Diamonds Are a Teen's Best Friend (6 page)

And, for just a fraction of a second, I don’t see Nessa and Holly. I see Lorelei and Dorothy. Marilyn and Jane.

Okay. So, over the next few days, I feel like I’m more Skipper to Holly’s Barbie, than Lorelei to Holly’s Dorothy, but that’s all right. I’m sure people feel like that around Holly all the time. You see, I find out very quickly that the terrible thing about Holly is that she’s just so awfully, awfully pretty. Not 7.30 pm ‘I’ve had the whole day to get myself together, so now we can go out on the town’ pretty, but ‘I can wake up in the middle of the night with a raging dose of the flu, vomit, wind up with chunks of carrot left over from dinner in my hair and still be pretty’ kind of pretty. And the even more terrible thing is, you can’t hate her for it. You can’t hate her for it because she’s one of those people who doesn’t get it at all. Holly has no idea she’s this stunningly gorgeous person who’s just lovely to be around twenty-four hours a day.

That’s the best thing about her – she’s simply
Holly
. Not Holly the film star on the red carpet, not Holly dating all the most scrumptious guys in Hollywood, not Holly on the front of every magazine. Just Holly. A chick whose favourite food in the world is nachos (with extra sour cream), who cries like a fool when watching
Pretty Woman
and who has to paint this icky stuff on her nails so she won’t bite them all the time. When you get to know her she’s surprisingly … well, real.

Not to mention really, really unhappy. I feel so sorry for her (me, feeling sorry for Holly Isles – a week ago I would have had a good laugh at this one), having to call off her wedding and everything (again). How awful would that be? To make matters worse, she truly thought she’d found the right guy this time. She says she knew they were having problems, but kept pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind because she wanted everything to be perfect. She wanted, with all her heart, to have found the perfect man. ‘PM’, she calls him. Perfect Man. And they’d have the perfect wedding and buy the perfect house and have the most perfect babies. But, as it turned out, she didn’t have the perfect man. He wasn’t even close. Obviously,
she didn’t have the perfect pool cleaner either. (Strangely enough, she seemed more than a little upset about the pool cleaner. Apparently it’s hard to find a good one in LA.)

I listen to Holly’s tale of woe over and over again. Sometimes she cries about it, sometimes she throws pillows and magazines at the wall about it, sometimes she tries to reason it all out. And, as I listen, it only cements further in my mind what I already know: I’ve been put on this ship for a reason. It’s no coincidence that I know everything there is to know about Marilyn Monroe and that Holly belted out her Dorothy line in reply to my Lorelei line as we were boarding the ship. We were meant to meet because Holly needs me. So I’ve got a job to do here. I have to help Holly out. I have
got
to help her find the right guy. There won’t be any more broken engagements. No more heartbreak. Holly deserves to find PM this time around, and I’m going to find him for her.

Here’s hoping he’s on this ship.

But, no. Of course he is. Why else would fate bring us together and then not plant the perfect guy on the ship? Yes. He’s definitely here, no doubt about it. Now, all we’ve got to do is meet every guy on board in order to flush him out. Right. So how are we going to do that?

I finish typing my email, press send, then log off, snapping Sugar Kane shut with a
click
. That done, I continue lying on my stomach on my bed for a good half-hour, coming up with … again, nothing. In the end, I decide it’s just not going to happen this afternoon and drag myself up off the bed. I fix my hair, put on a bit of lip gloss and head up and out onto the top deck of the ship for a stroll. Maybe the sea air will help me think a bit better. (Nothing could help me think worse, that’s for sure.)

Up on the top deck, it’s quite windy and, because of this, not many people are around. The hard core are still
out in force – power walking around the track, their little hand weights helping to work off that third pancake they had at breakfast. (Meanwhile, their stomachs are thinking about what time morning tea ends and lunch starts. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. My stomach’s discovered untapped sources of greed this trip as well.) There are a few other people braving the weather along with the power walkers, escaping from one thing or another, and a few couples scattered near the bow, enjoying the peace and quiet, looking out to sea.

I go to take a turn around the deck myself when I see him peeking around from a pile of deckchairs, not too far in front of me. The ship’s photographer. The tall skinny guy who’d taken the photo of Holly and me on our respective sun lounges the other day, which I totally forgot to go and check out – damn! Thinking I’ve missed out, I race up to him and practically bowl him over.

‘Hey!’ I say, from behind. And I guess he’s not expecting anyone, because he’s startled and hits his head on a metal railing behind him. ‘Oh, sorry! Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.’ He’s looking at me warily, as if I was the one who hurt him and not the railing. He rubs his
head with one hand and clutches his camera to him with the other, as if I may reach out and grab it at any moment, then run off, never to be seen again.

Calm down! I think to myself. I don’t want your camera. Better tell him why I’m here. ‘Um, those photos you took of Holly and me the other day. I meant to come and have a look at them.’

In front of me, his shaggy eyebrows raise, making him look kind of startled again. Silence. He takes a step back.

‘Um … hey, don’t hit your head again,’ I say, pointing above him. He winces and ducks a little. Weird. ‘Um …’ I start again, but don’t really know what to say. What is it with this guy? ‘So, did they turn out? Where are they? I mean, on what deck? And how much do they cost?’

Silence again. But, this time, the guy fills the pause by giving me a complete once-over. ‘Who … who are you?’ He shakes his head when he’s done.

