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‘Actually she’s not.’
Cash trains his starry eyes at me and I feel myself go hot. A wicked smile plays about his lips as he makes his decision. ‘You know what, Britney? I think I might have to take you up on your tempting offer after all.’
Me and my big mouth.
‘Yay,’ Britney yells happily as she bounces up and down and jumps around like she’s a frog in a rainforest celebrating a coming storm.
In a kind of hypnotic daze, I watch Cash pull a beanie from his jacket and jam it on his head. Then he takes out a pair of sunglasses and hooks them onto the bridge of his nose. I hate to be repetitive, but he is one sexy dish. Give me a man in shades any day.
Britney threads her hand through her brother’s and beams at me. ‘I’ll see you at home?’
’Yes, yes, obviously. Of course you will,’ I babble foolishly before I turn around and slam straight into a really fat man. Mortified, I make my apologies. Of course, with my luck, he would have to have a weird sense of humor. He laughs and tells me not to apologize since it’s the best sex he’s had all year. My face burns with embarrassment. I dart a glance back at Cash and the irritating bastard is shaking with silent laughter.
Whatever. With my head held up high I sail towards the door.
Outside the sun is shining brightly on a gleaming black on black Lamborghini parked in front of the surgery. Its macho perfection is spoiled by some heartless parking attendant sticking a yellow and black parking ticket on its windscreen. I am secretly pleased. Laugh at me, will you?
We go down the stone steps and a young woman walking past looks casually at us and then does a double-take.
‘Cash Hunter?’ she asks, her head pushed forward like a turtle, her eyes wide with disbelief.
‘Yup, but keep it to yourself,’ he says, with a magic smile.
She slaps her hands onto her cheeks. ‘Oh my God. Oh my God. I can’t believe this. I must be dreaming. Somebody pinch me quick. Oh, my God. I’m your greatest fan. Me and my girlfriend have even got tickets to come see you in Milan in August.’ She pauses to take a breath and launches again into another gushing monologue. ‘I love your latest album. I got the CD. It’s really good. I think it’s your best work. I play it nearly every night before I go to bed.’
‘That’s very nearly like going to bed with me,’ he says with a naughty wink.
Oh, for God’s sake. Is this guy for real?
But the fan flushes brick red. ‘Do you mind very much if I take a selfie with you?’ the woman gushes, flicking her hair and patting it.
‘Mind? The pleasure will be all mine,’ Cash drawls suggestively.
Britney unhooks her hand from his and takes a step back. She’s obviously used to this scenario.
‘Anna is going to be so jealous,’ the woman mutters to herself as she fumbles around in her purse. She locates her phone, fishes it out, and stands there with an expectant look on her face.
Cash crooks the fingers of his right hand and she eagerly rushes up to nestle against his butter-soft jacket. I know what that garment feels like because I copped a feel earlier.
She holds her phone up at arm level and asks, ‘Ready?’
Both of them grin like Cheshire cats and she snaps a few shots. The selfie excuse is over and she lowers her arm, but the silly bitch doesn’t move and remains cuddled up against his gorgeous body. Smoothly, Cash steps away.
‘Just one last thing. Can I please have your autograph? For my flat mate. She’s also my bestie. She’ll be so annoyed if I don’t,’ she chatters on, her face beaming.
‘Why not?’ Cash says, a glint in his eyes.
‘Oh, thank you. Thank you. She’ll be so pleased. Her name is Anna.’ She roots around again in her bag, and comes up with a pen and a crumpled piece of paper.
Cash takes the pen from her and ignores the scrap of paper. ‘We can do better than that,’ he says with a smug grin.
Her eyes widen. ‘Oh!’
‘May I?’ he asks.
Her head seems to waggle dangerously on her neck, but she is game. ‘Of course.’
He steps forward, reaches out a hand and expertly unbuttons the top button of her blouse. Her mouth hangs open with shock, excitement, and pleasure. Not a good look. Then he moves in and autographs the soft swell of her breast, just above her bra.
‘Have fun,’ Cash says, as he returns her pen. Giggling and simpering like a fool, she takes it.
Yeah, that will please your bestie for sure. Carry that home to her. I look at Britney and she rolls her eyes at me. I try not to show any expression.
‘Well, it was so fantastic meeting you. I guess I should let you get on. OK, bye. See you in Milan,’ she babbles, holding onto the edges of her shirt collar.
‘Yeah, cool,’ Cash calls moving away from her.
I see a black Bentley start inching towards us from its parked position a few cars down and I turn towards Britney. ‘See you at the house then.’
She grins at me happily. ‘Byeeeeee.’
Without looking at her brother or the crazed fan, I walk down the pavement and get into the Bentley.
