolate bar from the school cafeteria back in grade eight.
Weasel Man clearly suspects wrongdoing. He’s emptied the contents of my handbag onto the metallic table and is conscientiously dissecting a Tampax. I’m trying to decide whether to opt for the indignant “this is preposterous!” approach, or the grovelling, sheepish, three bags full attitude, when he suddenly spots another poor woman looking lost and conspicuous, forgets all about my dodgy tampon and decides to go and torture her instead. I shove everything back into my bag and rush out in a panic, certain that Emilio has by now either rented a Ferrari, been picked up by a thoroughbred, or summoned a taxi.
I barely have time to catch my breath before I’m being smothered in kisses by the diminutive Celeste, decked out in full Ibiza-princess pink and purple velvet regalia.
“Gemma!” she squeals, standing on her tiptoes and puckering up to kiss me full on the lips. “Welcome back to Ibiza!”
I wipe my mouth free of Celeste slobber and whirl around. Where’s Emilio? Nowhere! Gone! With all the evil vibes I’m sending him, Weasel Man must be lying on the floor, wracked by spasms and facing imminent death.
“Oh no! Where is he? Did you see him? Which way did he go?”
Celeste spins around, confused. “Who? Have you been robbed?”
I’m absolutely seething. “Oh, you can say that again. I was held hostage! That creep ruined everything!”
“Hey, chill darling, you’re here with me now. Forget Richard, his energy was so totally static.” She shudders, frowning at the memory.
“I’m not talking about Richard, I’m talking about that obnoxious man at customs. It’s all his fault I’ve lost Emilio. You know: THE Emilio? Emilio Caliente? He was going to come in the car. With us!”
Celeste looks at me like I’ve got dementia. “Well, darling, I don’t think I’ve got any Emilio, but I’ve got a Ricky Martin tape somewhere. We can pick up an Emilio CD tomorrow. Can you last until then?”
“No, silly, not his music! HIM! Himself! He was with me on the plane. He needs a lift. Well, he needed a lift! He was nice. To me. Really.” I plonk my handbag into the trolley and lean against it, crestfallen.
Celeste now thinks I’ve totally lost it and morphs into her mother. “Come along now, darling, let’s get you home. You’ve been through so much recently, what you need is a good…”
“Hola,” calls a voice made in heaven. “I thought you’d gone!”
I spin around so fast that I get my legs in a muddle and almost fall over. Celeste’s mouth drops. I’m faint with happiness, relief and lust. Emilio is striding towards us, carrying a brown suede bag and a plastic duty-free carrier, wearing his sunglasses, with his navy-blue baseball cap firmly in place. He looks incredible. People are staring, whispering, wondering. He smiles at me as he reaches us. “What happened to you? One minute you were there, and then, poof, you’d gone.” He waves his free arm in perfect popstar fashion to illustrate my disappearance into thin air.
I exhale, pouting, rolling my eyes. “Customs. They always want to get to know me better. Did you manage to rent a car?”
I’m so afraid of his answer that I risk cardiac arrest at any moment.
“Well, I suppose I could call some friends, but…”
“No problem,” I blurt, interrupting him, and glaring at Celeste. “Emilio, this is my friend Celeste. Celeste, meet Emilio. We can drive you to a hotel. I’m sure we can find you a room somewhere.” Please God, Buddha, etc, let there be no room at the inn. Any inn.
“Are you sure?” He pushes his sunglasses on top of his head and turns to Celeste. “Are you sure it’s no trouble? I mean, I can take a taxi…”
Hey, look at me, don’t look at her!
“And spend a fortune driving around the island all night long? I don’t think so!” I retort before Celeste has a chance to reply.
“Of course,” she murmurs, looking somewhat like Mowgli being hypnotised by the snake, her green eyes locked into his caramel swirls.
Hey, ME! ME! ME!
“Come on then,” I say. It comes out Gestapo-style. “Where’s the car?”
“Follow me,” says Celeste, snapping out of hypnosis and grinning at me.
