Page 98 of The Sun Sister

‘Electra, you were only sixteen! From what you’ve told me, you didn’t choose modelling, it choseyou,and before you knew it, you were on a rollercoaster that you couldn’t get off. Goodness, just twenty-six now – only a year older than my eldest, and he’s still in med school.’

‘At least he knew what he wanted to do. I’ve never known.’

‘Well, whatever it is, you have the luxury of choice. And someone with your profile could really make a difference.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know, being an ambassador for those who don’t have a voice. Like Vanessa, for example. You’ve experienced first-hand what drugs can do. You could help.’

‘Maybe,’ I shrugged. ‘But models don’t have voices or brains, do they?’

‘Now you’re being self-indulgent and if you were Rosie, my daughter, I’d give you a good telling-off. It’s obvious to me – and to your pa – that you are very bright indeed. You have all the tools necessary, so use them. I mean, look at what you’ve drawn during our conversation just now,’ she said, pointing to my sketchbook as I cradled it protectively against my chest. ‘You’re so talented, Electra. I’d buy that jacket in a heartbeat.’

I looked down at my sketch of a model in a cropped leather jacket and asymmetrical dress.

‘Yeah, whatever,’ I said. ‘I think I need some sleep now, Lizzie. Goodnight.’ I reached over to turn off my lamp.

‘Goodnight,’ Lizzie said as she opened the book she was reading about how diets could make you fat. I snuggled down under the duvet and turned over.

‘Oh, just one more thing,’ she said.

‘Yup?’

‘It takes strength to admit you’ve got a problem, Electra. It is not a sign of weakness – quite the opposite. Goodnight.’

I woke up naturally with the sunrise the following day, which was a sensation that was new to me – for years I’d had to drag myself out of bed, take a handful of painkillers and uppers to stem the headache and give me a lift. I’d discussed my sunrise wakings in group therapy (it was something innocuous to make me look like I was briefly engaged without giving anything away) and a number of people had told me it was the natural rhythm of my body clock returning after years of being suppressed by booze and drugs. And now I came to think of it, I remembered that I had always been the first to wake as a child at Atlantis. I’d be bouncing around, full of energy, while all my sisters slept on, so I’d creep downstairs to the kitchen where Claudia was the only other soul up in the house. She’d give me a slice of her newly baked bread, still warm from the oven and dripping with butter and honey, while I waited impatiently for the rest of my siblings to wake up.

I put on a pair of shorts, laced up my sneakers and set off for a run. Nobody was around, other than the group of Buddhists who sat in the Serenity Garden with their legs crossed and eyes closed, welcoming in the new day. I reached the nature trail and as my feet pounded the red soil beneath them, I thought about Lizzie and our conversation last night. And the fact that it wasn’t a sign of weakness to admit you needed help. Well, I’d gotten this far – I was here, getting the help I needed, wasn’t I? Ironically, the easy bit (comparatively anyway) had been coming off all that shit I’d been taking. As my doctor, then Fi had explained to me, I’d been caught in time, when many others weren’t. If I stayed clean from now on, I’d have made no dent on my long-term health, unlike Vanessa.

The hard bit was confrontingmyself, which would explain the why of my substance abuse. It wasn’t good enough just to say I’d stop taking alcohol and drugs – it had only been three weeks, for Christ’s sake, and the euphoria of getting clean and the safe environment I was living in would disappear like mist once I was forced back into the never-ending circuit of my ‘real’ life. I’d start having the odd drink, then maybe taking a line socially, and then eventually, I’d end up back here, but probably worse off, and maybe eventually wind up like Vanessa. But until I acknowledged all my angst and let it out, I knew I would always be in danger.

As I was thinking all this, I had the oddest instinct that I was being followed. Luckily, I was hanging a right around the circuit and was able to look back and see that the edible guy I’d seen in the canteen was maybe a hundred yards behind me and catching up fast. Well, he wouldn’t, because I didn’t want him to for all sorts of reasons I couldn’t work out, so I upped my pace and stretched out the gap. But he was still closing in on me, even though I was now running as fast as I could. The end of the trail was only a couple of hundred yards away, so I put my feet down to maximum and headed full pelt for it.

Reaching the finish line, I ran for the water cooler, desperate for a drink and panting heavily.

‘That’s some gas you’ve got in your tank,’ a rich, well-modulated voice said from behind me. ‘Excuse me,’ it added as a large hand with long, elegant fingers – the pinkie adorned with a gold class ring – reached for a cup as I moved out of the way. ‘I ran the five thousand metres for my college and never got beat. You run for yours?’

‘I didn’t go to college,’ I said as I lifted my head to look up at him, which was an unusual feeling.

‘Hey, that’s not an all-American accent, is it?’ he asked me as I took another cup of water and poured it over me. Even though it was early, the sun was already beating down.

‘No, it’s kind of part-French. I was raised in Switzerland.’

‘Oh really?’ he said as he eyed me more closely. And then, ‘Do I know you? You seem familiar somehow.’

‘No, we’ve never met before.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’ He smiled at me. ‘But you sure do look like I know you. I’m Miles, by the way. You?’

‘Electra,’ I sighed, waiting for recognition to dawn on his face. Which it did.

‘Wow...okay,’ he said, throwing his cup into the trash and digging his hands into his shorts pocket. ‘I was looking at a twenty-foot-high billboard of you when I drove to the airport last week.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, I gotta get back now.’

‘Sure, so have I.’

We walked back towards The Ranch in silence. Something about this man was making me feel shy and girly. I guessed he was in his late thirties by his confidence and the grey that peppered the tightly curled hair on his scalp.