I can't believe that you actually have to pay extra to have real vegetables that haven't been laced in pesticide and chemical fertiliser, just so they can use the word 'organic.' How ass backwards is that? Surely buying chemicals is more expensive than just growing vegetables normally? I miss my island and all my fresh food.

Lily and I are having trouble getting round the supermarket without fisticuffs. She's used to convenience food and stodge - if I start eating that after years of the healthiest diet there is I am going to get bloated and fat. I will not let that happen. Apart from anything else, she always raves about the food when she comes to Adora so I don't see why she objects to me recreating that for us. I suppose we all just like what we're used to, continuity or something. We are slowly and painfully coming to find the middle ground, but it's very hard work. This is okay though - we've both lived with housemates before so we both know that the transition from good time pal to being under each other's noses twenty four seven takes a little effort.

"Well, at least you're not fighting me on the pizza," Lily says cheerfully. "Then I would have to kill you."

"Everybody loves pizza; I just insist on fresher toppings."

"Fair enough."

"Isn't compromise fun?" I beam at her with a sly grin.

"I have a feeling that overall this compromise just means it's you getting your own way but what the heck. I can't exactly complain about being made to eat fruit and vegetables."

"Well, you could but nobody'd have much sympathy."

"True," she snorts. "So are you all set for work on Monday?"

Wisely we gave ourselves a week to get out here, unpack and start getting to know our way around before we had our first days. The less stressful we could make this transition the better - that was our creed and it seems to have worked beautifully. It's only Wednesday and we've got the apartment mostly in order, so we have the whole rest of the week to explore. Though I still cannot for the life of me find my blue court shoes. I love those things and I know I definitely packed them.

"I think so…" I say slowly. "I'm a bit nervous, been years since I had an office job."

"I'm going to make a prediction," Lily announces to me. "The only thing you'll miss about teaching are the holidays."

Spoken like a woman who has never worked with children. They're a pain sometimes (though in all fairness so are adults) but you do get a bit attached. "Maybe," I reply in my most non-committal tone.

"Hey, can we stop by the magazines?" Lily asks as we round the corner to that aisle. She does love her gossip, that woman, which is I suppose why it works for her that she can wheedle any information out of anyone. If she wasn't set on being a designer, she'd make a great investigative reporter -or gossip hag if she didn't want to do the high brow stuff.

"Yeah, I want to buy some newspapers anyway." I've always had a newspaper with my breakfast so I need to try a few and work out which one I like before settling.

"Great. Now I feel guilty because not only are you Miss Health you're also more intellectual than me," she teases.

"Oh shut up." I don't say it without affection, but she does annoy me when she acts like I'm holier than thou. I'm not and if I ever start acting that way I'd like somebody to shoot me.

In companionable silence, she flicks through magazines while I flip through newspapers. I pick up Marie Claire and Glamour anyway, I do like my monthly glossies, but I have a mission to find my new breakfast read. I don't know why I bother since I skip half the pages anyway but I suppose I just like to have some idea of what's going on in the world, even if it is just a vague one. Also, if you get stuck in conversation and struggling for small talk you can always ask 'did you read about X' and it helps kick start things. Small talk is hard to come up with so keeping well abreast of current events helps.

"Oh God I hope not."

"What?" I ask Lily on the off chance she was talking to me and not herself.

"Justin Timberlake is far too good looking to be wasting his time on whoever this girl is. I never even heard of her."

Apparently I need my ears cleaned out. I cannot have heard her say what I think she just said. "Who and who?"

"Justin Timberlake and Alicia Warren. She's apparently on some TV show I never heard of and rumoured to be his new notch in the bedpost. Serious downgrade."

I think I deserve an award for how calm I'm being about this. You cannot tell me Timberlake is a common surname. "Let me see?"

She hands over the magazine and my worst fear is realised. There staring back up at me is the guy I spent last summer with. I walked, talked, surfed and slept with him. That silly, goofy guy, the one I kept making fun of, is a serious A lister according the article I'm now hurriedly skim reading. He's a musician and a movie star and has some fashion label too. The blue eyes, the big nose and the funny smile are all there. This is my guy. This is the unassuming and quiet guy I spent last summer hanging out and talking with, the one who told me that his life utterly sucked and he was really depressed about it. Like being rich and famous is a hardship.

That bastard. He told me he was a banker.

Oh, and if you're taking me as the starting point then yeah, Alicia Faketits is a serious downgrade.

***

For a while, I managed to be surprisingly calm about all this. I wasn't yelling or screaming. I did not shame myself in public, I held my composure. I didn't let onto Lily that there was a problem and I didn't say a single word about it.

