Chapter 21
We are given a comfort break, while the crew set up the next part of the challenge. I do hope we don’t have to actually taste each other’s mocktails for real. I saw Brad drop a slice of melon on the floor and casually fling it back in the blender when he thought no one was looking.
‘I guess we should talk,’ Giovanni says to me. He looks as shocked as I feel. I bat him away and use the reverse psychology I’ve trained my whole life for.
‘We all know you were just joking around. Puft! No one ever means what they say in here anyway. They just think they do.’
‘Yeah, bro. Totally like yeah,’ he says, looking bewildered. ‘And like no. You know?’
Nope.
‘Totally.’ I scuttle away from him to find the Tree House for a quick breather.
At the last second, I risk a quick visit to the blind spot, desperate to hear what Cam has made of my performance in the mocktail challenge and also to see what he thinks of this amazing bikini I am wearing, but a runner approaches as I hurry along.
‘If you’re off to the toilets, can you not wipe any of the mocktail off your hair, face or bikini, please?
It’s for continuity. And Porscha says don’t sit down or touch anything because if you stain it, she will…
erm, she will…’ The runner looks down to her clipboard at some imaginary notes.
She flips a page up and down searching for ways to say Porscha has threatened to karate kick me in the throat, kill me or worse.
I stop walking. ‘It’s okay. I understand. I’ll go back to the outdoor kitchen.’
‘And just one other thing?’ she says, staring down at her notes and back up to me.
‘You said you don’t like pineapple. Is that an allergy thing because I’m pretty sure almost everyone put some in their mocktails…
but also…’ She looks back down, flicks a page over and scans the text.
‘Didn’t we see you with a bottle of pineapple juice yesterday? ’
Fudge.
‘Erm, yes. Yes, you did. Because I do like it. But today, I’m just not feeling the vibe. You know?’
What complete and utter bollocks. She will never buy it.
‘Okay. Cool.’
She walks away as though our entire conversation made sense.
* * *
After the tasting round, which got very, very messy, most of the Islanders hurry back to the villa to take showers and get ready for the evening’s firepit visit from Destiny.
I hang back in the outdoor kitchen in the hopes that Cam might try to contact me in some way because of the numerous mentions of pineapple, even though I am sticky with mocktails.
I’m just about to give up when I see a downcast Mimi walking out of the PANTRY.
She glances at me and looks quickly away.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask her quietly. ‘Did you get pulled by a producer for a chat?’
She looks warily around, whispering, ‘Yeah. She had the cheek to say I’m being too needy towards Giovanni.’ Her voice is almost inaudible. ‘She wants me to make him jealous. But how can I? Now that he’s in love with you?’
‘No, he isn’t. He was just messing about. Probably trying to make you jealous. I’m sure he’d love it if you pulled him for a chat.’
‘Really?’ Mimi cheers up a bit. ‘In IRL I never usually have a problem with guys. But in here, everyone is so damn gorgeous that I feel like if we all act like divas, it can’t possibly work. There’s no… what do you call it?’
‘There’s no hierarchy,’ I say, warming to the subject. It’s just like being back in the classroom.
‘Yeah. It’s like we are all the popular kids so none of us are the popular kids, if you know what I mean?’
She has a valid point. ‘I do, Mimi. You all have such an unreasonably high sense of self-importance, requiring constant and excessive adoration that it’s hard for any of you to stand out sufficiently.’
Mimi nods in agreement. ‘Yes, that’s it.’
‘And, thanks to delusional parenting, you all feel that you deserve privileges and special treatment.’ I give her a sympathetic look. ‘So, of course, you’re all going to be easily upset at the slightest criticism or knock-back.’
‘Like me with Giovanni,’ Mimi says.
‘You might feel your self-worth plummet like a lead balloon just because he looks at someone else. I see it in class, all the time. My students are incredibly needy for attention. In fact, it makes them very hard to be around.’
Mimi is making soothing, understanding noises. ‘They sound like high-maintenance bitches.’
‘They can be,’ I say.
‘How old are they? These students you teach? College, is it?’
‘Eight years old.’
She looks surprised. ‘They start young these days, huh?’
‘By the way, you can’t say “in IRL”. It’s either “in real life” or just “IRL”.’ I might as well help her with sentence structure and basic semantics.
‘Sure thing. Okay. Good chat. See you later.’ Mimi is unsure of how to handle this information overload and bolts off back towards the bar full of mocktails and I am left alone. I look swiftly around and down at my phone. Nothing from Cam.
