Jemma Forte - If You're Not The One

They’d all slept with someone, though if she were being totally honest, Jennifer rather regretted her liaison at the beach with a handsome Greek guy on their second night. She knew she’d lived up to the reputation English girls seemed to have, of being easy. By the same token, she’d decided not to lose any sleep over it. She wasn’t proud of how little it had meant, but still didn’t see why girls should feel any worse than guys did, about what amounted to nothing more than a consensual exchange of bodily fluids. The only thing that had been slightly awkward was bumping into him from time to time. Neither of them could be bothered to keep up the pretence of interest now the act had been done.

‘Can I borrow your red dress, Jen?’ asked Esther, emerging from the bathroom in a towel, strawberry blonde hair hanging in damp tendrils around her face.

Since arriving on Kos the four of them had eased into a routine which consisted of sleeping until midday, at which point they’d force themselves to get up, no matter how much their heads were splitting, for tanning purposes. Then, after an afternoon of roasting themselves at the beach, they’d return to the apartment, shower, slather themselves in more after-sun than was probably necessary and have a sleep. Making sure first of course that they’d set the alarm so there was no danger of missing out on another night of partying.

Now, without waiting for a response Esther bent down to extract the dress, which was rolled in a ball and stuffed in Jennifer’s rucksack. Only the minute she did, the red dress became exactly what Jennifer wanted to wear that night. Esther borrowing her clothes was starting to get on her nerves, partly because with her long freckled limbs, she looked totally amazing in all of them.

Esther was the rare sort of girl who actually looked better with no make-up on at all. She wasn’t overtly sexy and yet was probably the most naturally pretty of the group. Back home in London, it was usually Jennifer’s more obvious sex appeal or Karen’s big boobs which guys noticed. However, whilst it might have taken their fellow students at College a few glances before they finally worked out just how attractive Esther really was, on holiday her tall physique and bare-faced beauty made her the instant star of the beach.

‘Um, sorry babe I think I’m going to wear it,’ Jennifer said sleepily.

Esther tutted. ‘Shit, what am I going to wear then?’

‘Don’t know, but hurry up,’ said Karen, drawing deeply on one of the two hundred Merit cigarettes she’d bought at Kos airport, before adjusting her dress straps in order to heave her considerable cleavage up as much as possible. ‘I am so up for it tonight.’

‘Makes a change,’ teased Jennifer.

‘Shut up,’ said Karen, grinning, teeth white against her brown face.

Normally her deep tan would have really suited her but sadly on this trip, the browner she got the more alarming she looked. Not for the first time Jennifer visibly balked at the sight of Karen’s hair. When they’d first arrived in Greece Karen had announced her intentions to go blonde with the help of a bottle of Sun-In. Typically, she’d ignored all her friends’ protestations completely, despite the fact Sun-In was never designed to be used on dark hair.

As a result, instead of the sun-kissed highlights Karen had been imagining, her reward for being so pig headed was patches of dodgy orange hair which looked like straw and was brittle and coarse to the touch. It had looked horrendous when she’d first done it but at least then she’d been pale.

Luckily for Karen however, what she had in her favour was her attitude. She’d always had incredibly thick skin meaning that it would take more than orange hair to ruin her holiday. Whereas, had the same thing ‘happened’ to Jennifer, it would have been a complete game changer. And as for Lucy, who’d always been self-conscious about her looks, partly because she’d never had brilliant skin and suffered from a bit of acne, if she’d had to deal with the Sun-In disaster she probably wouldn’t have left the apartment ever again, unless it was to go shopping for a burkha. But then Karen pretty much had a ‘fuck it’ approach to most things which would get her far in life, occasionally into trouble and lots of male attention.

Tonight she’d tried to mitigate the hair disaster by gelling it all back off her face. It looked seriously bizarre but, as ever, Karen preferred to concentrate on the positive so was reeking of confidence due to how good her boobs looked in her mini dress. Jennifer admired her for it.

As Jennifer looked at her friends, her best friends, getting ready for their night out, their biggest concern being what to wear, she was filled with the sense that this was a carefree time to be treasured. When they got home, A level results would be waiting for them and the next stage of education would begin. But for now they didn’t have to worry about anything except getting a tan, a task the girls had applied themselves to with more zeal than they probably had to their recently taken exams. Only Lucy with her pale, almost translucent skin and mousy blonde hair was still roughly the same colour she’d started out, though not for want of trying.

‘Do I look all right?’ she asked now, having slipped on a halter-neck top and a pair of shorts.

‘You look lovely,’ said Jennifer sincerely, lazily stretching one brown leg out over the white sheet she was entwined in. She loved having brown feet. ‘Those polka dot shorts are really cool.’

‘Come on,’ nagged Karen, who was dying to meet up with Mark. She’d met him four nights ago. He was twenty-four, from Wigan, and worked as a carpet fitter which had given rise to lots of predictable jokes about Karen getting laid.

‘Right,’ said Jennifer, finally heading for the shower.

Two hours, a quick pizza (they ate as cheaply as they could every night, preferring to save their money for drinks) and one bar later, they were in the best spot on the island. Club Kaluha. The club was huge, and outrageously expensive to get into unless you struck it lucky and got a pass from one of the PRs who scouted Bar Street looking for girls to entice in. Jennifer and her friends hadn’t paid to get in once so far, but poor Mark and his mates had had to stump up every night, much to their chagrin.

There was an inside section of the club but the majority of it was outside and in the middle was a massive pirate ship surrounded by palm trees. Walking in, having greeted the bouncers who by now they were on first name terms with, they were met by a wall of house music and what felt like an electrical charge of energy in the air, palpable anticipation. Then again, everything was always going to feel magical when there was a warm breeze, everyone had a tan and people’s biggest concern was who fancied them.

‘You all right?’ said Lucy to Jennifer, coming to join her on one of the outside seating areas where she had a good view of the ship and the main bar. She’d been sitting there for a while now, on her own, enjoying the music and watching the world go by.

‘Yeah, well happy. You?’

‘Good. Bit sad though. I don’t want this to end.’

‘I know,’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s been amazing. Still, I reckon uni’s going to be a right laugh.’

Lucy nodded. ‘Wish we were all going to the same one. You and Karen are so lucky.’

‘Look at Esther,’ interrupted Jennifer, nudging Lucy hard and laughing.

The two girls chuckled as they watched Mark’s mate, who for some inexplicable reason was called ‘Bonehead’, trying desperately to chat Esther up. Esther looked decidedly unimpressed as Bonehead advanced ever closer to her, shouting in her ear against the music. At the same time she was backing away, partly because he had a terrible lisp so was literally spraying her with his enthusiasm.