Bad Girls (26 page)

‘Totally,’ Brian agreed fervently.

‘Like a beautiful fallen angel with broken wings,’ Joe said, striding across the patio, restless suddenly at the thought of Amber. ‘There’s something so damn pure about her, you know what I mean? Like a princess in a castle needing to be rescued. Sleeping Beauty or something.’ He burst out laughing at his own words. ‘Jesus, she’s got me going, right? Hey –’ he loped back to the table and reached for his pack of Camels – ‘there’s a reason I don’t write my own dialogue!’

He lit up, coughing. ‘Rest cure my ass,’ he added, blowing out a smoke ring. ‘I may not be boozing but I’m smoking like a damn chimney.’

‘Me too,’ Skye said, sinking into a chair, stretching her legs out on the table, and kicking off her flip-flops so her pretty feet, with their painted toenails and silver ankle bracelet, were on display. ‘And I’m drinking so much Coke I’m buzzed the whole time.’

‘I hear you.’ Joe winked at her. ‘It’s because we’re going out of our damn minds with boredom.’

‘You could play cards with me,’ Brian said wistfully.

‘Kid, I told you already,’ Joe said over his shoulder. ‘I don’t play cards unless money’s involved.’

‘So how long till she gets out of doctor lockdown?’ Joe asked.

Petal noticed Skye’s lips tightening in frustration as Joe brought the conversation back to Amber yet again.

‘She’ll be back in our room tomorrow,’ Skye said shortly. ‘They just want to keep her under observation tonight.
And
,’ she added, ‘they want to make sure I’m not disturbed by her puking her guts up all through the night.’

She stretched her arms behind her head, which drew attention to her breasts; she’d changed her T-shirt since group, but though the one she was wearing was free of sexy slogans, it was as clingy as what it had replaced.

‘I’ll have a whole night by myself,’ she said, shooting Joe a saucy look. ‘You’d think I’d be happy about that, but actually, I get pretty lonely . . .’

Nice play, Petal thought, giving Skye some points. First she reminds Joe that Amber’s a vomit factory at the moment, and then she gets Joe to think about her in bed by herself. She’s working hard, this girl.

Petal hadn’t done brilliantly at school, but if they’d had exams covering the various techniques women used to interest men, she’d have aced every single one. Petal had seen a parade of girlfriends, would-be girlfriends, and party girls troop through her father’s life, briefly queening it in the Primrose Hill mansion, the Tuscan estate, villas on Capri, private islands in the Caribbean, penthouses in New York: until Jinhee had come along, there had been so many women in Gold’s life it had been like non-stop castings for La Perla catalogues.

Legs up to their armpits, hair down to their waist, flashing teeth, glossy skin of every colour available to humanity, perfect breasts, all auditioning for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – the role of Gold’s wife, or at least live-in-girlfriend-with-palimony-rights. They used their acquaintances to get entrée to Gold, and then they dropped them like hot potatoes. They would have trampled in stiletto heels over their sisters and their mothers if it would have given them the slimmest of chances of being part of Gold’s life.

Petal had seen girls deliberately get their friends trashed, or spike their drinks to knock them out. And she’d watched these antics with nothing but fascinated amusement. Often, she’d been their pet, a miniature version of them, dressed up in their clothes, walking precariously in their high heels, her nails painted bright colours, privy to secrets they didn’t know they were sharing.

Of course, she shouldn’t have been hanging out with girls like that at all. But Petal’s nanny situation had been as chaotic as the rest of her upbringing. The responsible ones, shocked by the goings-on, had never lasted longer than a few months, worn out by trying to discipline a spoiled little girl. And the less responsible ones . . . well, they had been just as busy trying to grab and hold Gold’s attention as the models and socialites and party girls had been. Robin Williams had married his kids’ nanny; Jude Law had had an affair with his. Who was to say that they might not hit the jackpot when Gold saw how caring and sweet and motherly they were with his adorable daughter?

So if Petal, with her experience, admired Skye’s technique, that meant that Skye was doing a very good job indeed of seducing Joe.

‘The beds are so
narrow
, though,’ Skye was complaining. ‘Single beds, can you believe it?’ She flashed a look at Joe under her eyelashes. ‘You must have a California king at home, right? You’re
so
big!’

Joe grinned widely in response. ‘Baby, I got a double here,’ he informed Skye. ‘It’s no California king, but it’s better than a damn single.
And
I don’t have to share a room.’

‘How’d you swing that?’ Skye sat up straighter. ‘I’d kill not to have to share!’

‘Modesty forbids,’ he said smugly.

