had been cancelled. She never told anyone, only she and Leeza knew. That day, Leeza sent out a press release saying that Calypso was leaving to explore other opportunities. It was a smart move. She was always seen as the kid who left early and avoided being a part of an axed show. Leeza was considered an excellent manager for knowing when it was time for Calypso to move on.
The next opportunity did not come though until Calypso was nineteen. She did a few bit parts and commercials and this helped the bank balance. She urged her parents to use the money she earned from the show but her father wouldn’t hear of it, so they were back to where they were before. Scrounging and living hand to mouth, job to job.
Now she was in Italy, shooting a film with Rose Nightingale and Sapphira De Mont. She could hardly believe it. Rose Nightingale was her hero and Sapphira De Mont was the hottest star in Hollywood. Why the director, TG, had asked for her, she had no idea. She wasn’t a huge name yet, and certainly not in film, she had thought when Mandy had rung to her gauge her interest in auditioning for TG.
Against Leeza’s advice, she had knocked back the action film that was on offer and had jumped at the chance to act opposite Rose and Sapphira. This was her chance to move into the big league. No more TV, only film and opposite the best actresses in Hollywood. Convincing Leeza was a different story though.
‘But, honey, if you take the action movie, think about it. A percentage of the profits, royalties, Comic-Con appearances and your own action figure. You’ll be a movie star, honey, big time.’
‘Mom, a movie star is different to an actor. Cameron Diaz is a movie star. Meryl Streep is an actor. You can’t be both. Well, maybe if you’re Reese Witherspoon, but there aren’t many others. I want to be an actor.’
‘Being a movie star is what we always wanted,’ Leeza said, forgetting she had recently been demoted in Calypso’s life from manager to mother, as she carefully prepared the salad with no-fat dressing for a family barbeque, protecting her acrylic nails with a new French manicure.
No, Mom, it’s what you wanted, thought Calypso.
But she said nothing. Instead she signed on the next day, letting Leeza know her decision via text message. It was time she ran her own life, she thought and now that she was in Italy, she was excited.
Showered and dressed in a towel, she read the room service menu. ‘Blah,’ she said, putting it down again.
Wandering over to the window, she looked outside. She had meant to go for a run when she got back to the hotel but the tiredness from the jet-lag was still in her system and instead she fell asleep, fully dressed, until sounds from outside drifted up to her window. It was nine o’clock at night, but it seemed most people were only now going out for dinner. What the hell, she thought, I’m going out.
Opening her wardrobe, she chose a pair of black vintage cigarette silk pants and teamed them with a floaty silver Catherine Malandrino camisole and pink Costume Nationale flat sandals. The hills of Perugia would murder her heels; flats were sensible and Calypso was always sensible, particularly when it came to looking after her clothes. Leaving her hair down, she grabbed a vintage beaded clutch and skipped through the door into the bustle outside.
Wandering around the ancient city, the sound of smooth jazz came up a laneway and Calypso followed the music.
She found herself in an elegant thoroughfare filled with laughing students from the university, families with sleeping children in strollers and tourists all mingling together in the warm evening.
The cafés were filled with people who spilled out onto the stone ledges and steps, listening to the jazz. Calypso thought she knew the song from an old album her dad used to play. ‘There’s a somebody I’m longing to see, I hope that he turns out to be, someone who’ll watch over me,’ she sang quietly to herself.
An older couple walked out in front of the band and started to dance to the old Gershwin classic and Calypso felt her eyes fill with tears as she saw the tenderness on the man’s face.
It was an almost perfect moment except for the gnawing in Calypso’s stomach. I haven’t eaten in fourteen hours, she counted as she moved towards some bright lights in the side of a stone wall. Sandri Pasticceria it read. The window boasted some of the most delicious pastries Calypso had ever seen. Never would she allow herself something so fat-filled in LA but here, without the gaze of the paparazzi and her trainer, Calypso decided to live a little. Stepping inside the crowded shop, she was pushed forward by the crowd until she found herself at a stool at the marble bar.
A red-coated waiter placed a chocolate-filled pastry with glazed berries on top of it in front of her with a cappuccino. ‘I didn’t order this,’ she said to the waiter who had already turned his back. She sat awkwardly, unsure of what to do.
‘I would just eat it,’ said a voice next to her over the din in the bar.
Calypso turned and was faced with Eros himself. Impossibly handsome, with long, light brown hair loose and curling around his face. Smiling at Calypso, his teeth were the whitest and straightest that Calypso had ever seen, which was quite something, considering she lived in California, the state of orthodontists. ‘Ciao, bella,’ he said, his green eyes dancing as he took in her face.
‘Hello, gorgeous,’ said Calypso, doing her best Barbra Streisand impersonation.
‘I know that voice, that’s Barbra, si?’
Calypso laughed, ‘Yes, that’s Barbra.’
‘Mangia,’ he said, gesturing.
Calypso paused. It did look divine and saying a little prayer to the God of Cellulite to stay away, she took a bite.
‘Oh my God, it’s amazing.’ She sputtered pastry flakes across the table, not caring to wipe the chocolate cream from her mouth.
The Italian watched her, amused. ‘You like?’
‘I like,’ said Calypso, her mouth full.
‘So, what is your name? Barbra?’
‘No,’ she laughed. ‘Calypso,’ she smiled shyly.
‘Beautiful name, the nymph of the sea, si? I am Marco. Lord of the planet Mars.’
His bewitching accent and the way he looked so intently at her, as if wanting her approval was endearing. Calypso smiled. She had made her first Italian friend.
CHAPTER THREE
Sapphira De Mont arrived in Italy courtesy of the film studio’s Gulfstream. She would have liked to have flown the plane herself but her instructor said she was not yet ready for such a large aircraft, much to Sapphira’s disappointment.
She stretched her back like a cat as she unbuckled her seatbelt on the plane. Her skin across her shoulder blades was tight from the new tattoo she had recently added to her thin body as a nod to her newly gained pilot’s licence. Alis volat propri, it read in a serif script across her back. A Latin phrase, meaning ‘She flies with her own wings’.
All her life experiences were illustrated by the tattoos on her body. On her left wrist was a tiny crab – her sun sign; on her right wrist a symbol for Leo, her astrological Moon sign. On one foot was a delicate vine that wound its way around her ankle and on the outside of each
