‘Be my guest. It was definitely all those E-numbers. I suppose I could steal Carlton then. He’s the only other one who has shown me any interest. We’ll just have to watch out for Mimi going nuclear.’
I just pray she takes on board my advice to be resilient.
‘Okay. Agreed. I guess we should start getting ready.’
* * *
One look around the Hello Gorgeous dressing room tells me something is terribly wrong. There are clothes slung over every surface, make-up brushes, pots, bottles, tubes, big orange foundation sticks abandoned on the central getting-ready station, hairpieces hanging over the mirrors and the air is heavily scented with sickly-sweet sprays and perfumes.
‘OMG. What has happened here?’ Amber gasps. ‘We’ve been ransacked.’ Then she immediately inhales a sharp breath as Mimi stands in the doorway looking like a pantomime version of herself. Tears are streaming down her face, mascara smudging her eyes, two gashes of bright red blusher smearing her cheeks and sticky gloss highlighting already puffed-up lips.
‘Help,’ she squeaks, before launching herself, trembling, into Amber’s arms. ‘Help me.’
I immediately leap into action, fearing the worst – a catastrophic mental breakdown. ‘Come and sit down,’ I say gently. ‘Tell us what’s wrong. What happened to you?’ I guide her to one of the stools and crouch down before her.
‘It’s Carlton.’ She sniffs. ‘He doesn’t seem excited about our date tonight. I think he…’ She bursts into a fresh stream of sobbing. ‘I don’t think he fancies me-hee-heee,’ she wails, putting her head in her hands.
I take a moment to understand what she’s saying. Where is her resilience? There has to be more to it than that. ‘And you’re this upset because?’
Mimi looks up at me, a look of annoyance briefly flitting across her streaked face. ‘Because when I spoke to him, he said he could… he could…’
Amber begins to massage her shoulders. ‘Let it out, babes. Let it all out.’
‘He said he could take or leave it. He said he wasn’t bothered what we do for a date. I think he has his eye on someone EEH-EEH – EH – EH… else.’
Oh.
‘Who could it be?’ she asks us. ‘Who?’
‘Don’t you like any of the others?’ I say, trying to understand the extreme heartbreak on display and the lack of mathematical prowess. There are only four other women in the villa. Two of whom are stood right in front of her. It’s not that hard to work out.
‘I do,’ she says, wiping her eyes dry. ‘Giovanni. It’s always been him.’
Amber gives me a brief guilty look. ‘It’s still early days, Mimi. I mean, it’s totally normal for us all to pass the guys around as we get to know them. I barely know who is with who, we’ve swapped so many times. Who cares who we couple up with at the beginning, right?’
Who is with whom, I think, but I’ll keep quiet.
Mimi sniffs up her tears and digests what Amber is saying. ‘Yeah. Cool. But just promise me that neither of you will go for Giovanni or Carlton.’
She is staring at us with pleading eyes.
PING.
We look at Amber as her phone flashes. ‘Oh, shit.’ She looks at me and opens the message. ‘I got a text!’ she bellows. We follow her through the villa, out to the garden where everyone has come running to hear what awaits us. ‘Islanders, it is date night in the villa, hashtag look your best, hashtag dinner for two, hashtag secret steal.’
My heart sinks as they all jump up and down excitedly, trying to work out what is going to happen.
* * *
Four hours later, and we are dressed to kill. The girls have gone all out for glamour and spindly heels. Our hair and make-up is perfect. We have all bonded over the secret to effective contouring and making your eyes pop. The atmosphere is electric with excitement. Only, Amber and I have to play it cool, and we are not altogether comfortable with the deception.
We make our way to the outdoor kitchen to meet the boys. We can hear them singing and shouting at each other and, when we get there, they unexpectedly serenade us. They shuffle into formation and Henri, who I’ve barely had time to notice before, starts singing. He has a deliciously velvet voice and we are mesmerised. He’s amazing. The other boys join in with a mixed degree of harmonic ability and then they do a simple dance routine for us.
The girls squeal as though the Backstreet Boys have reformed and are thirty years younger. They seem smitten with the boys who, I suspect, have been elevated a notch up the heart-throb scale. When the song comes to an end, Henri gets down on one knee and takes Kassy’s hand.
‘Vill you curpool up wiz me, Kassee-yuh?’
Kassy appears delighted. ‘Sure.’ She flicks Marcel a sheepish look. ‘Sorry, babe. I’m going to choose On-ree as soon as we do a recoupling, yeah? No hard feelings.’
