The Journey Prize Stories 22 by Various Page B

nicotine-coloured fat and pink capillaries. The sad, vulgar vulnerability of imperfection laid out for the world’s entertainment.
    Here in Publicity, even the toilets refuse to mind their own business. An indifferent voice intones: “Low potassium and pH levels and high specific gravity. Please increase intake of fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates and water.”
    Here she comes, a skyscraper of coffee in hand, looking for me with that circumspect gaze. Who knows what kind of new scandal I’m capable of getting into under her watch? She wears a tangerine suit and heels, high and noisy on the marble.
    I stand up and wave, and she smiles at me with her bright-orange mouth.
    â€œGood morning. I hope you slept well.”
    â€œYes, thanks,” I lie. She sits down, giving off a waft of soap. Is it a kind of perfume? Fingernails painted orange, too. Were they like that yesterday? “Sorry about last night.”
    â€œIt’s no problem.” She gives a between-you-and-me smile, then makes a grabbing motion across the screen of the lobby bar’s E-Paper, as if to ball up its contents.
    â€œIt’s okay. I’ve already seen it.” The new footage of a small but noisy group of picketers in front of a BookMart, wanting me stripped of my Booker Prize, while a couple of free-speechers attempt to drown them out.
    â€œYou’ll do the TV and digital-streaming interviews in Conference Room 25, and we have a backup room for print journalists if we start running behind. Oh, and we might have to evacuate. There’s a wildfire heading west. Nothing serious right now, but the winds could change.”
    â€œThere was nothing in the paper about
that
.“
    â€œI checked about the hotel pool. You can swim any time you like. Just call the concierge. There are swimsuits in the store downstairs. Not very fashionable, unfortunately.”
    Bless her for pretending it matters.
    â€œStill nobody swimming out there.”
    She checks her watch. “It’s early.”
    â€œBut look at all the people on the beach, in
swimsuits.”
    â€œI’m sure they’ll go swimming.”
    There’s that make-it-happen voice again. She’d need to hire actors or bribe people.
    â€œHow did the interviews go?”
    â€œFine.” I was an utter fool to pass up the warm-up coaching.
    â€œReady for the next one?”
    â€œYes.” Even if it kills me.
    She beckons to a young woman, in pigtails of all things.
    â€œI’d like to smoke,” I say.
    â€œI didn’t know you smoked.” Lana sounds offended, not by the habit but because she should have known. “You can’t smoke in the hotel. You can’t really smoke anywhere.”
    â€œThen we’ll go to my room.” I can keep my eyes on the water. “We’ll eat some fruit, okay?” I say to the journalist, who shrugs and smirks. Obviously not a fan. Probably just a hack reporter, looking for a break, baiting herself for the tabs.
    Lana accompanies us right to the door of my suite. She seems to disapprove of my bringing this reporter to my room. Is everything suspect now?
    Pigtails admits upfront that she’s not read any of my books. She’s familiar only with the ones made into movies, so there’s no safe reminiscing about favourite fictional characters, as if they have minds of their own and are still out there doing their own thing; if only they’d just call and check in once in a while to let you know they’re okay.
    â€œDid you pick the Philippines knowing that the age of consent there is only 12?”
    I resist the urge to hiss,
Get your facts straight. She was 15!
Almost 17 now. “I went there to write about a
fictional
marine biologist investigating mass dolphin beachings,” I say instead.
    â€œSo,
it
just happened by accident? Like manslaughter?”
    Lana’s decisive knock is right on time.
    â€œThe air conditioning is too cold,” I