Chapter XXXIV. Hike Up Your Skirt a Little More.
XXXIV.
HIKE UP YOUR SKIRT A LITTLE MORE.
FRIDAY. LATE.
As the girls made their way through the tangle of winding, palm-lined paths, down toward the oceanfront, Cecilia was aware of how much shorter her gait was than Anouk’s.
She was speed walking-jogging-shuffling to keep up.
Her sandals beating a discordant rhythm on the stone walkway.
She’d begun to feel woozy from the erratic movement.
The tequila, the snaking path, the sight of the blood, the fluttering of Anouk’s silk dress—at once surreal and vivid, like an Enrique Badulescu, she thought.
The conversation at dinner was still replaying in her head.
“There’s always one. On every job, there’s always one. ”
“Are you okay?” Anouk had stopped suddenly, Cecilia nearly bumping into her from behind.
“I hope so.”
“You’re breathing heavily.”
“You walk fast.”
Anouk laughed. “Hold your hand up, above your heart. Not down by your side,” she directed, reaching out for Cecilia’s arm and folding it gently at the elbow. “I’ll walk slower, promise.”
Cecilia knew the accommodations at Querencia Bay far exceeded those at Casa Azul, but she was shocked by just how much.
It took a moment to unstick herself from the entrance when Anouk opened the door to her oceanfront suite.
The airy great room with its marble floors and doors of glass looking out onto the sea.
The palette of soothing blues and beige.
To Cecilia, it even smelled expensive. And she could not help but feel envious, reflecting on the cramped space and stucco ceiling back at her motel.
The waxy floral bedspread that had certainly seen some things.
The faulty air conditioner that dripped water onto the uneven tiles below.
The fluorescent bathroom lighting. Cecilia had worked assiduously to get into an Ivy League school.
She knew plenty about her chosen craft, and yet this close to thirty she was still paying her dues.
And here was this teenager, who was staying in the kind of resort Cecilia could only dream of because she’d randomly won the genetic lottery.
“The kit is in the bathroom,” Anouk said then. “I’ll go and get it. Make yourself at home.”
Cecilia smiled. She did not want to resent this young woman who had gone out of her way to be kind the entire shoot when others hadn’t. Cecilia was better than that. “Thank you,” she added, warmly.
“Pas de problème.”
As Anouk disappeared into the bedroom, Cecilia made her way through the modern space.
To one side facing out toward the glass doors, there was a large sofa and ottoman.
To the other a dining area, a credenza, a wet bar.
Scattered across the dining table Cecilia noticed a cluster of note cards, covered in elegant line drawings.
Seascapes, palm trees, clouds. Was this the collage Anouk had mentioned last night on the beach?
“Still lifes,” she had said, to hold on to her memories of a certain place.
With her good hand Cecilia traced her fingers over the linen paper, the black lines Anouk had drawn. Anouk was an enigma. A nut she wanted to crack.
The French girl appeared then in the entrance to the bedroom, a toiletry bag in hand.
She’d removed her shawl and pinned her hair back into a messy updo, bringing into relief her sharp shoulders, her exquisite collarbones.
Cecilia was suddenly aware of the material of Anouk’s dress: the way it moved over her breasts, the plane of her stomach, her hips.
She felt a wave of something travel through her body—immediate, intense—and did her best to ignore it.
“Did you draw these?”
“I did.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“Merci.”
“Are they part of your collage? You said you’d show me.”
Anouk smiled. “I did. But let’s get you cleaned up first, yes?”
Cecilia followed her over to the wet bar, where Anouk laid out her supplies. Gauze pads, Band-Aids, an array of travel-sized gadgets, two kinds of antibiotic ointments. Anouk was a regular French pharmacy.
She proceeded to unwrap and wash Cecilia’s hand. Her manner gentle, soothing.
“It doesn’t look too bad. Not wide, not too deep. You’ll live,” she said after a moment. “No stitches, but we should look if there is more glass.”
Cecilia nodded in agreement. She’d been watching the way Anouk’s mouth moved when she spoke.
The way her upper lip protruded and glided over her teeth.
Like a dance. The choreography decidedly un-American.
She was so transfixed, she almost missed Anouk procuring a pair of tweezers from her tool kit. Almost.
“Waitwaitwait.”
“I have alcohol in the minibar.”
“I’ve had enough to drink, just give me a second. Do you have music?”
“I do.” Anouk slipped back into the bedroom and returned with a travel case of CDs. She plucked one, seemingly randomly, and inserted it in the stereo on the far side of the room.
A riotous guitar riff rang out, strident and familiar. Cecilia smiled: the Edge. Like a shot of adrenaline. By the time Bono’s hissing vocals came in, she was in a good place. A safe place. The tequila working its magic. “The Fly.”
“All right,” she said, edging up onto the bar, leaning back against the wall and closing her eyes. She allowed the music to move through her for a moment more before proffering her open palm. “I’m ready.”
For the minute or so that Anouk picked through her flesh, Cecilia was transported. Some place light and happy where nothing could touch her. Not the discomfort of the tweezer. Not the throbbing pain. Not the di Varenna drama. Not her tension with Lorry.
“Okay,” Anouk announced when she was done. “You’re glass-free.”
She rinsed Cecilia’s hand once more, and then dressed the wound, wrapping it expertly with a small bandage. When she was done, she stood directly across from her, her hips parallel to Cecilia’s knees.
For a second Anouk was still. The song had stopped, then started again. And without speaking, she lifted Cecilia’s bandaged hand to her face and kissed the palm, slow. Once. Twice. “All better?”
At another time, in another place, Cecilia might have analyzed the gesture.
Dissected Anouk’s intentions, calculated the proper response, drawn a mental spreadsheet of all the things that could go wrong.
But tonight, she was not listening to reason.
