Lisa sighed at the cool water rising up her legs as she waded in. She hadn’t been for a swim at the beaches by the hotel as it had always been so busy when she walked past. In this little bay though, they were the only people in the vicinity, apart from a couple of people at the café.
“This is heaven,” she said, letting out a deep breath as she turned on her back and floated.
“I knew you’d like it.” Stella grinned and swam closer to her. “It’s not so bad here now, is it?”
“No, it’s not so bad at all.” Lisa straightened herself, her toes barely touching the bottom as she stopped paddling to wipe water from her eyes. “Thank you. I appreciate you taking me here, and for not pushing me to talk. I’ve had a really lovely morning.”
“I’m just glad to see you smile,” Stella said and swam away, giving Lisa some space.
“Me too,” Lisa mumbled to herself. She turned on her back, inhaled deeply and let the sunshine wash over her.
11
Even with the balcony doors wide open, the room was unbearably hot. Lisa had reported the broken air-conditioning unit to the service team six hours ago but so far, no one had come to fix it. That wasn’t surprising. Problems seemed to be noted down on a long list rather than solved at Paradise. She silently cursed her choice of hotel once more, then reminded herself that this really was the only option she could afford. She was usually able to catch some warm water in the shower before eight am, but between nine and midday, there was no chance of a warm shower, and at night even less so. Not that she needed a warm shower. What she needed was to cool down.
Opening her iPad, she was grateful that at least the Wi-Fi worked as she sat down in her nest on the balcony. It overlooked the pool, which was closed now, and in the distance, she could see the sea in between the buildings and the trees along the promenade. From here, even the poolside looked kind of nice at night, with the lights illuminating the water and the dark silhouettes of the palm trees rising tall against the sky.
“Stella,” Lisa mumbled to herself.What had she said her surname was again?They hadn’t talked much yesterday morning, but she’d made a comment about one of the crossword answers being her surname.Castillo?She typed it into the search engine, along with the name of the hotel and immediately, Stella’s picture appeared. Her social profiles were set to private, but the hotel’s website had a page dedicated to management, and there she was. Stella Castillo, poolside manager, thirty-five years of age. She’d worked here for seven years and according to the small piece written about her, she loved flamenco, good food and cats in no particular order. The latter made Lisa chuckle when she once again tried to picture Stella as a cat lady. She couldn’t imagine her dancing flamenco either, as she’d only ever seen her in shorts and she was pretty sure a frilly dress wouldn’t suit her. No, Stella seemed like a woman who played football or beach volleyball or…
“Hmm…” Lisa narrowed her eyes as she studied the picture again. Fuelled by curiosity, she opened YouTube and typed‘Stella Castillo flamenco’.Scrolling down, she eagerly searched for footage. There were thousands of videos of flamenco dancers, but none of them matched her name. Lisa shook her head with a sigh. Why was she even doing this? Sure, it was a welcome distraction from her twelve hours of job hunting a day but still, it was very unlike her to take such an interest in a woman. It had been years since she’d even been remotely interested in anyone. Well, apart from Sandrine, of course, but that had died out when her last hope of ever being reunited had vanished with a phone call.I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is going to work out after all.The famous last words. Of course, Sandrine had met someone else, and Lisa had beaten herself up about being so oblivious ever since. All the signs had been there. The lack of contact and affectionate messages, Sandrine’s obvious disinterest in what was going on in her life, and then there had been silence, mostly, with Sandrine only replying to Lisa’s messages when something urgent had to be addressed.
And so, Lisa had lived in a strange limbo, half in and half out of the relationship, unable to move forward and unwilling to let go. She’d been alone in the flat and alone in the relationship, the only one who had still been making an effort. It was for the best that Sandrine had ended it; she knew that now. But then, it had ripped her apart and sent her into a numb state of deep loneliness with her confidence shattered and her mind constantly spinning as she tried to figure out what she could have done differently. She’d tried everything. She’d sent presents and nice messages; she’d been interested and engaged. She’d even thought about moving to New York, and she’d mentioned that to Sandrine. Because what was the point of being in a relationship with someone you loved if you couldn’t be together? The latter had sealed Sandrine’s decision, she suspected. Sandrine just wanted someone to keep her company when she felt like it, someone to bring to parties and business dinners, and that someone had to be a woman she could impress her friends and colleagues with. The woman in question had been Sandrine’s colleague, and Lisa wasn’t one bit surprised about that. As work was such a big part of her life, dating co-workers had always been her thing, and when Lisa couldn’t play that role anymore, she’d found someone else. The betrayal had not only hurt Lisa deeply, but her sense of security, that was already dented from losing her job, had taken another hard blow. All along she’d been replaceable; as good as any other successful, attractive woman. Thankfully, she’d realised that and stopped dwelling, because she had more urgent things to focus on, which evolved around getting her life back on track.