Emilio puts his bag on top of my suitcases and takes charge of the trolley. I’m delirious with excitement, fatigue and frayed nerves. I can’t believe I’m strolling through Ibiza airport with Emilio Caliente pushing my trolley! I brush my arm against his, accidentally-on-purpose, just to see what it feels like. To see if he notices. To see if he might accidentally-on-purpose brush his against mine. Do men do that kind of thing? He doesn’t seem to notice any brushing. He’s much taller than I am. Nice muscle definition. Not too much though, none of those horrendous mega-puffy pecs straining through over-tight T-shirts. He’s wearing a loose cream linen shirt. He’s sinewy, feline. I’ll admit that his walk is possibly a touch effeminate. There’s something funny in his hip movement which I put down to too many hours practising hip-swivels and pelvic thrusts. He seems to end each step with a tiny, elegant wiggle. An image of him in one of his videos, wearing little more than sinfully tight tan leather trousers pops into my head, and I find myself grinning idiotically as we exit the sliding doors and cross the road towards the car park.
Celeste rushes ahead, telling us to keep going while she deals with tickets and parking metres. I spot her car immediately because it’s probably the dirtiest, most decrepit one on the island. I open the boot, wondering how I’m going to fit all my luggage inside and go weak at the knees as I realise what’s going to have to happen.
I’m going to have to sit on Emilio Caliente’s lap.
“We’ll need to put some stuff on the back seat,” he says, standing next to me and scratching his head through his cap. His arm brushes the hairs on my arm. The hairs on my arm send sexy messages to my brain, which in turn dutifully relays them to other areas of my body that could be interested. “You’ll have to sit on my lap. Or I’ll have to sit on yours. Whichever you prefer.” He gives me one of his trademark, as seen on TV, melt your knickers smiles, plonks one of my cases, both our duty-free carrier bags and his suede bag into the boot, slams it shut, then rips off his cap, squashes it into his back pocket and musses up his hair. It goes all spiky sweaty cool.
Once again, I’m lost in lustful meanderings.
Celeste rushes towards us, waving the exit ticket. “Sorry about my car, it’s always such a mess. Can we all fit?”
Emilio wrestles the rest of my luggage onto the back seat. “It’ll be tight, but we’ll fit. Thanks so much, this is very kind of you.”
No, darling. The pleasure is entirely, utterly mine.
Celeste gets in. Emilio spends some time politely removing plastic bags, cables, discarded CDs and other assorted rubbish from the faded, ripped seat, until Celeste speeds up the process by grabbing the entire lot and chucking everything into the back. He sits down gingerly; possibly afraid the seat might collapse. I concede it looks dicey, and that’s without my additional weight. Not that I’m seriously heavy or anything. I’m a perfectly acceptable 62 kilos for my 5 foot 8, but from watching his videos, I know for a fact that he’s used to prancing around with semi-naked toothpicks.
He peers up at me and pats his lap. So, this is it! Right now, I’m hypothetically one of the luckiest women in the world. One of the most nervous, too.
What if he thinks I’m heavy? What if he thinks my bum is a funny shape? What if my hair smells greasy? What if I’ve got B.O? I discreetly try to smell my armpits, pretending to stretch and roll my neck at the same time. Christ, I think as my nostrils catch a whiff of something a trifle stinky. My deodorant has long given up on me. But when you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go.
I manoeuvre myself in, trying to clamp my arms to my sides to minimise odour escapement, but it’s totally impossible, looks ridiculous and is bloody uncomfortable. The seat creaks and Emilio shifts his weight. Wow! Is that really what I think it is in there? Could he really be hung like an Andalusian stallion? I do my best not to wriggle, and I hold my tummy in. I know not what to say.
Celeste starts the engine, tries to put the gear into reverse, but the gearbox is located on the dashboard, parallel to the steering-wheel and I’m in the way.
“Maybe I should try to find a taxi…” he says, sounding doubtful.
Oh God. I stink. I’m heavy. I’m terminally unattractive.
“Don’t worry,” says Celeste, angel that she is. “Gemma, just move over a tiny bit. Once we’re on our way I’ll be just fine.”
I shift slightly to the right. I should have thought about liposuction expenses before blowing off Richard’s rather generous settlement in what increasingly seems to have been a moment of reckless bravado. I might need Botox too. Oh well, too late now.
“Where to?” asks Celeste, turning the volume down on some rather upset sounding Oriental woman wailing to a techno beat.