‘Hey, Victor,’ I greet, closing the door after me. ‘It’ll just be me. Britney’s going home with her brother.’
‘Right, love,’ he replies, and pulls out into the street.
In my peripheral vision I can see that the fan has walked off, Britney is bouncing on the passenger seat, and Cash is unconcernedly ripping the penalty ticket off his windscreen. In the light of the noon sun, their hair glows like antique gold, and their beauty makes them look like gods, or fallen angels. All that is missing are the white wings.
I sink back into my seat.
Wow! I didn’t do very well back there. It hits me hard that I’m going to struggle to stay with the plan. The thought is totally depressing, but I cheer up by telling myself it’s only the beginning. Yes, he won this round, but in my defense I have a few redeeming factors on my side.
a) Even I didn’t quite expect him to pack such a powerful punch.
b) I was naturally blindsided by the element of surprise as I was not anticipating his arrival before the end of the month.
I remind myself not to be so hard on myself. After all, I’ve been crushing on him forever. For as long as I can remember, and I’m talking about the kind of all consuming crush where I even refused to look at other boys. Yup, that was me.
When it first started, my parents were all for it. Why wouldn’t they be? I was twelve and Cash was sixteen. Awww … sweet. Thinking about it now, my father actually thought it was a great development. Cash was part of a boy band called Alkaline in a faraway land called England. A quaint place still ruled by a Queen. Quite simply it meant he wouldn’t need to invest in a shotgun for at least a few more years.
For years they used to buy me Cash memorabilia. I had everything and anything with Cash’s name or face plastered on it. Bedspreads, pens, pencil cases, T-shirts, life-sized posters, cushions, mugs, plates, shower-curtains, even a toilet seat with Cash’s face and naked torso. My brother, Brad, bought it as a joke, but I loved it so it stayed. My room and my bathroom looked like shrines to Cash or the big publicity machine for Cash Hunter had just vomited all over my living space.
By the time I turned sixteen, my family didn’t consider my crush so peachy anymore. I came home from school one day and my mother claimed she had accidentally broken my toilet seat while she was cleaning it. Wonder of wonders my father already had a replacement toilet seat handy. My mother took the opportunity to persuade me that the shower curtains were looking old and worn and no longer matched the toilet seat.
A trip to Target sorted that out.
Then the Cash sheets somehow got snarled up in the dryer and my best Cash T-shirts were dyed grey when an old, black sock got into the washing machine by mistake. The mugs started breaking and were never replaced. Brad ordered life-size posters of Nine Inch Nails since they were the other group that I liked. He insisted on hanging them up for me after taking down Cash’s po
sters.
‘They’re really worn around the lips and cheeks aren’t they? Want me to trash them for you?’ he asked innocently.
Even though it was like a knife through my heart to see my beloved Cash posters being taken down, I knew my family was right. My obsession was bordering on crazy. I was two mugs away from being a stalker. Still, I couldn’t bear to throw my posters away. I’d been kissing them goodnight since I was twelve, so I rolled them up carefully and stored them away in the attic together with my ninety-six scrapbooks of Cash.
From that day onwards I stopped obsessively buying magazines he was featured in, and I forced myself not to go to ILoveCashHunter.com where I normally got the latest and breaking news about him. I even deleted his official website from my bookmark list.
Then when I was seventeen we heard that Alkaline was coming to Georgia. Cash Hunter was going to be performing at the Dome. My parents thought I was over him so they were quite happy for Leah and I to travel to Atlanta to see the concert.
We had to pay $30.00 for parking, wait more than an hour to check in our purses, and the Cokes were $7.00 each, but as I stood there with 70,000 other crazed fans, none of it mattered anymore. I felt more alive than I ever had. It was not like watching it on MTV or YouTube. A live concert was like nothing I could have imagined. Indescribable, really.
The very air was electric. Hundreds of roving spotlights moved over us adding so much heat to the evening that we were all bathed in sweat even before the performance started.
The massive stage suddenly lit up with winking, flashing blue lights and the music started. Nobody told me the vibrations would travel through the concrete under my feet, into my shoes, and up into my flesh and bones. It drummed into my blood and made my heart thump faster and faster. I was so excited the hair on my body stood on end.
Then the stage began to fill with smoke-like fog.
I could hardly believe I was finally going to see Cash Hunter. I thought I would stop breathing when five steel platforms began to rise out of the floor of the stage. The smoke began to clear and the crowd went crazy. My eyes found him immediately. It was unbelievable, but he was on the platform closest to us. The bright light made his hair glisten and his face glowed like an angel. He blew across the microphone.
‘Are you ready to rock Atlanta?’ he yelled into the microphone.
The crowd went wild.
