Bad Girls (51 page)

‘He likes you!’ she repeated. ‘I know when a man wants you!’ She beat one small ringed fist on her chest in emphasis. ‘When he wants you, he doesn’t stop until—’ She looked horrified.‘No! You didn’t—’

‘
No
, I did
not
just have sex with Joe,
Matka
! God!’ Amber’s face hardened even further. ‘What’s
wrong
with you? You knew I was going to the rehab centre for a reunion! What do you think I did, gave Joe a blow job in the limo?’

Slava flapped her hand at her daughter. ‘You don’t need to talk like that!’ she snapped.

‘Yes, I do!’ Amber was on fire now. ‘Because it’s what you want me to do! You want me to be his mistress, because he’s rich and famous and could look after us! You don’t care what
I
want! Before Joe came along, you wanted me to marry Tony, and you didn’t ask me what I thought about that either. You didn’t care what I wanted, you just wanted me to open my legs for the richest guy who was in our lives at the time—’

There was a resounding slap as Slava hit her daughter across the face.

‘You don’t talk like that to me!’ she shouted.

It was as if a switch had gone off inside Amber, releasing all the pent-up tears that had been building up since seeing Dr Raf. They poured down her face as she took a step back, one hand coming up to her cheek in shock.

‘You shouldn’t hit me for telling the truth,
Matka
,’ she said more quietly. ‘In London, you said you knew those men I was seeing were paying Jared. You knew I was selling myself. Now you want me to go on doing it. That’s the truth, isn’t it?’

Slava’s face crumpled. ‘I just want us to be happy!’ she wailed. ‘I want us to be happy and not have problems with money!’

‘Maybe we’d be happier if we thought about money a bit less,’ Amber said. ‘We don’t need all this.’ She waved a hand round the marble atrium with its decorative skylight and sweeping staircase.

‘I just told Joe that I wouldn’t date him, because I wasn’t in love with him,’ she said. ‘Tony comes back next week, and I’ll have to tell him the same thing. I’ll start looking for a small flat for us. I’ll be making some money from the film part Joe got me. I’ll find an agent and try to get some more work – pay Tony back for what he’s spent on us. We’ll have to live really simply for a while, but now that I’m sober I might be able to get some modelling jobs too. I’ll waitress if I have to.’

‘
Waitress
. . .’ Slava said dully.

‘We’ll be OK,
Matka
,’ Amber said, her tears gradually ceasing to flow. ‘I’ll take care of us. We’ll manage somehow.’

‘You won’t see these men because you’re not in love with them?’ Slava repeated, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘They’re nice men! You’re crazy!’ She tapped her head with one long red-tipped finger. ‘Crazy! You date them, then you see! Maybe you fall in love with one of these two nice men who like you? How do you know you don’t fall in love?’

Her voice had been rising, and now she was shouting again, her eyes flashing with fury.

‘How do you
know
? How do you
know
you don’t fall in love? You’re
crazy
!’

‘I know I won’t fall in love with them,’ Amber yelled back, ‘because I’m already in love with someone,
Matka
!’

Slava fell back, stunned. ‘You’re in
love
? Who is it?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Amber said, beginning to feel a throbbing at her temples that indicated a massive headache was on its way. ‘He’s engaged to someone else.’

‘He’s going to marry
someone else
?’ Slava screamed. ‘And for this you turn down
Joe Jeffreys
, and Tony, who gives us this house to live in? For a man who’s going to
marry another woman
?
Bo
e môj
!’ She hit her chest with both fists now, her rings clinking against the heavy chains of her necklace. ‘I kill myself! I kill myself! My daughter is crazy!’

Amber walked towards the staircase, her head pounding. ‘I’m going to go and lie down,’ she said, as calmly as she could. ‘I have a terrible headache.’

‘Good!’ Slava yelled. ‘You lie down! And when you wake up, you come back down here and you tell me you know you were crazy and you’re not crazy any more, OK? You tell me you pick Joe or Tony and you let them take you out, you go to dinner, you see what happens! You tell me you stop thinking about this man who marries someone else!’

Every stair up to her bedroom felt three feet high. Amber leaned heavily on the banister, dragging herself upstairs, vividly aware of Slava standing in the atrium, staring up at her, watching her go.