I quickly suggest the Los Gatos Hotel. It’s on the way to Celeste’s, is probably packed out, and should that be the case, I seriously doubt Emilio will want to stay in some hellhole in San Antonio. Nor will he want us to spend ages driving him around, so he’ll just have to come back to Celeste’s!
“That okay?” Celeste struggles with the recalcitrant gearbox as she negotiates a corner.
“Great,” says Emilio, making himself more comfortable and putting a hand on my thigh. I hope the heat I’m experiencing doesn’t burn a hole through my trousers.
He sure is an easy-going popstar! You hear all sorts of horror stories about celebrities throwing tantrums over chewing gum stuck to the soles of their shoes and other such trivialities we just tut about. He’s clearly in a class of his own. His bag seems too small to contain much more than a couple of changes of clothes, let alone any beautifying artefacts. I’m sure he won’t mind roughing it out on a spare mattress, although a lack of hot water might be a cause for distress. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Or not. Please, let Los Gatos be packed with celebrities.
We chug along. Celeste cranks up the volume again, blasting us with euch-euch-euch trance-inducing beats. With the wind in our hair, we dodge death-wished, inebriated drivers, on their way to the full amnesiac experience for which Ibiza is famous.
Then, all too soon, we pull up outside Los Gatos, Ibiza’s home from home for international celebrities. I scramble out and practically collapse, my legs numbed by a serious case of pins and needles, presumably induced by the profound fear of blubber acknowledgement that has prevented me from moving for the past thirty minutes. Emilio follows, seemingly unscathed by my tonnage.
“I’ll just go and check on vacancies. Be right back,” he says brightly, before disappearing into the lobby.
“Now pray,” I say to Celeste as I jog on the spot to recover full use of my legs. “Shit, isn’t he GORGEOUS? So SWEET! So normal!” I’m shaking like a cold, nervous Yorkshire terrier.
“Muy caliente,” she replies, grinning. “The heat in the car was positively sizzling! I can’t wait to be enlightened on the way this encounter came to pass.”
“All will be revealed,” I mutter as Emilio re-emerges from the hacienda-style entrance. He jogs elegantly towards us. I’m drooling. Dribbling. Everywhere…
“It’s okay, they have a room.”
Merde. Mierda. Shit and pooh. Godverdomme, as they say in Dutch.
“Oh good,” I mutter, trying to turn my snarl into a smile.
“Great,” deadpans Celeste, then looks at me, her face furrowed with disappointment.
Emilio opens the boot, takes out his two bags and puts them on the ground. He gives her a hug, says how grateful he is and that he hopes he hasn’t caused too much inconvenience. Then he turns towards me.
“Gemma, you are the most beautiful, most wonderful creature I’ve ever met. You’re neither fat, nor smelly, and gee, your hair smells terrific. Will you join me in my room and have wild sex with me?”
No, he doesn’t say that.
“It was great meeting you, and I hope that our paths will cross again one day. Thank you so much for your help.” With that, he locks his impossible eyes into mine, takes my hand, kisses it, pulls me to him and gives me a hug and a couple of pecks on the cheeks. Oh, great, a bonus! Was that like: “You’ve been a lovely audience, thank you and goodnight”?
Nothing else? Not even a phone number?
I nod idiotically. How could I get so carried away in my ridiculous fantasies?
“Have a great time in Formentera,” I mutter, retreating behind my hair. “Take care of yourself. All the best.”
He thanks Celeste again, then turns and jogs back to the hotel carrying his bags, turning once and lifting a bag to signal a final, good-natured goodbye. I collapse into the car with a loud sigh and look miserably at Celeste who pulls me into her arms. We’ve been best friends for nearly twenty years, and she always manages to make crappy situations go down better. I smile at her through the prickle of imminent tears, our hair tangling, our foreheads touching.
“Oh, fuck a duck! Come on, let’s go and have a glass of wine,” she says, giving me a kiss and starting the engine. “Besides, you never know, your paths really might cross again,” she adds, imitating his Spanish accent. “Anyway, there’s something I need to tell you. An amazing surprise!”
“A surprise?”
“Yes. Someone gorgeous is dying to see you.” She jiggles her eyebrows up and down. Her eyes sparkle. Must be good. I need it to be good.
