Three Sicily
Three
Sicily
2006
Sicily allows herself a sip from her water bottle, but she doesn’t let her speed lag as her feet beat down on the treadmill. She’s covered in a sheen of sweat and her calf is beginning to cramp, but at least the view is nice.
The treadmill has been placed before a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over Hyde Park from the top floor of her favorite boutique-hotel penthouse suite, where she can see the snow blanketing the forested paths beneath her. The quiet monochrome landscape is a welcome sight after the glitzy sprint of twelve sold-out concert dates across Europe. And her respite here in London is brief—there are only a few more shows to come.
A beep sounds from the treadmill: she’s been running for sixty minutes. The machine is a top-of-the-line model that keeps track of miles, speed, heart rate, calories burned, you name it. Sicily has it shipped around with her whenever she spends more than three days in one place. That way she can maintain her strict training regimen: running for at least an hour, training with one of her backup dancers—who’s also a certified Pilates instructor—and sticking to a high-protein, low-carb diet. Toned, taut, and tanned—that’s her mantra. Although it’s hard to stay tanned in Northern Europe, which is why she’ll be visiting an exclusive salon on Bond Street before dinner.
Coincidentally, that mantra is the same for her team: Mom, Dad, Uncle Henry (who really is her uncle as well as her booking agent), and her cousin Jim, who manages security. Even Emmylou, her makeup and hair artist, and Kendra, her personal assistant, are family members, all from the same small town in northern Arkansas. Sicily’s father, Day, is her manager, and her mother, Carole, is director of communications, which means she puts her former telemarketer voice to use working with promoters and record-company publicists.
It really is a family affair. It surprised, and then gratified, and then alarmed Sicily—just a little—to see how they all rallied around her, adjusting to her stage name without missing a beat. When Sicily had auditioned for Kidz Klub , her real name was Cecilia. But her parents were more than on board when the casting agent suggested a change. Actually, the casting agent’s assistant didn’t know how to spell “Cecilia” and wrote “Sicily” instead. So Sicily’s new name was just a mistake.
But Sicily has always rolled with the punches, and the path of least resistance is to be easygoing with her family members. Fortunately, it comes naturally to her. It feels good to be a good daughter, cousin, niece. And Sicily knows better than to complain. It wasn’t as though they were dirt poor before Kidz Klub , but there was plenty of coupon clipping, passing around of hand-me-downs from one cousin to the next, buying shoes at the Salvation Army. Cracking open the swear jar for Dairy Queen on birthdays and holidays was the pinnacle of luxury. The family has come a long way from Boone County, now having more than they know what to do with. Sicily is happy to provide. The operation is a finely tuned machine—and she’s the engine.
When poor Miranda got her injury near the end of Kidz Klub , Sicily saw how hard she leaned on the pills and where that eventually led her: rock bottom. So when Sicily twisted her ankle onstage one night, all she took was Tylenol and an ice pack. A little overnight elevation. The show must go on.
In the Bell family, everyone is there to support you with love and prayer. You don’t need a shrink or drugs or a fancy doctor telling you to take time off and laze around. They traveled as a pack and would always be there to protect Sicily.
Sicily thinks this is sweet and nice for the most part, except that they want to protect her from Miranda and Germaine, too. Bad influences, they say.
“You need to keep your eye on the prize,” Day had told her, and Sicily knows what that means. Go from starlet to star and take the whole family with you, spreading the wealth around. They deserve it, after all, for everything they’ve done to help her.
Another beep sounds. But this is from Sicily’s phone, not the treadmill. Her heart skips forward as she reads the text, the same way it does at the end of every show when she’s waving goodbye to an arena of screaming fans.
Outside , it says.
A wide grin spreads across her face. The message is from Hugo, the tall, cute one with loads of thick locks from the boy band No Exit. They opened for her in Paris—could that have been only two weeks ago? It feels like she’s known Hugo forever, memorized his floppy hair, his British accent, his dimples, his biceps tattoo of Lord Byron— The bad-boy poet of his generation, Hugo had said—by heart. He makes her swoon. He wears velvet jackets with ripped jeans and custom Doc Martens studded with mini skulls. He makes her want to run away with him to some remote place and leave their lives behind.