* * *
I’ve never felt more like a teacher than I have since slip-sliding through the doors of this villa, but it feels nice. After I’ve brushed my teeth and wiped off all the dried juice from my face, I’m just heading back from a vigorous shower when I bump slap bang into Amber.
‘Thank God. You have to help me, Libby.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Mimi.’
‘What about Mimi?’
‘Come see for yourself.’
I quickly throw on the Love on the Island fluffy dressing gown.
Amber takes my hand and drags me down a brightly lit corridor into the main bedroom.
I’d forgotten how huge it is. It’s more of a light aircraft hangar than a bedroom.
There are double beds as far as the eye can see.
There are suggestive pieces of fruit-and-veg-themed art hanging over each one.
Aubergines and so on. Amber raises her arm and points down the room.
Mimi is bouncing from bed to bed like a five-year-old.
She’s squealing nonsense and high-fiving people who are lying in bed trying to rest.
‘We’re so sick of her. It was bad enough that we were up through the night.
Then we were forced to wake up and “do” breakfast even though most of us had only just had supper, and now we’ve just done back-to-back filming of two challenges that have basically put most of us in a sugar coma.
We’re just so disoriented, we have no idea of whether we’re coming or going. ’
Amber looks exhausted. They all look exhausted.
I watch Mimi leap on top of Carlton to twerk in his face.
Then she moves onto Binky and does the same.
Now, she’s demanding they all hug and twiddle fingers with her.
She’s stretching out her arms as though she’s Madonna on stage, reaching down to touch fingertips with her fans.
She has the look of a spooked horse. I recognise a mammoth sugar rush when I see one. I hope I’m not around when she crashes.
‘It’s like watching a sexually incontinent puppy. But Amber, what do you want me to do about it?’
She looks at me as though it’s obvious. ‘You’re the teacher. You tell her to stop it. She’ll listen to you.’
‘No, she won’t. I’m not that sort of teacher.’
‘What sort of teacher are you?’
The wimpy sort who is fine with children but, when it comes to authority figures, does what she is told, even though she knows she is being taken advantage of. That sort.
‘Please,’ pleads Amber. ‘Say something. She has been like this for over an hour. She’s so desperate for Carlton or Giovanni or someone to find her likeable. I feel kinda sorry for her.’
She’s right. Mimi will end up having a catastrophic breakdown if she carries on like this.
It’s just like after lunchtime when parents have packed the lunchboxes full of breakfast bars, bags of sweets, chocolate bars and a token piece of fruit because they’ve forgotten to make anything healthy for their kids to eat.
It makes them high as kites. Plus, it’s as though she’s forgotten our entire conversation from earlier about self-worth.
‘Mimi,’ I bellow down the room.
Everyone looks up with startled expressions.
‘Come here!’ I boom at her, amazed that she stops bouncing, climbs off the bed and walks gingerly up to me. ‘Can I have a word?’ I say in a low, threatening tone. It works like a charm on my deranged psychopaths in Year Three. ‘Outside, please.’
She nods meekly as I step aside to allow her through first. I can see everyone else breathing a sigh of relief.
Amber mouths ‘Thank you’ and skips back to join the others.
We walk across the garden to the All The Feels secluded area and sit down. ‘What’s going on? Are you okay?’ I say, switching to my nice soft teacher voice.
I take one look at her crumpled face and instinctively throw my arms around her. She bursts into tears and starts wailing into my shoulder.
‘I’m… I’m… I’m…’
Insane? A fresh stream of tears prevents me from finding out. I rub her back gently and make soothing noises.
‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘It’ll all be okay.’
Mimi straightens, trying to wipe her face with her arm. The tears keep flowing, taking her make-up with them. In that moment, she reminds me of me. I cast my mind back to Lois comforting me night after night in the aftermath of our precious mother passing away.
‘Hey, don’t cry,’ I say to her. ‘I know we’re all here to find love, but you know what is much better than that?’
Mimi sniffs and shakes her head. ‘No. I don’t know.’
‘You are surrounded by badass women who care about you. No matter what happens with the guys, we have each other, right?’
Mimi is looking at me as though I have two heads.
Lois’s goodbye words come flooding back to me. ‘We have each other’s backs. Life is all about friendship and family, is what I’m saying. My sister told me to come in here and forget about the pressure to be popular, just be yourself and have fun getting to know people.’