I meant it
, Matka
. Every word. I know you don’t believe it yet, but you will. I’ll convince you, no matter what it takes.

Amber wasn’t just bracing herself to climb the stairs. She knew she was in for the fight of her life.

Once and for all, she was going to have to stand up to her mother.

‘A
mber! What’re you doing here?’ Petal said, throwing the door open, dumbfounded to see who was standing on the doorstep of Linda’s house.

‘Can I come in?’ Amber pushed up her sunglasses to the crown of her head so that she could look Petal directly in the eyes. Her expression was so serious that Petal got butterflies in her stomach.

Uh-oh.

‘Okay,’ Petal said nervously, stepping back to let Amber come in. ‘Um, want to come out to the pool? My mum’s in the living room and she’s waiting for a phone call – she’s in a bit of a state at the moment, you might want to steer clear of her.’

‘All right,’ Amber said, following Petal through the kitchen, outside into the scraggy garden, across the dry brownish grass verge of the pool.

‘I hang out here a lot,’ Petal said, stepping up onto the covered sitting area in front of the pool house. ‘It’s shady, and I can’t take the sun.’ She gestured at her white skin as she flopped into one of the lounge chairs.

‘Sorry, it’s all a bit shabby,’ she said, looking around her at the sun-damaged wood, the peeling paint of the pool house, the fraying canvas pulling away from the aluminium frames of the lounge chairs. ‘You want a drink or something? Water, I mean,’ she added hurriedly. ‘Or Coke.’

Amber shook her head.

‘This is about yesterday,’ Petal said, sighing. ‘I really fucked up. I’m sorry. Brian read me the riot act, and he was totally right. Dr Lucy just pressed my buttons.’ She grimaced. ‘As Mitch would say, she triggers me like mad.’

Petal curled up like a ball in her chair, pulling up her legs. She looked frankly at Amber.

‘I really resented you at Cascabel,’ she confessed. ‘You’re so beautiful, and everyone was so sorry for you. They all wanted to take care of you.’

Amber rolled her eyes. ‘I’m pretty sick of that,’ she said. ‘I need to start taking care of myself.’

‘Yeah. Me too,’ Petal said. ‘I’m not sure I know how.’

‘Let me know when you work it out,’ Amber said, only half-joking. ‘I could do with all the suggestions I can get.’

‘Ditto.’ Petal pulled a face. ‘Well, this is weird,’ she said, looking down at her knees as she wrapped her arms around them. ‘I’ve, like, been resenting you for ages, and now we’ve sort of got this stuff in common. I feel a bit of an idiot.’

‘Petal—’ Amber leaned forward, fixing Petal with an intense stare.

She doesn’t look like she did at Cascabel, Petal realized. She’s usually all dressed up like she’s going out somewhere posh – makeup, hair, jewellery, everything perfect.

Amber didn’t look scruffy – she probably wouldn’t know how, Petal reflected drily – but her hair was pulled off her face in a ponytail, her skin looked bare of makeup, and, though her clothes fit her like a glove, they were a simple pair of jeans and a grey marl T-shirt.

I get it, Petal thought. She’s not messing around.

‘Did you already talk to the
Investigator
about what you said yesterday?’ Amber continued. ‘About me and Dr Raf?’

Petal stared at her, taken aback. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I—’

‘You mustn’t!’ Amber’s eyes were huge as they focused on Petal. ‘It’s totally not true! But you could get Dr Raf in so much trouble . . .’

‘Look, I—’

‘Nothing happened,’ Amber insisted, riding over her. ‘At least, Dr Raf did nothing wrong. You have to believe that. I did have a crush on him –’ she blushed – ‘but then, who doesn’t?’

Petal found herself nodding in agreement.
It’s true. Everyone sort of had a crush on Dr Raf. Even Daniyel would go all soft and mushy-eyed when she talked to him, and Daniyel was hard as nails.

‘I pretty much threw myself at him,’ Amber admitted. A blush rose again in her cheeks. ‘You were right, there
was
something.’

‘I knew it,’ Petal said complacently. ‘I’m not an idiot. I mean, I saw my dad with women going after him all the time. I
knew
there was that –’ she searched briefly for the word, and then came up with it – ‘
atmosphere
at the end of your sessions.’

