Of course, as is the way with outsourcing, the people who originally commissioned the service knew absolutely nothing about the actual service provided at the end of the line, so Hemang had no information regarding the three events planned.
"Maybe the info got zapped when they changed their computer system," he suggested.
"What?"
"Yeah, that new building in London came with a whole new computer system. Cost millions, and crashed straight away. They lost tons of info. Suraya didn't tell you about that?"
"No." It was lucky she hadn't, I thought—my confidence in Visitor Resources was low enough already.
"Oh man, she tells us everything about everything." I got the impression that all Suraya's workmates were suffering with her over the scooter problem. "You know," he went on, "you Brits should let us Indians handle your IT, not just your call centers." He had a good laugh at that one.
I rang off and tried to sort things out in my mind. It was getting harder and harder to fathom—the British tourist authority wanted some Scottish dancing in Florida, so they got a firm in India to organize it via a Cuban guy called Jesus who spent his days ogling women from a cafe terrace.
And my job was to watch the chaos unfold.
9
The sky was splashed with clouds so wispy that one of them could have been a thinly sliced cucumber. It was the first time I'd ever seen a green cloud. While sober, anyway.
The colors of the art deco buildings were even wilder than the sunset. Neon lights were coming on everywhere, long strips of color that turned gray or white hotels into glowing pools of purple, pink, and blue.
"You certainly go well with the decor," Alexa said. Faced with the avalanche of snowballed-up clothes that had fallen out of my bag, I'd splurged on a new shirt in one of the discount stores near the hotel. Well, it was more a tableau than a shirt. It was silky turquoise with a motif of smiling golden cherubs. Although "motif" is perhaps not the right word. They were more life-size portraits, fat golden babies flying up toward my nipples. So what? I thought. If you can't be kitsch in Miami, you can't be kitsch anywhere.
Alexa was not quite so enthusiastic. "You look as if you have had twins," she told me. "Now it is time for their milk."
"Just because Parisian guys refuse to wear anything but black or jeans doesn't mean the rest of us have to conform," I defended myself.
Alexa and I strolled up the boardwalk, crossing paths with half-naked joggers (male, unfortunately), departing sunbathers, and one guy on a bike pulling a surfboard on which his little white dog was balancing. We watched him head down to the beach, paddle out into the gentle waves and then surf back in with the dog balancing on the tip of his board. Whether the dog loved surfing or was there as a decoy in case the guy was attacked by sharks, I didn't know.
From the boardwalk we could also see the pools and gardens of the hotels on the oceanfront. Some were quiet teak-and-spa luxury, others in loud beach-party mode. All had fences guarded by security men to keep out the homeless people who were sitting aimlessly in the dunes.
It began to feel suspiciously like cocktail time, and we went on the lookout for a beachside place to lack off the night. But if they all had security men to keep out non-guests, we weren't going to get within ordering distance of the bar.
"The guards are not for us," Alexa said. "We are white, we are dressed OK"—she frowned as if to apologize to the concept of OK-ness for associating it with my shirt—"so we are acceptable to middle-class America."
She was right. When we walked confidently up to the security gate of a chic hotel, the uniformed guard simply stepped aside. We were in.
A tall, white-suited woman walked us to a table on the lawn that looked out toward the darkening ocean. She asked us in an Eastern European accent whether we would like something to eat.
"Yes, please, we'd like an aperitif snack," I said, trying to remember whether I'd ever used the term aperitif snack before. Yes, surely. I'd lived in France for over a year, after all.
We ordered a couple of glasses of American sparkling wine and a plate of roasted Mediterranean vegetables. No sooner had I put down the menu than a guy came over with a tray and flourished a pair of serving tongs at us.
"Allow me to introduce our signature breads," he said. "Poppadom, sesame baguette, and black olive." We were a very long way from the roadside diner where we'd had breakfast, I realized. Even in France they don't do "signature breads."
Revived by the surprisingly good bubbly and our snack, we felt ready for more.
