Chapter 8

THE CABANA TURNEDout to be a kind of open-air bar / dining area overlooking the tip of the island. It was shaded by a roof made of palm fronds and set back from the beach on a little promontory, slightly higher than the rest of the island, and as we made our way through the trees, I could hear the voices of the other contestants rising above the sound of the waves and see the occasional flash of a dress or a colorful shirt as we converged on the meeting point.

I snuck a covert look at Nico as we walked, trying to measure both of us up against the other contestants. Nico was wearing ripped jeans and a very sheer white shirt, only held by a couple of buttons, and his hair was tousled by the breeze in a way that was definitely working, though I had seen the ten minutes of swearing and tweaking that those artless curls entailed. I had wanted to wear jeans as well, but Nico had talked me out of it, telling me that all the other girls would be in dresses—and in the end I had caved and worn a loose turquoise handkerchief dress that showed the straps of my new pink bikini, deliberately little makeup, and hair that was supposed to look tousled and beach-dried. I knew in my heart that I couldn’t hope to compete with the level of hair and makeup skills I had seen at the meet and greet. I would have to try to make a virtue out of my low-maintenance, girl-next-door charms.

In other words, I realized as we came out of the trees into a sun-drenched clearing, exactly how Baz had originally characterized me. Was I really so easy to predict? The thought was not entirely pleasant, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it because we were at the cabana—the camera crew in the corner were pointing their lenses our way—and Dan and Santana were standing up to greet us.

Dan was still shirtless, but his admittedly impressive torso was totally eclipsed by Santana, who was wearing what looked like a one-piece bathing suit that showcased her lush cleavage to a truly impressive degree. They were both at one end of a long table, spread with a mouth-watering array of cakes, pastries, and what looked like some kind of ricey porridge, all of which made my stomach rumble in a way that reminded me forcibly of the fact that I’d skipped breakfast.

“Lyla!” Santana called as we made our way up the steps, trying not to look at the camera crew hovering in the corner. “And Nico! So great to finally meet you!”

She came out from behind the table, and I saw that what I’d taken for a bathing suit was actually the fitted top part of a stunning maxi dress in tropical colors that set off her deep tan and revealed something I hadn’t noticed before on her upper arm—it looked like a little white pill box stuck onto the skin, but I was pretty sure I knew what it was. My cousin had had one growing up. It was a glucose monitor, the kind worn by diabetics.

She moved across to embrace us both in a flurry of silky hair and air-kisses, and close-up, I noticed that she was even more unbelievably pretty than I had first thought, with lashes longer than I had ever seen, and skin like something out of a moisturizer commercial, all bare and glowing. My own amateur makeup job in the villa bathroom suddenly felt more than a little inadequate.

“Nico,” Dan said, clapping him on the back in a very manly way. “Good to meet you, mate! And Lyla.” He gave me a little wink. “I feel like we’re old friends now.”

“Coucou, chéris” came from down the steps, and we turned to see Angel making her way through the trees in a diaphanous, ankle-length white dress, the lace trim just trailing on the forest floor in spite of her height. Behind her was Bayer, muscles positively bulging out of a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to a tightness that looked like they were about to give his biceps a tourniquet.

“All right,” he said as they mounted the steps, nodding around the group in a way that came across reserved, bordering on suspicious. The thought crossed my mind that he was the one who’d made the fuss about his Apple watch—when, judging by the implant on her arm, Santana had a much better reason for not wanting to give up her tech—and that maybe he was going to be the villain of the show. In spite of his looks, he had a kind of muscle-bound bullish quality that wasn’t entirely attractive. I thought he might easily be the kind of person to snap in an argument and throw the first punch.

Within a few minutes, Romi, Joel, Conor, and Zana had arrived too—and so had Camille, who was looking a mixture of nervous, stressed, and excited.

When we were all seated around the big table, looking enviously at the food but not quite daring to touch it, Camille stood up.

“Okay, so the presenting format of this show, I’m not sure if you know, will be voice-over. We’re going to have a very exciting celebrity presenter, but for contractual reasons I can’t reveal who it is—”

“That means they haven’t actually signed anyone,” Dan whispered in my ear, and I suppressed a laugh. “They’re hoping for Neil Patrick Harris but they’re probably going to end up with that permatanned guy from the shopping channel.”

