59 Ginger
59
Ginger
I don’t know what I imagined when Rhys told me about his job in Ibiza, but this wasn’t it. I never thought the place would be so big, with all the people going wild inside, jumping and drinking to the rhythm of the music. I was amazed to see the spectacle as I was dragged up to the VIP lounge on the second floor, which looked down on the whole area. The floor seemed to be vibrating to the music.
I looked around and saw two guys and three girls, young, good-looking, and dressed for the occasion, not at all like me in my beach clothes with my face burned by the sun.
“Bro, you disappeared,” one of the guys said. He had an English accent and uncombed, dark curly hair.
“We thought you died,” a young blond added.
“Alec, this is Ginger, the girl I told you about.”
“What’s up, precious? Come here.” He motioned toward the empty seat next to him. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay with her till you’re done.”
“Cool. So this is Bean, Emily”—he pointed at the blond girl—“and her friends…”
“Helen and Gina.” They introduced themselves when they realized Rhys couldn’t remember their names.
“Right. Sorry. I gotta go…” He looked at me hesitantly.
“Relax, bro, I’ll take good care of her.” Alec wrapped his arm around my shoulders and lit a cigarette. I guess smoking was permitted in the VIP. Among many other things, as I had discovered. “Get out of here, Rhys.”
He looked back at me one more time and disappeared into the crowd. He had spoken to me already that afternoon about his friends. Or rather, his acquaintances. He’d been hanging out with them since he’d gotten here. He was closest to Alec, the nephew of the club’s owner.
“Where are you from?” he asked me.
I caught a bit of secondhand smoke and coughed. “London. You?”
“Me too,” he smiled. “So you’re Rhys’s best friend? Or so he told me. How’d you meet?” He took another drag of his cigarette, not letting me go.
“Long story.”
“I love long stories!” Emily shouted.
“Yeah, okay…well… I’d just broken up with my boyfriend, and I wanted to do something crazy, so I caught a plane to Paris. And I was trying to get a ticket for the subway, and… Rhys just appeared.”
“So then what happened?” I noticed Emily wasn’t wearing underwear when she crossed her legs in that tight fuchsia miniskirt.
“Mmm… We spent the whole night walking around Paris…”
“Who’d have ever guessed Rhys was so romantic?”
Alec laughed and everyone else went along.
“That’s not what I meant. We just became friends.”
“You look tense.” Alec massaged my right shoulder. “What do you want to drink? Bean, go find a server. I don’t know what the deal is, but we haven’t seen him over here for ten minutes,” he growled, looking at the empty glasses on the table.
“Look, Rhys just started,” Gina said.
I could feel a thumping in my chest, and I stood up and walked toward the railing with a smile on my face as I looked at the booth across from me. He was inside wearing his headphones, staring down at his mixing table, as the first notes blasted, slow, subtle, rising.
It was magical. Addictive. Absorbing. The way he moved his hands, the way he concentrated on what he was doing, isolated from the rest of the world, even if he was surrounded by hundreds of dancing people. I don’t know why, but as I watched him, I wanted to cry. From emotion. But also from something else…
Something deep, without a name…
“Fascinating, right?”
I flinched as I heard Emily’s voice next to me. I nodded, distracted, and accepted a drink from her, taking a sip. It was a little strong.
“He’s good,” I said.
“He’s better than good. This is just the beginning.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s going to be big. Trust me. Soon he’ll be swimming in cash, he’ll be at all the big festivals, and people will stop him in the street to ask for his autograph.”
I was about to ask aloud the question that was swimming through my mind, but in the end, I kept it to myself. What does big mean? How could someone describe their goals and dreams with words like that? My eyes were fixed on Rhys, on how absent he seemed, or lost in himself, as the colored lights flashed around him.
Not that I didn’t want something big for him… But I couldn’t stop thinking about all the little things that might be lost on the way. The things that shaped a person’s life. Things that glimmered less, but were full of smiles and love, emotions that added color to everyday life…
I don’t know how long I stood there entranced by him, trying to soak him in. When he was done, I was still standing there, my hair on end, a knot in my throat. I turned and saw Alec cutting lines of cocaine with the edge of his credit card on the table.
He looked up at me with a devilish grin.
“Save you one, babe?” he asked.
“No, thanks.” I sat down.
Uncomfortable. Nervous. Feeling out of place after my feelings had carried me away when I’d seen Rhys in the booth. Emily bent over one of the lines, holding a tiny tube, and inhaled.
Alec looked back at me when she was done. “You sure? It’s good stuff.”
Rhys appeared in the doorway before I could say no again. He looked first at me, then at the table, then narrowed his eyes.
“What are you doing offering her that stuff?” he shouted.
“Relax, bud. I was just trying to be a good host.”
“Shit.” Rhys ran a hand through his hair, then reached out for me. Something about him, a fragile look, made me take his hand. “We’re going, Ginger,” he said.
“Already?” Emily asked.
“Yeah, man, stay awhile. Give this a try. This is your shit,” Alec said, passing him the tube. Rhys shook his head, said goodbye, and dragged me out behind him. I blinked, confused, looking at his back, the tension in his shoulders, the sweat on the blond tips of his hair. The music enveloped us…
And I tried to fit my image of him into what I had just seen. Tried to make all the Rhyses come together as one, but I couldn’t. And he felt further away from me than ever.