‘Well,’ Amber said, ‘I had a huge crush on him and I did my best to get him to – you know. But he turned me down.’

‘It probably happens all the time,’ Petal said wisely. ‘I mean, he’s so gorgeous. And he really understands what you’re going through.’ She fiddled with a thread that was coming off the canvas of her chair, looking sad. ‘I miss my sessions with him. I wish I hadn’t fucked up like that and got kicked out.’

She looked at Amber. ‘You shouldn’t feel bad about it,’ she advised kindly. ‘I’m sure he’s really used to women trying to get off with him.’

Amber’s expression was unreadable. ‘So you see,’ she said insistently,‘you mustn’t go to the
Investigator
. On top of what happened before, it would be a terrible scandal. Dr Raf would be in real trouble. Everyone would say “no smoke without fire”.’

She reached out and pressed Petal’s knee. ‘He was so nice to you,’ she said. ‘I know Dr Lucy’s a total bitch—’

Petal snorted. ‘Understatement of the fucking
year
,’ she said.

‘But Dr Raf doesn’t deserve you dragging him through the mud, just to get back at Dr Lucy,’ Amber finished, her voice passionate.

‘Honestly,’ Petal said, ‘I never actually meant to go to the
Investigator
. I mean, I’ve done enough damage. I just threw it out to get back at Dr Lucy.’

Amber’s shoulders sagged in relief. ‘Oh, thank
God
,’ she said fervently.

‘You must think I’m a real bitch,’ Petal said, rather sadly.

‘No!’ Amber looked embarrassed.

‘Hey, I fucked up once,’ Petal finished. ‘Give a dog a bad name. It’s OK.’ She grimaced again. ‘I know it’s my own fault.’

‘
Petal!
’ came a scream from inside the main house.

‘Oh God,’ Petal said, hunching up.

Petal had got to know her mother’s moods fairly well, even though she hadn’t been staying with her that long: just from the way Linda had yelled her name, Petal had the sense that bad news was just about to be delivered. Sure enough, a second later, Linda burst out of the kitchen door, looking around her wildly.

‘Petal!’ she screeched. ‘Where the hell are you?’

‘I’m here, Mum! Where I always am!’ Petal called, rolling her eyes.

‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ Linda stormed around the pool. Her breasts bounced inside her skimpy white halter top so violently that Petal almost expected one of them to detach itself and come flying off.

‘I wish she’d wear a bra,’ Petal said
sotto voce
to Amber. ‘It’s really embarrassing when she doesn’t.’

Linda caught the kitten heel of her diamanté-studded flip-flop on a loose tile, and stumbled.

‘Fucking piece of crap!’ she wailed furiously. ‘Everything’s just fucking falling
apart
! And all you do is sit around all day – I thought your father was going to send some money for your keep, but he’s always been a tight bastard – all those millions and he’s as tight as a bloody virgin’s arsehole – bloody
s
—’

‘Oh God, here we go,’ Petal said wearily to Amber. ‘Sorry about this.’

‘VH1 called!’ Linda had reached the pool house, and stopped, hands on hips, staring furiously at her daughter. ‘They don’t want the series! Can you
believe
it? I thought that meeting went so well!’

Petal stared at her, genuinely taken aback. ‘So did I,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘God, I really thought they liked us.’

‘Well, they didn’t! They didn’t fucking like us!’ Linda wept. ‘I was
counting
on that!’

Her breasts heaved terrifyingly as she said suddenly: ‘Do you think if I told them your father would make a guest appearance—’

‘Mum.’ Petal shook her head. ‘He won’t. You know he won’t do some shitty little show on VH1.’

‘The Osbournes did!’ Linda said angrily.

‘Yeah, but Ozzy’s the star and he was out of it the whole time,’ Petal pointed out. ‘One thing you can’t say about Dad, he isn’t exactly out of it. Unless he’s meditating, I suppose.’

‘Ugh!’ Linda dragged on one of her bleached-blonde plaits.

I hate when she does her hair like that, Petal thought, writhing. It’s like she’s trying to pretend that she’s my age. Which she totally isn’t.

‘I should just take my fucking clothes off!’ Linda said, sighing and collapsing to the grass.