by Melissa Hill
Whereas Annie had to work her arse off right from the get-go, and even if she continued to expand #GlamSquad, she’d never match the giddy heights of international success Kim had achieved.
But that was life, wasn’t it? Some people just glided effortlessly through the water like swans, while others treaded water like demons just to keep afloat.
Annie looked again at the invite. The Sweet Life indeed …
No doubt this new retreat or wellness centre – or whatever hippy-dippy buzzword the gullible masses lapped up these days – would also be a roaring success, especially given the location.
And she couldn’t help but wonder now what Kim had done with the crumbling old villa. She smiled fondly, recalling how dismissive she’d been of the house initially, calling it an ’oul wreck, when Kim and even Colette had each been able to see beyond the ramshackle disrepair and visualise its former glory days.
No doubt it would be even more glorious now.
Annie exhaled. She wouldn’t be going, though – not a chance.
On the one hand she’d love to see the villa, catch up with old friends and visit old haunts, and join in celebrating the latest chapter in Kim Weston’s success story.
Yet on the other, the last thing Annie wanted was to revisit that summer that had begun so brilliantly, yet ultimately ended in tears.
Chapter 17
Then
Kim’s eyes were heavy.
The sun was blinding and her head hurt like a thousand spikes were being driven into it. She groaned as she rolled over in bed, the stale taste of alcohol tainting her tongue. Her mouth felt like cotton.
She forced an eye open. Where was she?
It was bright, way too bright, and the flimsy gauze curtains on the window stood open, allowing the sunlight free rein. The walls were a garish orange colour and there were cracks like rivers across the dingy ceiling.
Painted vines with purple grapes and red-and-white flowers lined the faded trim. It took her a moment to remember where she was and what had happened the day before.
Italy.
Annie, Colette, and way too much grappa. It was all a little blurry after that, but she did remember something about dancing outside on an ancient crumbling cabana-type thing under the olive trees.
Or was that Annie? Kim wasn’t sure.
She tried to go back to sleep but rest eluded her. Her head was throbbing and the only way it was going to stop was with some pain relief and maybe some food.
But the prospect of getting up to find either seemed the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest without oxygen.
If she was back home she could’ve just called down for the housekeeper to send something up, but she was in Italy and supposed to be fending for herself.
She groaned again as she forced herself onto her feet.
How she had got to this bedroom in the first place she wasn’t sure. She didn’t even remember being shown to a room, but despite the hows and means, she seemed to have ended up in one that was hot as hell.
And she might even end up sharing with someone else, she groaned inwardly, spotting the neatly made single bed across the way.
Kim wandered blearily around the landing outside, the intense sunlight causing her even more pain as she padded downstairs and tried to make her way to the kitchen.
Finally she found it and immediately began pulling open creaky old cupboards and messy drawers in the hope of finding something to ease the jackhammer in her head.
‘Looking for something?’ Colette asked a moment later. She was sitting calmly at the heavy oak table nearby with a cup of coffee.
Kim hadn’t spotted her on the way in.
Her voice was ten decibels too loud, though, and she raised a hand. ‘Not so loud,’ she moaned. ‘My head hurts.’
‘I have some aspirin in my bag upstairs,’ the younger girl offered, getting up. ‘I’ll get them. By the way, you snore.’
How come she’s so sprightly this morning? Kim asked herself as she settled down at one of the wooden chairs beneath the large rectanglar table.
Especially when yesterday her first impression of the English girl was that she was afraid of her own shadow. Unlike the Irish one, who looked like she wanted to beat hers (and everyone else’s) up.
And seriously, who made their bed so perfectly like that? Kim groaned inwardly.
Though on the plus side, at least she kinda knew her roommate.
She closed her eyes and laid her head down on the heavy wood, hoping to ease the throbbing.
‘Here you go,’ Colette announced a few minutes later as she placed a pack of painkillers on the table before her. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Ugh. I don’t think I could eat.’
‘Well, I could,’ Annie piped up. Kim hadn’t even realised she’d come in either.
‘How can you both sound so cheery when I feel like a train wreck?’ she grumbled in annoyance as she ripped open the blister pack of painkillers. ‘Thanks.’ She looked up gratefully at Colette, who’d also put a glass of water down in front her.
‘Won’t work,’ Annie insisted as she moved towards the fridge. ‘I have the perfect hangover cure,’ she continued, taking out tomatoes and what looked like it had once been celery from the fridge. She glanced dubiously at the drooping leaves. ‘God bless French students, is all I can say.’
‘You make that and I’ll do breakfast,’ Colette said, reaching over Annie and grabbing out some bacon and eggs. ‘There’s a lovely little grocery shop just down the hill. I found it this morning while out on my walk. The owner’s been there for over thirty years, she told me.’
Kim groaned again. These girls were way too perky. Annie looked as fresh as she had yesterday evening, and Colette had been out for a morning walk and already made friends with the locals.
Surely Kim hadn’t drank all that liquor by herself?
