Rachel looks at her as if she’s kidding.
“No, really,” says Ali, sensing her disbelief. “My hair won’t go right. I’ve washed it twice and it just won’t do anything I want it to do.”
“I thought your mum would be here,” says Rachel dismissively. “Can she not help you?”
Ali shakes her head forlornly. “There’s too many steps for her chair, and besides, I want her to see me for the first time when I walk down the aisle.”
She looks at Rachel with a quivering bottom lip. “Will you help me?” she begs.
Every fiber in Rachel’s being sends out a warning sign. If she knew Ali hadn’t overheard her and Noah last night, she’d feel more inclined. If she thought she and Paige were merely discussing the weather on the beach just now, she’d be tempted. If she didn’t think there was a very good chance that Ali was screwing her husband then she’d rush to help. But somewhere, deep down, Rachel allows the remote possibility that she might not have done any of the things she’s being silently accused of. Maybe there’s no ulterior motive. Maybe she’s just standing in front of Rachel, genuinely in need of her help.
“Okay, I’ll be five minutes,” says Rachel, giving her the benefit of the doubt one last time, because it suits her to believe that her life isn’t about to be driven off a cliff.
“Come in,” says Ali tearfully as Rachel knocks on her bedroom door. She’s pulling a comb through her wet hair. “Thank you, I just don’t know what to do with it.”
“What do you want to do with it?” asks Rachel.
Ali throws the comb on the dressing table in frustration.
“I just wanted a bit of volume, but my stupid hair is just so thin and fine … it won’t do anything.”
Rachel doesn’t think she’s ever seen Ali’s hair do nothing. “So, why don’t we try drying it and pin curling it?” she says, picking up the hair dryer. “That way, we can take the clips out once you’re dressed.”
Ali nods gratefully.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asks hesitantly, knowing that it might be the key to opening the can of worms she so fears.
“Mmm,” says Ali. “A bit emotional, but okay other than that.”
Rachel deftly separates a section of hair and secures it with a bulldog clip. “But no last-minute jitters?”
“Oh no,” says Ali, attempting to smile. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Will’s the one for me. You know when you know, don’t you?”
Do you? wonders Rachel. Are you ever 100 percent sure that you’re doing the right thing? She remembers her own wedding day not being quite the occasion she’d spent the best part of twenty years imagining. In her dreams, in fact in the drawings she’s sure she still has somewhere, she pictured herself emerging resplendent from a white horse-drawn carriage, in a dress that resembled a meringue, about to marry her Prince Charming. But instead, it had been a rushed affair in a registry office, with her squeezing herself and her burgeoning bump into an unflattering tent-like monstrosity and waddling to the local pub afterward. Though, as much as she regretted the unexpected haste of the day, she never called into question her love for Jack or whether he was the one for her. Besides, she was five months pregnant and the man she’d always thought she was going to marry was on the other side of the world.
“You’ve got yourself a good man,” says Rachel now. “He won’t let you down.”
Ali raises her eyebrows. “I don’t know that you can ever be entirely confident about that. Even with the ones you thought you could put money on.” She laughs wryly. “In fact, they’re the fellas most likely to disappoint you.”
Rachel looks at her in the mirror. “Have you been disappointed in the past, then?”
“I’ve been hurt before,” says Ali. “Pretty badly, but it was my own fault.”
“How come?”
“I loved someone who wasn’t mine to love.”
Rachel momentarily stops what she’s doing, wondering if this is when Ali’s going to confess to an affair with her husband.
“Is this the married man you were talking about the other night?” she forces herself to ask.
Ali nods. “Except I didn’t know he was married until I’d fallen in love with him.”
Rachel can’t help but backtrack to when she’d first met Ali, the same night that Will had been introduced to her. She remembers her waxing lyrical about Jack; cooing about him having taken her under his wing; telling her how he was going above and beyond the call of duty. Had that included inviting her into his bed? Had they already been sleeping together by then? Perhaps her gushing praise had been a clumsy attempt at overcompensating for the fact that she’d just found out he was married, and was about to meet his wife.