Sicily towels off and rushes around the suite, yanking a brush through her hair, grabbing a hoodie, and spritzing herself with perfume—Victoria’s Secret Love Spell, which feels a little too on the nose, but she’s been wearing it since 1999 whenever she’s needed a boost of good luck. Who says you can’t keep wearing the same perfume you wore at fourteen years old? If it ain’t broke ...
She pulls the hood tightly around her head and grabs her key card from the bathroom counter. She has ninety minutes before the tanning appointment; everyone knows she’s running and then taking a shower, so they won’t be looking for her.
And honestly, she is still running—down the back stairwell, where no one will see her; not the front desk, not the paparazzi, not her entourage. Sicily is breathless by the time she reaches the alley where Hugo is parked in his Audi TT. If she was still hooked up to the treadmill, her heart rate would be even higher than normal at the thought of touching him.
Sicily knows what Germaine would say: Not another crush, Sis! Sicily talks to her every week or so, but she’s conveniently forgotten to mention Hugo so far. Germaine’s interests are more aloof, focused on big projects and new ideas, and Sicily knows G thinks she always falls too hard and fast for any pretty-boy charmer who manages to break through the family barricades. G would remind her, if she were here right now, that Sicily has managed to get her heart broken by two backup dancers, a tour physio, her cousin’s college roommate, a record-company exec in Nashville, and Lenny G, another former cast member in Kidz Klub , despite being one of the biggest pop stars in the world at the tender age of twenty-one.
There was someone else, too, someone who Sicily thought was her first love until he got too forward with her at the age of fourteen and dumped her like she was nothing when she said she didn’t feel ready. But Germaine didn’t know that, and Sicily wouldn’t allow herself to think of his name anymore.
It is Miranda who would have been sympathetic to Sicily’s falling in and out of love, even though it was mostly the guy doing the falling out and Sicily who was always left devastated. But Miranda is hard to get ahold of at the moment. And she doesn’t know what it’s like to be unlucky in love, having been as hot and heavy with TLOYL as she has for over two years. The only reason they’re not together right now is because—well, their respective vices got them in trouble.
But inwardly, Sicily’s been worried about Miranda. She was just as outraged, just as sympathetic as Germaine when Miranda called them with the news about Horizons, joined in with God, that sucks and It’s totally unfair and half-joking promises to go on a rescue mission with G to bail Miranda out.
And yet Sicily saw how easily she could have spiraled down the same path with one small injury. She can’t imagine having a break from the world like Miranda’s been forced to do. Sicily feels guilty for thinking so, but in some ways six weeks of quiet time and limited contact with the outside world sounds like a luxury.
But Sicily would never let the machine stop like that.
The Audi is there where he said it would be, idling in the alley with the lights off. Though she wants to look cool and collected like Germaine does, Sicily can hardly help herself from grinning from ear to ear and scrambling into the passenger seat.
Miranda might be going through a tough spot. But still, she doesn’t know what it’s like to be rejected the way Sicily has. So pretty! So talented! She writes all her own songs! everyone raves about her. But she hasn’t been pretty and talented enough that any guy stays interested in her for more than three months, max.
“You’re in love with love,” her mother likes to say. “Focus on your career first, and the rest will follow.”
Sicily has been focusing on her career, and now she’s in love with Hugo. And everything will change—she knows it. She’s already writing a song about him: “So Bad, So Good.” What’s more career focused than that?
But she’s sneaking around because she just needs a little more time with Hugo before doing the whole meet-the-parents thing.
The wicked smile on Hugo’s face when she climbs into the car is irresistible. He kisses her immediately, slowly, deeply, before she can even shut the door.
“We have an hour,” she murmurs into his lips.
He clucks his tongue, pouting. “I wanted to take you up to Hampstead Heath and seduce you under the trees.”
Sicily wants to tell him to just go, then, take her there; who cares what happens? The way he speaks and looks at her makes her ache, makes her want to commit to wildly irresponsible decisions. She’s used to adoring fans, but the earnestness in Hugo’s face makes her feel like the most special, most loved girl in the world. The two of them may be skyrocketing to fame, but his sensual, quiet demeanor gives her the distinct feeling that they would have found each other in other lives, too. They might have met on the street and spent the rest of their days together. Their time now is always unbearably short.
But Sicily will not let the machine stop.
