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  Simon hung his head and threaded his fingers through his hair. He leaned his elbows heavily on the surface of the table, his only response to let out a long moan, as though something pained him deeply.

  “Oh my fuck!” Rae said behind her. “You’re shagging Simon van Helsdingen!”

  Emily spun around and favored her sister with a death glare. “Shut up!” She all but spat the words. “One word of this to anybody, I swear I’ll slit your throat myself. At least that will save the bother of waiting for it to happen to you when you go off on one of your little late-night jaunts that end up the devil knows where.”

  Rae laughed, clutching her sides as she curled up on the floor and beat at the ground with her heels. “Oh. My. Fuck! This has got to be the most hysterical thing ever!”

  “It’s not funny!” The heat of Emily’s tears surprised her, her world blurring and her chest tight. She rounded on Simon, who’d become a vague dark shape to her vision. “You didn’t tell me the whole truth!” Emily was vaguely aware she shrieked, but right now what the neighbors heard didn’t matter. Just like last night.

  She cringed.

  After she wiped her eyes, she spent a long moment glaring at Simon. He looked up eventually, only to turn his gaze to the window. He rose after a deep sigh. “I’d better clear off.”

  When he brushed past her, their shoulders barely touched, and it felt as if she’d been slapped. Although she didn’t want to, Emily trailed along in his wake, stepping over her sister, who had now pulled herself into a crouched position where she’d lain laughing only a minute or so ago.

  Rae regarded Simon and Emily’s passing with solemn eyes, but said nothing, as if she knew her comments might not be appreciated. Emily would deal with her kid sister later. Right now she needed to find some way to figure out what the hell she was going to do about Simon. An ugly little voice at the back of her mind whispered how he’d probably already slept with hundreds of women. What made her think she was so special, anyway? He hadn’t slept with her sister, had he?

  Emily leaned in the doorway while Simon gathered his things and put his wallet and keys in a pile before he pulled on socks and boots. His hair fell forward to obscure his face as he tied his laces. She wished she could see his expression, to know whether he was angry with her, or if she still stood a chance to patch things up before he left, because the knowledge that perhaps she’d overreacted stung. She’d carried on like a fishwife.

  “Si...”

  He glanced up. “I’m sorry, all right? I would have told you sooner or later. It’s just that things were going so well... I didn’t want to jeopardize...”

  “It’s just there’s a lot for me to process. I hadn’t expected you were...” She wanted to say “so famous” but stopped herself from uttering the words. The fact that the obvious had stared her in the face all along and she’d not figured it out bit hard. Out of context, right?

  How could she not have noticed? Granted without the makeup, latex and leathers, he seemed a regular alternative Joe. He looked human, not like the distant cold alien creature the media portrayed him as. Now he behaved like a young boy who’d just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  Simon’s phone rang then, belting out the opening notes of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. He answered in a monotone and turned away from her to stare out the window. Emily hung back, hating feeling as though she trespassed in her own home.

  After a few minutes, the hushed conversation was over and Simon appeared in the doorway, jacket slung over his shoulder. He still did not meet her gaze. “I’ve just had a call from... Gotta go.” Simon sneaked a glance at her, which prompted her to approach him and place a hand on his wrist.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” Why the hell was she apologizing? “I didn’t know my sister was–”

  “It’s fine. Just not how I expected to start today, that’s all.” He offered her a tight smile then walked toward the front door.

  Emily had to help him with the lock and it made her ache to see how remote he had become. The accidental contact he shrunk from hurt more than any verbal insults he may have hurled her way. A dozen words died on her lips as she watched him leave through the front gate without a backward glance, climb into his car and drive off after revving the car just that little bit too hard.

  A gust of wind hit at that moment, bringing with it grit that lodged in her eye, and Emily went back indoors, trying not to rub too much at the irritant. Damn, her eyes watered. A dull throb started in her chest and it became increasingly difficult to breathe. “Rae!”

  “I’m out back,” came the reply, muffled through the kitchen.

