Chapter XVIII. Infinite Sky. #2
There were fourteen of them at dinner. The crew minus most of the higher-ups.
And the talent minus Jaya. The mood was laid-back, casual, fun.
There was a mariachi band playing live music and multiple tequila shots, courtesy of Pietro, di Varenna’s sprightly photo editor, who insisted it was all going on his expense account.
After, when Cecilia was adequately inebriated, Kip and Stu, who’d canvassed much of the area with Maren while location scouting, suggested they head over to a nearby beach for an impromptu swim.
Upon arriving at the shore, both Marc and Kip produced a couple of spliffs and passed them around. Cecilia, who came from the class of Jamaican family that frowned upon that type of thing, refrained. Furthermore, she’d had three tequila shots at the restaurant and her judgment was already impaired.
She was still sitting, somewhat dazed, in the sand when the others began heading into the water.
The guys first, of course, disrobing haphazardly and galloping into the Gulf in various stages of undress.
Boxers, briefs, the three Italians completely naked.
“Last one in the water has the smallest penis!” Sandro yelled, which made them all laugh.
But the moon was waning that night, crescent, and it was near impossible for Cecilia to see that level of detail.
“Men are always so competitive,” Rafaella announced, stepping out of her sundress. She was wearing a matching black-lace bra and panty set, and for a forty-four-year-old who had birthed two kids, Cecilia thought she looked fabulous.
Several yards out, Elliot whistled like an appreciative construction worker.
“Jesus, Rafaella,” Katrine cried, wriggling out of her miniskirt. “You could have warned us you were Sophia Loren.”
Rafaella snorted, shaking out her thick curls. “Ma certo!” she tossed over her shoulder, before plunging into the sea.
Katrine, and Paola and Elisa, the stylist assistants, followed soon after.
Katrine in a hot-pink satin bikini and demicup bra that Cecilia recognized from the most recent Victoria’s Secret catalog.
And the latter two in boy shorts. Paola in a racerback tank that became translucent the second she hit the water.
And Elisa in a black Gucci microhalter that was decidedly too precious for salt water, and thus conveniently cast aside.
Cecilia was suddenly self-conscious. She could not recall what underwear she was wearing, but she was pretty sure it was not a matching set, nor lace.
She rarely packed those for work trips. Plus, she’d eaten two shrimp tacos and a ton of chips and guacamole at the restaurant, and the idea of being in a bra and panties in the company of supermodels and free-spirited European types made her exceedingly anxious.
“Are you not going in?”
“Um … I’m not feeling so great,” she said.
Anouk was standing before her, unbuttoning her denim shorts.
Her legs, long, slender, well-defined. Cecilia concluded that she must have been a dancer or an athlete of some sort back in the seventeenth arrondissement.
Over the past few days, she’d had ample time to observe the model’s features.
The planes of her face, the tautness of her body.
But this close, ogling her—without the express purpose of figuring out her light—felt brazen, dangerous.
Cecilia turned her attention to the sea, the guys swimming out in the middle distance.
“I hope it wasn’t something you ate,” Anouk said. “Or the water?”
“No, I think just … too much tequila.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe go over to the rocks and make yourself vomit, and then come in. Even if for a minute. You and Marc and the PAs work harder than the rest of us, you deserve a little fun, no?”
Cecilia laughed, looking back toward Anouk. She had stripped down to her underwear. Midnight-blue hipster briefs and a moss-green mesh bralette, the outline of her areola just discernible beneath the material. Her underwear did not match. And yet they … she … was perfect.
“You’re beautiful,” Cecilia said. Although she hadn’t planned to.
“Thank you.”
“I realize you probably hear that all the time, and that maybe it doesn’t even have meaning to you anymore, but—”
“No,” Anouk interrupted her. “It does. Thank you.”
For a moment both women remained still, each taking in the other. The space filled with the slow lapping of the waves, the laughter of the others far out in the distance, a balmy breeze.
“Go throw up and then come in the water with me,” Anouk said.
And then she turned and walked toward the shoreline.
Cecilia noted her smooth back, her firm ass, the length of her thighs. Something about her was both feminine and boyish and Cecilia found the combination surprisingly alluring.
“Fuck it,” she said under her breath. And then she stood, peeled off her shorts and tee, and joined the others in the surf. She wasn’t that sick after all.