Yeah. I think that must have been shock because now I'm PISSED and expressing it. Cushions have been thrown, feet have been stomped, and I let out a string of curse words to make any sailor blush. I've never been one to swear like a squaddie but right now I am doing so and at the top of my lungs. Lily went downstairs to check the mail so it's fine, she can't hear me. The wooden floorboards are wonderfully hard and allow me to make a wonderful clomping noise which sums up how I feel perfectly. Having come from all that time on Adora, relaxation capital of the world, I am not used to being this angry. Of course I've had stress in my life and problems and times when somebody's upset me, but the place is so laid back that it teaches you to be laid. Usually when I'm upset, I do it in a 'quiet disappointment' kind of way. I'm really not used to this rage and being so furious.

Honestly, I'm not even sure why I am this angry. This was a guy I had a quick fling with last summer. He wasn't really my boyfriend, we weren't that deep, and it was a year ago. I just… UGH. I just hate being lied to. And it was such a fucking stupid lie… did he seriously think that I was never going to leave that island again and so I couldn't find out? The stupid bastard even encouraged me to go travelling and to move to New York where hello, I'm guessing they're aware of his fame too. This really was the dumbest lie ever. That said, in hindsight it explains a lot about why he refused to go anywhere near Playa Del Sol. He said he hated tourists and I kind of assumed that if he'd been he'd been while I wasn't with him (there were a few days we didn't spend together). Silly me for assuming, silly me for swallowing that pile of crap, silly me all round really. I never should have trusted him.

Maybe this is what's pissing me off. Apart from him telling me that his name was Justin Timberlake and he's a millionaire, both of which are proved to be obviously true, I now feel like I can't trust a word he said to me. All those conversations we had about his problems and depression, everything he told me about himself, the amount of stuff we shared and all the advice he gave me, I just cannot believe a single word of it any more because he lied to me about something so stupid. Clearly I didn't know who he was, so was I going to care if he was famous? Hell, even if he'd said he was a musician and failed to elaborate at least then he wouldn't have actually lied.

Now because I know he lied once, it's like I can't trust anything about him or anything I thought I knew about him. It's tainted my entire memory of last summer, which up until now had been really perfect and positive for me.

"Okay, who killed your mother?"

"God, you startled me." I was so caught up in stomping that I didn't hear Lily on the stairs.

"Are you okay?"

"Patently not."

"Sorry, just didn't know what else to say."

"No, sorry, it's not your fault," I replied grouchily after flopping back onto my bed. I do like my bed. It's currently covered in beautiful powder blue sheets and it's very large and squishy. It goes nicely in my room, which is white with various blue accents on the walls and furniture. It's very light and airy.

"You want to tell me what's wrong?" Lily asks gently as she sits down next to me.

"Yes but I'm not sure I should."

"Why?"

"Because sometimes rich people get money hungry and you might go to the News of the World."

That confused her, because she's looking at me like I have three heads. It makes the freckles on her nose scrunch up together. "What are you chatting about?"

"You know Justin? Lover Boy Justin?"

"Yeah." She looks even more confused.

"You have to swear you won't tell."

"Sure."

"I mean it, Lil, on your father's life."

"Okay, now you're scaring me, what the hell is it?"

"Swear."

"I swear on my father's life."

"Lover Boy Justin is Justin Timberlake."

There's a momentary silence while she looks at me with a positively stupid expression on her face. In this moment she looks utterly vacant and lacking in any IQ. Her mouth is hanging open and her eyes are bugging out. Her mouth flaps a couple of times like she's trying to form words but doesn't remember how.

"You're not serious," she finally splutters.

"Deadly," I reply sourly. "I didn't realise until you showed me that article about him and that actress today. I'd never heard of him and he told me he was a fucking banker."

"How could you not know who he is?" She asks sceptically, clearing not believing me.

"I'm sorry, have you SEEN where I used to live in the back of beyond with no decent TV or internet access?" I say irritably. "If you don't believe me look in the photo album." I point towards my dresser, where the offending album is splayed open. I pulled it back out from the depths of the crap I hadn't yet put away just to check that I hadn't dreamed the whole thing and the guy in the pictures really was the guy from the magazine. Sadly, he was.

Lily rushes over there and positively screams when she sees it. "OH MY FUCKING GOD!"

"Louder, I think there's somebody in the Bronx who only heard half of that."

"You're not joking. Oh my fucking God you're not joking. That's Justin Tim… OH MY GOD YOU SHAGGED JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE?"

"Apparently," I reply bitchily.

"Do you have ANY idea how globally desired this man is?"

"Clearly not, since I thought he was a bloody jobs-worth in a bank." I can't help it, I'm pissed and upset and when added to my usual sarcastic tendencies that just makes me bitchy. Lily apparently is too astounded to take much notice of my tone anyway.

"Fucking hell, Addy," she says as she rushes back over to the bed with the album, flipping through pictures. "This is huge."

"I know," I reply bitterly. "Apparently Justin Twatmerlake is a big deal and he neglected to mention it. More than that, he actually lied to me about it."

