Chapter 3 #2
The girl – Ashley, what a name! – is very tall and slim.
Lithe, CJ finds herself thinking, a bit Gwyneth Paltrow fifteen years ago, with her green eyes and light dusting of freckles, and fine long blonde hair.
She’s styled it today, so it’s loose and wavy down her back, and is wearing barrel-legged cotton trousers and flat tan leather sandals.
She’s got a straw bag with a silk scarf tied artfully around one handle, resting on the table beside Luis, who is making no effort to hide the fact that he’s mentally scoring her arse on a scale of one to va-va-voom as she turns to finish making a cup of breakfast tea.
CJ pretends to be busy as Ashley holds up her cup and photographs it, a habit CJ cannot stand.
What’s wrong with living in the moment? Why do ‘travellers’ all have to document everything, like a mug of tea tastes different in the CoLab mess than it does anywhere else in the world?
Luis says something else that forces a high-pitched giggle, the gold of Ashley’s watch glinting in the morning sun streaming through the windows, illuminating her like the gods think she deserves even more of the spotlight than she arrogantly demands.
CJ has seen girls like this here a million times before and, to be honest, it bores her.
She continues to ignore the pair, bidding good morning to a couple of early birds working already, switching out noticeboard posters and looking over the rest of the departures and arrivals for the week.
‘I’m an organised kind of a girl, so you’ll have to forgive me that,’ CJ hears Ash say, after the milk gets delivered.
One of the maids could put it away, but CJ believes in everyone doing their part, so she hauls it over to the mess – which just happens to be where Luis is still fawning over the new girl, not that CJ is curious about what they’re saying or anything, she honestly couldn’t care less – to find a home for it herself.
‘But promise me,’ Luis is cooing, tapping a finger on the table.
He doesn’t even look up as CJ approaches.
His eyes are fixed firmly on what he has very obviously decided is his next prize.
CJ calls it his Game Show Glow, when he gets like this: laser focus, sunbeam smile, all twinkling charm.
He continues, ‘Promise you’ll leave room for Lisbon’s magic, OK?
These tourist stops, they’re important, but so is getting lost. In fact, Lisbon is so good to her guests she often invites them to get lost so that, in the end, they find more of themselves. ’
Oh my god, CJ thinks, as she rearranges the mess fridge.
‘Did you just make that up?’ Ashley asks, wide-eyed and in awe.
What a gullible cow – of course Luis didn’t just make that up!
He’s going off a tried and tested script.
CJ could almost interject to tell her so, but it’s actually more fun to hear how this plays out.
In a minute, for example, Luis will suggest the name of a park ‘off the beaten track’, a park not in the guidebooks, and he’ll say a variation of: The sunset, there?
My god, it will take your breath away. And then the girl will say, Really?
That sounds so beautiful … with a wistful edge to her voice, a way of asking to be taken without coming right out and saying so.
Spoiler alert: Luis will indeed take her, and everything that happens after that has all been done before too.
And it doesn’t bother CJ, because Luis will go and have his fun elsewhere, just like she does, and inevitably the pair always end up back in bed together, as default.
CJ doesn’t get jealous. In a strange way she likes knowing that whilst other women desire Luis, and other women can have a taste, ultimately it is her he comes back to.
CJ is a temporary fix. But she’s ongoing. Because that works both ways, it’s hot.
‘Let me see your list,’ Luis says. ‘You need a real Lisboeta to check you have covered the most important things.’
Ashley hands him a piece of folded A4 paper from her bag, CJ wiping at non-existent spills by the sink, Luis swapping his position against the worktop to better flex his rock-hard forearms with their twitching veins.
CJ watches Ashley as Ashley watches Luis.
She’s practically begging Luis to take her upstairs for a good time now, no mystery, no sense of the chase – which is the worst way to keep Luis’s attention, as the girl will find out.
Luis is a hunter, but he likes the chase more than the kill.
‘What’s missing from this list,’ Luis starts, right on cue, ‘is Torre de Belém garden. It’s small. Very romantic.’
‘Oh,’ says Ashley. ‘That sounds …’ She sighs.
CJ rolls her eyes. Here we go. Gah! Shit. Ashley has seen her.
‘Are you OK there?’ Ashley asks, an eyebrow raised.
CJ smirks a little. She doesn’t blush easily, nor get embarrassed quickly either, and won’t be made to feel ‘caught out’.
‘You know,’ Ashley continues, ‘I’m sure your manager would appreciate the feedback on how unfriendly some of her team are. You really could stand to work on your …’ She trails off, looking CJ up and down as she searches for the right word.
CJ tips up her chin defiantly. ‘My …?’ CJ pushes, eyebrow cocked.
‘Your energy,’ Ashley says. ‘Your energy is really quite shitty.’
CJ baulks. ‘Doesn’t calling out somebody else’s energy as shitty –’ she puts air quotes around the word as she says it: ‘energy’ – ‘automatically and by definition make your own energy shitty too?’
Ashley blinks. ‘No,’ she states. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Sorry I spoke, then.’
The women look at each other, animals sniffing one another out to assess their threat.
CJ feels a wave of victory as Ashley colours up – and not even a light-rouge-to-the-cheeks kind of a blush either.
She goes almost beetroot, transforming from an attractive ten to an underwhelmingly middling five. Poof! Just like that.
… And then her eyes fill with tears, so it’s less funny, because fuck, is she about to cry? Has CJ made a guest fucking cry?
‘Oh, for god’s sake,’ CJ says. ‘Don’t be a baby.’ She means for it to sound playful. Teasing. But she can appreciate that, on reflection, the words have actually come out with too much of an edge to land that way. Instead, she’s made an accusation.
Ash’s mouth drops. ‘You’re awful,’ she says, and CJ does actually feel it, in that moment. She’s misstepped. She has, she can own that.
‘I’ll …’ CJ starts, more panicked now, Luis looking at her with a hammed-up disapproving glare, but enjoying her struggle – every inch the prick for not interjecting and helping her out, smoothing things over by distracting everyone with a nice little compliment.
CJ will remember this. He will pay. He’s going to swoop in and dry this girl’s tears now, he the hero, CJ a villain, and they will fuck sweatily ever after.
Urgh. Whatever. ‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ CJ settles on, scurrying back to the desk.
Predictably, Ashley and Luis leave together not long after.