“—and for logistical reasons it’s just easier if they record their commentary to be dubbed on afterwards—”

“Again, haven’t signed anyone,” Dan whispered.

“Shh!” I hissed back sternly, and he made a mock contrite face and folded his hands.

“—so what’s going to happen is I’m going to read off the challenges, the crew will film your reaction shots, and we’ll overlay my voice with the voice of the mystery presenter in edits. For that reason, please try not to look at me when I’m reading out the tasks. We want it to sound like there’s a disembodied voice and to really maintain the idea that you’re alone on this secluded island. To make it easier, I’m going to stand out of eyeline.” She indicated a bamboo screen standing in the corner of the cabana, and then moved across to it, shuffling a stack of cue cards in her hands.

“Okay, everyone ready?”

There were murmurs from around the table and Camille cleared her throat.

“Welcome to Ever After Island, contestants! Here we’ll be finding out who among you is truly the perfect couple—and who are Mr. and mismatched.” There was a pause and then she stuck her head out from behind the screen. “Kim, I don’t love that pun, I’m not sure if Baz approved it, but we might tweak in edits, okay? I think something about kissing frogs would be better. So, guys”—she turned to us—“just bear in mind the final voice-over might not be exactly the same, but we’ll make it work in the editing suite.” She cleared her throat again and continued, “For this first challenge we’ll be running a Mr. and Mrs.—with a difference. You’ll each be assigned a tell-all questionnaire to fill out about everything from your favorite dessert to your deepest and darkest secrets.”

There was a distinctly stagey gasp from Angel, and glancing around the table I realized that the other islanders were vamping up their reaction shots in a way that I totally wasn’t. There were varying expressions of shock, surprise, and laughing trepidation. Nico was looking around the circle, wide-eyed. Romi, Joel’s partner, had her hands clasped in a pantomime of terror, and Bayer was blowing a kiss at Angel with a very macho display of self-confidence. Only Conor was leaning back in his seat, looking truly relaxed, though beside him Zana looked anything but—she was gripping the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles were white. Glancing across at the crew, I saw that one of the cameras was pointing my way, and I tried hastily to adjust my face to something that wouldn’t look completely gormless on-screen—a kind of intrigued surprise—and then realized Camille was still speaking, and that I probably needed to listen to what she was saying.

“—end of the day, you’ll be asked for the answers… and we’ll find out the truth about how well you all know your partners. Who was their childhood crush? What’s their worst habit? To truly love someone, you have to know them through and through, flaws and all. So let’s find out: Who’s really the one perfect couple?”

There was a brief pause, and then she emerged from behind the screen and said, “Was that okay, Kim? Do we need any more reactions?”

“I don’t think so.” Kim was staring down at the screen in front of her, apparently scrolling through the various camera angles. “We’ve got plenty of angles, and we can always patch it together with other footage if we need to fill time.”

“Okay, you’re good to eat, guys,” Camille said. “I’ll be coming around with the questionnaires in just a minute. In the meantime, fill your boots, because we won’t be stopping again until dinner.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Joel stood up and reached for the coffee, and it was like a signal had been given, and everyone began to dig in.

I was extremely hungry, I realized, as I began loading my plate and filling up my cup, but when I sat down and finally took a bite of a jam-filled croissant, I found the food wasn’t quite as good as it looked. It had clearly been shipped in, ready-made, and the pastries and Danishes in particular had the slightly plastic quality of long-life food. The fruit salad was obviously out of a tin, which seemed nuts on an island covered in coconuts and bananas, and the bread had a spookily soft crumbly texture that was more like cake. The best thing was the rice porridge, which Santana told me was called congee.

“Dan and I positively lived off this in Thailand,” she said between mouthfuls. “Absolute heaven, total comfort food.”

Across from me, Angel was picking disdainfully over the pastries.

“Carbs, carbs, it is all carbohydrates,” she said a little disgustedly. “Where is the protein? Where are the nuts and fresh fruit? I cannot drink this.” She flicked a long, manicured nail at a big jug of orange juice that looked like it had last seen an orange quite a while ago. “It is basically Orangina minus the gas.” She pronounced it gaz with a z.

“Chill, babe.” Bayer, beside her, was shoveling down a raspberry Danish and gulping at a tall mug of black coffee. “God, this coffee’s shit. Wish I’d brought my Nespresso.”

