The Guilt Trip(68)
“Yes,” she says, holding up her glass. “Is everything all right?” she asks as he knocks his Scotch back in a single hit.
“Yeah, good,” he says, planting a kiss on her cheek. “Anyway, never mind me.” He looks at her as if he means it. “How are you feeling? Any better?”
She nods, but if the truth be known, there’s still a gnawing in the pit of her stomach.
“Why don’t we get out of here?” he says.
“What, now?” she exclaims. “The best man can’t leave before the first dance is over. What excuse would you give?”
The cheers from the wedding party surrounding Will and Ali on the dance floor drown out Jack’s reply.
“Just when you think you’ve seen it all…” she says bitterly, nodding toward Ali as she jumps up into Will’s arms and he spins her around.
Ed Sheeran stops singing and the audience claps and whoops as Ali throws her hands up in the air.
“We should go away,” says Jack, talking to Rachel, but his eyes are still on Ali.
“We are away,” she says sourly.
“No, not like this,” he says. “Just you and me, somewhere warm, somewhere secluded, where we can just be on our own together, without all this nonsense.”
Rachel wants to believe that that’s what he wants, but as she follows his eyes to where Ali’s kissing Will, she can see his frustration, feel it. His eyes narrow and his jaw spasms involuntarily, his body unable to hide the envy, of wanting something he can’t have.
Ali is giddy as she twirls off the dance floor toward them. “Phew, I need some air,” she says loudly, fanning herself.
“You were incredible!” Ali’s friend calls after her as she walks out through the door to the terrace. She brushes the comment off with a look that says, “Oh, stop,” quickly followed by one that says, “I know.”
“We should get something booked up as soon as we get home,” says Jack. “Maybe the Maldives, where I can have you all to myself.” He flashes her a smile that normally gets him anything he wants, but she doesn’t feel like giving it to him today.
“Let’s see,” she says, noncommittally.
“I’m going to get another drink,” he says, going to walk away.
“Why don’t you have a soft drink?” says Rachel.
He looks at her as if she’s mad. “Why would I do that?” he says, over his shoulder.
“Just because the evening’s only just started and you don’t want to peak too soon,” says Rachel, looking over at Noah and Paige at the bar. “We could all do with pacing ourselves a bit.”
She doesn’t know whether she includes them to make Jack feel she’s not singling him out, or whether she really means it. In all honesty, it’s probably the latter, as any one of them getting too drunk and loose-lipped could be dangerous.
Her insides coil as she watches him walk toward the bar, but at the last minute he swerves toward the door to the terrace. The door that Ali had walked through just a few seconds before. He’s either getting exceedingly desperate or terribly careless in his pursuit of her. She wonders if it’s perhaps both. The thought of that almost hurts her more than what he’s physically doing.
She takes a giant swig of her G&T and grimaces, her throat unaccustomed to European measures. But the very next second, a warmth is running through her chest and across her shoulders, loosening the knots that have been making her feel as if she’s bound by an invisible rope.
She starts to make her way across the dance floor that is still littered with guests eulogizing about how wonderful Ali is. Rachel wonders if they’d still feel the same if they knew she was cheating on the husband who’d just held her tight, looking as if he depended on her to complete him.
She pretends in her head that she’s just going to the bathroom, but she knows she’s got to go past the very same door that Jack and Ali have just walked through to get there. She looks to the back of the restaurant, where Noah and Paige are deep in conversation, and alternates between whether she wants to alert Paige to what she’s doing or not. It would be useful to have the back-up if she stumbles across what she fears she’s going to stumble across. But if Paige is with her, Rachel knows she’ll lose control over the situation, as Paige won’t be able to hold back. No, she needs to do this on her own.
The door to the terrace is within touching distance, but she could still easily walk past and go to the bathroom or bar instead. She tries to fight the urge, convincing herself that she’d prefer to be kept in the dark about whatever it is they’re doing than be faced with the deceit in real time. She wonders whether she could pretend that none of this ever happened. If she and Jack could go away to an idyllic island and work through their problems. But that would mean that she has to swallow her pride and she’s not sure she can do that.
As she pushes the door open, a cool fresh breeze whips around her body. The wind’s really picked up since they’ve been inside and she holds onto her skirt to stop it from billowing up. As if on legs that aren’t under her control, she steps onto the terrace that is littered with a slew of smokers, huddled together under the outdoor heaters.
Now that the sun is setting, the sky is a swirl of blue and orange, descending into burned amber the closer it gets to the horizon. Rachel remembers when she and Jack went to Santorini a few years ago—their first vacation without Josh—and walked to the top of Oia to witness what the locals call “the best sunset in the world.”