‘You can cook?’ Annie asked, as she began to chop vegetables and drop them in a blender.
‘I cooked for Mum every day for years, remember?’ Colette answered proudly.
Kim vaguely remembered the English girl telling them last night about her mother being unwell, but that she was better now. They’d all been sitting out on the terrace, sharing stories under the stars.
For her part, she wasn’t sure how much or little she’d told them about her own background; last night still felt like kind of a blur.
Annie was about to the start the blender, but Kim already knew her head wasn’t going to be able to take the noise.
‘You two do what you’re doing, I’m going outside to lay down for a while. Or no, scratch that,’ she said, remembering the blinding sunshine. ‘Maybe I’ll try find someplace in the shade. Call me when breakfast is ready.’
She padded out to the hallway, her bare feet slapping against the cracked tiled floor.
She made it to a couch in a living area situated at the rear of the house, facing away from the sun and with little natural light, before the spinning in her head overwhelmed her. She flopped into the worn though comfortable cushions without ceremony, and flung an arm over her head to shield her eyes, even though it was satisfyingly dark.
She felt sooo bad and wanted to go back to sleep, but with the combination of the pounding in her head and the chatter and cooking noises coming from the kitchen, she knew the chances of that were near impossible.
This was not a good start. Kim had come all the way here to escape her New York party-girl crap and she’d ended up trashed and dancing in the moonlight on her very first night.
So much for changing her life.
‘There you are,’ Annie’s voice suddenly resounded nearby. Kim peeked out from beneath her arm. The other girl had a tall glass of some thick red concoction in her hands. She frowned.
‘What is it?’
‘Bloody Mary, of course. I know it looks rotten, and doesn’t taste the best either, but it works. Trust me, I’m Irish. We know the best cures.’
Kim sat up. ‘All right, but if this doesn’t work
I’m holding you responsible.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Like I should for last night – as I recall, the grappa was your suggestion. As was the wine and then the beer …’
‘Ah, would you stop it, last night was great craic. And the Germans were only too delighted to share their stash with us. Here—’ She handed her the drink.
Their chat was interrupted by the sound of singing coming from the kitchen and each gave the other a conspiratorial look.
‘How is she so goddamn chipper?’
‘I have no idea,’ Annie replied. ‘I was full sure she’d be out cold for an entire week after all we drank, but she’s better off than either of us. Not a bother on her.’
‘Think the innocent act is real?’
‘Looks that way,’ Annie said. ‘Lousy, I know, but when she walked in here yesterday my first thought was: there’s someone that could seriously use a makeover.’
Despite herself, Kim laughed. ‘You said you do hair, right? Maybe you could offer her some of your expertise.’
Colette announced that breakfast was ready a few minutes later and both Kim and Annie made their way back to the kitchen and the waiting meal.
Kim picked at her scrambled eggs, even though they were really good. The entire meal was. She was impressed. She couldn’t boil water without starting a fire. It was fortunate that Colette would be around while she was here; might save her on some of the eating-out expenses.
She remembered now that the English girl had also reacted with considerable enthusiasm last night to her suggestion about the cookery class. Maybe she should just let Colette go along instead, and Kim and Annie could reap the benefits.
‘So what are we doing later?’ Annie asked eagerly.
Kim looked at her, realising that, like it or not, she seemed to have made some new friends. She hadn’t really considered what she would do while here, she just needed to get away. But maybe some companionship would be a good thing?
As long as they didn’t spend all their time partying.
‘Dunno,’ she replied non-committally. ‘Did you have something in mind?’
‘There’s this brilliant place downtown I went to the other night. A late-night bar actually cut into a cave,’ she enthused, eyes shining. ‘Great crowd and the music is the biz. We could do our own thing today and maybe meet up later for a bite to eat and head there after?’ She turned to Colette for a response.
‘Great,’ the English girl replied with a smile. ‘Sounds like fun.’
Kim nodded in assent. She was happy to check out the town, but she’d already decided that she wasn’t going to drink a single drop of alcohol.
Time to put her partying days well and truly behind her.
Chapter 18
The trio ventured down to the centre of Positano later that evening.
Annie was right, Music on the Rocks was awesome, but Kim got the feeling that Annie’s desire to be there had less to do with showing them a good time, and more with her trying to find someone else, judging by the way she spent most of the night looking around.
Interesting …
Still, they had fun. Over dinner they’d exchanged further snippets of each other’s lives, delving deeper into the reasons they were all here in the first place. It was fascinating stuff, especially Annie’s upbringing – which was so utterly different from her own, yet they’d both been let down and rejected by their parents.
Kim was kind of embarrassed to admit that hers had basically wanted to marry her off to some guy in England; it seemed frivolous and stupid in comparison to the stuff they’d been dealing with, so instead she’d told them she just wanted to get out from beneath her folks’ thumbs for a while.
Later, Annie and Colette confessed to being wiped (particularly after that long trek up the hill) when they got back to the villa, but Kim was still a little wired.
