One of the Girls(39)
She wished she were enjoying this – savouring the experience of snorkelling in the Aegean Sea, giddy on sun-drunk holiday pleasures – but instead, a voice in her head whispered coolly: You shouldn’t be here.
The holiday seemed to do something strange to her sense of time, elasticating it so that some moments felt slower and extended, her senses enlivened with a new clarity – before snapping back smartly, leaving her shocked that she was so far from home, from Luca.
Giving up on snorkelling, she turned and swam for the yacht.
When she reached the stern, she hauled herself up the ladder, water sluicing from her skin.
On deck, Eleanor looked up sharply from her book.
‘I come in peace,’ Ana said, a hand raised. ‘I’d never stand between a woman and her book. As you were.’
Eleanor smiled. ‘Actually, it’s a terrible read. I’m relieved to put it down. How’s the underwater world?’
‘The lure of a cold beer proved incomparable,’ Ana said, reaching for her towel.
‘I happen to know where Yannis keeps the cooler.’ Eleanor lifted her feet to reveal the cool box. She opened the lid and pulled out two ice-cold cans of beer.
‘You are divine,’ Ana said, and meant it. They snapped back ring pulls and clinked cans.
Eleanor crossed one leg over the other, concealing a thick scar that ran across her left knee. Sharing a room with her, Ana had noticed other old scars, too – one beneath her chin, another zigzagging her shoulder. Although curious, she knew better than to ask about them.
Across the water, Ana could see the flash of leopard print. ‘Looks like Bella’s returning to the boat.’
‘Enjoy the peace while you can.’
Ana grinned, taking a seat beside Eleanor. ‘D’you think Lexi is aiming for the swimming hole?’ She was halfway between the yacht and the rocky island.
Eleanor watched. ‘She’s fit enough. All that yoga.’
‘Maybe I should’ve kept up yoga. Then I’d be doing swan dives at the swimming hole rather than drinking beers back on the boat.’
‘And you’d want that, why?’ Eleanor said with a wry smile. ‘That’s how you met Lexi, was it? Yoga?’
Ana nodded. ‘I turned up at the first-ever class Lexi taught. It was my first time, too, and I was very much planning to hide at the back. Turned out I was the only student. I don’t know who was more flustered.’
Eleanor shuddered.
‘We made it through. Lexi – you can probably imagine – she’s a brilliant teacher. Calm. Encouraging.’
Ana had been surprised to discover a releasing that ran so much deeper than her tight muscles and inflexible hips. At the end of class, as she lay on her brand-new mat in savasana, the lights dimmed, there was an intimacy about sharing the silence of a room with another woman, and she’d found herself in tears. Mortified, she’d hurriedly wiped her face on her sleeve, then rolled up her mat.
Skipping that part of the story, she told Eleanor, ‘After class, I stopped at this lovely little pizzeria almost opposite the studio.’ The smell of wood-fired pizzas and melting cheese was the perfect antidote to fill whatever space the yoga class had opened. ‘Guess who joined the queue behind me?’
‘Lexi?’
She nodded. ‘Our pizzas arrived at the same time, and the place was so packed that we grabbed a table together. We chatted, got to know each other. It was nice. So nice, in fact, that pizza-on-a-Monday became a thing – even after I quit the yoga part!’
Eleanor smiled. ‘I like that.’
There, packaged so neatly, it was almost the truth. She hadn’t lied to Eleanor because the yoga studio was the first place she and Lexi had met. It just wasn’t the first time she’d seen her.
That had happened outside a tall, stone building, Ana sitting nearby on a bench, palms sweating as she worried the tassels of her scarf. Her heart had pounded a thunderous march, but she hadn’t moved. She’d watched and watched as the revolving doors turned people out into the afternoon light. She’d watched until she saw Lexi, a yoga tote branded with a studio name bouncing against her hip.
30
Robyn
Robyn’s breath was even through the snorkel pipe, blending with the fizz and clicks of the sea. Shafts of sunlight fell through the surface, flecking the water with gold. Kicking her flippers, she glided fluidly, hands lightly sculling at her sides.
Earlier, when Bella had announced she had a surprise, Robyn had cringed. She hated surprises. They felt like a power trip: I know something you don’t! But now that she was cutting through the shimmering water, she was grateful.
A cool brush of fingers grazed her shoulder.
Her head snapped around. It was only Lexi, hair billowing around her mask. She pointed upwards.
They both surfaced, treading water. Lexi hooked her snorkel pipe from her mouth to say, ‘I’m going to swim back to the yacht.’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Great – but I’m getting a bit cold. Let me know what the swimming hole is like.’
Robyn glanced towards the rocky islet, which was still a distance away. A flutter of adrenalin rose in her chest: she wanted to reach it, and Lexi’s assumption that she was capable of doing so emboldened her. ‘I will. Are you okay swimming back on your own?’