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, andwaytoo 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.
