Grace pulled on some clothes and rushed out to buy the paper from the newsstand on the corner near her building. As she walked closely she saw the headlines and her shoulders slumped. Taking the paper and throwing a ten-dollar note at the vendor and not waiting for change, she rushed up to her apartment and called Carlotta.
‘Hey.’
‘Did you see it?’ barked Carlotta down the line.
‘I’m holding it,’ Grace said.
‘Fucking idiot,’ said Carlotta. ‘I’m on my way to her apartment. You coming?’
Grace thought for a moment; the last thing she wanted to do was confront Violetta, but Carlotta was even scarier than any potential confrontation with Violetta so she agreed.
They arrived together and Carlotta rang the buzzer. Violetta stirred, wondering who it would be. She wasn’t filming today.
She dragged herself from her bed and looked at the sleeping figure next to her. What was his name again? She tried to rack her coke-addled brain to remember her movements from last night. She remembered the party; the coke had given her a nice buzz, topped off with some champagne. All that and not eating for about twelve hours, helped her get to where she was now. In bed with a nameless man and a bad case of coke nose.
‘Hello,’ she said into the intercom.
‘It’s us,’ said Carlotta.
‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’ panicked Violetta.
‘We have to talk,’ said Carlotta. ‘Open the fucking door.’
Violetta waited for a moment. Shit, she thought, and then buzzed them in. She stood naked in the room.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ she said and ran to her bedroom. ‘Get up, get up.’ She kicked the sleeping body.
‘Jesus,’ she heard from under the covers.
‘Get up, my sisters are downstairs,’ Violetta ordered.
The man rolled over and Violetta groaned. Simon Russo, Sabrina’s brother, her cohort from the show. Simon was the go-to man when you were alone at the end of a party and there was no one else to take home. Violetta used to laugh at women who took Simon home; now she was one of them and she prayed to God no one would find out.
‘Out, out, out,’ she said, almost hysterical.
‘Relax, Christ. I’m up,’ he said, as he stood up with a large erection.
You certainly are, thought Violetta as she averted her eyes. Simon made her feel sick and his penis seemed to stand at attention at an odd angle. Tall, doughy, balding, with wire-rimmed spectacles – and what the fuck was that?
‘Is that a nipple ring?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, you saw it last night.’ He looked at her as though she had lost her mind.
‘OK,’ she said, shaking her head. Pulling on some tiny black shorts and a white singlet, she tried to pull the bed together. Then she heard her door buzzer. ‘Shit,’ she said and ran to the door.
‘Get your stuff and get out, Simon. I’m serious,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll take my sisters into the kitchen. You leave as soon as you’re dressed. OK?’
Simon nodded as though he were listening.
Shutting the bedroom door, Violetta opened the door to her sisters. ‘You better have brought me a coffee?’ she said.
Carlotta snorted at her and Grace walked in with a newspaper under her arm.
‘What’s up?’ asked Violetta, suddenly nervous and trying to steer her sisters into the kitchen. ‘Is it Mom?’ She felt faint.
Grace sat on the sofa and Carlotta stood by the window, her arms crossed. Grace opened the newspaper and put it in front of Violetta. She rubbed her eyes and looked down. There were three pictures on the front of the tabloid. The first was of her mother in her hospital bed, surrounded by the machines that were keeping her alive. The next was of Violetta and Simon Russo kissing clumsily on the street outside her apartment. And the last was of her father, wearing sunglasses and a white shirt and on a street that was certainly not New York.
Violetta groaned as she read the clichéd headline.Broken Birdie, while the little chick plays and the rooster holidays!
