Rachel fixes her with a steely glare. “If there was something worth knowing,” she says. “But if it was just a one-sided infatuation that a woman had allowed to get out of all perspective, then no.”
“Do you know many women like that, then?” asks Ali, smiling, as if goading her.
“I’ve come across one or two in my time,” says Rachel, refusing to rise to the bait. She will not allow Ali to get the better of her; she’s not smart enough.
“Is that how you choose to see them?” asks Ali. “Because it’s easier than blaming your husband?”
Rachel is winded by her unabashed nerve, but refuses to show it on her face. How dare she imply it’s all Jack’s doing? From her standpoint, all she can see is Ali throwing herself at him, though she’s not naive enough to believe that Jack wouldn’t have been persuaded to sample the wares. The way Ali displays them, she doubts few men could resist.
“I don’t think I need to vouch for Jack,” she says resolutely. “I trust him implicitly.”
“And what if the shoe was on the other foot?” asks Ali, still coming back for more. “What if you were the other woman?”
Rachel’s fumbling hands drop the hairbrush onto the tiled floor, her hands instantaneously prickling with sweat from every pore. Hot tears rush to her eyes, teetering on the edge, as her stomach turns somersaults and a gaping hole threatens to open up in her chest. She forces herself to breathe, but there doesn’t seem to be enough air to fill her lungs. Every part of her wants to run away, but her feet feel like they’re stuck in concrete, and so she’s forced to stand there, poleaxed by the realization that this conversation isn’t about Jack.
Ali’s talking about Noah.
16
“You okay?” asks Paige, as they pass on the stairs.
Rachel’s heart thumps in her chest as she looks at her, waiting for her to launch into a well-deserved tirade, but nothing about her suggests that she knows anything more than she did at breakfast this morning; before her run; before meeting Ali on the beach; before Ali might have told her everything she knows. Though, her unsuspecting expression only allows Rachel’s selfish guilt to poison her system even more.
Whenever she’d allowed herself to think about the potential fallout from her and Noah’s secret, she’d only ever thought about how her world would be affected: what Jack would do, how Josh would react, what she’d need to do to keep them all together. Seeing Paige’s genuine concern makes her realize what her friend stands to lose.
“I’m not feeling too good,” says Rachel. It’s not a lie.
Paige reaches a hand out to take hold of Rachel’s arm. “You don’t look great—what’s up?”
“I’ve just been helping Ali get ready and I started feeling a bit weird.”
“She has that effect,” says Paige, half-laughing. “Come back downstairs and I’ll fix you something to eat. Maybe you need a bit of sugar.”
Rachel doesn’t want Paige to be nice, because when she finds out she didn’t deserve it, she doesn’t want her to feel she’s been taken for a fool.
“I’ll be okay,” she says. “I should probably start getting ready anyway.”
Paige looks at her watch. “We’ve got plenty of time yet.” She takes Rachel by the hand. “You know what you need?”
Rachel shakes her head numbly.
“Hair of the dog.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Rachel says, unable to think of anything worse, yet knowing at the same time that alcohol is probably going to be the only thing that will get her through the day.
“Come on,” says Paige, pulling her down the stairs. “There’s that nice bottle of champagne that we bought at the airport in the fridge. What do you say we crack that open and get this party started?”
Rachel attempts to smile.
“Because you and I both know that we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
Like the best friends they’ve always been, they look at each other conspiratorially, knowing it makes sense.
“So how is madam today?” asks Paige as she pours half a flute and waits for the fizz to dissipate before topping it up.
It’s the simplest of questions, and one that Paige should already know the answer to. Yet she’s not giving anything away.
“I thought you’d seen her,” chances Rachel, watching her expression carefully.
Nothing changes, apart from Rachel’s heartbeat, as Paige shakes her head.
As much as it pains her, she’d rather Paige and Jack just come out with whatever they know, than feign ignorance. Right now, it feels like she’s an animal that needs to be put out of its misery and she can’t, for the life of her, understand why they would deny her that.
“She’s doing okay,” she says warily.
“No last minute nerves?” asks Paige, handing Rachel the glass.
“No, she seems pretty set. I don’t think she’s the type of girl to have second thoughts,” says Rachel.
“Well, if nothing else, you’ve got to give it to her for being so calm. I was a wreck on my wedding day.”
Rachel looks at her. “Well, you’d never have known. You seemed an assured, confident vision as you came down the aisle.”
“Isn’t it funny how different people perceive the same situation?” muses Paige. “As I said yesterday, all I could think about was whether it was what he really wanted.”
Rachel feels the first flutterings of discomfort in her chest; like slowly falling sand in an hourglass, each granule gently shifting against one another to push through.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” As soon as she’s said it, she wants to take it back to rephrase it. Asking a question, especially one to which you don’t want to know the answer, is not a strong position to put yourself in.
Paige looks at her with raised eyebrows and it feels as if that hourglass has been turned upside down.
“I’ve never known Noah to be as sure of anything in his life,” Rachel offers.
“He looked like a deer in the headlights,” says Paige, half-laughing. “And all the while I was walking down the aisle toward him, I was just waiting for him to put his hand up and say, ‘Stop!’”
Rachel smiles. “That’s ridiculous.”
Paige knocks back half her glass, closing her eyes as the effervescence tickles her senses. “What’s even more ridiculous is that when we got to the ‘If any person here knows of any just cause why these two should not be joined together,’ I was honestly waiting for you to stand up and shout, ‘It should be me!’”
Rachel chokes on her champagne, in the hope that it will distract from the color that is flushing her cheeks.
“What? With my husband and toddler by my side?” Rachel laughs, but she can’t help but think it sounds false.
“That was before we became good friends and I got to know you properly,” says Paige, making Rachel feel even worse, if that was at all possible.
Unable to stop the tears springing to her eyes, she turns to look out the kitchen window, toward the ocean that is shimmering in the midday sun.
“Hey, hey,” says Paige, going to her, sensing something’s wrong. “What’s up?”
Where would she start? How can she tell Paige that the problem that had seemed insurmountable twenty-four hours ago is now the least of her worries? That, if Ali so chooses, she, Paige, Jack and Noah could be about to have their worlds blown apart? She can’t help but acknowledge that however big a mountain looks, when you put it against a bigger one, you realize how easy the first one is to climb in comparison.
“Is this about Ali?” presses Paige.
Rachel nods. “I think you might be right,” she says, sniffing.
“About?” asks Paige, looking at her blankly.
“I think there might be something going on between Ali and Jack.”
Paige’s hands drop to Rachel’s sides and her jaw spasms involuntarily.
“I … I can’t say for certain,” Rachel goes on, falteringly. “I’m not a hundred percent, but there’s so much that points in that direction, that I have to face the possibility.”
“Is it because of what I overheard last night?” asks Paige. “Because I’ve thought about that and they could have been talking about anybody. I bet half the men in that restaurant are having affairs and keeping it from their wives.” She attempts to laugh.
“There’s been other stuff too,” says Rachel. “Stuff I haven’t told you about.”