“Let’s see what else you can do in an hour,” she makes herself say, savoring the way this intensifies the desire in his gaze. He steps on the gas without even taking his eyes off her, and they fly into the frozen streets.
Hugo has just moved into a tiny mews house not too far from Hyde Park. He parks in the street, and they nearly run through the courtyard, Sicily shrieking as he scoops her up and carries her through the door, over boxes and around furniture covered in sheets. He starts up the stairs and then stops on the landing as she kisses his neck, pressing her back against the wall as she buries her hands in his hair.
“I forgot,” he murmurs into her ear. “The bed’s not set up yet.”
“Not a problem,” Sicily whispers back, and then he’s unzipping her hoodie, pulling his shirt over his head and kicking off his jeans and boxers while Sicily yanks off her yoga pants. He pins her to the wall with his hips while she wraps around him, breathing him in, responding to the rhythms of his body.
“I think I just might be in love with you,” she sighs as she clings to his broad shoulders. It spills out of her even though she hadn’t meant to say it—not yet.
As he slows, he kisses the hollow just above her clavicle and runs his thumb along her cheek. “You’re something very special, Sicily Bell.”
She looks into his eyes and wants to say it again, wants to ask him to run away with her, to tell her his darkest secrets.
But he grabs her hand before she can. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
Sicily moves for her clothes, but Hugo pulls her away.
“You won’t be needing those,” he says in a low, playful voice.
He leads her the rest of the way up the stairs, and then up another flight, until they’re on the threshold of the rooftop terrace. It’s going on evening now, getting dark, getting late—but Sicily doesn’t want to mention this.
He steps out onto the roof, still naked as a jaybird.
“Hugo!” Sicily hisses.
He grins at her, daring. “No one can see us. C’mere.”
She’ll do anything he tells her. So she follows, wrapping her arms around herself due to the cold wind until Hugo presses warmth against her, taking her in his arms.
“It’s my second-favorite view,” he says, nodding out at the neighborhood of twinkling lights and parlor windows that emit a soft glow. The bustle of the city sounds far away. Down the street, a few people emerge from a café, laughing.
Hugo rests his chin on the top of her head, then pulls back and looks at her. “You want to know what my first-favorite view is?”
Sicily smiles and rolls her eyes, though she loves it. She could listen to him say things like that all day. He kisses her once, twice, and then she’s melting again. Feverish and hot even in the winter air.
Hugo lowers her onto the floor of the terrace and envelops her again, right there in the open. Sicily thinks absently that the pattern of the tiles will be printed onto her back. She’ll need to keep her robe right up until she gets into the tanning booth—her mother notices everything.
But right now Sicily is helpless to Hugo’s advances, absolute putty in his hands. She can’t think of anything more romantic, more thrilling, more wrong than what they’re doing right now.
As the Audi slips back through the darkening streets to the hotel, Sicily knows she has to say it. Even though she doesn’t want to.
“I’m only in London two more days.” It comes out quiet in the luxury interior of the car, both a statement and a question.
When he only looks regretfully at her and pulls into the alley next to the hotel, she adds, “The next leg of my tour is in Canada. I hear it’s beautiful this time of year.”
Hugo parks. He lifts her hand and brings it to his lips, running his thumb over her knuckles.
“You know I’ll go anywhere with you,” he says.
Joy blooms inside her. She knew it would be different this time. She knew.
Hugo gives her hand one more kiss, then guides it down to the zipper of his jeans.
“Something to remember you by?” he asks, a mock pout on his face.
“You are insatiable,” she says, shaking her head, but she does it, even though she needs to go. She’ll do anything for him.
When Sicily arrives in Canada and texts Hugo, he texts back that he’s sorry, so sorry, love, but No Exit picked up gigs in Italy and Spain; it wasn’t his decision. They’re about to begin recording a new album. Their manager thinks it could be really major this time.
Sicily understands. She rolls with the punches. She’s easygoing.
They’ll meet up in the spring, they decide, when Sicily will be taking a short break in LA before the summer tour launches.
It will be on this short break that Sicily will miss a period, suddenly become fatigued when working on dance routines she could do in her sleep. The 3AM Girls will be the first to know; Kendra can’t be trusted with something this big.
Sicily will hide it from her parents as long as she can. But soon the truth will come out even to Hugo: she’s pregnant.