Primrose
Palma’s Old Town moves around me in a warm, glittering blur as I follow Zoe through narrow lanes strung with balconies so close, it’s as though the buildings are whispering to each other in some places.
The honey-colored stone beneath my sandals seems to still be breathing out the day’s heat as music spills from open doorways, laughter and clinking glasses drifting from outdoor tables.
It’s so atmospheric, but I can’t find it in me to care.
Not after what happened earlier. The scene that keeps replaying in ugly fragments in my head.
The way she was wrapped around him. His cool eyes and his cooler tone.
The plans we’d made that he’d apparently forgotten.
Or didn’t care about. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense to me.
I mean, who the hell was she, with her Chanel purse and her knowing air?
I know who she isn’t. She isn’t the help. The fucking nanny.
I suppose inviting her over was one way to be done with me. Does he have a problem with subtlety? My shoulders stiffen as I ignore the ache blooming beneath my ribs.
“You okay?”
I nod. A-okay, Zoe. Apart from the shit rotating through my head. And the fact that there are couples everywhere. Strolling arm in arm. Hand in hand. Smiles and kisses and adoring looks.
Je suis sick of this shit. Romance can take a running jump.
I’d gone to the staff accommodation block after I’d left the house, and thankfully, Zoe was still there. I’d managed to pull myself together on the way over. The trick, it seems, is a lipstick in a color so vivid, people can’t see past it.
“Coming through, people!” Zoe slides her arm through mine, the other she holds aloft like a tour operator in charge of tourists. “Make way for ladies looking to find someone to love very aggressively and extremely temporarily.”
I force a laugh. I am my lipstick’s personality tonight, and this deep red is the kind of shade that speaks of kissing strangers in dark corners. Or unsuitable men in orgy central.
The last time I worse it was in Paris.
Hmph. Maybe this lipstick’s speciality is poor decision-making.
Behind me, someone jeers. Probably someone staring at our bums. Zoe slides a sultry glance over her shoulder and winks.
“Why not? You and me, we look good enough to hurt someone’s feelings tonight. Someone say, like Al,” she adds in a low taunt.
I smile but don’t have it in me to answer.
A night on the town isn’t what I want to do because what I want to do is smash things.
But I couldn’t be in that house, with them.
There’s very obviously something going on between them.
Not necessarily a romantic thing. It’s probably just sex. That is his speciality.
“Hey, Zoe?” She turns her head my way. “What was that cosmetics woman like? You know—the one the boss man was seeing before?” And now I hate myself.
“Cosmetics?” Her brow creases.
“You said he had a woman over for dinner. Not a business dinner,” I add.
“Oh, her. Blond and well maintained, if you know what I mean. Why do you ask?”
“There was a woman at the house when I left.” I aim the words airily and hate how they seem to get stuck in my throat.
Her footsteps halt immediately. “Get out!”
I glance at my shoes, not wanting to risk her seeing my expression.
“So that’s why he let you go tonight.”
“Apparently.” Ack. “She wasn’t blonde, though.” But there is such a thing as hair dye.
“Was she German?”
I shake my head.
“Wasn’t her. She was a real Powerfrau.”
I square my shoulders, lift my chin as though I’m not picturing them together. Or poking that bruise-like sensation in my chest.
“Where are we going?” Alejandro appears to my left, his gaze slipping over me so quickly in that way men everywhere seem to have perfected. Not Luc. He takes his time. Until he wants to ditch a bitch, I suppose. Fucking coward.
“Social Club?” Zoe suggests.
“Too early,” he answers.
“The Marina, then?”
“You been to the beach yet, Rose?”
I shake my head.
“What about the cathedral?”
“No.”
“Let me take you sometime. Show you around.”
“S-mooth!” Zoe makes a gesture like the easy glide of something. “Take a gal to the cathedral. Bitches love a cathedral.”
“Knock it off,” I half laugh, half say before glancing Al’s way. “That would be nice. Sometime.” Sometime never. Seems I’m getting better at this lying business because, tomorrow, I’m out of here.
“You look gorgeous tonight,” he adds quietly, so as not to be overheard.
Who doesn’t like compliments? Apparently, this girl. But Alejandro is handsome, uncomplicated, and he appears to be interested. Three qualities that ought to place him above a certain brooding Frenchman.
“Thank you.” I smile, but in a friendly sort of way. “You scrub up well yourself.”
His answering grin is warm and immediate.
There. That was easy. No need to examine every syllable for meaning. No wondering if his interest is real. I glance away. Everyone around us seems blithe, bronzed, and beautiful. And I still can’t find it in me to give a fuck.
“Your mission tonight.” Zoe tips her head to my shoulder. “Should you accept it, is to drink something expensive you haven’t paid for.”
“Steal?”
“Girl, someone else is gonna buy that drink.”
“Oh. Right.”
“And you’re gonna dance until the sun comes up and, before it does, kiss at least three people.”
“Three?” My nose shrinks back into my skull. I couldn’t think of anything worse.
“Two, if one of them is very talented.”
“I’d like to submit my interest early,” Al says, though I pretend not to hear as Zoe’s arm comes down in front of me like a barrier at a rail crossing. She points to a courtyard with twinkling lights.
“Here.”
The bar is almost hidden behind a courtyard filled with lemon trees strung with fairy lights.
We have a drink there—beers all around—before moving on to somewhere to dance.
A cavernous club with ceilings vaulted like a church.
The dance floor is packed, the DJ playing dance music loud enough to discourage overthinking.
We find a table—it’s bolted to the floor—the seating a couple of olive-colored velvet semi-circles.
Alejandro flags down a waitress and orders wine before declaring the bottle inferior to Casa Alegría’s.
