OLDER MEN | THE WEEKND

02

02

     
   ISABELLA HADID LIKES TO think that she's not as inexperienced as everyone else in relationship affairs. At seventeen, she's already kissed, — and that counts for something, yes?

  Fine.
That was on one of her family's vacations back when she was eleven. And he was one of the island boys. And he was thirteen.

  She also likes to think that this was the last time she'd ever kiss a boy older than her by less than ten years.
    She'd always had a strange attraction to men, — but the men her father used to invite over for business-infused dinner parties, then men who, upon looking at her, cast her a second glance, a glance she could never decipher nor forget.
   She'd always been attracted to men in suits and men with hair tinted with the slightest hint of silver, men who knew more than she did about life.
   Men with expensive watches and women on their wrists whose faces were already touched by that life she knew so little of.

   Sometimes, she thinks that it's not the age that attracts her, but the status. However — Archival, yes. She can't bring herself to call him Mr. He's twenty-seven, she knows that. She knows that his birthday is November twelfth, only a few weeks away.
  She knows that he drives a grey Range Rover, the petite type, and she knows that the watch on his wrist is fake.

  She forks the mashed potatoes on her plate. The roast is looking at her solemnly. She can see the oil particles dissipate from its skin — what has Marzia made today? She's pretty sure it's lamb — and clot up in little bubbles on the virgin white of her plate. The mashed potatoes are mashed with milk and butter. Even the brussels sprouts on her plate are buttered with the ghee her mum makes when she's bored of work and wants to spend a little bit of time in the kitchen.

   She could say that she has a stomach virus. But then again, she'd already said that last week. And she can't have her parents take her to a doctor. 
  
  One-hundred and seventeen for the butter, she thinks. She's not sure about the roast. She's not sure about the sprouts.

  She takes a sip of her water and watches as her sister, opposite her, plays with her own mashed potatoes. Not for the same reason as her, though. Boy drama, Bella thinks, a hint of jealousy in her neurons, and sips on her water.

  Her mother clears her throat. Her father looks up. "Bells, you don't like the lamb roast?"

(She was right, it's lamb.)

     Bella shakes her head. "No, I do—" she's stammering out, and she can feel her collarbones, they're still there, — "I do, I'm just not that hungry today." So she takes a bite of the lamb, and she can taste the oil, even though she'd tried to wipe off most of it on the plate, and she smiles and chews and swallows.
Twenty, she speculates.
"It's delicious," she muses, still smiling. And she has another bite.

   Gigi's got a new Goyard bag waiting for her in her bedroom. That's how her parents deal with boy drama.
  She rushes off to see it, and Bella makes her way up the velvety plush staircase to her own room. In there, she sprawls her books out on the table and sinks into her chair.

It's been a long fucking day.

    "BELLA!!" Gigi barges into her room, her eyes ablaze with excitement. "Look at this. It was in my bag—Look at this. Right NOW."

   There's something in her hand. Paper, Bella realizes. Her parents had never before given them money as compensation for a wounded heart, — that is something new.

  But it's not money. Gigi's waving two tickets in front of her face.

And then, Bella's snatching them out of her hands, and she's reading the words VIP and the date — what a strange date, it says 'The Weeknd' — which weeknd, Bella thinks? — and then, she's asking,—"who's the artist?"

   And Gigi stares at her. And she laughs nervously. "The Weeknd," she says, as if she's telling her sister that it's daytime.
 
   And Bella laughs nervously, too.

  "Who's The Weeknd?"