She checked the time and calculated the equivalent East Coast time back in New York.
Realising that it was the middle of the night there and Natasha would be fast asleep, she decided to upload a couple of photos to the new social media account she’d set up so she and her friend could keep in touch without Kim’s parents being privy to where she was.
Her chosen handle was ‘The Sweet Life’, the English translation of the villa’s name.
She picked a gorgeous sunset photo she’d taken from the pizzeria they’d eaten in earlier – a golden orb over the water, framed by vibrant bougainvillea trailing the ornate railing at their window table.
It was a pretty good shot if she did say so herself, she thought, as she tagged her friend’s account, though her iPhone was brand new so the camera was top-of-the-range.
‘Food with a View’ was the rather uninspiring caption Kim chose, but that wasn’t the point. She just wanted to let Tash know that she was here, safe, and having a good time.
She still felt guilty about diverting the trip without her folks knowing, though she had sent a message to Spencer Andrews – enough to let him know that there was a slight change of plan and that she wouldn’t be coming over this week but his family shouldn’t worry.
No doubt Peter and Gloria were already aware she’d gone AWOL, and she’d have to confront them, too, at some point, but she’d wait till she was better settled here first.
She got a glass of water from the kitchen and ventured around the common areas of the house she hadn’t yet had a chance to explore properly.
According to Annie, there were four bedrooms in the villa, three of which were currently occupied by herself and Colette, with Annie in the single room and the older German couple they’d met briefly last night (though Kim couldn’t remember much of their conversation) in another.
That parlour-type room off the kitchen in the back which had been her haven that morning, was so dark and dreary that it really should be knocked through so as to open out the tiny kitchen and let in some more natural light.
Though perhaps there was some advantage to that; the absence of direct sunlight and tiny windows would at least keep the place cooler in summer. With no air-conditioning in the place, that was definitely needed.
Feeling around for a light switch, Kim couldn’t find anything and proceeded further along the wall before stumbling into something. Her shin knocked hard against the side of a piece of clunky wooden furniture and she yelped as pain shot up to her knee.
She kicked at it. ‘Goddamn wreck,’ she grumbled, before a thudding sound got her attention.
Creepy …
The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she was about to retreat from the room when she located a small lamp atop the dresser and switched it on.
Yup, this room was indeed long past its prime, with worn interiors and a shabby sofa that looked like it might convert to a fold-out bed, which technically made it another bedroom, though she couldn’t imagine who would pay to actually sleep in it.
Ugh. Backpackers, probably, or travellers on a budget – like Kim was now. She gulped, reminding herself that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. That would take some getting used to.
But she was pretty sure she could handle it; prove to her folks and herself that she didn’t need their money to get by in life.
The windows were open to let out some of the day’s heat, and tonight there was a welcome breeze. But other than that there was little else of interest in the room.
Kim reached to turn off the lamp and head upstairs to bed, when something sticking out beneath the dresser she’d knocked into caught her eye.
She kneeled down and fished it out. It was some kind of book. A journal, with some handwriting inside. Beautiful cursive script – a lot of it in Italian.
She flipped through a few more pages, recognising some words also written in English. Looked like poetry … Actually, no – they were just stand-alone sentences.
La dolce vita: good food, good drinks, good people.
Because life is meant to be lived, and lived well.
Nice. On a whim, Kim took out her phone and updated her social
media caption from earlier.
Much better.
Chapter 19
Now
The Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria was a famed award-winning hotel located in Sorrento, pure five-star luxury, which was why Kim had reserved it for her family’s upcoming stay, and arranged special packages for other overseas guests attending Villa Dolce Vita’s official launch.
While she’d stayed at the villa to oversee the last of the preparation of the wellness centre interiors and grounds, she’d moved the short distance to the hotel a half an hour away in advance of Gabriel and Lily’s arrival.
‘Hey, you,’ she greeted Gabe into the phone, holding it close to her ear as she stood out on the wide terrace of their two-bed family suite. ‘Where are you now?’
‘In Naples just about to take the train. Are you sure you have time to pick us up? We could just grab a cab the rest of the way.’
‘Of course I’ll pick you up. I’d have picked you up at the airport but I know Lily really wanted to take a train ride and see the views.’
‘Any view with you in it is the best one for us.’
A knot of guilt formed in her stomach. ‘Hey, I know I’ve been away a lot …’
‘This is a big deal. We both know that.’
‘It is a big deal but so are you two. I promise, when you guys get here I’m going to make time for us as a family – especially after launch night,’ she said sincerely. ‘And yeah, I know it can’t be easy having me for a wife.’
‘As if I’d want any other,’ he replied with a smile in his voice. ‘I’m so proud of you, honey. You work hard and you get the job done. But I gotta say, some downtime together will be nice.’
Kim’s head fell in shame. ‘How was Lily on the flight?’ she asked.
‘Good. She slept like a baby most of the way, but was a bit restless and sneezing when we got in. Really hope she’s not coming down with something.’