Temptation Island. Victoria Fox

stare and sideways looks gave Lori the impression she could well do without the nuisance of a ready-made daughter. Unable to abandon the hopes and dreams of her parents, Lori had left school and joined the business, working till her bones ached and her feet blistered. It wasn’t enough. Her sisters’ attitude had driven clients away and now the salon was spiralling rapidly into debt and disrepair.

      Lori had no money and no prospects. The days were long and the pay virtually non-existent, and while Anita and Rosa wasted no time spending their share, on cheap clothes, cigarettes and men, Lori put hers straight back into the enterprise. She did it because she loved her father and she didn’t want him to suffer—not more than he already had.

      It wasn’t a life. It was endurance.

      Rosa emerged from the back, where she’d been smoking out in the yard. Rosa was the eldest and overweight. She sported a cap of slick dark hair, which she tweezed into little hook-like curls at the sides of her face.

      ‘Loriana thinks she’s done enough for one day,’ chirruped Anita. ‘Got better stuff to do.’

      ‘Oh, yeah?’ Rosa shot Lori a scornful look. ‘Like what?’

      Defeated, Lori rose from the counter. It was easier than arguing. Once upon a time she’d have stood up for herself, given as good as she got, but the reality was she was outnumbered. The only person on her side was Tony—or, he had been. These days he seemed to have given up, the endless loans and threats from the bank and demands for payment finally wearing him down. He’d become weak, let Angélica take over with her punishing schedules and harsh government, at least where Lori was concerned. No, she was by herself. That was all there was to it.

      The salon door opened and Rosa’s only appointment of the afternoon wandered in, a mean-faced black girl with a tired weave. She slumped into one of the salmon-coloured chairs and threw a glance Lori’s way. ‘I want hair like hers,’ she declared. It wasn’t the first time a client had requested curls like Lori’s, something that was impossible to pull off. Rosa glowered.

      Anita released a satisfied puff as Lori began mopping the floor. ‘You’re lucky to have a job here, y’know,’ she mused, leaning over the counter and lazily examining her nails. She’d always been a bully, was born with it in her character, intrinsic as genetics.

      ‘My family started this place,’ Lori fired back. ‘So don’t tell me I’m lucky to be here.’

      It was a petty observation, but nevertheless the truth. Lori’s parents had been proud, God-fearing, hard-working people: they’d been dirt poor but they’d been happy, arriving in America with barely two cents to their name and taking out a loan to build their own business. Purchasing one of a chain of beat-up shopfronts in a down-and-out part of LA, over the years they had watched it grow into something about which they could be proud.

      Then her mother had died. Too quick, too sudden, too horrible. Through a shroud of grief, Tony had allowed himself to be comforted by the first person who claimed they wanted to listen. Angélica had pounced on a vulnerable man and an exploitable business. In the weeks that followed, Pelobello had become Tres Hermanas, and from there it had begun its descent. Lori tried desperately to keep its head above water but she worked thankless, endless hours. After a while, it got to a person. It made them feel useless and hopeless. It made them feel broken.

      Lori refused to accept this was her future. A light glimmered inside her. Some days she thought it was her mother, still with her; others, the glowing, insistent ember that kept her alive. Change would come. She’d know when it did.

      ‘I’m done,’ she said now, shoving the mop back in its corner. Anita’s horrified expression appeared in one of the salon mirrors.

      ‘Don’t you dare think about it!’ she crowed.

      ‘I’m not thinking about it.’ Lori grabbed her bag. She changed from the uncomfortable plastic heels made obligatory by Angélica into her favourite worn Converse. ‘I’m doing it.’

      ‘You can’t leave,’ Rosa bitched, jabbing a pair of styling scissors in Lori’s face. ‘You’ve got another hour and you’re workin’ every second of it!’

      ‘Or what?’ She scooped up a stack of battered paperbacks from under the counter.

      ‘You’d better not be meetin’ Rico!’ one of them screeched, but she couldn’t tell which. ‘You won’t get away with it!’

      Lori pulled open the door, hearing the familiar, hated metallic buzz that announced her departure. She held the books tightly to her, remembering the worlds they kept inside: other worlds she dreamed of when she lay in bed staring into darkness, imagining what opportunity, what possibility, tasted like. Sweet, she decided, like honey.

      Things would be different. It was only a matter of time.

      I will get out of here, Lori Garcia vowed. One day. One day I’m going to be free.

       2 Aurora

      ‘So, do you want to fuck?’

      Mink Ray, sixty-something rock star fresh from a comeback tour with The Bad Brothers, put down his brush and gazed, stoned, at the canvas he’d been working on.

      ‘Looks like shit,’ he complained.

      Aurora Nash ground out her half-smoked joint and sat up. She was naked. ‘I’m offended.’

      ‘I doubt it.’

      ‘Let’s see.’ She peeled herself off the couch, one of several sunken offerings in Mink’s Hollywood apartment. Aurora was tall, about five-nine, with short ice-blonde hair and glacial blue-grey eyes. Her tits were small and high on her chest, the nipples dark and stiff. She hooked an arm round Mink’s waist. He was wearing his customary leather jacket and it felt weird, quite horny, against her skin. ‘It’s not that bad,’ she pouted, secretly thinking it was dire. She couldn’t work out if it was meant to be abstract or if Mink was just a crap artist.

      ‘What’s that?’ She pointed at a jagged torpedo thing in the middle of the picture.

      ‘Your tit,’ he commented lazily, sparking up a cigarette and ambling to the bar, where he poured them both drinks.

      ‘You promised me it would be tasteful,’ Aurora teased, not minding at all. How tasteful was it ever going to be? She was posing nude for her friend’s dad, rock star legend and now, apparently, frustrated artist.

      ‘It is,’ Mink said, chucking back the dark liquid and immediately filling another. ‘You couldn’t tell what it was, could you?’

      Aurora faced him, unabashed. She put a hand on her hip and felt Mink’s gaze rake over her young body. Her skin was smooth, flawless, smelled fine … and she knew it. ‘My turn.’ She arched an eyebrow at his leather-clad crotch. ‘Let me draw you.’

      Mink snorted by way of reply. He fingered the blinds on the window, allowing a sliver of mid-afternoon light to stream in. It illuminated the crags on his face, features addled by years of alcohol and drug abuse and who knew what else. Aurora found it sexy. When he let go, the apartment returned to its den-like state. Aurora joined him at the bar and slipped on to a stool, crossing her long legs and in doing so folding away the light triangle of butter-coloured hair between them. She caught Mink watching.

      ‘Wanna get bombed?’ he asked, squinting as she took a slug of her drink.

      ‘What are you offering?’ She trailed her pinkie around the rim of the glass.

      Mink knew he should suggest she wear a robe. He didn’t.

      ‘How old are you anyway?’ he growled.

      ‘Old enough to fuck.’

      ‘Yeah, right, missy.’

      ‘I’ll be nineteen next year.’ Aurora was guessing this was an acceptable number to him. Mink must’ve done all sorts in his day.

      He narrowed