“Hi!” Romi was saying to some of the crew, who were paying her absolutely no attention and were busy taking action shots of Santana booping Dan on the nose with a tinned cherry. “Hi! Could I get a soft-scrambled egg? Ideally two.”

“Hon.” Joel pulled at her arm. “Romi, let’s leave it. I don’t think they’ve got time to be making food right now.”

Only Zana wasn’t really eating anything. She had a plate of food in front of her, filled up by Conor, I’d noticed, but she was picking at it without any evident enjoyment, pulling the blueberries one by one out of an oily-looking muffin. Beside her, Conor glanced at her plate and put a hand on her knee as if silently encouraging her to eat something, but she only pushed the plate away. Yikes. I’d been at an all-girls school and seen my fair share of eating disorders, and this was ringing all my alarm bells. I glanced across at Nico, to see if he had noticed too, but he was busy chowing down a chocolate croissant, and when I caught his eye, he only blew me a kiss, checking to see that the film crew had caught it.

We were finishing up when Camille came back with a set of envelopes, each with one person’s name on it.

“Right,” she said busily, distributing the envelopes. “Here are the rules. You’re going to be split up from your partners—boys stay here in the cabana, girls go to the Ever After Villa. You can chat, but do not reveal too much about your answers. We want to save that for later.”

“So wait,” Romi said, her brow furrowed. “I don’t get it. Am I answering for me, or Joel?”

“For you,” Camille said patiently. “The other part of the Mr. and Mrs. will come later. Ready girls?”

It was a long time since I’d heard someone seriously address a group of women my age as “girls,” but nevertheless, we all stood, Romi still looking a little puzzled, and followed Camille down the steps.

The island was a maze, I realized, as the five of us followed Camille along a twisting little sandy path. The routes zigzagged through the trees in a way that contrived to make the forest feel much larger and denser than it really was. Tip to tip, the island was quite long, at least a couple of miles, judging by what I’d seen from the boat. But now that we were actually on it, I realized there was no way it could be more than ten minutes from side to side. Nico and I had walked from the boat, which was moored up on what must be… I glanced overhead, trying to get my bearings, and deduced from the position of the sun that the boat must be on the east or northeast side of the island. The villas were mostly clustered along the western shore, facing the coral lagoon, and it had taken us only a few minutes to go from one side to the other. But the paths were deliberately constructed in a way to make each part of the island feel as secluded as possible. I also realized that I had yet to see any of what must surely be the island’s infrastructure. There had to be a desalination plant somewhere, as I’d said to Nico, and presumably some kind of electrical generator, whether motor-powered or solar. Plus, of course, the construction huts the producer had mentioned. But none of them were apparent from this part of the island.

Just as I was beginning to think that Camille had gotten us lost, and we were walking in circles, we popped out onto the beach, in front of the Ever After Villa.

“So, ladies,” Camille said, waving a hand at the floating gangway leading out to the villa. “Make yourselves comfortable! I’ll be back in a couple of hours to collect your questionnaires.”

Zana, Romi, Angel, Santana, and I glanced at each other, and then across at the veranda of a villa where a crew member was standing with a tray of brimming champagne flutes. A tempting array of bean bags, hammocks, and loungers was scattered around the deck. There was a moment’s silence, and then Angel stalked onto the gangway, grabbed a glass, and draped herself into the most comfortable-looking chair—a kind of wicker throne strewn with kilims, cushions, and throws.

“Hell yeah!” Romi said. She tossed her platinum-blond hair over one shoulder and crossed the walkway with surprising speed, given the height of her platform sandals, then flung herself into a striped hammock with a little whoop. Santana gave me a grin and a shrug, kicked off her heels, and stepped onto the gangway too.

Only Zana and I were left, and I realized, as I turned to her, that we’d barely exchanged a word.

“Ready?” I said with a smile. Her eyes were huge and light brown, fringed with lashes that, together with her willowy limbs, gave her the look of a startled baby fawn.

“As I’ll ever be, I guess. After you.”

“No, after you.” I held out a hand. She was the youngest person here, I’d realized, and I felt a sudden rush of protectiveness. Bobbing her head with a kind of nervous acceptance, she stepped onto the platform, closing her eyes as she did.

“Are you okay?” I asked curiously, and she shook her head.

