"So what do you do when your sister's gone AWOL?"
"Go on the PS2, surf the net, read, and think of a good way to kill her when she gets back … the usual."
René could see the PS2, all hooked up to the television but he couldn't see any evidence of a computer anywhere.
"You can go on the PS2 if you want. I think I was playing Muppet Race Mania last so that will probably still be in there."
Leila turned on both the TV and the PS2 and waited for the game to load. Indeed, Muppet Race Mania was still in there.
"I usually play battle league on this. But first, I have to put in a cheat code to get it open."
Grabbing the controller out of René's hand, Leila pressed the analogue button and entered the cheat code, noting with delight the Main Courses that came up on the screen.
"I'll even let you be Animal. Use the left stick to turn, L1 and L2 let you fire weapons; R1 and R2 give you a boost and allow you to temporarily stop the other racers so you can cause more damage. Meanwhile, I'll catch up on my email."
Leaving René to crash numerous times and also go around the race track the wrong way, Leila curled up on the chair by the window and booted up her laptop computer. René smiled to himself. Of course, there was no point in taking a PC around when you could take a laptop!
He looked at the laptop and smiled to himself again when he saw the desktop - it was of himself and Sylvan. He wondered if she had made it.
"How do you manage to win this?"
"Lots of practice. I was like that when I first got the game. I still like it though, especially Animal. He would have to be my favourite Muppet."
"Does Sophie do this a lot? Walk off with strangers?"
Leila rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to respond until her mobile phone began to ring. The ring tone was her national anthem, La Marseillaise.
"You can't, Dad. She's gone AWOL with one of your elder daughter's favourite wrestlers and his tag team partner is in the room with me. René Dupree, Dad. He's in here."
The look on Leila's face told René that she didn't believe what her father was saying.
"Cripes, I'll put him on the phone, if you don't believe me!"
Leila held out her cellphone and René took it, purposely making sure his fingers touched her. She jumped, as if she had been burned.
She went back to checking her emails, sending some back to several friends, all the while trying to keep her ankle elevated and her bathrobe closed, although there didn't seem to be much of a reason to do that, seeing that he had seen the fact she had no tan lines at all.
A few minutes later, René handed the cellphone to Leila, taking in the sight of her sprawled out on the chair, a computer on her lap, her left leg elevated and her bathrobe revealing her legs. She looked as if she didn't have a care in the world.
"Not that it's any of my business but …"
"I can assure you it's not but ask anyway."
"The no tan lines thing. Humour me."
"I go to a nude beach. Hence, no tan lines."
First, it was Sylvan and Sophie sneaking off and now Leila revealing where she got her tan. He never would've thought about that in a million years.
"Your father sounds like an idiot."
"He is. He let his twin daughters visit the US by themselves, only for them to find themselves mixed up with French wrestlers. Hmm, yeah. I can see why you called him an idiot."
"We're very nice French wrestlers. Naturally."
"You would say that, though. Besides, your tag team partner isn't exactly nice. Taking my sister god knows where!"
"Yeah, well, Green Twerp's onto the case. Not that I asked him to be on it or anything."
Leila's face lit up like a Christmas tree when the song playing on the computer changed to La Marseillaise and she sat up with a big smile on her face.
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to teach me that while we wait for Sophie and Sylvan?"
Leila looked at René for a few seconds before making up her mind.
"I'll do it. I have nothing else to do anyway. I'll just set this up to play it repeatedly, pissing off everyone else. Besides, you really need to learn it. You're terrible."
René acknowledged that she was telling the truth - he was terrible at singing the French national anthem. His excuse was that he didn't really know it that well and simply sang whatever came into his head. As long as it sounded good and French. That was the main thing.
"There's no point in teaching you the first line. You already know that. It's just the rest. Here."
Leila handed René a piece of paper which had the French national anthem on it and told him in no uncertain terms when to start singing. It got to the stage where if Leila looked at him funny, René knew he had stuffed up.
"You're getting there, slowly but surely."
"True. But you have to give me some degree of credit. I did know the first line. I just didn't know when to start singing it."
"Now you do and you have no excuse for stuffing it up."
Leila was clearly getting worried about her sister now. Sophie hadn't sent a text message or communicated with her sister in any way and she had to restrain herself from biting her rather long fingernails. She reasoned that she needed them to throttle not only Sophie but Sylvan as well.
Her opportunity came a few minutes later.
"Mademoiselle Leila?"
When she heard Sylvan's voice through the door, she was up on her feet in an instant. Despite the sharp pain in her left ankle, she stormed over to the door and flung it open, with René right behind her.
"Where the fuck have you been? Have you even stopped to think how worried I was about her? And how I had to explain to our father that he couldn't talk to her because she had gone AWOL?"
Sylvan looked shocked when Leila swore at him but he knew she was very annoyed with him and her sister.
"It's okay. Sophie's fine. The chemistry between us would've set the club on fire."
"The chemistry?"
Leila had seen how Sylvan had eyed up Sophie earlier in the day when she had fallen over at the hotel pool and that while he felt comfortable doing it, Sophie wasn't comfortable with it. Female she may be, stupid she wasn't.
"Besides, I should be asking you what you've been doing with my tag team partner. Entertaining him, maybe?"
Leila ached to slap the smile off Sylvan's face.
"She was entertaining me, actually. I got to speak to her father, she taught me how to play a PlayStation game, even letting me play as her favourite character, and she even taught me the French national anthem. She didn't entertain me in the way it appears you've entertained Sophie."
Sylvan ran his fingers through his hair.
"Look, you've got the wrong end of the stick. We disappeared simply to talk. We couldn't do it in the club. Everybody would've been looking at us. Your sister is a very good talker."
"That's why she gets into trouble at school - she doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut. Besides, I'll weasel the real reason why you two pulled this disappearing act out of her. I'm good like that. Remember that."
Sylvan knew, he knew, Leila wasn't bluffing. The look on her face, even her body language …
"I'll leave you to help cool this one down, René. She needs it."
Leila leaped to punch Sylvan but René quickly grabbed her wrists, preventing her from doing so.
"See what I mean?"
Leila rolled her eyes as she watched Sylvan saunter back to his room, still wanting to go after him. Rather belatedly, she remembered about her ankle.
Sophie was in the bathroom and would be in there for some time. René decided it would be best for him to leave so Leila and Sophie could argue without an audience.
"I'll talk to him about this and get his side of the story. You talk to Sophie and get hers. Tomorrow, after you've gone to the hospital to get your ankle checked out, we'll go to a café or something and compare their stories. How does that sound?"
Leila looked a little shocked and thought about it for a few seconds before giving her agreement.
"And Leila, remember."
As she turned around to face René again, he bent down and quickly kissed her.
"N'ayez pas peur."
He smiled, not smirked, at Leila before leaving to return to his own room. As he walked, he thought about his impulsive action and realised he wanted to do it again and soon …