Page 46 of Benidorm Again

I am fecking furious.

And I am not the only one.

The Maestro is also fecking furious. He is still recovering from our shambles of a finale yesterday. Dolly told me hewas on the verge of quitting. He has erupted in boils. He is complaining of hair loss, and his twitch has become more pronounced.

I refuse to make eye contact with either of them, which will rather impact on the performance, but I’m past caring. I’m tired, hungover and homesick. I need my friends around me. Thank goodness we will be going back home to Newcastle tomorrow for our final performance of the tour.

‘I couldn’t sleep for feeling so bad,’ Luke persists. ‘Well, that and the cocaine. It was unusually high grade.’

He couldn’t sleep? What about me?

‘Please, let me make it up to you.’

Dolly races over to tell him off. ‘Keep your voices down. What is going on?’ she hisses.

I stare straight ahead. I am not getting involved.

‘Well?’ she asks Luke but gets no response. She lets out an audible sigh. I hear her muttering under her breath before bustling away. ‘Every time, Luke. Every frigging time.’

It does nothing to cheer me up.

‘She’s wrong,’ Luke hisses to me. ‘I’m not like that.’

The Maestro introduces us on stage to enthusiastic applause. Poor audience.

‘I can’t work with him,’ I say to Dolly. She is helping me out of one gown and into my grand finale costume.

‘I did try to warn you, didn’t I?’ She is yanking my dress down my legs so that I can step out of it. ‘Didn’t I say, “Stay away from Luke”?’

‘Yes,’ I sigh, as I go over the memories of last night. How over the course of minutes, we went from harmless flirting to him flinging drugs and marriage proposals at me. Ending in him holding out a sock begging for a hand job. Bizarre doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Dolly stops what she is doing. ‘Is this about the hotel?’ Her tone has changed to very serious.

I let out a frustrated groan. ‘If only the Sinfonia had never bloody upgraded me and Luke in the first place, I’d have been with everyone else and none of this would have happened.’ My voice is rising along with my blood pressure.

Dolly looks shocked at my outburst, but I am sick of always being caught up in other people’s messes, so I continue my rant. ‘I didn’t ask to be upgraded. I didn’t ask to be part of a love triangle. I didn’t ask for Luke to fancyme instead of the chorus girls. I just want to do my job without all this drama.’

Dolly purses her lips. ‘I see. I see.’ She clips a few strands of hair away from my face. Her hands land with a heavy thump on my shoulders as she talks to me through the mirror.

‘So, Luke told you that the Sinfonia was paying for a hotel upgrade, did he?’

‘Yes. Aren’t they?’

She raises an eyebrow at me. ‘You didn’t think that was strange? That only the two of you are staying there? Alone?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The Sinfonia would never upgrade the talent. Not even the Maestro.’

‘So why did they upgrade me and Luke this time?’

Dolly rolls her eyes at me.

‘If it wasn’t the Sinfonia then…’

‘Wait, don’t tell me. The hotel ‘managed’ to get you two adjoining rooms together.’ She does air quotes. ‘What a coincidence.’

Oh. My. Fucking. Word.

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