‘It’s ’cause of who he is,’ Petal informed Skye. She and Joe jumped slightly; they’d been so caught up in their mutual attraction they’d forgotten Petal was even there. ‘A roommate could sell their story of sharing with Joe.’

‘We could still all do that,’ Brian piped up. He went bright red. ‘Not that we would! Of course we wouldn’t! But all I’m saying is . . .’

‘No worries, kid,’ Joe said kindly. ‘I got a room to myself ’cause my agent insisted. No one wants “I SHARED A ROOM WITH SEX ADDICT JOE” headlines in the
Investigator.
What if some guy says I hit on him?’

He chortled happily at the unlikeliness of this scenario. Skye’s chair tipped as she laughed too, and she had to catch onto the table to stop herself falling back.

Joe reached out and caught one slim ankle to balance her as Brian said gloomily: ‘I have to share with
Mitch
.’

‘What’s that like?’ Petal asked curiously. ‘He’s such a weirdo.’

‘Totally,’ Brian agreed. ‘He never says anything. It completely freaks me out. He’s sitting in there right now, reading the Narcotics Anonymous Blue Book from cover to cover. That’s all he does when he’s not in therapy.’

‘I’ve got this woman called Sujata,’ Petal said, ‘but she’s in this work therapy programme. I think she’s volunteering at a homeless shelter or something. She never gets back till ten and then she goes straight to bed. And she’s up hours before I am, so I hardly see her. That’s weird too. I mean, I wake up in the middle of the night with jet lag and there’s someone else in there, breathing, but I barely even
know
her.’

‘This entire fucking gig is weird,’ Brian said, heaving a deep sigh.

‘I shouldn’t even
be
here,’ Petal complained. ‘I’m
so
not a drug addict.’

‘No offence,’ Brian said, twiddling his eyebrow ring, which was his tendency in times of stress, ‘but, like,
everyone
says that at first.’

‘Amber said she was an addict,’ Petal pointed out, duly offended.

‘Yeah, but Amber freaking
overdosed
,’ Brian said. ‘What’s she going to say?’

‘And Joe and Skye say they’re sex addicts,’ Petal countered.

Brian looked over at Joe and Skye, who had moved close to each other at the far end of the table. Joe’s hand was still on Skye’s ankle, wrapped intimately around it; he was pulling her closer to him as she giggled and pretended to resist. Her hair was tied into two bunches with dark blue ribbon, and she twisted one of them between her fingers, playing with the long blonde locks. Her varnished toes were pointed towards Joe, her head tilted away from him; every line of her body was balanced around Joe’s anchoring hand.

You can tell she’s a dancer, Petal thought. She’s really graceful.

‘Joe and Skye . . .’ Brian’s voice was lowered. ‘Dude, I don’t get this whole sex addict thing at
all
. I mean, they both seem totally cool about it! And look at them. They’d like, totally get it on if they could.’

‘And if Skye doesn’t mind that Joe thinks Amber’s a beautiful fallen angel,’ Petal said drily. ‘He didn’t say anything half that nice about
her.
’

‘There’s a really good song about fallen angels,’ Brian said, starting to hum a tune.

‘I know that!’ Petal hummed along with him.

‘You want to play cards?’ Brian said as they came to the end of the chorus.

‘You guys, it’s thirty minutes to curfew, OK?’ said a man’s gruff voice from the patio doors.

Petal looked up; it was Dave, the orderly, standing there, hands in his overall pockets, chin down.

‘Half-hour warning before lockdown,’ he said. ‘Then it’s everyone in their rooms.’

Skye leaned forward and whispered something to Joe, her fingers slipping in a swift caress over his hand on her ankle before she pulled her leg away and sat back in her chair.

‘Dave, my man,’ Joe pushed his chair back and stood up, rotating his head like an athlete limbering up. ‘I gotta stretch my legs before we turn in. Walk with me, won’t you? You’re a smoker, right?’ He offered his pack to Dave. ‘How did the Dodgers do last night? You catch the game?’

Joe threw a big, muscled arm over Dave’s meaty shoulders as they strolled off onto the lawn. It should have looked impossibly cheesy, but instead, as with every single gesture Joe made, it seemed the height of easy, confident manliness. Brian stared after him wistfully, Petal noticed: she bet men always looked at Joe like that, with envy and admiration in equal measure. Joe was like the ultimate expression of maleness: a big, ridiculously handsome man who was so utterly confident of who he was that he had nothing to prove to anyone. It was irresistible.

‘Guys,’ Skye said to Petal and Brian, rolling her eyes. ‘It all comes down to sports in the end.’

‘Not me,’ Brian said. ‘I don’t give a shit about sports.’