What? This guy really
is
weird. For a start, he’s not making any sense. Who am I? What’s that supposed to mean? Oh … hang on. The other day. Holly and I had left before he could take our details. Of course he knows who Holly is, but me? Probably not. I don’t have a very
red-carpet life. ‘Sorry, I’m Nessa Mulholland. Cabin 252b. I guess it must be hard being the ship’s photographer. I mean, trying to remember who’s who and everything.’

‘Huh?’ The guy keeps looking at me, but then he brightens up. ‘Oh, right. Now I remember. You were the girl with Holly Isles the other day, weren’t you?’ He whips a notebook out of his back pocket and I can see other names and dates jotted down in there. ‘Sorry about the mix-up. I didn’t get your name the other day. What did you say it was again?’

This time, I spell it out for him. And when that’s done, he stops being weird altogether, loosens up, and we even chat for a bit about what I’m doing on board the ship, my dad’s study and how I got to know Holly. When he asks me about Holly’s broken engagement and cancelled wedding plans, however, I feel a bit uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about that,’ I say, my eyes not meeting his face.

He shakes his hands. ‘No, no. I shouldn’t have asked. None of my business, but everyone on staff loves Holly so much … we just want the best for her, you know.’

Now I do meet his eyes. ‘Yeah, I know. So how much are the photos?’

Strangely, he looks a bit blank again, as if he can’t remember his own prices. ‘Er, because of the mix-up, how about I slip a couple underneath your cabin door, free of charge?’

I pause. ‘Really? Are you sure?’

He nods. Hard. ‘Of course. I hate it when I don’t get people’s names right. It’d be my pleasure.’

‘Well, thanks. That’d be fantastic. It’s 252b, um …’ I realise I don’t know the guy’s name.

‘Ted. Just call me Ted. And don’t worry – I’ve got it all down here,’ he adds, patting his notebook.

‘Great. I’d better let you get back to it, I guess.’

Ted nods.

‘See ya! Watch out for those railings!’ I turn and leave him, walking around the pile of deckchairs and continuing along the edge of the deck. And I’m tripping along merrily when I stop dead in my tracks. Well, hello … look at what’s at nine o’clock. I take a few steps back now, out of their line of vision and just watch.

Watch Holly and my dad, that is.

Like last night, they seem to be having an absolute ball together. My dad says something, Holly replies, Dad says something else, and then her head tips back and she laughs
and laughs and laughs. When she recovers, he says something else again and she laughs once more. I almost want to rub my eyes. How funny can sociology/microbiology be? And, besides all that, I don’t quite know what to do now. Do I go over? Do I leave them alone? After all, they seem to be having a pretty good time without me. My dad – I don’t think I’ve seen him look so happy since … gosh, I can’t even remember. Oh. Right. Since Jessica, maybe?

My heart sinks when I remember her. Jessica. She was a woman my dad dated for a while. I didn’t really like her all that much. Well, no, that’s not exactly true. Jessica was okay. It just hadn’t worked out. They’d both broken it off, really. Yes. Jessica was okay, but she was no … well, she was no Holly. My eyes lift up as I think this and I take a second look at my dad. And Holly.

Oh, no. No.

I hope my dad doesn’t think that Holly being nice to him means the same thing that Jessica being nice to him meant. I mean, Jessica and Holly … they’re kind of different people. Jessica was a psychologist. A normal-looking, normal person with a normal job (so she had a few quirks, like putting salt on her porridge, but don’t we all have a few
quirks?). But Holly – Holly’s in a different league. I keep watching them, laughing and talking, talking and laughing, and my heart sinks even further (if that’s possible).

No. This is not good. Not good at all.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think Holly’s too good for my dad because she’s so pretty, or because she’s famous, or anything like that. It’s just that … well, how on earth would it ever work out? I mean, my dad and Holly Isles. She lives in LA, we’re going to live in Paris (well, for a year, at least). She’s a world-famous actress, he’s a professor of sociology. She dates famous actors, he dates … rarely. Get my drift? Their two worlds – they just couldn’t merge and …

‘Hey, Nessa! How’s it going?’

I whip around on the spot. Marc. Marc is walking up the deck towards me. Oh, no. No. What do I do? I start to freak out and then wonder why I’m freaking out at all. What have I got to freak out about? I haven’t done anything wrong. (This must be a first …)

‘Hey, yourself!’ I wave back at him and then realise instantly what the problem is: I don’t want him to see Holly and my dad. I don’t know why, I just don’t. So, now, I race up towards him, grab his arm and spin him around.
‘Let’s go for a walk!’ I say brightly. Too brightly, I think. ‘Not on this deck, though, it’s too windy. Or maybe we can catch a movie, or something? Yes. A movie would be great. Any movie. I don’t care. Do you care? We could get popcorn and everything.’

Marc gives me a strange look (I don’t blame him) and his head twists back for a second, as if he realises I’m trying to divert his attention away from whatever’s up ahead. Don’t see them, I chant in my head, don’t see them, don’t see them, don’t see them, don’t see them, don’t see them. But it’s no good. He’s looking so far back around his shoulder now that he
must
see them. And just when I’m getting ready for him to say something, his head twists back and his eyes meet mine before he shrugs.

‘I saw a movie this morning, but a walk would be great. As big as this boat is, it’s making me feel cooped up.’

‘Great!’ I say, still too brightly. But inside my head I think, That’s funny, I was sure he’d seen Holly and my dad just then. Positive, even. If he has, though, Marc doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything about it at all.