“You think I’m beautiful?” I ask, wondering what ‘this kind of thing’is, exactly.
“Yes, of course. I already told you that.”
“No, you said you thought Iwasn’t ugly,” I insist. “That’s totally different.”
“Well, I meant to say I think you’re beautiful,” he replies, his eyes fixed on mine. “Are you always this determined to argue with someone who’s trying to pay you a compliment, or am I special?”
I want to tell him I’m not arguing to be difficult; I’m doing it to protect myself. Because he’s just got out of a serious relationship. Because we’re leaving here in two days. Because if I let myself believe he’s being honest, and that someone like him might have even the slightest chance of falling for someone like me, then he could hurt me — for all the above reasons.
I want to tell him all of this, but when I open my mouth, none of it comes out.
“Yes, you’re special,” I say instead.
Which is when he steps forward and kisses me; on the suddenly chilly beach, with the wind still blowing my hair into knots that willtake forever to untangle, and a rubbery piece of seaweed wrapped around my ankle. But Alex kisses me, and none of that matters. Not even the small list of objections I ran through in my head a few seconds earlier — ex-fiancée; never seeing him again; possibly going to end up hurting me — because this is the kind of kiss that puts all previous kisses to shame: firm but soft, and with an urgency that takes my breath away, until I have to grab onto him to ground myself and stay upright.
Everything about it is perfect.
Right up until the moment when a cloud of something dark and unidentifiable goes swooshing over our heads, making us jump guiltily apart and look up at the sky, wondering what just happened.
“Whoops. Sorry, you two,” says Gerald’s voice from a few feet away. “That were my wife, Margot.”
Twenty-Eight
“I still can’t believe you threw your wife over Summer and Alex, Gerald,” tuts Alice a few minutes later, as we all convene in the hotel bar, Alex and I having rushed after Gerald as soon as we realized what the ‘dust’ was he’d just hurled in our direction. “It’s just not the done thing. Is it, Julian?”
“Ididn’t do it deliberately, did I?” says Gerald indignantly, sitting down heavily. His hair looks like he’s been running his hands through it repeatedly, and he’s very pale. “How was I to know they’d be havin’ a smooch right at the exact bit of the beach where she wanted me to scatter her ashes?”
“Oh,anyonecould see that was going to happen,” replies Rita, raising a jewel-encrusted hand to summon the waiter. “You should have been on the lookout for it. I told you the leaves would be right about them two, didn’t I? So, tonight was the night, then, was it?” she goes on eagerly, turning to me and Alex. We’re sitting at opposite ends of one of the squashy sofas that serves for a seat in this bar, anddeterminedly not looking at each other. “The leaves are never wrong,” goes on Rita. “Never.”
“I think Gerald looks like he could use a drink,” says Alex, in a tone that suggests he could use one himself. “What d’you say, Gerald?”
Gerald nods shakily.
“Sorry about throwin’ my Margo over the pair of you. I didn’t realize it was so windy,” he says, sounding uncharacteristically helpless.
“That’s okay,” says Alex soothingly, surreptitiously trying to dust off his clothes without Gerald noticing. “I’m sure you must’ve got as much of a shock as we did.”
I’m not sure about that at all, but I nod encouragingly, while Rita finally manages to get the attention of a waiter and gives him a lengthy order, seemingly picking everyone’s drinks at random.
“Margot and I came here every year,” says Gerald, who’s starting to regain a bit of color in his cheeks. “Like clockwork, we were. So when she found out she didn’t have long, this is where she wanted to be.”
He reaches up and rubs fiercely at his eyes, and my heart contracts with pity for him, followed by a jab of guilt for myself, when it occurs to me that this is the first time he’s told us about his wife: probably because it didn’t occur to any of us to ask.
I risk a quick look at Alex. He’s sitting next to Gerald, listening intently to the older man as he talks about his wife’s illness, and how she’d hoped to be able to travel here with him one last time, but didn’t make it. Alex is giving him his full concentration, in that way he does that manages to be interested without being intrusive. He’s good with people, I realize. He’s chatted to Julian about the cricket results (despite having confessed to me that he’s more of a tennis guy), stopped Alice from steering her scooter into the pool (but without making her feel bad about it), allowed Rita to read his tea leaves…
He even kissed me passionately on the beach a few minutes ago, and I’mprettysure he didn’t just do it out of politeness, like he does with Julian and the cricket, but it’s hard to know for sure, because we haven’t had the chance to talk since it happened, and now he’s sitting as far away from me as possible.
Does that mean he regrets it?
Was it just a moment of madness, or something more?
And even if it wasn’t, how does it change the fact that, after tomorrow, we’re going back to our different corners of the country, and the chances of us being randomly seated next to each other ever again are slim to none? We’re not even sitting next to each other in thisbar, let alone anywhere else.
That doesn’t seem to bode well, somehow.
Just as I’m about to shift my over-thinking up a notch, Alex puts a stop to it by choosing this moment to catch my eye. He smiles over at me from where he’s sitting sandwiched between Gerald and Julian and now I’m inrealtrouble, because now he’ssmilingat me and leaving in two days. And that’s without even getting into all the complicated non-marriage stuff.
I’m doomed, aren’t I? I’m never getting over this.