“I’m… I’m just… I’m quite scared of water. Not swimming pools, I’m fine in those. I’m even okay on big boats, if I don’t have to see the sea too much—but that trip across from the yacht in the dinghy was horrible.”

“So, it’s not that you can’t swim?”

Zana shook her head.

“No, it’s not that. I’m actually a pretty good swimmer. It’s something about the depth of the sea. I always think—” She stopped, swallowing convulsively, the muscles in her slender throat working under the pale skin.

“Yes?”

“I always think there might be something down there, waiting. In the darkness. Waiting to… grab me.”

On the face of it, it was stupid. A child’s fear—a monster under the bed, something in the water. Images of rubber sharks or giant squid. But something about her face, or maybe her voice, low and full of dread, made me shiver involuntarily. Then I forced a smile.

“The good thing about this water is it’s so clear, you can see the bottom. Look, nothing there at all.”

I pointed down at the clear turquoise depths, and she leaned over, forcing herself to look, and then smiled. But the expression was clearly fake, a pretense of reassurance that she very evidently didn’t feel, and when we got across the gangway to the veranda, I noticed that she took a seat as far away as possible from the water’s edge and downed her champagne like someone throwing back medicine.

The others had already pulled out their questionnaires, and after a moment watching Zana, trying to make out if she was okay, and whether we should ask to move back to the island, I took out my own envelope and began reading.

The questions were fairly standard, and I started to fill them in, pressing the pencil awkwardly against my knees.

Name: Lyla Santiago

Star sign: Pisces

What do you think that says about you?

Huh, that was a poser. I was definitely not a believer in astrology.

“Hey, Angel, can I ask you something?”

“If you wish,” she said, not looking up.

“Do you know anything about star signs? What kind of person are you if you’re a Pisces?

That made Angel put down her pencil and look at me over the top of her oversized sunglasses, her dark eyes narrowed in a frown.

“Tu rigoles?” And then, as I looked at her blankly, “Are you joking me?”

“Um… no. I’m not. I mean, I’m not really into that kind of—” I stopped. That kind of woo was what I’d been going to say, but it struck me that the word might come over a little needlessly offensive. “K-kind of thing,” I finished instead.

Angel rolled her eyes a little but said, as if talking to someone very stupid, “Pisces women are typically highly spiritual. They make excellent romantic partners because they are very intuitive, very in touch to their partner’s emotional needs.”

Another huh. I hoped I was a good girlfriend, but spiritual and intuitive weren’t honestly words I would have chosen to describe myself. Perhaps Angel could see the blankness in my face, because she added, “However, they can also be very analytic.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Thanks.” And then, more to be polite than anything else, “What’s your star sign?”

“I am a Virgo.” She pronounced the word with a rolling rrr that made me smile, and she raised one eyebrow. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No! I’m sorry, not at all. I just— I loved your pronunciation of Virgo.”

“Oh God, yeah,” Romi chimed in, chewing the end of her pencil. “Your accent is so lush.”

“Thank you,” Angel said. She looked a little mollified as she threw her hair back over one shoulder, preening a little as she did, and then took another sip of champagne.

I am both intuitive and analytical, I wrote in the box, and then carried on.

“Childhood crush,” was next. That was a tough one. I hadn’t honestly had any childhood crushes, not the kind I thought they meant anyway. I’d never been the kind of kid to moon over Justin Timberlake or Ricky Martin. Of course, there had been boys at school that I’d liked. I’d had a huge crush on my neighbor, a boy two years older than me called Oliver Dixon, for one long painful summer that had had me mowing the lawn more times in one month than I’d done in my life since. But I definitely hadn’t mentioned his name to Nico, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to advertise my teenage yearnings on national TV if we were forced to read out our answers. His parents still lived next door to mine.

In the end I thought about the number of times I’d watched Point Break as an impressionable teen and wrote down Keanu Reeves. He looked vaguely similar to Nico, and I still would, even though he was a silver fox these days.

“Ideal night in?” was the next question. I wrote down Paneer cheera curry with lemon rice, a big glass of red, and a really good drama series. Then, thinking that sounded a bit me-me-me, I added, and someone to snuggle up with to watch it. Although in all honesty, Nico wasn’t really the best telly-watching companion since he had a pathological inability to pay attention for more than five minutes, so I spent more time explaining the plot than watching myself.

