“Apologized for what?” she asks.
“I don’t know yet,” says Noah. “That’s all she said when she came back in.” Rachel raises her eyebrows, and Noah smiles. “I know, it unnerved me too!”
“Seriously,” she scolds. “You don’t think there’s anything in this, do you?”
“What, between Jack and Paige?”
Rachel nods.
“Why would you even think that?” he asks, as if it’s the most preposterous suggestion he’s ever heard.
She looks at him as if to say, “They’d probably say the same about us.”
“The impression I get is that Ali lies about everything,” says Noah. “So, no, I don’t think there’s anything going on. Though, why she’d feel the need to say there is, I don’t know.”
Rachel bites on her lip, wondering how she could even think to ask the question, but for some reason she can’t let it go. “How has Paige been?”
Noah looks at her over his glass of wine, as if he can’t quite believe she’s asking it either. “In what way?”
“Has she been her normal self?” asks Rachel. “Or has she seemed … I don’t know, off?”
“Are you asking me if I think my wife is having an affair with your husband?”
“I’m asking you if anything has been amiss recently.”
Noah shrugs his shoulders. “She’s had a lot of work, but that’s nothing new.”
Rachel nods. “Late nights?”
“Yes, but like I say, that’s nothing new.”
Rachel thinks back to all the late-night shifts Jack’s been putting in at work recently; the dinners that have had to be put back in the oven; the plans that have had to be canceled; the nights where the Christian Louboutins have gone back in their box because she was tired of waiting.
“Jack had to stay in town the Wednesday before last,” she says, as if to herself.
Noah’s face suddenly changes, as if the enormity of such a possibility is dawning on him for the first time.
“It’s nothing,” she says, shaking herself down, unable to believe she’s allowed her mind to go there. “It’s nothing.”
“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree,” says Noah gently. “Though that’s not to say that I would put it past Jack…”
“To have an affair?” she asks.
Noah’s silence speaks volumes.
“So, you’re saying you think he is?” she asks.
“I just wouldn’t be surprised” is all he says, but it feels like he’s forcing himself to stop there in case he divulges something he shouldn’t.
“If you know something…”
“Come on, Rach,” he groans. “You’re putting me in an impossible position.”
“You’re supposed to be my friend,” she says.
He tilts his head to the side, as if offended by her questioning his loyalty. “You know better than to ask which side of the fence I’m on.”
“Do I?” she asks, knowing she’s playing devil’s advocate. “Because from where I’m standing, it’s not looking too clear cut.”
Noah smiles wryly. “Don’t make this about you and me. You know my stance on this. You know how I feel about Jack.”
Rachel looks at him, taken aback. She has no idea how he feels about Jack, because they’ve never discussed it. “Wouldn’t this be a good time to tell me?” she asks.
He looks down at his feet, as if weighing the pros and cons of divulging what he’s clearly been keeping hidden. Rachel wonders if it’s based on just the last few days, or whether he’s got years of disclosures to make.
Noah confirms it’s the latter when he says, “I’ve never thought he was good enough for you.”
Rachel laughs tightly at the sweeping statement. “Is that Jack specifically, or would that judgment befall any man I happened to fall in love with?”
“I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy,” he says.
“And until I came here, I was!” she says, her voice high-pitched.
“Exactly,” says Noah. “That’s why I’ve always kept my opinion to myself because you would only have held it against me.”
“Jack’s treated me well,” she says.
“Until he didn’t,” he says, finishing the sentence for her.
Rachel feels the sting of tears in her eyes as she looks at him. Good, dependable Noah, who always gives it to her straight. Except now, just for once, she wants him to sugar-coat it and lie, because that feels like the only way she’s going to get through this.