  Emily zoned in on Rae’s voice, her anger frightening her with its intensity. Her sister sat on the bench where Emily had fucked Simon the previous night, yet another beedie clenched in her fingers.

  “Just what the hell were you thinking?” she asked her sister.

  Rae looked up and grinned after she pushed messy bangs out of her face. “I knew when I came home to find a used condom in the kitchen bin you’d gotten lucky. Just had to see who the lucky bum was. Hadn’t realized exactly how lucky you’d gotten.”

  “That’s none of your business! And now you’ve quite possibly ruined whatever chances I’d had with him.” Her voice caught on the last word and Emily made fists. “Now I’m not even sure if I want this.”

  “Ah, but I can see you like him.”

  It struck Emily then that she still didn’t have his cellphone number. “What makes you think he’s going to even bother calling back after this morning?” God’s truth, he was probably so embarrassed he’d never bother. Hot tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

  “Okay, I’m sorry, Em. You must imagine how much of a shock it was for me to see you with him, okay?”

  The question she’d meant to ask earlier leaped from Emily’s lips. “Did you have something with him at that place?”

  Rae’s laughter turned into a liquid rasp of coughing before she made eye contact with her sister again. “Oh my god. I can’t believe you’re asking that! No way. Are you crazy or something? Would Simon van Helsdingen ever stoop so low as to graunch his fangrrrls? I mean, we flirt with him, but none of us get lucky. We’re not good enough for him.”

  Emily took a step back. “Oh.” Was it supposed to make her feel better that he found her to his liking? Or rather, had found her to his liking.

  “Oh, come on, sis. You must see it from my perspective. It’s like... Imagine this, coming home to find out your sister is shagging someone almost as famous as Marilyn Manson?”

  “That’s the problem! I didn’t know!”

  “Would it have made a difference if the guy was smaaking you? The guy’s only human, like us. He can also dig a chick and go home with her if he finds her good-looking. Hey, you should see it as a compliment. It’s probably because you didn’t know he was a celeb that attracted him to you in the first place. Women are throwing themselves at Simon all the time at his gigs. Because he’s famous and rich... And notorious.”

  “And now you’ve gone and blown my chances by embarrassing him.”

  Rae gave a low laugh. “If I recall, I wasn’t the one screaming at him as though he were some sort of dog’s business you’d found under your shoe.”

  “Aw fuck.” Emily sat heavily on the ground and cradled her head between her arms. “I’m a grade-A douche.”

  She heard Rae get up and approach, and flinched slightly when her sister draped her arm around her shoulder.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I could probably have reacted a little less juvenile, but I’ve...been drinking.”

  Emily shot her sister a filthy glare. “You know that’s not an excuse.”

  Rae shrugged. “I’ve apologized, okay? I promise you I won’t overreact the next time I see him with you, okay?”

  “That’s if there’s a next time,” Emily mumbled.

  “There will be, I’m certain.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can smell it, okay?”<
br />
  Emily managed a small smile. “As much as you’re smelling of booze and smoke at the moment?”

  Rae blew her a raspberry. “Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”

  Chapter 6

  Into the Belly of the Beast

  “Davy, open the effing door!” Rae hammered on Davy’s front door then toned her efforts down slightly when she remembered the old man upon whose property he lived. She stepped back and surveyed the overgrown garden. A marmalade cat snoozed in a patch of sunlight atop the roof of a rusted truck, which subsided into the greenery. Nothing stirred.

  The back of the old house displayed blank, shuttered windows badly in need of paint, the plaster on the walls fallen away in large patches to reveal red brick. The place gave her the shivers.

  Rae knocked again, softer this time, hating the way her spine crawled at the thought that perhaps someone watched her. What took Davy so long? He hadn’t been that badly hung over this morning when they’d caught the first train back to town. Quite the opposite. He’d berated her for drinking too much of other people’s tequila. He couldn’t possibly still be asleep. It was way past four in the afternoon. Now if only Davy would open the goddamned door.

