Rachel had avoided Noah’s calls for a while after that, having made the decision that they should both get on with their new lives. He’d met someone, who, on first impression, wasn’t ever going to be Rachel’s cup of tea. And she was happy with Jack, who, understandably, was none too keen on her continuing to see Noah, despite her protestations that nothing had ever happened between them. Plus, they had little Josh to look after, and he took up more time than she’d ever dreamed possible, so it was only right that she devoted every minute of her day to him. But as one week without Noah turned into three months, she’d decided that she’d rather have him in it with Paige, than not at all.
So, she’d set out on a mission to get on with Paige, because without her backing, she had little to no chance of her friendship with Noah continuing. And in the end, it hadn’t been too much of a stretch. Yes, Paige was opinionated and hard-nosed, but once you cracked her shell, she could be funny and a great advocate for good. The leap from best friend’s girlfriend to best friends, period, was relatively seamless.
But she’d had no idea that Paige had felt she was being put through the wringer.
“I’m sorry that I made you feel that way,” she says now.
“It’s no biggie,” says Paige, smiling. “It was a long time ago and look what came of it. We’d never be here if you and Noah hadn’t made as much effort to stay friends.”
Rachel looks fleetingly at Noah, but he turns and sets off down the fruit aisle.
* * *
By the time they get back to the villa, the midday sun has burned away all the wispy clouds that hung over the hillside that morning.
“It’s nice enough to go for a swim in the pool,” says Paige as they take a couple of shopping bags each from the back of the minivan.
“There’s a door over there that leads straight up to the kitchen,” says Will, nodding toward the corner of the carport under the house.
“I’ll go round the side,” says Rachel. “I want to check the temperature of the pool before I get my one-piece on.”
“You wimp!” Noah laughs. “I remember a time when you’d dive straight in, regardless.”
She looks at him ruefully. She had been that person once, thinking nothing of jostling her way to the front of the line for the three-hundred-foot bungee jump in Cyprus, fearlessly waving to Noah, who lost his stomach on the teacup ride at Disney.
But it wasn’t just in the literal sense that she’d once been so daring. She’d stood tall and proud as the president of her university’s debating society, always passionate about bringing the topics that mattered to the fore, despite how unpopular it may have made her.
But somewhere along the way, she’d lost that chutzpah, that need to be the best version of herself. She guessed it was around the same time that she gave birth to Josh, and needed to be the best version of a mother.
When she thinks how quickly having a baby followed graduation, she realizes she barely had any time to fit anything in between. All thoughts of a teaching career had had to be shelved as she cared for Josh and then, once he was older, she found she didn’t quite have the enthusiasm for it anymore. Probably because ten years of looking after her own child had robbed her of the patience she needed to look after anyone else’s. Though, now, as time’s passed, she wonders if it wasn’t more to do with lack of confidence than anything else.
The education system had changed so much that her skills no longer felt relevant, and the thought of going back to relearn everything she needed, to be able to give her pupils a fighting chance, seemed too arduous. But, if the truth be told, there was nothing an English literature degree and wanting to give children the best start in life couldn’t have overcome. She’d just needed to want to overcome it.
But instead, she’d retreated further into her close-knit group of friends, each of them seemingly content to immerse themselves in their children’s lives, to the detriment of all else. Rachel doesn’t doubt that, like her, they were all someone else in another lifetime, yet despite yearning for the person they’d lost, they were happily using their offspring as an excuse not to find themselves again.
She wonders if that isn’t why she enjoys spending time with Paige; the voyeur in her intrigued by a life whereby you can have it all, if only you’re brave enough. She’d had Chloe at twenty-five and was back practicing law by her twenty-sixth birthday. She’d had a baby that had fitted around her life, whereas Rachel had a life that fitted around Josh.