She’s a girl. A teenager.
And just like that Zara runs around from her side of the car and storms over. ‘BELLA! What the ACTUAL HELL are you doing here?’ she screams.
She looks over to me. ‘I could say the same to you, Mother.’
31
CHLOE
‘Mike, she is here. She is sixteen years old and she bought a plane ticket to Ibiza and she got an Uber to the villa…I am not blaming you…Yes, I know what Bella’s like…Yes, I am going to give her actual flamethrowing hell, but please, I need you to share in this rage and absolute confoundment…I didn’t even know she knew where we kept the passports…’
Zara is, shall we say, not in the best place at the moment. She’s veering between rage and panic and disbelief, and the way she’s pacing the patio slabs, I wonder if they’ll be there in the morning.
The reason for her fury and shock is this young lady, who, it would seem, managed to get to London’s Stansted Airport and jump on a flight to Ibiza. I am incredulous because at sixteen, I didn’t even know how to get the bus around London. She used YouTube to wreck the lock and now she sits before us, quietly eating a sandwich that Ben’s made her and listening. She keeps studying the layers of her sandwich and nodding as she takes sips of her iced tea.
‘That’s not Lipton,’ she says to Ben.
‘I make it fresh with peaches. It means it tastes more of tea instead of sugar syrup,’ he tells her. I don’t think that impresses her. He chucks a tea towel over his shoulder and stands back against the kitchen counters to look at her. It’s like looking at a mini version of Zara, all the same sass with more piercings and eyeliner.
‘I’ll have some more tea. I like the addition of the mint, very refreshing,’ I tell Ben as I sit beside Bella. We’ve both been tasked with making sure she doesn’t go anywhere, like hop back on a plane or swim into international waters. We’re spending most of our time looking at each other, unsure what to say or do. I can’t say I mind the looking part though.
‘So what music are you into?’ I ask Bella.
‘Blood Orange,’ Bella replies in deadpan tones.
I wrinkle my face in confusion. ‘You made a blood orange juice the other day, didn’t you, Ben?’ He bites his lip at my attempts to bond with the teenager. ‘“Best to You” is one of my favourite songs,’ I say. ‘I like blood oranges in many forms.’
This still doesn’t impress the young person in front of us. It would seem neither of us have any cool cards. We can still hear Zara’s phone call in the background.
‘All I am saying is sit Louis and Jay down and make sure they’re not part of this…Plus, how did she get to the airport? Which credit card? I can’t believe this…I can literally feel my hairs turning grey?—’
‘Which hairs?’ Bella says, sniggering under her breath.
I furrow my brow at her.Now is not the time for jokes, Bella. I can’t tell her that though. Instead, I watch as Ben tops up her drink and places a piece of pear and chocolate tart on a plate, sliding it over to her. She’s still not totally convinced by us; I can see the suspicion in her eyes but also some angsty teenage grit that suggests she would quite happily fight me. Bella eyes the tart cautiously and then starts eating it.
Out on the patio, I can see Jess pacing with Zara, trying to calm her down, offering her tissues and water. Zara finally hangs up her phone.Shit’s going to go down, isn’t it?I’ve seen Zara pull out a hair extension. She walks into the kitchen and I can see she’s been crying. She stands there for a moment and takes a deep, deep breath, all her sinews strained and poised for attack.
‘Phone,’ she says to Bella.
‘But—’
‘Nah. You don’t get to negotiate with me over that. You’ll get it back when we touch down in the UK; even then I might trade this for a Nokia 3610.’
‘What’s that?’ she asks.
‘You’ll survive.’
Bella slides the phone over the breakfast bar while Ben and I silently look on. It’s like being in a classroom and watching the naughty kid get their comeuppance.
‘Now please explain, daughter, why you, achild, thought you would get on a plane and leave the country to come here without any regard for your safety. You didn’t tell anyone, you’ve used your dad’s cards, you’ve taken time off college, you have scared the literal shit out of us…’ Zara says, her voice getting louder.
I push a drink in her direction.
‘Correction. I also used my own money from my part-time job at Starbucks,’ Bella says.
‘So, you used your own money and that gives you the right to do all of this without any parental consultation?’
‘No… but?—’
