“You okay?” asks Ali.
Rachel can’t look at her for fear of seeing her lying on their bed, with her eyes closed and her hands on the back of Jack’s head.
“Fine,” she says tightly, picking up her glass of water.
“Well, this looks amazing,” says Jack, blithely unaware of the all-too-vivid images flashing in front of Rachel’s eyes.
“Don’t eat too much,” says Will.
“Blimey, you sound like Mum when we were kids. ‘Wait for your food to go down before you get back in that water,’” Jack mimics in a high-pitched voice.
“You just don’t want to be going in after you’ve eaten a big meal,” says Will.
“Isn’t that a myth?” asks Noah to no one in particular. “Am I honestly going to drown if I eat all that bread?”
“You’ll have to be quick,” says Paige, nodding her head in the direction of Ali’s full plate.
“Hey, don’t knock a girl for her appetite,” says Ali, with an edge.
“All power to you,” says Paige, retrieving an olive stone from her mouth. “I just don’t know where you put it.”
Ali smiles sweetly. “I guess I’m one of the lucky ones,” she says.
“So, you can eat whatever you like and don’t ever put on an ounce?” asks Paige incredulously.
Ali nods. “Pretty much.”
“But you must exercise, surely?”
“When I feel like it,” says Ali, laughing. “Which isn’t very often.”
“Oh, to be born with a body like this,” says Will, giving Ali’s pert behind a squeeze.
Ali smiles awkwardly, pretending to be embarrassed.
“Well, I can assure you that I will need to hit the tarmac at some point,” says Paige. “Especially after all this.”
“Did you even bring your trainers?” asks Noah, sounding surprised.
“Of course I did,” says Paige, as if affronted by his lack of faith in her commitment to exercise. “Did you?” She’s looking at Rachel. “We could go for a run together if you like.”
In her mind’s eye Rachel can see her trusted Nikes sitting forlornly on their bedroom floor at home, having been booted out of the suitcase, in favor of her hair dryer.
“Are you honestly going to need them?” Jack had asked, as she’d decided on which to sacrifice.
“I’m going for a run at some point,” he says now.
“You brought your running shoes?” asks Rachel, unable to hide her surprise. “I thought we didn’t have enough room.”
“I substituted my boat shoes,” he says. “I didn’t see that I’d need them, and I think I made the right call, because, after all the eating and drinking we’re going to be doing, I’m going to have to do something.”
“I might join you then,” says Paige. “Though, I’m not sure I’ll be able to match your pace. You’d be best to go out and do three circuits before I join you on the last.” She laughs. “Hopefully you’ll be knackered enough by then for me to keep up with you.”
Jack smiles. “Don’t worry, I’ll take it slow.”
“I’ll come with you,” blurts out Ali.
It’s such a sudden outburst that the whole table turns to look at her. “I need to make sure I can still fit into my dress.”
“I don’t know when I’ll go,” says Jack tersely. “It might be tomorrow morning.”
“Fine,” says Ali. “I’ll come with you then.”
“I’m sure our yoga session will dispense with any unwanted calories,” says Rachel, not knowing whether she’s trying to protect Jack or warn Ali off.
“True enough,” says Ali. “But there’s nothing like a run to get your blood pumping to all the right places, is there?”
Rachel wishes she’d imagined it, but for a split second Jack and Ali lock eyes, as if in that moment, they’re the only two people there.
* * *
“I wouldn’t exactly call my husband a natural, would you?” Paige laughs as they watch Will taking Jack and Noah through the basics on static surfboards down on the shoreline. “He looks like he’s doing a difficult poo.”
Rachel looks on with affection as Noah crouches on bent knees, his expression vexed with concentration. “Let’s not write him off just yet,” she says. “If I remember rightly, he was a pretty good waterskier back in the day.”
“Really?” says Paige, as if she doubts it very much.
Rachel wishes she’d kept her memories to herself, as they only serve to remind Paige that Rachel and Noah shared a life before her, and that perhaps she doesn’t know her husband quite as well as she thinks she does.
Despite herself, Rachel pictures Noah laying her down gently on a bed, his eyes staring intently into hers, and wonders if Paige isn’t wrong.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Noah had asked, in between kissing Rachel’s neck.
Yes. No. Yes. No had resounded on a loop in Rachel’s head as she battled with her trepidation and conscience. Why, in the four years they’d known each other, had they chosen that night to cross the line from friendship to something more?
He was going on a year-long trip to Asia the following morning and all they were supposed to do was go out, get drunk and send him off in style. So, how come they were back at her flat about to have sex?
“Come with me,” he’d said.
“Don’t do this,” she’d pleaded. “The decision’s made.”
“But we’ve been planning this for months—this was our dream.”
“I know,” said Rachel. “And I’m sorry for letting you down, but it just doesn’t feel right for me to go anymore. Not now that Jack…”
Noah had stroked her hair from her face. “But you’ve only just met him. Are you honestly going to put all your plans on hold for a guy you’ve only known for a couple of months?”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she’d said. “Who does? But I just know that right now, I don’t want to go halfway around the world and risk never seeing him again.”
“And what about us?” he’d said, lifting himself off to study her.
She’d pulled herself up onto her elbows. “What about us?” she’d said. “You’ve had four years to work on that, but you chose to sleep with pretty much every freshman who’s come onto campus instead.”
“Are you saying you’ve wanted more, before now?” he asked incredulously.
How had he not noticed? She’d obviously become too adept at hiding her true feelings, and now he was finally reciprocating them, she didn’t feel fully able to. It’s what they called Sod’s Law.
She’d shaken her head in answer. It seemed easier to lie.
“Why don’t you just come with me to Thailand?” he pleaded. “Just to give us a chance of seeing where this might go.”
She’d laughed. “And if it doesn’t work?”
His hand had trailed between her breasts with a feather-light touch and down her flat stomach.
“I would have lost you and Jack.”
“But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Rach. This is never going to come around again. Before you know it, we’ll be chained to a desk and married with kids.”
“We’re twenty-two,” she said, arching her back as she felt his fingers. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
Perhaps if she’d known then what she knows now, she’d think again, because all of a sudden, time isn’t so infinite. It does run out, for all of us. Days run into weeks, and months run into years, and we find that the twenty-year-old we thought we’d always be, was lost decades ago.
“Here they go,” says Ali, as she lowers herself slowly into a side split on her yoga mat. She demonstrates her suppleness even further by pushing her head forward so that the peak of her baseball cap touches her knee.
Rachel doesn’t know whether she should watch her, or the men, as they run into the sea with their surfboards under their arms. Will deftly jumps up and straddles the board as soon as he’s past the breaking waves, while Jack and Noah struggle to untangle themselves from the leash that’s attached to their ankles.
“Oh my God, it’s Dumb and Dumber!” Paige laughs, as Noah manages to get himself up onto it, only to fall straight off the other side, while Jack’s lying down on his, paddling furiously but going nowhere.