“Who? Where?”
“Kevin’s coming to Ibiza.”
My heart tries to crawl through a gap in my ribcage. Kevin? Kevin Graham? Why would he come here? I’m blown away.
Over the years, Kevin Graham has turned out to be something of my personal Jiminy Cricket, albeit with a sexy twist. He’s forever popping into my life at unexpected, potentially life changing moments, stopping me in my tracks, making me think things over. Back in high-school, Kevin ruled as dreamboat supreme, whizzing around on his shiny silver moped, all sun-streaked dark-blonde hair, bright blue eyes and endless eyelashes. If he wanted you, there was no escape. I should know; I tried to resist.
One Saturday night, while I was babysitting for the neighbours, he turned up to keep me company. Within a week he was giving me my first full medical in the comfort of his parents’ waterbed. He’s a bit naughty, Kevin Graham! Naughty, but oh-so-nice.
“Why’s he coming here? This island is so not him. He’s a Martha’s Vineyard type of guy.”
“Business. He’s opening a spa. And guess what else? He wants you to paint chandeliers for him! He was here last month; we ran into each other at the Bamboozled Bar. I invited him for dinner and he went crazy over the chandelier you made me. He wants to commission a series of them for Alba Latina. That’s the name of his spa. It sounds like it’s going to be amazing. And such a great opportunity for you!” She rubs her solar plexus triumphantly. “Am I not the best? You’ll see, soon you’ll be famous. Movie stars, rock stars, they’ll all want your stuff in their houses!”
Hmmm… Let’s not get completely carried away here. “How was Kevin? Did you tell him about Richard and me?”
“Of course I did. He was really sorry. He’s such a nice, genuine guy. Pity you didn’t marry him.”
I’ve heard this before. I’ve even wondered about this before.
“Anyway, he said he was dying to see you. He initially hoped to be here when you arrived, but something came up.”
“I can just imagine,” I chuckle. “One particular area of his anatomy tends to come up with alarming regularity.”
“Gemma! Such a one-track mind! Anyway, he had to fly back to California to take care of business.”
“Is he still hot?” I ask, as she rummages through a pile of garbage on the floor and extricates a grubby cassette.
“Calientissimo,” she laughs.
“As hot as Emilio?”
“Come on. He’s ten years older than Emilio, it’s not the same. He’s got more squishy bits. But personally, I think he’s way hotter than Emilio. Emilio’s so perfect he’s almost… I don’t know, plastic?”
“Plastic? He is not!”
“Whatever. Anyway, at least Kevin wants to give you some work.” Then she punches the old cassette into the tape deck.
We chug home in the company of Ricky Martin. Emilio Caliente, eat your heart out.
Chapter 3
Judging from the distressed noises the car made as it limped along the dirt track leading from the main road to Celeste’s casita last night, I doubt we’ll ever get out of here again. Her dirt track could be used to test drive off-road vehicles. Not that I feel the urge to go anywhere today because, courtesy of Rioja, I have the great-grandmother of headaches.
I vaguely recall singing a good portion of Ricky Martin’s repertoire on the way to Celeste’s, as well as ranting obscenities against the entire male population of the cosmos while Celeste made appropriate appeasing noises. I definitely recall her producing the infamous bottle of red wine, along with thimble-sized Moroccan glasses and a packet of killer Spanish cigarettes. We used the thimbles for a while, but with a temporary hormone imbalance (too much testosterone running through my veins?), I soon began swigging from the bottle. Celeste, never a party pooper, followed my lead.
I feel gruesome.
I suppose I could claim that temporary insanity caused me to drink myself oblivious last night. With the amount of emotional garbage I’ve accumulated over the past few months, surely I’ve earned my right to spend at least a couple of weeks viewing my life through the newest, trendiest and rosiest Gucci sunglasses? I’ve lost my husband to the Meanie from Munich, left the comfort of my chi-chi apartment for a mattress on the floor in a tiny house with no electricity, and ridiculed myself with overaged bimbo behaviour in front of a world-renowned popstar. I’m supposed to be taking control of my life, starting my own business, finally doing what I’ve wanted to do for quite some time: take regular old glass chandeliers found in flea markets and junk shops, and transform them into multicoloured, sparkling, fabulous objects of desire. Like the chandelier I transformed for Celeste two years ago. The one Kevin saw. It hangs above her dining-room table and has, she assures me, become the talk of the island. This seems a little far-fetched in my opinion, but hey, this is Ibiza! Anything is possible, anything goes. Today however, I feel about as multicoloured, sparkling and fabulous as Richard’s sock drawer.