“Ideal night out?” came next, and that took a bit of thought. Nico was the social one in our relationship. He was out three or four nights every week. I often had to work late or start early, ruled by the demands of cell lines and when I could book time on the various machines I needed to process samples. And to be honest, I wasn’t that social at the best of times. In truth, my ideal night out was something pretty close to my ideal night in—a good meal somewhere not too shouty, with someone who could hold an interesting conversation. But that made me sound so middle-aged I thought I might get kicked off the program.

In the end, though, I couldn’t think of anything that sounded better. An evening at the theater sounded hopelessly wanky. A night out clubbing was just… well, it was untrue. I hadn’t been to a club since I was about twenty-five. Camping, board gaming, pub crawls… none of that was me. And I assumed the whole point of these answers was to test them on Nico. There was no way he’d say I liked any of those things. In the end I wrote down the truth and just tried to make it sound as romantic as possible: A delicious meal in the company of someone I really care about, long chats between courses, something interesting to discuss. Maybe we share a pudding, then a taxi home and curl up in bed. Cliché, but the alternative was a flat lie, and I didn’t think that would help anyone, least of all Nico.

The next one, however, made me do a double take. Biggest secret.

My first reaction was to think that I didn’t have any secrets—certainly not from Nico. My life was so boring there wasn’t much to conceal. But then, completely unbidden, a thought popped into my head, one I most definitely hadn’t admitted to Nico, and maybe hadn’t even admitted to myself until that moment: I can’t see myself with Nico in five years’ time.

Fuck. Was that true?

As I turned the discovery over in my mind, I realized that it had been gnawing at the edges of my subconscious ever since Baz had asked the question and forced me to face up to something that, until recently, I hadn’t dwelled on much: the future. Now, I tried to imagine us living in suburbia, Nico knuckling down to a nine-to-five to pay for a mortgage, maybe even nursery fees… and I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I could see me there, all too easily. It was what I really wanted. But Nico? There was no way I could make him fit in that picture.

The realization made me feel a little sick, but there was nothing I could do about it now. It was a question for me and Nico to thresh out when we got home—and it definitely wasn’t something I could admit on the form. Which meant I needed something else. What?

I didn’t really want to come here. I only said yes because it made Nico happy.

I blinked. Where had this sudden, inconvenient attack of self-analysis come from?

Beside me, Angel and Romi were scribbling away, Santana was actually giggling as she filled out one of the fields. Only Zana looked as paralyzed as I felt, staring out at the water with panicked dark eyes.

I forced my gaze away from her, back down at the form. What could I put? What on earth would pass muster as my biggest secret, yet was something I was prepared to have read out on national television, hell, maybe international television if Baz got his way? I racked my brain. Gross habits? Nothing Nico didn’t know about. Illegal addictions? Didn’t have any. Childhood idiocies? Maaaybe that could work…

Until I was twelve, I thought pregnancy was a disease you caught from being around pregnant women, I wrote at last.

It was slightly pathetic as far as “biggest secrets” went, but I certainly wasn’t giving them any of my actual secrets. They were secret for a reason. Still, it felt like it needed something else, something a little more embarrassing to justify the header.

Sometimes, I still hold my breath when I pass pregnant women on the street, I added, and then immediately regretted it. It was actually true—although only in a kind of silly, reflexive way, the way as an adult you might avoid the cracks in the pavement like you did as a child, but not because you seriously thought anything might happen. But it was a bit too near the knuckle, given my first thought. The truth was, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was beginning to want a baby—but not with Nico. And that was a problem. But there was no rubber on the pencil, so I couldn’t erase the second sentence. I’d just have to hope they didn’t press me on it.

Sighing, I moved on.

The rest of the questions were less tricky. Favorite film (The Godfather), pet hate (people who stand on the left of the escalator on the Underground), thing I dislike most about myself (the way I judge people), significant ex (my uni boyfriend Jon who broke my heart), and a bunch of others that didn’t give me more than a few minutes’ pause, though I did run aground on the last one: Which male contestant other than your boyfriend, would you want to be stuck on a desert island with? After a few moments of pondering, I put down Joel, mainly because I felt like Nico would find him the least threatening option.

When I finally set down the form and picked up my glass, Angel, Romi, and Santana were chatting and laughing, and only Zana was still holding her pencil, with that same look of paralyzed anxiety on her face.

