Were you always this skinny? Bobbi said. I remembered you bigger.
He’s been sick, said Derek. He had bronchitis, he’s very sensitive about it.
It was pneumonia, Nick said.
Are you okay now? I asked.
Nick looked in the direction of my shoes and nodded. He said Yeah, sure, I’m fine. He did look different, his face was thinner and he had damp circles below his eyes. He said he’d finished the antibiotics. I pinched hard on my earlobe to distract myself.
Melissa laid the table and I sat beside Bobbi, who said funny things and laughed a lot. Everyone seemed charmed by her. There was a plastic, slightly sticky tablecloth covering the table, and lots of fresh croissants and various preserves and hot coffee. I could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t make me feel unwelcome. I stayed quiet and refilled my coffee cup three times. In a small bowl next to my elbow was a stack of glittering white sugar cubes, which I sank into my cup and stirred one by one.
At one point, Bobbi said something about Dublin airport, and Derek said: ah, Nick’s old haunt.
Do you have a particular love of the airport? Bobbi said.
He’s a jetsetter, said Evelyn. He practically lives there.
He’s even had a wild affair with a stewardess, Derek said.
My chest tightened but I didn’t look up. Though my coffee was already too sweet, I lifted another sugar cube and placed it on my saucer.
She wasn’t a stewardess, said Melissa. She worked in the Starbucks.
Stop that, Nick said. They’re going to think you’re serious.
What was her name again? said Evelyn. Lola?
Louisa, Nick said.
Finally I looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was smiling with one half of his mouth.
Nick went on a date with a girl he met in the airport, Evelyn said to us.
Unwittingly, said Nick.
Well, a bit wittingly, Derek said.
Nick looked at Bobbi then, with an expression of feigned exasperation, like: okay, here we go. But truly he didn’t seem to mind telling the story.
This is like three years ago, said Nick. I was in the airport constantly at the time, so I knew this girl to see, we sometimes talked while I was waiting for my order. Anyway one week she asked me to meet her for coffee in town. I thought …
At this, the others all started talking again, laughing and making remarks all at once.
I thought, Nick repeated, that she actually just wanted coffee.
What happened? said Bobbi.
Well, when I got there, I realised it was supposed to be a date, Nick said. And I completely panicked, I felt terrible.
The others started to interject again, Evelyn laughing, Derek saying he doubted Nick felt all that terrible. Without looking up from her plate, Melissa said something I couldn’t hear.
So I told her I was married, Nick said.
You must have known at some level, said Derek. What she was after.
Honestly, Nick said. People have coffee together all the time, it just didn’t occur to me.
It’s a great cover story, Evelyn said. If you did have an affair with her.
Was she attractive? said Bobbi.
Nick laughed and lifted a hand palm-up like, what do you think? Ravishingly, he said.
Melissa laughed at that and he smiled down at his lap, like he was pleased with himself for making her laugh. Under the table I stepped on my own toes with the heel of my sandal.
And she was stupidly young, wasn’t she? said Derek. Twenty-three or something.
Maybe she knew you were married, Evelyn said. Some women like married men, it’s a challenge.
I stepped on my foot so hard the pain shot up my leg and I had to bite down on my lip to stay quiet. Releasing my heel, I could feel my toes throbbing.
I don’t really believe that, said Nick. She also seemed pretty disappointed when I mentioned it.
Evelyn and Derek went down to the beach after breakfast, while Bobbi and I stayed to unpack our things. We could hear Melissa and Nick talking upstairs, but only the cadence of their voices, not the actual words. A bumblebee flew through the open window and cast a comma of shadow on the wallpaper before flying out again. When I finished unpacking I showered and changed into a sleeveless grey cotton dress, listening to Bobbi singing a Fran?oise Hardy song in the next room.
It was two or three o’clock when we all left the house together. The route to the beach was down a little paved hill, past two white houses, and then a zig-zag of steps set into the cliff rock. The beach was full of young families lying out on coloured towels, applying sun lotion on each other’s backs. The tide had receded out past a crust of dried green seaweed and a group of teenagers were playing volleyball down by the rocks. We could hear them shouting in foreign accents. The sun was beating onto the sand and I was starting to sweat. We saw Evelyn and Derek waving to us, Evelyn in a brown one-piece swimsuit, her thighs pocked like the texture of whipped cream.