"Oh." I've said before that Lily is a born agony aunt, and now the shock is subsiding her usual instincts are kicking back in. "You guys got pretty close, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"So the reason you're stomping around isn't because he got a new girlfriend or anything, it's just that he lied to you."

"I feel like that one piece of knowledge has just invalidated the entire time I spent with him." I pick at a loose thread as I talk, flipping over onto my stomach and kicking my feet in the air as Lily strokes my hair. "Like, I told you he'd been having problems and he helped me with some of mine and now I feel like I can't believe in anything he told me about himself or even about me any more. And it pisses me off because I adored him."

"Well, what did he tell you about it?" She asks. Oh God, I hope she's not about to tell me she owns his albums and is a mega fan or something.

"He said he was from Memphis, parents divorced, step dad's in banking too, umm…" I'm struggling to remember the details. "Moved to LA, likes golf…"

"That stuff's all true." She says. "It comes up in like every interview he does. Maybe it was just his occupation he lied to you about? I mean, you can get why if he was feeling like shit he might not want to flag up being a celebrity. I know you didn't get internet access out there but they cop a lot of shit from paparazzi and stuff."

"All that stuff about being depressed?" I ask her doubtfully. "You think that's true?"

"Well…" I seem to have her here, she's hesitating. "I don't know. I mean, from the outside I wouldn't have said so but… I don't know, babe."

"Yeah. Well I don't know either and now I'm wondering whether it was some bullshit line he fed me to live out some fantasy or play some stupid game with me to amuse himself. Hell, maybe it was just to get into my knickers, who the fuck knows?" I thump a pillow in anger.

"God…" she trails off for a minute, biting her nails. I haven't seen her do that in years. She brings her feet up under her on the mattress and lets out a loud sigh. "God. I can't believe I so narrowly missed meeting Justin Timberlake. If he hadn't been sick he would have been at that dinner I threw you guys."

"I wish you had, you would have recognised him." If I sound bitter, it's because I am deeply so.

"I'm having a tough time with the idea that you shagged this huge celebrity. He is a really big deal, you know. Please don't take offence, you know I think you're gorgeous and if I were a guy I'd shag you myself, but…"

"I know, none taken." I wave a dismissive hand, I know what she means. I'm having the same problem. Addy Elliott is not exactly a supermodel or celebrity or whatever. Hell, it's going to be new to me having to wear make up to work every day. I barely used anything but mascara on Adora.

Lily drums her fingers against the hard cover of the photo album, biting her lip. She always turns into a fidget when she's wound up. "I mean… you didn't just shag him though. You, like, had this full on summer romance with him. I know it was no strings, but…"

"He actually told me before he left that under other circumstances he really would have been pushing for more."

"Really?" Wow. If she was shocked before now she just looks… I don't know, what's a step up from shocked? Scared maybe? "You never told me that."

"Didn't seem pertinent, it never could have happened. Besides, it now turns out that I can't believe a word out of his mouth anyway."

"Is…" Lord, she looks like she's about to choke on whatever it is she's about to say. "Is that why you're upset? You felt that way about him?"

It's not a difficult question, but I'm struggling for an answer. It's one of those things where what's in my head does not want to come out in a nice, eloquent and easily understandable kind of way. "I knew he was going home so I never looked any further than that. I mean, I guess if he hadn't been going home I wouldn't have objected, so in that way I guess you could maybe say that, but I really wasn't looking to catch any feelings so I just never, like… I don't know. I can't think of it that way because I only ever had it in my head as a fling for a few weeks, you know?"

"But you liked him?"

"Really did." I respond resentfully.

"Because, you know…" Her face scrunches up in an expression that's somewhat worried. "It's not totally out of the question that we could bump into him. I mean, he's a jet setter and everything but he does live here."

"Heh. He'll ignore me with the rest of the common folk and I'll ignore him out of seething rage. It'll work out."

"He wasn't exactly ignoring you with the rest of the common folk when you two were having all that sex."

Sometimes, I hate Lily for being so astute and so unwilling to pull punches. "That was different. He was in a tiny village with nothing else to do. Here he has pneumatic actresses to shag and millions to spend and stuff."

"God." Finally she seems to give up, falling backwards and laying down. "Justin fucking Timberlake. My friend and Justin Timberlake. You're right; I bet the News of the World would pay a ton for this."

"I have photographic evidence and everything, I could use the money."

For a while we concoct a nasty revenge tale about exposing him and his lies to the world, with lots of dirty and slightly untrue details about him being crap in bed and having a small dick. The fact is that Justin's secret is perfectly safe with me and Lily, I would never kiss and tell and Lily would never splash my business around. The details get ever more outlandish and I burst into giggles when Lil tells a very detailed story about him sunbathing nude and burning his private parts, but it's cold comfort. I suppose feeling like you've been sliced open is just the inevitable unpleasant side effect of being stabbed in the back.