“Which one are you stuck on?” I asked at last, feeling sorry for her, and she jumped and looked around. I noticed one of the crew had refilled her glass, and it struck me that they were probably trying to get us, if not drunk, at least sufficiently uninhibited to reveal stuff we wouldn’t normally be prepared to say on camera.

“Oh God, you startled me.” She picked up the glass and nervously knocked back another gulp. “Nothing in particular, it’s just…”

“It’s just what?”

“I keep thinking… he’s going to read them, isn’t he?”

“Baz? I’d assume so. I wouldn’t put anything too private.”

“No, I meant—” She broke off, looking almost scared. Her big eyes were wide as Bambi’s.

I frowned.

“Zana, who are you talking about? Wait— Do you mean… Conor?”

“He’s going to have to guess the answers,” she whispered. I suppressed my smile and tried to look sympathetic. I could remember exactly what it was like being twenty-two and in a relationship with someone you truly cared about. I couldn’t imagine the agony of having to fill out a questionnaire like this for my first serious boyfriend, listing my grossest habits and biggest secrets. But surely it wasn’t worth this look of absolute terror?

“You don’t have to put down the real answers,” I said comfortingly. “I’m definitely not prepared to have my biggest secrets read out on TV, so I just put some guff about stupid stuff I believed when I was a little girl.”

“I know,” she said. “But I’m just— I keep thinking, this isn’t just about me—it’s about Conor. What if I embarrass him, or let him down?”

“Zana, he loves you,” I said. I took one of her hands. It was ice-cold. “He’s not really going to care if you pick your nose or whatever. But if you’re worried, just don’t put that.”

“What if I put something wrong?” She was looking at me, her eyes wide and desperate, and I found my initial amusement turning to slight irritation. No doubt she and Conor were in the honeymoon phase, but honestly, this was a bit overdramatic.

“There’re no wrong answers,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “Look…” I turned my head sideways to look at her answers. The worst habit line was missing. “Okay… so… I don’t know… forgetting to brush your teeth? Spending too much on lattes?”

“Oh.” Her face cleared and she looked relieved. “That’s such a good one. Thank you.”

“What did you put for biggest secret?” I asked, and then remembered we weren’t supposed to compare answers. “Sorry, no, scrap that. I forgot we’re not supposed to ask.”

“It’s okay,” Zana said with a tremulous smile. She nodded at the sea. “You already know it.”

“That you’re scared of water?” I’d lowered my voice, and now she nodded again, jerkily this time, as though her nerves were wired a little too tight.

“Heyyyyy ladies,” I heard over my shoulder and, turning, I saw one of the assistants—not Camille—stalking across the gangway. “How are you getting on? Ready to reveal all to the cameras?”

The only response was a gale of giggles from Santana and Romi, who had apparently been making hay with the champagne while I helped Zana with her form. Angel rolled her eyes.

“I must fix my makeup,” she said a little haughtily. “The humidity here is very bad for my skin.”

“Oh God, mine too!” Romi exclaimed. There was a short, good-natured fight as the others crowded into the little bathroom of the villa, Santana dabbing at dewy skin that frankly didn’t need any help, and Zana fussing anxiously over a stray eyelash that wouldn’t stick down—I hadn’t even realized they were false, unlike Romi’s huge sparrow wings. I hovered in the back, unsure what to do. I hadn’t brought any of my makeup with me—not even a lip gloss, a fact that now seemed monumentally naive.

“Are you okay?” Santana asked over her shoulder, seeing me standing there. “Do you want a corner of the mirror? I’m basically done.

I shrugged.

“I didn’t think to bring anything.”

“God, help yourself,” Santana said. She peered into her bag. “I’m not sure my foundation would do, we’re not quite the same coloring, but you’re welcome to my lip gloss. Masacara?”

In the end, I borrowed a swipe of transluscent powder to take the shine off my nose, and then stood back and watched Romi frantically retouching her eyebrows, and Zana fixing and refixing the errant lashes, looking more stressed by the minute.

“Okay!” came a voice from behind us as Zana finally breathed a sigh of relief and put her eyelash glue back in her handbag. “Everyone ready for your OTO?”

Like the producer earlier she pronounced it “otto,” but everyone seemed to know what she meant, and only nodded.

“Who wants to go first?”