  Someone inside the garden flat stumbled and cursed. A key turned in the lock and the door swung inward. Davy peered at her, his hair a magnificent rat’s nest. At least this time he’d remembered to pull on his boxers first.

  “Davy!” She gripped his forearms and danced him into the living room.

  “What?” He stubbed his toe against a crate. “Ouch! Let me go, Raeven, what the fuck is up with you?”

  She threw herself down on the couch, for once not caring about its condition. “You will never in a million years believe what I’ve got to tell you right now.”

  “I won’t, you’re right.” He examined his toe.

  “My dear sweet, adorable sister… She’s shagging Simon van Helsdingen.”

  Davy frowned at her. “Ag, don’t talk kak, man.”

  No. It’s ferrealz. Trust me. Would I make this kind of stuff up?”

  One of Davy’s eyebrows rose in question.

  “I’m so not making this up. This morning they were in the kitchen, getting all cute and cuddly. There was a used condom in the kitchen dustbin, I kid you not. They were so shagging.”

  “Why would a guy like Simon shag your sister? Where the hell did they hook up?”

  Rae shrugged. “She mentioned some dude walked into her shop the other day and they started talking and stuff, and I guess one thing jus’ kinda led to another and now they’re shagging.” She graced Davy with a beatific grin. “Isn’t that so much ten tons of awesome-sauce? I wonder how much I can get for his signature.”

  Davy regarded her with a bemused expression, as though he couldn’t quite make up his mind whether he believed her. “You’re not joking, are you?”

  She shook her head. “It’s the truth.”

  “Talk kak,” he murmured.

  “I’m talking the honest to goodness truth, Davy. My god, you should see what he looks like without all the makeup. He’s still fucking hot!”

  “Oh. Well, excuse me if I don’t want to talk about it.” Davy retreated into his bedroom and shut the door before she had a chance to get a word in edgewise.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Rae got up and hammered on the door a few times.

  Silence was her only reply and Rae stared at the torn Dracula poster for a few heartbeats while she tried to figure out what was biting her friend. Was it possible that Davy was jealous?

  Rae shrugged this revelation off and decided not to think about it too hard. She exited the cottage, turned and slipped through the gap in the hedge. A few friends numbered on her “to-do” list and she still had enough stuff on her before she needed to see Davy again to replenish her stock. He’d calm down in a bit.

  “Grumpy old sod,” she muttered then walked down to the main road, so she could hail a minibus taxi headed for Wynberg.

  * * * *

  Every time her phone rang that week, Emily couldn’t help but drop what she was doing and rush to answer, but these instances were only enquiries from customers who looked for specific titles. Whenever someone stepped over her shop’s lintel, Emily tensed, expecting Simon, only to be disappointed the next moment. She really didn’t have a life, did she?

  By Friday she was ready to claw her way up the walls. He could have called.

  “What you need is a haircut,” Miriam said shortly after lunch. The women sat in their customary spot in front of the big black woman’s shop.

  Nadia, the Congolese hair stylist from across the mall, had joined them and nodded sagely at Miriam’s advice. “We make you totally different. Forget this man. He is no good. I hear on the news how bad he is. He get locked up for possession of cocaine. And that ex of his, the dancer. She committed suicide. You fix hair and you look good and feel good about yourself. Go out and find new man. Not this putain.”

  A laugh escaped from Emily. If only it were that simple. She leveled her gaze at Nadia, then Miriam. “If only a haircut would cure all the world’s ills.”

  The hairdresser pursed her full lips, placing a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “You see. Close your shop for now. Come and I will give you massage as well.”

  Reluctantly, Emily rose. Maybe Nadia had a point. It was time she looked at changing something about herself. “Okay, but nothing too extreme with the hair, okay? Just a trim.”

  Miriam laughed then returned to the recesses of her coffee shop.

  Nadia waited for Emily to put the Back in Five Minutes sign on her door and lock her shop before she hooked her arm with Emily’s and guided her to her store.