Then taking far too long to explain why.
Thanks to the music, I hear only one word in three.
Pretty sure I’m not missing anything as I periodically nod and smile.
I’m not in the business of making people feel bad.
Al is a nice guy, even if he is a total wine bore.
“To think,” Zoe says, leaning in with a gleam, “I could be peeling garlic right now.”
“And I could be,”—stabbing M. LDH with a butterknife—“washing my hair.”
“The vibes. They are not vibing. Let’s order another drink.”
Cocktails this time. A margarita for Zoe and a Paloma for me. Tequila, pink grapefruit, and lime over ice with a chilli-salt rim. It’s refreshingly delicious and just bitter enough to suit my mood.
The drinks go down way too easily, and another round is ordered as my colleagues (friends?) gossip and throw verbal shit at each other.
I try to keep up, though my heart isn’t in it.
But I can fake happy. Carefree. And it’s even easier when Paloma number three makes me comfortably numb.
When one of the girls suggests we dance, I’m the first on my feet.
I’ll dance his coldness out of my body, I think, reaching for my glass and draining the what’s left.
I give in to an alcohol-induced shudder.
I’ll dance until my feet ache as much as my chest. And if nice but boring Al puts his hands on my waist, I might just let him.
Not that it’ll mean anything, other than it might feel nice to be wanted by someone who isn’t afraid of saying so.
Zoe leads, and I follow the sway of her hips to the crush of bodies dancing beneath pulsing violet lights. The bass beats inside my rib cage as heat and perfume, damp skin and sweat rises all around me.
“This place slaps!” Zoe yells, throwing up her hands. “And I am so buzzed.”
I force a laugh as, above us, lights scatter shards of silver across the ceiling.
The music begins to weave its magic. I throw my head back and lose myself to it, my thoughts utterly irrelevant as it makes slaves of us all.
On the dance floor, there is only the beat and the press of strangers, and the promise that, if I dance hard enough, I might forget.
Hips moving, a prickle of awareness caresses my skin.
Wishful thinking maybe, as I remind myself he isn’t here.
But if he was… My hands slide up my body as I imagine them as his.
A sway of my hips, my movements commanded by a flicker of memory.
The way he pulled my hands above my head a few hours ago.
I mirror the motion, body undulating, dress rising higher and teasing my thighs.
Maybe it isn’t the music that possesses me at all.
He’s not even here, and I’m still obsessing.
My body stiffens as someone grabs my hips from behind.
I find myself thinking, No, Al, not now.
Not when I’m thinking about him. I put my hands over the larger, rougher ones, and turn my head over my shoulder, a polite smile in place.
Worse than Al, it’s a stranger. He says something in Spanish but I’m already shaking my head and moving away to words of disappointment I don’t understand.
“No?” Zoe yells. “But he was a snack.”
And I want the whole meal, idiot that I am.
One tune segues to another, and another, and then into something a little angrier.
Zoe’s eyes fly wide as the dark, pulsing beat of Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” fades in.
Catchy enough, dance-y enough, but the remix transposes Alanis Morissette over the chorus as she belts out the furious anthem of “You Oughta Know”.
The tune is an absolute banger. Sultry, defiant and dance floor perfect.
I lose my body the music, and almost my voice as I join in with the words.
All around me, women go wild, dancing like they’re in a mosh pit.
With a little less violence. I’d guess that most of us have lived somewhere inside one or both of these songs.
The dizzy, reckless craving of a love that turns addictive, and the white-hot fury of discovering it wasn’t reciprocated.
Desire and betrayal, hunger and rage. Every beat is something to surrender to, every lyric something to scream, until we’re not dancing as much as we are exorcising every man-made regret.
Sweaty and unrepentant, Zoe flings her arms around me. “Oh my God. I fucking love this night!”
“Same,” I yell back. And I’m not lying. For the first time tonight, I’m happy. I didn’t need Al’s or any man’s hands because I am woman. Hear me—
“Fuck.” Zoe’s expression instantly changes, her arms retracting from my damp shoulders.
“What is it?” My gaze follows hers to the edge of the dance floor. A strobe light passes over an impossibly white shirt, obscuring the man’s face but only for a beat. A beat where my heart goes a little haywire as I convince myself it’s him. Luc. But I’m only kidding myself. “Is that Jacques?”
I look back at her, and maybe she reads my confusion.
“Long story,” she yells in my ear. “We hooked up a little while back. Was good. Pity he’s an asshole.”
I think back to the flight to Mallorca. Makes sense, I suppose.
“Come on, let’s see what the fucker wants.” Her arm tightens on mine as we approach.
“A word,” he says. Shouts.
“Regrettable,” she answers as quick as a flash, planting her hand on her hip. “That one work for ya?”
“I’d prefer repeatable.” His eyes flick over her, and I find myself turning my head almost expecting her to be naked because, good grief! That was a look and a half.
She snorts. “Delusional.”
“Not in my dreams.” His eyes slide my way reluctantly.
“Gotta pee,” is my input before I choke on all these pheromones. I make to pass by him when he catches my arm.
“The boss is here,” he says, leaning in close.
Something treacherous flips between my legs before a whole lot of other stuff follows in its wake. Why? What for? Did he bring her? And fuck no. All of these seem to jostle for position on my tongue.
“Upstairs,” he adds, his fingers tensing briefly in warning.
“Tell him I said hi.” I pull away and make a beeline for the loos without looking back.
As I weave through the crowd, I ignore the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing as straight as pins. Someone is looking at me and I know I’m not imagining things.
My heart begins to thrash like an angry woman at an Alanis concert.
Meanwhile, my brain is screaming, Fuck him.
And my pussy, well, she seems to think that’s a good plan.