She’d made a to-do list. It wasn’t long and it hadn’t seemed ambitious when she’d put it together, the list set as a screensaver on her phone. Written with the intention of giving her a boost, the effect had been the opposite; a looming reminder of what she hadn’t achieved.
1. Find a job.That had proved bloody impossible so far.
2. Move into a nice flat in South West London. She could forget about that for now and was mentally preparing herself to move into her old bedroom in her parents’ house.
3. Meet new people. Most of her friends were her and Sandrine’s joint friends, carefully selected by Sandrine based on their wealth, interesting qualities or success. And frankly, Lisa wasn’t interested in seeing any of them anymore. They hadn’t called her to ask how she was after the break-up, or made any effort at all to let her know she was their friend too. Her only close friend was Ebony, and in a city like London where life was buzzing and exciting, where there was something to do every night of the week, it felt lonely when Ebony was away for work or busy with whoever she was seeing.
4. Be healthy and happy. The last point on her list seemed ridiculous in a place like Paradise Hotel, where the food was anything but healthy and the noisy guests challenged her mood every single day. No, ticking off the list wasn’t going well. But despite everything, she did feel better than when she’d first arrived. And it would be naive to deny that Stella had something to do with that.
12
“All stocked up?” Stella rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she glanced over the tiki bar.
“Yes, I’m good to go for the day.” Dave tapped one of the fridges. “But as I told you, this one keeps giving up from time to time. There’s only so many times I can fix it; it really needs replacing.”
“I know. I’ve already asked for extra budget next month. Fingers crossed Mr Avery approves it.” Stella perched on one of the high stools and sipped her coffee, ignoring the rattling noise coming from the fridge. Ultimately the budget was out of her hands and since she only had twenty minutes until guests would flood the poolside, she was going to enjoy every second of tranquillity while she could. Saturday mornings were busy, as most package holiday flights returned to the UK in the afternoon, and so everyone was desperate to swim, eat and drink as much as they could before they left.
“Mr Avery never approves anything anymore. This place is falling apart.” Dave huffed. “I know times have been tough, but we can’t run on a broken engine.”
“True.” Stella didn’t know what to say to him. She’d spoken to their finance director five times but until the tour operating companies paid out at the end of the month, there was simply nothing in the pot. They’d never had this problem before as they’d always had a buffer from the constant stream of people. Now that they’d started from scratch after lockdown, it would take a while to build that buffer back up. “Let’s hope it lasts for another twenty-nine days.” She looked around, noting all the sunloungers were lined up in neat rows and that the pools were looking nice and clean. Manuel was dragging a bag of floats to the main pool, for his eight am fit-tastic class.
“Morning, boss!” he yelled.
Stella smiled and gave him a wave. Sure, Manuel’s tact was a little off sometimes, but with an amazing work ethic and the enthusiasm of a puppy, she was grateful to have him on her team. Besides that, the guests genuinely liked Manuel as the men wanted to be him and the women swooned over him. Well, not all the women. Lisa most certainly hadn’t. With her long, wavy blonde hair, slightly pouty lips, blue eyes, long, dark lashes and a seriously great body, Lisa was the epitome of femininity, yet she’d shown zero interest in one of the most handsome men in the vicinity. Not that she should; everyone had their type, and Lisa didn’t seem like she was in the headspace to flirt in the first place. But then there was the way Lisa had looked at her while she’d stripped off her clothes at the coffee house. It wasn’t the way straight women looked at her, so she wondered if maybe Lisa played on her team.
Finishing her coffee, she told herself to stop overthinking things as she wasn’t even supposed to take a personal interest in guests in the first place. Their peace was disturbed by two women who came walking towards them with towels in their hands. “Sorry, ladies, the pool doesn’t open until eight,” Stella said.
“No worries, we’ll wait.” One of the women held up a hand to greet her, then glanced around the premises with a beaming smile. “It’s so gorgeous out here, we just couldn’t wait to have a look around.”
“Oh, have you just arrived?”
“Yes, we came straight from the airport and it’s too early to check in, so we thought we’d just hang around here.”
“In that case, welcome to Paradise. I can’t open the pool gate yet, but you can come and sit here with us.” Stella tapped the seats next to her and shot Dave an apologetic look. “Sorry,” she whispered. “They look so happy; I didn’t have the heart to send them away. I’ll make them a coffee. You just sit and chill.”
