Then, quite suddenly, a miracle. A beam of sunlight speared through my malaise.

‘Hey,’ said a deep voice. ‘Is this seat taken?’

‘Go ahead,’ I said, taking out the book I’d bought from a newsstand to pass the time. I stole a glance at the guy who’d spoken to see the most beautiful face I’d ever seen. No book in the world could’ve torn me away.

‘Good book?’ he asked, sitting down and putting his feet up on his case.

‘Probably,’ I said, opening it up. ‘Shame I can’t understand a fucking word of it.’ I showed him page 1.

He laughed. ‘You’re English and you can’t speak Spanish?’ The way his brows furrowed sent an arrow straight through me. ‘May I?’

I handed the book to him and sneak-scratched my itchy extensions. He started reading.

‘Bloody cheek,’ I muttered, folding my arms and hate-watching the Paris Hilton interview twittering away on the overhead TV. After a time, the book plopped back down on my lap.

‘Yeah, you’re not missing much.’

He cradled the back of his head in his hands, attempting to sleep despite the hurly-burly of the busy airport. He had closely cropped black hair, large brown eyes and looked like he’d stepped off a page in a calendar of Mexican Hunks. After a few brief exchanges with the people on the other side of him and opposite, I realised he was part of a huge Mexican-American family, going on to some party if the myriad gift bags of presents were anything to go by.

‘Can’t stand her,’ I said, nodding up at the TV as Hilton banged on about being so misunderstood by the media. ‘She’s so… meh. Like, you ever get that when someone is so overexposed you don’t even see them anymore?’

He snorted, one unshaven cheek resting on his fist. ‘Yeah. She’s definitely on The List.’

I snapped my head round to look at him. ‘You have a list?’

‘A metaphorical list. I’m not some maniac, I promise.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I am.’

‘What, a maniac?’

‘Quite a big one.’

‘Cool,’ he sniffed. I swallowed, mouth arid. ‘That’s good. Maniacs tend to be the most interesting people.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Oh yeah. My aunt Salomé’s a maniac. She’s the most interesting person in the fam. She’s done time in jail, smokes weed, hates people, makes art.’

‘She doesn’t sound too cray.’

‘She uses her flujo menstrual in her art. You know, her period blood.’

‘Oh. Fairly batshit then.’

‘Yeah,’ he laughed. ‘She sold one of my pieces recently. Didn’t make much money but I was so amped somebody bought it.’

‘I won’t ask what you dipped your brush in.’