Her strength of feeling had even surprised Rachel herself, so much so that she spent those few minutes, that seemed like hours, constantly suppressing every natural instinct to go to him, scream at the ocean, and shout that she was sorry that she didn’t go to Thailand with him.
“Maybe we should all live a little,” says Paige, snapping Rachel out of the one-way tunnel she finds herself in.
Rachel chokes on her water. “What, all have affairs?”
“I’m not saying that,” says Paige. “But life is short. If Noah wanted to sleep with someone else…”
Rachel can’t stop herself from imagining Noah’s cheek on hers, whispering how much he wants her. His fingers entwined in her hair as his other hand unbuttons her shirt.
“So, what would you do?” asks Paige, making Rachel’s cheeks flush with color.
“Do?” she replies, flustered.
“If you found out Jack was having an affair,” says Paige.
Rachel’s almost relieved that the conversation has turned to Jack, until she pictures Ali coming out of their room this morning and her indignation returns.
Rachel wavers between needing to tell Paige what she saw—in the hope that she’ll say she’s being ridiculous—and not doing so, because just the mention of Ali will probably have Paige champing at the bit to prove that she’s the woman they suspect her to be.
She shifts on the sunbed and pulls the sweatshirt she’s borrowed from Jack over her hands. It smells of him, clean and citrusy, but then she asks herself if she’s confusing it with Ali’s perfume. She shakes her head, as if trying to dislodge the fragment of distrust she’s suddenly developed for her husband of twenty years. Perhaps it’s her own guilty conscience that’s helping to propel the thought from nothing to something. She’s certainly aware that there are double standards at play here, so maybe she’s choosing to pretend that something might be going on, so she can justify the torrent of forbidden thoughts that are battering her own imagination.
“I wouldn’t be able to forgive him,” she says to Paige, as the image of Jack’s head between Ali’s legs flashes into her mind’s eye again. “And I honestly don’t believe you would either, if it were Noah.”
“I think a lot of it would all depend on who he’s doing it with.”
Rachel looks at her with a vexed brow. “What difference does that make?”
Paige pulls her cardigan tighter around her and looks out across the ocean. “I think there are varying degrees of infidelity and the level of forgiveness would depend on which it was.”
Rachel scoffs. “You sound like you’re in court.”
“I’m just saying, I think the mitigating circumstances would need to be taken into account,” says Paige, smiling.
“So, what would be the circumstances you’d be willing to forgive?”
“As I say, it would make a huge difference depending on who the woman is. If she was a pretty young thing in the office and he was making a fool of himself and me, then I’d struggle to see my way past that. But if … I don’t know…” She waves her hand in the air. “If it were someone like you, who he had history and a deep, meaningful connection with, then I’d like to think that we could all talk it through and find a way to get past it.”
Rachel feels as if all her innermost thoughts are being exposed. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she offers as she desperately tries to shake off the uncomfortable sensation. “If I found out you and Jack were having an affair, it would be the end of everything … like immediately … that would be it.”
“What, you’d be happy to throw our friendship away…？”
“Absolutely!” exclaims Rachel, unable to believe she’d be expected to do anything else. “Without question.”
“Yet you’d entertain forgiving the floozy in the office?”
“No, but it would certainly be easier to understand, knowing that he’d probably only done it to massage his ego.”
“Can I ask you something?” says Paige, before adding, “Without you getting cross?”
Rachel nods.
“Do you think Ali’s ever come on to Jack in the past?”
Rachel feels a tightening across her chest, as if Paige knows something she doesn’t.
“I think that would be a new low,” says Rachel. “Even for Ali.”
“But we now know what she’s like,” says Paige. “And I wouldn’t put anything past her.”