covered in blood in that ER in Tucson,’ I’d sighed. ‘I looked like I’d murdered someone.’
As it was late, I’d told her she should go home, but she’d shaken her head.
‘Not me, sorry. I am staying in the spare room tonight.’
‘I swear, I’m off everything, Mariam,’ I’d said, momentarily affronted.
‘I know, Electra, it’s not that I don’t trust you. I just want to hear about everything that has happened to you since you left. I thought we could order some take-out and you could tell me all about your friend who ended up in the hospital.’
So we’d showered, gotten into our robes, eaten take-out Chinese and I’d told her all about Vanessa.
‘Oh Electra, you are a good Samaritan,’ Mariam had said, which had made me blush. ‘She’s lucky you have taken such an interest in her.’
So I began to tell her about my plans to do more, and then I’d felt my eyes closing and gone to lie on my cloud of feathers and slept right through until six the next morning.
Since then, I hadn’t stopped. I’d had a meeting with Susie to tell her I was cutting my schedule right back, and even though she hadn’t looked pleased, she’d eventually agreed and we’d worked out that I’d only do the campaigns I was already contracted for.
‘But what about the fall shows?’ she’d asked me.
‘No,’ I’d said firmly, knowing that if anything could drag me back into my old ways, it was the crazy world of the catwalk.
‘Oh, and I’ve had a couple of enquires from designers who’d like to talk about collaborations, in the same vein as the one you did with Xavier last year.’
As I’d listened to Susie, for a couple of brief seconds I’d thought back to my sketchbook and how much I’d loved designing. But then again, I’d promised myself not to take on too much.
‘Maybe next year,’ I’d told her.
The upshot was that I had just enough work to keep me busy up until mid-June, and after that, I’d go away to Atlantis for the sisters’ sailing trip. Then I hoped to go down to the Hacienda Orchídea to organise the building works I wanted done.
Excitement bubbled up inside me every time I thought about my new home-to-be. Casey, my business manager, had confirmed that I could easily afford it, so I’d called Manuel with an offer and he’d accepted. He’d also agreed to sell me Hector and said that he’d find a ranch hand to look after him and other horses I might care to add to my stable.
‘But you must come to choose, señorita. Horses are a soul choice,’ he’d said.
I was buying it fully furnished, at what even Casey said looked like a good price. I was also planning on adding a pool and an extra wing to provide further bedroom accommodation; I had dreams of inviting all my sisters to come stay with me at Christmas . . .
As for Miles, he’d moved out of The Ranch and was staying in a motel nearby the hospital, as he waited for Vanessa’s team to complete the red tape needed to bring her back to New York and get her onto the programme the doctor had suggested. There wasn’t much news on Vanessa herself; since I’d left, they’d put her on what Miles described as heavy-duty antidepressants, and she’d been sleeping a lot. I called her on her cell, but she didn’t answer, so I sent her a text every night, and occasionally received the odd ‘okay’ or ‘thanks’ in return.
Talking to Miles on the phone felt different to talking to him in person; perhaps it was because he had such a warm, rich tone to his voice and a clever sense of humour, but I’d started to see our calls as the highlight of my day. It was partly because he knew exactly what I’d been through and how the transition back to reality was one of the hardest moments of staying clean. I could talk to him freely about the way I was feeling. Which, for the main part, had been positive. Yes, it was still hard to open the fridge and take out a can of Coke or some juice when a month ago there had always been a bottle of vodka in the icebox. At night, when I was watching TV or drawing in my sketchbook (I hadn’t dared venture out to any social functions – I wasn’t strong enough for those just yet), I knew it would take