If this is the first day of the rest of my life, I dread to think what tomorrow may bring. It’s nine in the morning and here I am in sweaty designer underwear, sprawled out on the sofa on Celeste’s terrace, featuring the sad remains of yesterday’s makeup. I have serious fishy fanny syndrome, lank hair and a hangover. I’m also very itchy, which is what you get in Ibiza, at this time of the year, when you fall asleep outside in nothing but your knickers. An army of insects has enjoyed a disco inferno on my body, leaving me looking like the dot-to-dot page in a kiddie’s activities book.
From the porcine snores coming from within the house, I gather that Celeste was sober enough to find her bedroom. My stomach makes a noise reminiscent of the Titanic in big trouble and I wonder if there’s anything to eat in her tiny fridge.
I struggle into a relatively upright position. My body feels as though it’s spent the night being manhandled by a team of world class boxers. I catch my reflection in the wrought iron mirror hanging on the wall opposite me and groan.
Where’s my phone? I urgently need a UPS delivery of Estée Lauder, Helena Rubinstein and La Prairie’s latest technology. Forget Urban Decay, I am already majorly urbanly decayed. My tongue is the colour of one of their scary nail polishes. My mouth feels like the bottom of a neglected birdcage. Smooching anyone for the next ten years would be a felony.
A sleepy, tangled-haired creature wearing a pale green cotton tunic emerges from the little house. Celeste isn’t at her best first thing in the morning. In my experience, few women are. Isn’t it funny how men usually scramble from their beds looking totally normal, whereas we crawl out with as much sex appeal as the Yeti? Celeste is stiff as a stick, her walk a cross between a wobble and a goosestep as she staggers over and flops down beside me, groaning. Her waist length, honey blonde hair looks as though it has no recollection of ever having encountered a hairbrush, falling over her face like mouldy seaweed. Her eyes are puffy and she has something not too kosher hanging out of her nose that she picks and flicks onto the terracotta-tiled floor.
“Thanks for leaving me out with the mosquitos,” I grumble, examining the alarming array of rapidly swelling welts erupting all over my stomach. A wave of nausea washes over me and I collapse back into the pink and gold sari cushions scattered on the couch.
Celeste half-opens an eye, wincing in the bright sunlight. “Don’t scratch, rub them with vinegar,” she says. “Actually, I don’t think there is any vinegar, so you might as well scratch.” She shrugs off my miffed expression. “Sorry! But you just passed right out on me, and I couldn’t possibly move you, you’re much too big.” She clears her throat noisily, frowning as she mulls things over. “I suppose that Emilio guy was pretty sexy. Pity about Los Gatos. But then again, just imagine him waking up with us geriatrics this morning.”
In fact there was a moment, namely between the time we dropped Emilio off at Los Gatos and the time we arrived home, when I did imagine the scene, but it only involved him waking up with one geriatric: moi, but that was pre-Riojafest. Waking up with a tanned, toned and tousled Emilio Caliente would have been disastrous. Right now, I can just picture myself, opening one eye, remembering last night’s sequence of events and cowering like a sheep about to be shorn, quaking beneath the bedcovers to spare him from apocalypse this morning. I shudder. “He’d have spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.”
“We could have kept him as a pet. Taken turns to stroke him. He did seem rather strokable, don’t you think? Lovely skin…”
“I knew it! You were lusting after him. Well, forget it, missy, I saw him first. And what about your poor Sebastien, braving the elements thousands of miles away in Nepal, doing his bit for the planet? Shouldn’t absence make the heart grow fonder?”
“Oh Gems! Chill! Sebastien and I are fine. I’ll call him later. And I was just kidding about Emilio. You’re bad.”
“Yeah, well, not really. Sometimes I wish I could be way, way badder in the debauchery department.” I squint at myself in the mirror. “God, I look really bad and feel even worse.” I sniff my left armpit and collapse. “Pwhoa!”