We went one block in from the ocean to check out the bars on the city side. It was hard to choose. Everywhere seemed to be moodily lit, full of slim shadows acting out courtship rituals. The avenue pounded with the competing sound systems of cars and bars. Finally, we saw a hotel with cool-looking security guys in black suits and shades, and headed up its sloped driveway as if we'd just left our Lamborghini round the corner.
Inside, the decor was so hip that I couldn't work out how to sit on any of the seats. There was a velvet armchair witli a ten-foot-high back that tapered down to a cushion no wider than a baby's buttock. A mattress had been dumped (or, more likely, placed according to feng shui principles) in the middle of the room. A few people were perched around its edges, wondering how to stop their drinks spilling every time someone got up or sat down. There were also rows of stools that looked like giant pulled teeth, with four bobbles on the crown, as if they had been designed for people who wanted to give themselves a public anal massage.
The clientele was just as strangely designed as the furniture. Many of them had clothes the same fluorescent white as their teeth and squat noses that had all come from the same surgeon's catalog. Only by looking very closely could you tell if someone was twenty or fifty.
Bizarrely, in the midst of this millionaires' fashion set, a group of T-shirted, bulge-bellied guys in baseball caps were gurgling beerily around a pool table. I wondered for a moment whether they weren't part of an art installation designed to show the fluorescent-teeth crowd how the other half lived. But no, the two worlds seemed to cohabit, happily ignorant—or tolerant—of each other's existence. It seemed to sum up Miami Beach, which managed to be chic and tacky at the same time, and not give a damn. I loved it, and had forgotten all about gunmen, Scottish dancers, and realtors.
My amnesia was helped by a zingy daiquiri and a dark, heady mai tai. I now began to understand the need for the cushions that were scattered about the place. It was comforting to know that you could fall in any direction and land on something soft.
"Paul, I hope you're not going to get drunk," Alexa said. "Remember the bar in New York."
"You're forgetting my aperitif snack," I told her. "I'm taking precautions tonight."
Out by the pool, we lounged on a cushion hillock of our own construction and began to feel seriously relaxed. Waiters and waitresses in black pajamas hovered. As soon as I'd drained my mai tai glass and nibbled the mint leaf, a waitress was by my side.
"Are you good?" she asked.
"I try my best," I replied. But all she wanted to know was whether I needed a refill. Which I did, of course. I also sensed that I needed more food to accompany all this alcohol.
Alexa agreed, and asked the two women sitting beside us if they could recommend anywhere to eat. Dinner was quickly forgotten, though, when Alexa revealed that she was French and the women went into a state of hysteria.
They both, it seemed, adored France, and went there every year for inspiration.
Their style did look kind of Parisian. One of diem, Japanese maybe, had very muted makeup compared to most of the women I'd seen here, and her black hair was pulled back and held in place by a red pencil. Her friend, who was European looking, had bright lipstick and a baroque hairdo but wore very discreet jewelry and classic French-style stilettos.
"What sort of inspiration?" Alexa asked.
The Asian girl said that she was a floral designer.
"You design flowers?" I asked.
&
nbsp; No, she replied, she designed floral arrangements for weddings and dinner parties, and adored French gardens. I doubted tliat she'd been inspired by the scrubby fenced-off lawns near Alexa's place in Paris.
The European-looking girl said that she was a personal shopper.
"What a great idea," I said, swallowing the first tasty gulp of a fresh mai tai. "Alexa drinks gallons of mineral water, and I have to hump it up the stairs. Kills me."
No, she answered, she focused on clothing. If a woman needed help with her image, she escorted her to the shops. She eyed die cherubs on my shirt as if I might need help myself. If someone was too busy to shop, she went on, the personal shopper was there to stock die wardrobe with things that would suit the client. If the woman was going on vacation, she'd even pack the necessary outfits for the climate and style of resort.
"Oh wow, you do packing?" I asked. "You should have a go at the stuff on the back seat of our car. It's like a dog's basket in there."
At which point they all went off in a women-only conversation, leaving me to stare up at the inky sky and wonder whether anyone was staring back at me from a distant planet. I ordered another cocktail to help me decide.
