Clooney. Everyone wants a slice. He’d charm your mother and flirt with your grandmother while impressing your father with his in-depth knowledge of knot-tying and single malt whiskies.’
‘He knows about knot-tying?’ I looked back at Kekipi.
‘Probably.’ He shrugged. ‘I think he might be the least gay man I’ve ever met. I’m trying very hard not to fall in love with him. Can I suggest you do the same?’
‘I promise I will not fall in love with him,’ I said, laughing alone until my chuckles tailed off into awkward silence. Kekipi stared at me with a less-than-convinced expression.
‘I won’t,’ I said, unnecessarily defensive. ‘Seriously. I am not going to fall in love with him.’
‘I’ll remind you of that at the wedding,’ he said.
‘You can be head bridesmaid,’ I muttered, turning my gaze back towards the cottages and watching the little light in Nick’s window flicker and blink before the bay was bathed in darkness.
Tuesday morning was almost as confusing to my poor little brain as Monday evening had been. I woke up with the remains of jetlag fug clouding my mind as I tried to recount the events of the past twenty-four hours. Hawaii, Amy, sleep, dinner, Nick-baiting and then two hours on the veranda with Kekipi. According to my new best friend, it had been years since the estate had seen any real guests and he was ecstatic to have a captive audience, even if only for a week. In exchange for my rapt but sleepy attention, he told me endless amazing stories about his adventures as the only gay in the Hawaiian village and during all the years he’d worked for Bertie Bennett. His tales of wild parties at the Bennett mansion reminded me of The Great Gatsby. Which reminded me I should finish reading The Great Gatsby.
But that was last night and this was this morning. Today was the first real day of my new double life, my first full working day as Vanessa Kittler. I’d decided, somewhere between two and three a.m. – when all best decisions are made – that if I was going to be Vanessa for a week, I was going to be Vanessa for a week. As much as I hated to admit it, all that verbal sparring with Nick had been fun, and while picking a fight didn’t feel like a very Tess thing to do, it did feel like a very Vanessa thing to do. And why shouldn’t I indulge in flirty banter with the handsome man? I was a free agent. And, as far as that handsome man was concerned, possibly a bit of a slag, according to my reputation. Stretching my arms above my head until I heard something crack, I tried to make myself get up. I only had this life on loan for a week – I really should try to make the most of it. Instead, I rolled over and curled my arms around my pillow, smiling at what I saw. My camera, safely tucked in beside me, resting half under the covers and half on a pillow. Apparently I’d felt like a one-night stand with my Canon when I got home. Nothing like slutting it up with electronic equipment to start a week away. I reached out and stroked it gently, careful not to press any buttons and wake it from its slumber. We had a hard day ahead of us.
Leaving my lover in bed, I slunk into the kitchen in my T-shirt-come-nightie and noticed two things that hadn’t been there when I’d finally rolled myself into bed. A plate full of yet more delicious-looking fresh fruit and a thick white envelope resting beside it, addressed to Vanessa. Inside was a stiff white note card with a gold crest and a couple of lines of perfect handwriting.
Dear Ms Kittler,
Unfortunately I will not be available for our appointment today. Please accept my sincerest apologies. Kekipi is at your disposal.
Yours,
B. Bennett.
Hmm. He had cancelled again. I wondered why he’d blown us out this time. That mill trouble Kekipi had been talking about? Stuck at an orgy with Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger and half the Playboy mansion? More likely he just couldn’t make his mind up between the hot tub and the sunloungers on his terrace. I understood his pain – it was almost exactly the same predicament as in Sophie’s Choice.
‘It’s fine,’ I announced to the empty kitchen, placing the card back on the worktop and twisting my hair into a dodgy topknot. ‘Gives me another day to get to grips with the camera.’
And if the worst came to the worst, I still had a spare day at the end of the week to play around with. Gloss was a proper magazine with proper contingency plans made by proper planning-type people. They just didn’t have a proper photographer. But they didn’t know that. Regardless, what this really meant was that I had a completely free day in Hawaii …
The beach was deserted and utterly silent when I ventured outside. Instead of a starchy white shirt and badly fitting black trousers, I was wearing one of my super-soft T-shirts and a pair of denim cutoffs that had previously lived life as my ‘painting jeans’. It felt good to be out of uniform. The breeze from the day before had vanished and the sun warmed my bare skin through in a heartbeat. It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t too humid – it was just right. Goldilocks weather.
‘Must remember you’re here for a reason,’ I reminded myself, sliding the wide, webbed camera strap over my head. ‘Must take pictures. Pictures must be good. Or at least good enough for a professional to Photoshop.’
There was no one anywhere to be seen on the beach or up by the house and so I began to wander. Everything looked so calm, so peaceful. Either the entire island was medicated or Kekipi had slipped some Xanax into my coffee the night before. Tiny red-crested birds fluttered around me as I walked along the beach, the floury sand sticking to my feet like little white socks, and I took deep, full-to-the-bottom-of-my-lungs breaths of fresh, flowery air to wash away the grey smog of home.
‘Hi.’ I nodded politely at a little white bird who was jogging along the edge of the beach, his little head bobbing back and forth. He paused for a moment, looked at me with his head on one side, and then went about his business. I was officially a million miles away from London’s scabby one-footed pigeons.
After not really very long at all, the backs of my calves began to burn from walking in the sand. It was time to sit down. Somewhere between the cottages, the ocean and the middle of nowhere, I found a comfortable spot, checked for random men running down the shoreline, and once I was certain I was alone, I turned on by beloved camera. She clicked, whirred and flashed into life, blinking at me as I found my grip.
Trading my camera to Vanessa in lieu of rent had broken my heart, but at the time I hadn’t had any choice. And as my mum liked to tell me all the time, what was the point in wasting my time taking pictures when I should be worrying about my work? But now, with my camera back in my hands, the strap rubbing against the back of my neck, it didn’t feel like it was going to be a waste of time. And it wasn’t just because I was sitting on a beach in Hawaii and didn’t have a job to worry about anymore – it just felt really, really good. I fiddled with the settings for a moment, changed the lens, tinkered with the exposure and the shutter speed and then held the viewfinder up to my right eye. The camera had a digital screen on the back, but I still loved to line everything up myself.
‘Let’s do this,’ I mumbled, focusing the camera on a small sailing boat out in the bay and pressing the shutter button. There. I had taken my first photo. It was blurry, overexposed and basically terrible, but still, it was a photograph taken in Hawaii. Baby steps.
For the next couple of hours, I wandered up and down the beach taking photos of everything I came across. Happily, Hawaii
