Chapter One Thousand Three Hundred Thirty-Seven
9th August 1959
Ramatuelle, France
The Villa was every bit as beautiful as Lea said it would be. The main house was set into a wooded hillside and had sweeping views of the Mediterranean Sea. The property sloped down to a rocky shoreline that had a small beach set into a cove. It was immediately clear why it had been selected by Kiki’s father. Everything about it put them as far from prying eyes as possible while still giving them the experience of being there. Zella thought it was great, no crowds and they had it all to themselves. Next week they could do some real exploring, there were lots of towns and villages in the region that would be fun to go see. This was perfect in the meantime.
The first few days however, had not been easy for Kiki. The day after Kiki had arrived, she had hardly made it out of bed, eventually coming to dinner wearing one of the old footballer’s jerseys she slept in. You’re on holiday, is what Aurora said when the subject had come up. Zella found it amusing that after all this time she still slept in jerseys that her brother had been forced to give away when he was told that he couldn’t be seen as rooting for any particular sports team. The truth was the original three had worn out years earlier and she had quietly replaced them. It still seemed like a fun way to quietly subvert the rules that had bedeviled Freddy.
The next day things had changed in a hurry when both Aurora and Zella had been horrified by the clothes that she had packed. She wasn’t in Berlin and she didn’t have classes to attend. So why did it look like that was what she was planning on doing? From Zella’s perspective, there was hardly anything that Kiki had brought that was appropriate for a holiday or the climate that they had found themselves in. What had followed was Zella questioning Lea about exactly what money was available for this vacation. Kiki would never have had the nerve to have asked those questions and had been horrified by what Zella was doing. Begrudgingly, Lea admitted that money had been made available for incidental expenses, but it was not to be abused on anything frivolous. That had led to a new round of questioning by Zella and eventually led to Lea on the phone with someone higher up the ladder. Eventually Lea had said that funds had been authorized and that Zella didn’t need to be so argumentative. Zella had been joyful that it had worked. “If you asserted yourself more often, these battles wouldn’t need to be fought later” Zella had said, “You should have been talking with your father weeks ago about this.”
The day after had been spent in Nice, just buying clothes. Bright colors and thin gauzy fabric of the sort that Kiki never wore but Zella insisted that she at least try on. Early on it was clear to Kiki that her friends were delighting in helping her with this and she ended up buying more than she imagined that she would. It had been after they had returned to the house late that afternoon when had come word that Kiki’s Uncle Vladimir was in nearby Saint-Tropez. That had put a sour note on the day. While Kiki’s aunt and mother had both died of the same congenital heart condition, Vlad seemed to be in very good health despite his lifestyle. For Kiki it was proof that there was no justice in the world. There had also been a pair of photographers spotted near the front gate of the villa and they had been told to be mindful of their presence if they left the villa.
Now, on Saturday afternoon Kiki was sitting on a towel near the tideline in the shade of one of the beach umbrellas that they had brought down from the house. They had been swimming a few minutes earlier, so Kiki was applying another layer of the zinc oxide crème. Zella found that amusing as she was sketching the rocks that stood over one end of the cove. Zella was telling her and Aurora about according to her mother the Moondogs had called expecting Zella to cover their show in a few hours. Zella obviously wasn’t going to make it. Instead, their show was going to be covered by a different reporter from the BT. One who normally covered Classical Music. While Kiki said that she didn’t hate the band, she certainly wanted them to have a bad night because John Lennon was a bit of an asshole and had written that song about her that she didn’t like.
“I ought to get one of you trying to get that lotion on your back” Zella said as Kiki got Aurora to help her. “I think you missed your calling as a contortionist.”
“The last thing we need is another round of your drawings” Aurora said, “Especially after all the trouble that the last one caused.”
For a long time, there had been a bit of a sore point Kiki and Aurora had with Zella. When they got together Zella always took the lead and it seemed like she could always talk the other two into doing anything. The sketches from a couple years earlier along with any number of questionable things that they had done in the past fell into that category.
Today, that included the red two-piece swimsuit that Zella had said looked good on Kiki a couple days earlier when she insisted that Kiki buy it. This afternoon she realized that she was wearing only slightly more than she had in that original sketch that had been done in her bedroom with the blinds closed. This was out in the open, an aspect of this that Zella seemed to revel in as she was wearing the same sort of swimsuit and it made Kiki reach for the zinc oxide crème. It wasn’t because Kiki was self-conscious, she had gotten over that a year earlier in the training depot when she had endured weeks of having no privacy at all. Rather there were parts of her that had very seldom seen direct sunlight until now and she didn’t want to get a sunburn.
For Aurora it was different, she had been a late bloomer and still had a bit of pudge from childhood that had yet to go away completely. Aurora also had a scar on her belly from an appendectomy a few years earlier that meant that there was no way that she would wear anything that bared her midriff.
“I think that both of you have nice features” Zella said with a smile that showed that she was completely unapologetic about featuring her friends in her art. “You just need to be willing to show them off, without shame. Get this Aurora, you’re as beautiful as I am, or Kiki.”
Aurora looked embarrassed at that, though she probably shouldn’t be.
Kiki realized that it was like being willing to assert herself again, Kiki just wished that she had half of Zella’s confidence.