Next thing I knew, we were entering a restaurant, which if I wasn't mistaken had a grass floor. Yes, I checked. An indoor lawn.
"Get up, Paul," Alexa said, sounding very much like a French schoolteacher.
"It's real," I said, showing her the green blade I'd picked.
"It's tantric," the Asian girl said.
"What, you shag on it?"
No, she explained patiently as I climbed to my feet using Alexa's leg as a banister, the lawn was a sensual experience designed to heighten your awareness of the meal you were about to eat.
I seemed to be the only one who didn't have a clue what this meant.
"You're drunk," Alexa said. She was always a perceptive girl.
"I told you I needed food to soak it up," I said. "Do they have food here? Apart from the grass, I mean?"
"May I show you to your table?" The maitre d' was standing with a clutch of menus in his arms and a forced smile on his face, waiting for our discussion to end.
The menu was as confusing as the lawn. It wasn't in Spanish, it was just that there were so many words. And unlike diner menus, which were long lists of different meals, tins was a series of essays about each dish. You had to wade through three paragraphs to work out what would end up in your mouth. And by this time my eyes weren't focusing quite as well as they had been earlier in the evening.
"What do you recommend?" I asked the European-looking girl. I'd been told their names, but couldn't quite remember them.
The trouble was, instead of saying "the fish" or "the beef," she launched into an essay of her own, telling me the tantric value of one thing and how chewing something else very slowly would be the food equivalent of a shiatsu massage. All I wanted was something to eat.
"I'll have what Alexa's having," I decided. This went down well with our new friends—it would bring tantric harmony. Though Alexa wasn't looking at me at all harmoniously. She seemed to be miffed again. Perhaps it was because I'd asked the waiter for another mai tai, "Straight, not tantric, please."
She looked even less harmonious when my phone began vibrating in my pocket and I practically took off my trousers in an attempt to retrieve it.
"Bonsoir, Paul. How are you going?" How was I going? There was only one person in the world who spoke like that.
"Jake!" I said, a little too loudly. "Where are you?"
"At Miami. And you?"
"Yeah, at Miami, too. Let's meet up. Did you bring Virginie with you?"
"No, man. I'm strictly solo these days."
"Oh, too bad. Hey!" I'd suddenly had a brilliant idea. "Alexa and I are having dinner with a couple of femmes. They're both really belles." Now I was speaking Jake-style Franglais. "And one of them . . ."—I lowered my voice— ". . . is Japanese, I think. You still doing your one girlfriend of every nationality thing?"
Judging by the decidedly untantric look on the three women's faces, I hadn't lowered my voice enough. And the Asian girl was giving me an especially acid stare.
"On second thought," I whispered into the phone, "I think she might be Korean."
Miami Twice
Dirty Dancing
1
I OPENED MY EYES and waited for it to hit me. Any second now, the hangover was going to swing down from the ceiling and land on my face like a bag of cluster bombs. I could remember when I'd started drinking but not when I'd stopped, which is always a very bad sign. Even worse, I had no idea when or how I'd got to bed.
But no, nothing hit me apart from an awareness that if I didn't start swallowing water within the next minute my tongue was going to shrivel up like a raisin and roll down the back of my throat.
I couldn't understand it. Usually if I drink a lot on an empty stomach, I'm half dead for a week. But now I felt almost zero pain. Amazing. I turned to share my relief with Alexa, and moving my head hardly hurt at all.
This, though, was when I realized that I hadn't got off scot-free.
"Come bodge." A blond guy was sitting up in bed, leaning over me. I recognized that permanently disheveled look and the tobacco deodorant. It was Jake. But what was I doing in bed with him?
"Uh?"
"Come bodge," he repeated, as if this meant something.
"What?" Did he want me to get up? Bouger is "move" in French.
"Combo chien," he said.
I closed my eyes. This was getting worse and worse. Now he was talking about a dog.
"She's combo chienne. Cherry, the Japonaise in the restaurant, man. She's not Japonaise, she's Cambodgienne. You know, of Cambodge."
