The Truth About Sex & Surfing [Featured Story]

Chapter five

Twelve hours later, Hailey’s pulse was still jumping.

She’d thought of calling Jimmy once she’d got back to her hotel room, only she couldn’t figure out what she’d say. “I kissed this real estate guy, then some girl took pictures of me without my permission”? She didn’t understand the story herself, and she was the one who’d lived it. There was no point in trying to explain it to anyone else.

A loud, long slurp sounded from just a foot away. The line in the grocery store had ground to a dead standstill, and the teenage boy ahead of her had popped open an energy drink and was trying to drink it without tilting the can back at all, just keeping it level with his face. Slurrrrp. Why is it, Hailey wondered, that the people least in need of energy are the only ones who buy energy drinks? Teenage boys, people in clubs at two a.m. Never old people.

To divert herself, she started scanning the tabloid headlines over in the magazine and newspaper rack. Australia had its own crop of celebrities, she could see, but the gossip was all about the same things: Weddings, babies, weight loss, plastic surgery, steamy hook-ups, nasty divorces.

Then it was as if her eyes had tripped, stumbled over something. Her breath caught in her chest. The tips of her fingers turned to ice. Something was wrong – distinctly wrong – with the front page of one of the newspapers.

It couldn’t be. No way.

She knew that face. She knew that hair color, those eyes. That shaky, sort of uncertain smile.

She blinked, and blinked again. But the huge picture taking up most of The Gold Coast Leader’s front page didn’t change.

Nobody would call it a flattering photo. The girl was looking into the camera with a surprised, almost dazed expression, the whites of her eyes visible all around. The flash had made her blond hair even blonder, and a thin bracelet on her wrist caught the light as she lifted up her hand to shield her face. Her puffy mouth and smudged mascara were still clearly visible, and the strap of her tanktop was falling off one shoulder.

People looking at the picture would see it and think: Slut. Party girl. No question.

“Paul Weston Back to Bedding Hookers,” screamed the headline. “Kate Fisher Engagement Off!”

“This can’t be happening,” Hailey mumbled. For a moment, she didn’t realize she’d spoken out loud. “Oh no, no, no. Oh god. Oh shit.”

The energy-drink slurping teenager turned around to stare at her. “Uh, what is it?”

“I’m going to faint,” she said, more to herself than to him. “I mean, I’m having a heart attack.”

“You want to, uh, go ahead of me or something?”

But she’d already stepped out of line and grabbed up, with trembling hands, a copy of The Gold Coast Leader. The story began at the bottom of the front page.

Paul Weston certainly didn’t wait long before moving on from his break-up with popular ‘Sun Island’ actress Kate Fisher. A mysterious blond, thought to be a highly paid prostitute, was spotted emerging from Weston’s luxurious Surfers Paradise penthouse early yesterday evening, with her hair mussed and her makeup smudged – suggesting a particularly hot and heavy session!

The mystery escort, the third one spotted leaving Weston’s penthouse in recent days, refused to give her name and fled when confronted by this reporter. She did leave behind a pair of six 6 lime-green Old Navy thongs, and she also had an American or possibly Canadian accent, which begs the question: Is Weston now importing his ‘companions’ from overseas?