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“You’re right. I was being naive. Of course they’ll want to get as much footage as they can. Come on. Let’s find our villa.”
And then I turned and stomped off up the beach, trying not to let the anger show in the set of my spine too clearly.
I HAD CALMED down a little by the time we found our villa—just a little bit back from the beach and surrounded by a cluster of palm trees. Nico and Lyla, welcome to Palm Tree Rest read the note on the door. There was no ocean view, just a sliver of sea between the trunks, but personally, I was happy to have the extra shade—though maybe not the extra mosquitoes, I thought, as one buzzed past my nose and I flapped at it reflexively.
In all the haste of disembarking, I’d forgotten to put on any deet, and now I wondered what mosquitoes carried here. Probably not malaria, if this island had the same risk profile as Indonesia, but possibly dengue. I hadn’t managed to get a good look at the mosquito that had buzzed past my face, but the fact that it was out in the day meant it was most likely Aedes Aegypti, the kind that carries dengue and chikungunya, not Anopheles, which is responsible for malaria.
Part of me was intrigued. Although I’d spent years studying mosquito-borne illnesses, I’d never actually had dengue, or chikungunya. Perhaps now was my chance. And the first time you got dengue, it wasn’t usually much of an issue. It was reinfection with a different serotype that was the big risk factor for hemorrhagic fever. But on the other hand… I made a mental note to get the deet out of my luggage as soon as we were allowed and to remind Nico to do the same.
While I was pondering mosquitoes, Nico had opened the door into the villa and begun exploring.
“Ho— I mean wow, Lyla, come and have a look!” I heard from inside, and now I followed him over the threshold, making sure to brush the sand off my bare feet on the hessian entrance mat.
Inside was a square room, just one, but more than big enough for two people—all white walls and dark shining wood, with a huge four-poster bed at the center, hung with nets that rippled in the breeze. Through an open doorway I could see a bathroom almost as big as the bedroom, complete with double sink, giant stone bath, and a rainforest shower the size of our kitchen at home.
It was clearly all brand-spanking-new—the overriding smell was of wood oil and fresh paint, in spite of the stiff breeze coming through the open windows, and I could see some of the windows still had suction cup marks on them, where the construction workers had maneuvered them into place. Still, we weren’t the first guests. As I stared upwards, where the raftered ceiling soared to a point, I saw a tiny gecko run for the shadows with a flick of its tail, and I smiled. Not everyone would welcome a little lizard friend in their room, but I was happy for him to deal with the mosquitoes.
“This is beautiful,” I said sincerely to Nico, and he grabbed me by the waist and swung me around, whispering I love you into my hair. I never liked it when Nico did his twirling-around act—it made me feel off-balance, and kind of like he was flexing the undeniable fact that he was bigger and stronger than me, and could pick me up if he wanted, no matter how much I didn’t want him to. But this time I pressed my face into his neck and let him, knowing it was his way of trying to make up for our simmering nonargument on the beach.
When he set me down, I stood for a moment, regaining my balance with one hand on the bedpost—and there it was; a little white box in the corner of the room, with a single unblinking dark eye, overlooking every inch of the place, and most particularly the bed. I felt the smile fade from my face, but the truth was, Nico was right. This was the reality of reality TV. I had signed up for this, even if I hadn’t fully understood what I was letting myself in for at the time.
“Knock knock!” came a voice from the door, and I swung round to see Camille standing there, smiling and holding a big bunch of tropical flowers. She held them out, and for a moment I hesitated.
“Are those… for me?”
Camille nodded.
“A little welcome gift for our Perfect Couple stars! Can I just—” She stopped for a moment, her hand pressed to the earpiece wedged into her ear, nodding. “Blast… it looks like there’s a problem with this one as well. One second.”
She pulled a chair over to the corner of the room where the camera was situated and climbed onto it, peering up into the black empty lens, wiggling something at the rear of the camera.
“Is that better?” she said into her mic. Nico and I couldn’t hear the answer, but apparently it wasn’t what she’d wanted, as her face fell. “Well, there’s nothing we can do now, we’ll have to get the spares when we do the helicopter run tonight. Or do you think it’s a software issue?”
There was a pause, the person on the other end of the earpiece evidently talking.
“Yes, so that’s Forest Retreat.” Camille was ticking them off on her fingers, though the other person couldn’t see the action. “Palm Tree Rest, Island Dream, and the west cabana camera.” Another pause. “No, that one’s okay; I used the spare to replace it and it seemed to be fine when I left.” Another pause. “I’ve not checked there yet, I’m still at Palm Tree. I’ll go there next, but do you want me to bring this camera back to the boat, or leave it up?”
More speech we couldn’t hear, but apparently the answer was leave it up, because Camille climbed down without removing the camera, her expression annoyed.
“There’s a problem with the sound in some of the villas, unfortunately, so we might have to send someone over to do filming in person tonight. It’ll depend how it goes with the task this evening. The cameras are filming okay, but the mics aren’t picking up any speech. We’ll get it fixed tomorrow, but in the meantime, please try not to say anything too interesting!”
“We can guarantee that,” Nico said with a laugh. “Don’t forget, Lyla’s a scientist, so unless you’re into viruses… Joke,” he added, poking me in the ribs as I made a mock offended face. Camille’s rather tense expression broke into a reluctant smile.
“I’m sure you’re both very interesting, Nico. Now, we’ll give you a few minutes to freshen up, and then we’d love to see you in the cabana for some brunch.”
“Where’s that?” Nico asked, and Camille pointed out the back of the villa, the opposite direction to the beach.
“Just over there, through the trees. It’s a kind of communal area where the boys and girls eat and hang out and so on.”
Boys and girls? It seemed a strangely twee term for a group with an average age pushing thirty, but before I could ask, Nico spoke.
“Great, I’m starving.”
Camille smiled back.
“Good. But be warned—there’ll be some games to play too. See you there!”
Nico and I waited, as her shape disappeared between the trees, and then he turned to me.