  The interior of Sunshine Hair and Beauty smelled of shampoo, an almond scent that immediately made Emily relax as Nadia sat her at the sink. There was something ultimately soothing about having her friend’s fingers massage the niggles from her, expert pressure worrying at the threads of tension collected at the base of her neck. It was as if her concerns about Simon and the whole unfortunate incident the other morning drained from her with the soapy water from her scalp. He’d been a good lay she’d been long overdue for, nothing more. Now if only she could repeat only a good lay a few hundred times, she might start to believe it.

  “You see,” Nadia murmured in her ear. “You already relaxed.”

  A towel wrapping her hair, Emily was seated by the big mirror. She hated the way she looked so wan. Nadia beamed at her and placed hands on both shoulders. “What shall it be today, madam?”

  Emily had to laugh. “I don’t know, missus.”

  Nadia uncoiled the towel to allow Emily’s sodden bangs to fall.

  Impulse bit Emily and she frowned at her reflection. When she’d left school and started varsity, she’d cut her hair into a style reminiscent of 1970s David Bowie. “Take it all off. I want it short, like a boy’s, but a pixie hairstyle with slightly longer bits at the side.”

  Nadia bit her lip and lifted pieces of hair. “Maybe it work.”

  “It has worked in the past.”

  “You have face for it. I’ll do it. We tired of seeing you sad in your shop.”

  Emily subjected herself to Nadia’s ministrations, a grim smile on her lips as she watched the scissors flash in the dark-skinned woman’s hands. She felt somehow lighter as the bits fell to the ground, as if the past week’s drama had been transferred to the discarded hair.

  When Nadia was done, the transformation was astounding, Emily had to admit. A much-younger woman stared back at her with pale gray eyes.

  Nadia leaned over, her minty breath warm against Emily’s lobes as she whispered, “Now you don’t go and ruin that lovely color by dyeing over it, okay?”

  “I won’t,” she whispered.

  “Promise me this, you not stay home tonight, either? Go out with your sister and have a good time. Maybe you meet some nicer man.”

  Emily nodded. A night on the town was the last thing on her mind, but maybe Nadia had
a point.

  * * * *

  “Just hold still, I gotta smudge the liner just a bit.” Rae bit her lip then licked the tip of an index finger and wiped at the skin just below Emily’s eye.

  “I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Emily said.

  Rae sat back on her haunches, looking up to where her sister sat on the edge of her bed. “C’mon, sis. You’re looking awesome.” She curled her fingers through Emily’s, tugging lightly. “Come take a look at yourself in the mirror.”

  With some reluctance, Emily allowed Rae to drag her to the bevel-edged mirror hanging from the wall. She was not prepared for the apparition that faced her. Rae had powdered her already pale skin to the point where it looked more like porcelain, her gray eyes highlighted by the smudged eyeliner and cheekbones darkened, so they stood out in sharp enough relief to slice fingers. Her sister’s obsessive teasing of her hair had her looking as though she’d been dragged through the bush, becoming something almost fey. The dress was quite old, something she’d kept over the years: black silk with a mock-corset back and spaghetti straps. She’d worn it to her matric dance and, surprisingly, it still fit.

  “I look like Morticia Addams’ niece,” she said with some dismay.

  Rae clapped her hands. “Isn’t it wonderful? Of course digging up that black silk number was a bit of a struggle, but I reckon you are acceptable. Remember, it’s not how much black you wear, but how you wear it.”

  “The dress is going to be full of cigarette smoke stench by the end of the evening.”

  “You can wash it.”

  Emily sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I don’t really know.”

  “I went through all that hassle. Do it for me, Emmy. You’ll find you’ll enjoy yourself. You’ll see some of your old crowd there, I’m sure.”

  “I doubt they’ll remember me. I haven’t missed them in four years.”

  “Don’t be daft. Of course they will. And you’ll see it will be great to hook up with them again.”

  “But do I want to revive the past?” She’d had quite a reputation back in the old days. Emily wasn’t sure she wanted to revisit those memories when she met people she may or may not have succeeded in pissing off way back when.