‘
Really?
’ Skye said teasingly. ‘I bet you play games on your computer, don’t you? X-box? Nintendo? Go online and compete against other guys? And you’re playing cards, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah, but . . .’ Brian blushed, pausing as he separated out the two packs. ‘OK, those are games. I suppose it’s sort of sporty.’

‘Gotcha!’ Skye cocked her finger and pretended to shoot him. He wriggled happily at being teased by a girl so pretty that, in the outside world, she wouldn’t have given a geek like him the time of day.

And Skye’s like Joe, Petal realized; the girl version. She’s totally confident about being a woman. She knows just how to talk to men. Joe and Brian are completely different, but she can charm both of them.

Resentment of Skye’s self-assurance rose in Petal like bile; she said meanly: ‘So what’s it like sharing a room with a supermodel, Skye? I bet Amber’s one of those girls who looks gorgeous all the time.’

Skye hadn’t worked in strip clubs for years to be unaware of when a girl was having a dig at her. Quite unfazed, she responded: ‘She probably does, when she’s not feeling like shit. And she’s going to get worse before she gets better, Dr Raf says.’

‘Wow, how about when she fainted and he carried her out of group?’ Brian said. ‘It was like a movie!’

‘Or a romance novel,’ Skye said dreamily, lighting another cigarette and tilting back in her chair. ‘I
love
romance novels. It was like the cover of one, you know? Her in his arms. He just needed to have his shirt off. And be really ripped,’ she added naughtily. ‘I bet Dr Raf strips well, but he’s more the lean and mean type.’

‘You could ask Dr Lucy what he looks like with his shirt off,’ Brian suggested, which got both girls’ full attention.

‘
Dr Lucy?
’ Petal exclaimed.

‘Nooo,’ Skye said simultaneously, eyes sparkling with enjoyment of a good gossip. ‘He’s not doing Dr Lucy on the side, is he? Honestly!’ She sat up straighter. ‘Here they are lecturing us about being sex addicts and they’re at it like rabbits behind our backs! That’s so—’

‘They’re a couple,’ Brian said smugly, knowing what a sensation this would cause. ‘Daniyel told me.’

‘No shit,’ Skye marvelled. ‘I mean, I can see it’s convenient and all, but I’d’ve thought he could do better. Dr Raf is a stone fox.’

‘Does that mean he’s totally hot?’ Petal asked.

‘
Oh
yeah,’ Skye told her, grinning. ‘Wow. I bet Dr Lucy wasn’t too keen on Dr Raf doing that whole romance-hero thing with Amber today.’

‘She’s a bitch, Dr Lucy,’ Petal said in heartfelt tones. ‘Everything she says is
so
mean.’

‘Yeah, she really doesn’t like me,’ Skye agreed.

In a squeaky voice, Brian said bravely: ‘Actually, I’ve been doing one-on-one with her for weeks and she’s really cool. She’s helped me a lot.’

‘Give the devil her due,’ Skye said, grimacing.

‘No, she’s been great,’ Brian insisted. ‘She just takes a bit of time to warm up.’

‘I bet she never warms up to me,’ Skye said, shrugging. ‘She doesn’t much like other women. I know the type.’

‘I fucking hate one-on-ones, even with Dr Raf,’ Petal said sullenly, kicking the leg of the table. ‘He just keeps on nagging me to say I’m addicted to coke, and I’m so not.’

Brian looked at her seriously. ‘OK, let’s say you don’t need to use it every day,’ he said, ‘but ask yourself this: does it affect your life? Did you ever, like, have sex with someone you didn’t really want to because you were high? Do you spend too much on it? Or does it affect your work decisions?’

Petal had been shaking her head vehemently till Brian asked her the last question. Then she froze, thinking of all those meetings she’d blown off, because she had a coke or drink hangover and couldn’t get out of bed.

‘I mean, to be an addict you don’t need to be living on the streets with your mouth wrapped round a crack pipe,’ Brian said.

Petal was on her feet. ‘I don’t need to be lectured by
you
,’ she said angrily. ‘You nicked a ton of stuff off your mum to blow on meth! You pawned her
jewellery
!’

Brian looked devastated.

‘What’s said in group stays in group, Petal,’ Dave boomed reprovingly, lumbering back onto the patio. ‘You should know better.’

‘You’re all against me!’ Petal sobbed. ‘I hate it here!’

She fled back into the building, stumbling over the step up to the glass doors in her haste, running back to her room and slamming the door. Throwing herself on her bed, she burst into a sob storm of misery, pounding the pillow with her fists, working out her anger and frustration. She was lost to the world for a long while till her energy ran out, and, her sobs slowing down to the occasional gulp, she lay there, blowing her nose and feeling utterly sorry for herself.