"Cambodia."
"Yeah."
"So?"
"So I—you know—I foot myself. Damn, how do you say? Je m'en fous."
"You don't care about what?"
"That she has no envy to sleep with me. I already slept with a Cambodgienne. Anyway, Cherry and Gayle, they're, you know, a couple." He pronounced it "coopul."
Miraculously, without the use of alcohol, Jake had managed to bring on a vicious hangover. My temples were beginning to throb as if I'd sniffed a gallon of ice-cold vodka up my nostrils.
"What are you on about, Jake? And what is that you're smoking? It smells like donkey shit."
"Cigar, man." He grinned and puffed a cloud of animal odors into the sunlit air. "Civilized city, Miami. They love to smoke."
"But why are you smoking that in my bed? And where's Alexa?"
"Justement," he whispered. "After we met ourselves last night, Alexa went to sleep chez Cherry. Here." He held a dark object in front of my face. I dragged it into focus. It wasn't the cigar. It was a phone, my phone.
"What the fuck?"
"Alexa is on the line, man. Here." He shoved the phone half an inch closer to my nose.
"She's on the . . . ? Well why the fuck didn't you tell me before?"
"I was trying to give you the situation." Jake shrugged his despair that the world never seemed to understand his motives. "Your girlfriend passed the night chez a lesbian Cambodgienne. It's the sort of thing a man must know before he talks to her on the phone."
It suddenly struck me that he was right. Alexa had dumped me here and gone off to sleep with two girls? Something was very wrong somewhere.
"Alexa?" I put on my brightest voice.
"Oh, you are awake? I thought you would sleep until next week." She sounded simultaneously sulky and carefree. Not like her at all.
"Where are you?"
"Didn't your friend Jake just tell you? I'm with Cherry and Gayle." I didn't like the way she said "your friend." It made it just a tad too clear that he wasn't her friend.
"What I mean is, why aren't you here?"
"Ha!" From the way she laughed, the answer was all too obvious.
"OK, so I was a bit drunk. It must have been that glass of American bubbly. Not as pure as French champagne."
"
Huh!" My attempt at diplomacy had fallen on deaf ears. "Maybe you are forgetting the ten cocktails you had as well? You were impossible, Paul. You don't remember what you did with the oysters at the restaurant?"
"No." And by the sound of it, I didn't want to know. "But I can't have had ten cocktails. I haven't even got a hangover."
"You want a medal? Anyway, we brought you back to the hotel to find your friend Jake, and we left you there. Franchement!" There was that word again.
"Sorry." Apology delivered, conversation ended, I hoped.
No such luck.
"Honestly, first you try to force Cherry to eat your oysters, then when we arrive at the Clearview you announce to the whole terrace that she is going to have tantric sex with your friend Jake. Merde, Paul!" Now she was really angry. And I kind of understood why.
I groaned. "Oh God. I must be allergic to rum."
There was a worryingly long silence. "You don't take anything seriously, do you, Paul?"
I gave this a moment's thought and decided that I took one thing very seriously indeed.
"OK, Alexa, so I got drunk and acted like an idiot. But I wouldn't have had so much to drink if we'd gone to dinner when I said, instead of hanging around to chat up your two friends. And you—you went off and slept with, well, slept chez, or maybe with, a couple of, you know . . ." Jake gave me a thumbs-up. Now, it seemed, I was asking the questions that mattered.
"So?"
"Look, Alexa. I'm sorry. I know I can be a total dickhead when I'm drunk. But I'm sober now. So will you come back home? Let's talk about this."
There was another long silence, then a sigh.
"I need some time to think," she said. "Anyway, the reason I called was because it is time for your brunch. You must go and see your dancers."
"Holy fuck." I leaped up so fast from under the duvet that I tipped Jake off the bed.
"Alors, did she?" he asked just before his head hit the floor. But I was already in the bathroom, pulling back the shower curtain. It came as some surprise to find that the hot and cold taps I was reaching for were dark nipples, set just below the center of two golden-brown breasts.