She was listening to U2. Larry’s drums and Adam’s bass pounding in her chest. Bono’s words.
And so when she had the impulse to twist her hand around Anouk’s wrist and pull her further into her, she followed it. “All better.”
Anouk smiled.
Cecilia edged forward on the bar, her legs parting, her thighs encircling the girl’s hips.
She waited a half minute for Anouk to recoil, resist, and when she didn’t, Cecilia leaned all the way in and kissed her.
Tentatively, at first. And then a second time.
Her lips brushing gently over Anouk’s plump ones.
How soft they were, ripe. So different from Lorry’s.
It was Anouk who moved in for the third kiss, lips parted, an invitation. Cecilia accepted. The unexpected thrill of her tongue, the sweet saltiness of strawberry margarita, the soft wetness of her mouth. Her beautiful mouth.
Cecilia had never kissed a girl and was surprised at how pleasant she found it. The tenderness, the lack of stubble and hard angles, the way it felt like velvet. The warm amber smell of Anouk’s skin, her hair tickling the side of Cecilia’s face. All of it was new. Intoxicating.
It’s no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest, Bono lulled.
The meaning was not lost on Cecilia. But for the moment, she held it at bay.
Anouk had freed her hands from Cecilia’s grasp and moved both to her thighs. Casual at first, and then deliberate, easing beneath Cecilia’s dress, pressing against her flesh.
Cecilia flinched.
So this is how the French do it, she thought, in her alcohol- and injury-induced haze. No unnecessary conversations, no second-guessing, no wasting time. No denying pleasure. Anouk saw what she wanted and went for it. Come up and see my etchings, indeed.
Her hands had moved to the insides of Cecilia’s legs, and Cecilia could feel herself responding. For fuck’s sake, who was this girl?
And then it dawned on her. That Anouk was the talent, and she, Cecilia, was working on behalf of the client, and in the hierarchy of things what she was doing was decidedly wrong. “I should, um…” She pulled away. “I should go.”
“Go where?”
“Back. To the others. We should go back. They’re going to wonder. We should—”
Anouk placed three of her fingers against Cecilia’s mouth to silence her, and Cecilia stilled. Her fingertips smelled faintly like iron. The blood, Cecilia realized. And before she could protest again, Anouk moved in to kiss her, taking Cecilia’s bottom lip in her mouth.
“Okay,” Anouk said, after a moment, pulling away. “We can go back. If you want…”
For a second, Cecilia didn’t speak, drinking her in.
“Is that what you want?” she repeated.
“No.” Cecilia smiled. “No. But, I’m working. I shouldn’t be here. In your room. I have to go.” She inched forward on the counter. Ostensibly to leave, but in effect it only drew their bodies closer together. The exhilaration of Anouk’s nipples pressing against her through the silk of her dress.
Anouk’s hand slid farther up Cecilia’s thigh, her fingers tracing over the surface of her panties.
Cecilia froze. She was already wet, and there was little she could do to conceal it.
“I really have to go,” she repeated, but she did not move.
And for another minute, she remained there. Allowing it to happen.
Someone was laughing just outside Anouk’s bungalow.
Multiple someones. Cecilia could not identify them, but she knew they were from the di Varenna group, and before Anouk could stop her, she jumped down from the bar, pushed her way past her, and darted across the room.
“I have to go. Thank you, for the Band-Aid, and … everything. Thank you.”
And with that she was out the door.
It was a few meters up on the path where she spotted Elliot, turning off onto one of the narrower walkways. He was giggling at someone just beyond the bend, out of Cecilia’s vision.
“Didn’t realize it was a race. Are we racing? You’re going to trip, and then we’ll have to explain to the lot why…” His voice trailed off as he moved farther away. Elliot. Giggling. Elliot, the pensive one. With the girlfriend back in Oxford.
Cecilia was tempted to follow him around the corner and see whom exactly he was pursuing.
But then she’d likely have to explain her own state of affairs.
Flustered, flushed, and fleeing from Anouk’s suite.
So wet she felt as if she were gliding. She decided it wasn’t worth the risk and headed back up to the restaurant and the others.
She prayed they would not ask questions.
They hadn’t been gone for that long, had they?
And the dressing Anouk had constructed around her hand looked as if it had taken considerable time.
If they asked, she thought, she’d tell them there were lots of shards of glass and the extraction took forever. She was pretty sure they’d buy that.
Half the party had dispersed. Including Jaya and Katrine, whose flights were early in the morning.
Cecilia would never get her eye cream. Only a handful of the Italians and the assistants were clustered around the far end of the table, smoking cigarettes and nursing their various digestifs.
The banter had somewhat cooled, but Cecilia could feel tension in the air. An awkward heaviness.
“How goes it?” Marc asked as Cecilia planted herself in the free seat beside him.
“Well, I’m probably not going to die,” she said, holding up her bandaged hand.
“Did she take you to the medic?”
“No. She did it herself.”
Marc’s eyebrows raised in response as he scrutinized the dressing. “No fucking way. Nice job, Anouk. Look at you, bagging Christy Turlington Nightingale.”
“Bagging?” Cecilia laughed nervously, lowering both her voice and her gaze. She could not look him in the eye. “She plucked glass out of my hand, Marc. That’s hardly bagging.”
“Whatever.”
“There was a lot of glass. A lot.”
He laughed. “Thou doth protest too much, Miss Chen. No worries. You do what you want to do. You’re an adult.”
Cecilia was reluctant to refute, lest she dig herself deeper.
“You are an adult, correct?” Marc smirked.
“Last time I checked.”
“Good. Come on. Let’s head back to our hovel. Some of us have to work in the morning. Although it’ll be interesting to see how you’ll handle it with one hand.”
“I’ll manage.”
“I’m sure you will.”