“There should be some hot water,” she says, lying back and stretching out in the sunshine. “Don’t hog it all, I’m not exactly daisy-fresh either. I’ll go and make us a cup of tea.”
I hover on the edge of the couch for a moment, listening to Celeste fixing breakfast, feeling the sun tickle my back, admiring the hot-pink bougainvillea scaling the whitewashed walls of the tiny house. Beyond the terrace, massive clouds of baby-blue plumbago mingle with belligerent giant cacti. The atmosphere is lush, tranquil and provocatively wild.
Which is just how I’d like to feel. Lush, tranquil and provocatively wild.
So I heave myself upright and stumble into the bathroom, place a large blue plastic basin underneath the showerhead and stand in it, concentrating hard on not falling over. Not very elegant, nothing like the TV commercial where the lovely lady practically has a citrus shower gel induced orgasm. This is more along the lines of a dodgy soap on a rope. But it works and the plumbago is thankful for the few litres of Eau de Fishy Fanny it receives when I emerge screeching two minutes later, my nipples on maximum alert due to water heater failure.
Wrapped in a sarong, I find the sunniest spot at the table on the terrace, then delve into a breakfast of black tea, stale wholemeal bread, slightly rancid butter and sweaty honey.
“Who needs hot water?” mumbles Celeste, a mixture of butter and honey dripping down her chin. “Cold water is far more… how shall I put it?”
“Celeste, trust me, cold is the only thing cold water is.” My thoughts drift longingly towards more luxurious territories. “I bet the water’s hot at Los Gatos.”
“Oh, come on, that place is over-hyped, over-priced and oozing with grease balls who need to boil their heads and shrink their egos.”
“Bar one,” I correct, picking something out of my front teeth. “But then again, Emilio’s probably stretched out in a tropical garden being massaged with ylang-ylang oil by six nymphs in thongs.” Celeste just yawns.
“My turn to take a shower,” she says, getting up and heading for the bathroom. Moments later, I hear muffled swearing as she endures cold trickle torture.
My suitcases are still in the car. It was pitch black last night and I was in no condition to face lugging them down the stony path. I hunt around for my shoes and finally discover them under a wet plumbago. I squelch up the hill to where Celeste parks her car and drag my cases back down to the house one by one. Then I make one last trip to recover the duty-free bag containing No Way!, Vogue, a bottle of Chanel’s Cristalle for Celeste and my phone.
I flop down on the terrace with another cup of tea and empty the contents of the duty-free bag onto the coffee table. Out fall an iPod, a copy of a Spanish fancy car magazine, a bottle of Guerlain’s Vetiver cologne and a phone.
I slurp my tea all over my sarong. “CELESTE! COME AND SEE, QUICK!”
Alarmed, she rushes out, eyes wide, dripping wet, stark naked and seriously tanned. Gradually, her puzzled expression becomes a delighted grin.
“You’ve got his things!” she squeals, grabbing her wet hair with one hand and twirling it around and around, sending droplets of water in all directions.
Just like that I’m wide-awake. “Better yet, honey! He’s got mine!”
Chapter 4
I impress Celeste by quickly figuring out Emilio’s phone code (he had a massive hit two years ago featuring the numbers five, six, seven and eight; mega fandom has its benefits) and we spend a large portion of the morning sitting on the terrace stark naked, downing organic coffee, Ibuprofen and semi-melted chocolate biscuits. We scroll through the contacts in Emilio Caliente’s phone, shrieking like teenagers at the list of celebrity names and phone numbers suddenly available to us commoners.
“What time is it in Beverly Hills? Do you think this is THE Brad?” says Celeste, waving the phone in my face. “Shall I try to call him?”
I grab the phone from her. I’m in full bubblehead mode. This is better than Christmas. “Are you demented? You can’t call Brad Pitt now! It’s the middle of the night where he lives! Let’s see who else there is.” I’m pounding on buttons, scrolling up and down.
“Here’s a Tom C.! Bloody hell! Get a pen and paper!
Want to find out what happens next? Just Like A Movie is available on Amazon
OMG, this book sounds like so much fun. What's the heat level?