An endless silent auction and three speeches later, everyone got back onto the speedboats to be taken across to dry land. As we disembarked, clouds began gathering overhead, and we heard the rumble of thunder in the distance. It was past midnight, and there wasn’t a taxi in sight. The rain started coming down-a light sprinkling at first and then heavier drops. Stavros looked at me, helpless, trying to shield my head with his two hands as we raced back to the hotel on foot.
“Here,” he said, spotting something lying on the street. He bent over and picked up a large black, empty trash bag and hoisted it above us, his two arms like tent poles. We ran back to the hotel, giggling. As soon as we arrived at the revolving-door entrance, we stopped, resting against the cool brick wall for an instant and dispensing with our makeshift cover.
“You OK?” Stavros asked gently, mopping my wet arms with his handkerchief.
“Fine,” I said, staring at him, focusing on the droplets coming off his long eyelashes.
“That was quite an adventure,” he said, laughing. He stared back at me, the smile slowly disappearing from his face. The night suddenly felt heavy with wetness, the rustling of leaves from nearby trees the only sound we could hear apart from our own breathing. Stavros leaned in, put one arm around my waist, and drew me to him, first lightly kissing my moist cheek and then smoothly moving his lips on top of mine. This time, I didn’t flinch. I didn’t fight. I simply let my lips relax under his and enjoyed the closeness.
After a few seconds, while my eyes were still closed, he stopped.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I was overcome. It’s been quite a night. Forgive me.”
I nodded and said nothing. We silently went in through the revolving doors, me thinking about what I would say to him over croissants and coffee the next morning. Claire was sitting in the lobby, in the same place she had been hours earlier, but this time with a paunchy, well-dressed man, both of them swirling cognac in bulbous glasses. I knew she had seen me through the door because she smirked when we came in.
I was miss prissy-pants no more.
“You kissed him?! You frigging kissed him?!” Felicia screamed.
She was already waiting for me in the small lobby of my New York apartment building when I trudged in with my suitcase, looking as if she were about to explode. But she at least had the decency to wait until we were within the four walls of my apartment.
“What the crap were you thinking?!” she screamed again.
Felicia had received a call that morning from a tabloid editor with whom she was especially friendly. The editor had in turn received a call from one Claudine Chung, who had described herself as a Singaporean entrepreneur on business in the South of France who was willing to impart some scandalous information about me for a few hundred dollars.
“I thought I’d never have to worry about damage control with you!” Felicia shrieked. “But goddammit, of all the men to mess around with, you have to choose a married one!”
I dropped my suitcase.
“What? He didn’t tell you?” Felicia asked, seeing the stunned look on my face. “OK, he’s separated. But he’s still married, for heaven’s sake. To a hotel heiress at that. Do you know how that looks? A supposedly chaste celebrity smooching her married boss on a dark street in St. Tropez? What were you guys thinking? We’re building your whole career on how fabulously elusive and traditional you are, and then you pull something like this!”
Felicia had talked the editor friend out of running anything, promising a much bigger scoop later on.
“Look, you’re lonely. I get it,” she said. “But that agent of yours is going to hear from me, I promise you that. In the meantime, let’s figure something else out.”
Stavros called soon after Felicia left. He apologized-first for kissing me, then for doing it while married. I had not seen him after that night, as he had chosen to stay on for an extra day, I assumed because he didn’t want the awkwardness of being on a long flight with me.
“But why didn’t you tell me you had a wife?” I asked him, feeling ashamed, reminding myself that infidelity was a severely punishable offense in Allah’s eyes.
“Sometimes I forget that I’m married,” he said sheepishly. “We’ve not been together in years and just haven’t gotten around to getting divorced yet. But Felicia is right. That’s no excuse. It was stupid and irresponsible of me, and could have easily destroyed everything we’ve worked for. Please forgive me. Can we forget it happened-put it down to a being-overcome-by-the-moment thing?”
I was prepared to do just that.
Felicia, in the meantime, had decided it was time to go on the offensive.
Chapter Twenty
“Here’s the thing,” Felicia said, her face turning serious, a cigarette dangling between two fingers. “I don’t know how it is in your neck of the woods, but in these parts there’s no such thing as a naïve, socially inept supermodel. It’s an oxymoron. Understand?”
We were in her office, where she had hurriedly called a meeting with Stavros and me. On the way there, Stavros had described the event as a “summit,” saying that Felicia could strategize more forcefully than an army general.
There in her office, Stavros looked at me, nodding in agreement.
“I’ve wanted to create a particular image for you-elegant, elusive, all that crap-and it’s worked,” she continued. “But it’s just getting a little too stale, a little too vanilla.”
“What do you have in mind?” Stavros asked.
“An alliance, quite simply,” she replied. “An affair, but one that looks potentially serious, not some one-night-stand, roll-in-the-hay travesty. With a movie star or a rock star. All the girls have one: Gisele Bündchen’s got Leo, Kate Moss has got that rocker chap, whatever his name is. We need to align you with someone who has a great profile, a strong image of his own, who can complement yours. Brad Pitt would have been perfect before Angelina pounced on him. Or Tom Cruise, but he’s taken too, and anyway that Scientology thing wouldn’t have meshed with your Muslimness, would it?” She snorted as I began to protest that “Muslimness” wasn’t even a word. “But you know what I’m getting at. Right, honey?”
Nana, for all his steadfast traditionalism, would have understood. He believed that fortunes were built and families were founded on the basis of appropriate alliances. He might never have thought in terms of supermodels and rock stars, but he understood and agreed with the general concept. It still pained me to think of him, so I shut him out of my mind.
“Good point,” Stavros interjected. “She needs a companion anyway. She can’t be doing this circuit on her own for much longer. Even if it’s a temporary thing, she must be seen to be somewhat attached to something other than a runway.”
“I’m not really clear on what you’re saying,” I said, looking at both of them. “You can’t just expect me to hook up with someone because he acts in movies or has a rock band. And really, I never thought I’d be with anyone until my wedding night,” I said, blushing.
“Now that’s just adorable,” Felicia said. “But let me explain something to you. This supermodel thing, technically, is over. Sure, Victoria ’s Secret will always be there to make someone a star, but on their own, models are barely worth the clothes they walk in these days. It’s all about brand-building, my girl. It’s about endorsements and acting gigs and fitness videos and cookbooks and clothing lines and anything else you might want to do. If you’re famous enough, people will eat at the restaurant you open and wear the bags you design and see the movies you act in. And how do you get famous? By being beautiful, which you are, and then hanging out with famous people, which you need to be doing more of. You need to be carousing on yachts in the Mediterranean with some A-list hottie, or be photographed in Us Weekly having a cozy coffee with whoever has the number-one single on Billboard that week. I told you from the beginning, this business is all about image. We need to cultivate a fabulous one for you, one that will take you to the top. Because that’s where you are headed, child.”