Rachel looks at Ali as she swings herself around a pole. If this is what she’s like when she’s pretending to be drunk, what on earth will she be like when she really is inebriated? She remembers Ali telling her that she’d once spent a lost weekend in Amsterdam, going out on the Friday night and not remembering anything until she woke up on Monday morning. She’d boasted that she had to rely on her friend to tell her that she’d danced in a podium cage in a nightclub, tried to put herself in a shop window in the red-light district and had almost been arrested as the first person in the country’s history to consume too much space cake.
“It was the most fun I’ve ever had,” Ali had said, although it sounded the exact opposite to Rachel. She couldn’t think of anything worse and suspected that Ali would probably agree if she were being honest, but she liked to shock. There was never a simple story where she was concerned. Even an innocuous visit to the dentist recently had resulted in her talking a man out of jumping off a bridge—apparently.
Rachel pulls herself up, ashamed of herself for thinking, even for a second, that Ali may have lied about something like that. But then she remembers what Jack had said after listening to what he was convinced was yet another tall tale. “I think we can safely say she embellishes the truth,” he’d said.
Half of Rachel wondered where the harm was in that. Perhaps she did see a man who looked like he was about to take his own life, otherwise where would such a story come from? But maybe instead of talking him out of it, she’d merely seen emergency services in attendance and wished she’d been an instrumental part of the action.
“She’s had four G&Ts,” she whispers to Paige, giving Ali the benefit of the doubt. “I might start pole-dancing after that.”
Rachel knows that would be the last thing she would do. She’d have been leaning her head back on a toilet-cubicle door until that swaying feeling passed, or splashing herself with cold water well before now. She hates to admit it, because it makes her sound boring, but Noah’s right: even when they were at university together, she was never a great drinker.
“She’s had two,” says Paige, without worrying who can hear her. “The third she took to the toilet with her and came back mysteriously empty-handed, and she spilled most of the fourth onto Noah’s trousers.”
Rachel can’t help but laugh. “I didn’t know you were keeping such a close eye on her. What are you, the fun police?”
Paige pulls a sarcastic grimace. “You’ve got to have eyes in the back of your head with that one.”
“Aw, come on, we were young once,” says Rachel.
“You make it sound as if we’re ancient,” says Paige brusquely, her advancing years always a bone of contention.
“We are compared to Ali.”
“She’s not exactly a spring chicken,” says Paige.
“She’s twenty-nine!” exclaims Rachel. “If that’s not a spring chicken, I don’t know what is.”
“Well, we wouldn’t have behaved like she does at that age,” huffs Paige.
“God, I can’t even remember what we were doing then,” says Rachel thoughtfully. “That was thirteen years ago. It feels like a lifetime away.”
“We,” says Paige, “were being responsible mothers. What would Josh and Chloe have been then? Five and three?”
Rachel nods. “But, looking back on it now, isn’t there a part of you that wishes you’d waited a bit longer? I was just twenty-four when Josh was born. I was still a kid myself.”
“Are you saying you’d have done things differently if you had your time again?” asks Paige.
The loaded question is impossible to answer. Rachel would never have chosen to have a baby at that age, but sometimes life throws you a curveball and you just have to run with it.
“I wish I hadn’t got pregnant so young,” she says thoughtfully. “But I would never have done anything about it once it had happened, if that’s what you mean.”
“But imagine how differently things might have panned out if you hadn’t have gotten pregnant,” says Paige. “Imagine how different my life would have been if you hadn’t.”
Rachel looks at Paige quizzically. “How has me getting pregnant back then had an impact on your life? We didn’t even know each other.”
“Exactly! But if you hadn’t gotten pregnant, you and Noah would have gone off on your gap year after university, as you’d planned. God knows how long you would have traveled the world for. God knows who you might have met along the way. Jesus, the pair of you might have even ended up together.”
Rachel pulls a face, but her heart is beating double-time. “Well, that would have been weird,” she says. “He was my best friend.”
“I know,” says Paige. “But you don’t know where that journey might have taken you. Either way, he would have been unlikely to have found his way to my door.”
Rachel hasn’t ever thought of it like that, but she supposes Paige might be right.
“So, I’m very happy that you had Josh when you did,” says Paige, smiling, as they join the line for border control.
“I can’t find it,” slurs Ali.
Rachel hopes she’s misheard her, but Paige’s eye-roll tells her otherwise.
“You can’t find what?” whispers Rachel, always on edge whenever she’s in any kind of authoritarian environment; she’s the type to go red when she’s walking, empty-handed, through customs.
“My passport!” says Ali, far too loudly, as she pats herself down. “I think I’ve left it on the plane.”
Rachel looks at Jack, wide-eyed.
“If you think…” he starts.
“What else do you suggest?” says Rachel. “We won’t get through without it.”
“They’re not going to let me back on the plane,” snaps Jack, but Rachel knows it’s not aimed at her.
“Alison Foley!” shouts a voice over the din of three hundred passengers huddled into something resembling an aircraft hangar.
“Yes!” responds Rachel, automatically raising her hand.
A flight attendant, who Rachel recognizes as the woman who discreetly refused to serve Ali another drink, cuts through the line. She doesn’t seem surprised when she reaches them.
“This was found in your seat pocket,” she says to Ali, holding up the passport.
“I’m so sorry,” says Rachel, sounding like Ali’s mother. “I should have checked.”
“Do you have any other proof of ID on you?” says the pursed-lipped air hostess.
Ali looks at her, momentarily confused, before the penny drops. “Oh, yes!” she blurts out, rooting in her oversized handbag. She pulls out her purse but has trouble with the zip.
“For God’s sake,” huffs Jack impatiently.
“All right, Mr. Antsy-pants,” says Ali. “Keep your hair on.”
Rachel feels her insides coil up like a spring, pulling back, ready to launch into action, though she’s not yet sure whose defense she’s going to have to jump to.
She takes Ali’s purse from her and finds her driver’s license in the side pocket, then presents it to the woman who’s inadvertently deciding whether Will and Ali get married in two days’ time. An overwhelming sense of relief rushes through Rachel’s body as the flight attendant hands Ali’s passport back.
“Be careful where you leave it in future,” she says, as Rachel lets out the breath she’s been holding.
“Thank you,” says Ali begrudgingly, as if she’s been told off by a teacher. Rachel wills her not to say anything more.
“I honestly can’t be held accountable for my actions if this is how the whole weekend is going to be,” says Jack ominously as he sidles up to Rachel at the baggage carousel.
“Cut her some slack,” says Rachel, reaching up to give him a kiss. “She’s over-excited.”
“You make her sound like a puppy,” says Jack, managing to smile.
“In some respects, that’s exactly what she is,” Rachel says, laughing. “She’ll calm down once she sees Will.”
“I don’t know how he does it,” says Jack, shaking his head. “She’s a freaking liability.”
“I don’t want to state the obvious, but this is all your fault,” says Rachel, with a withering expression. “You employed her. You introduced her to Will…”
“Unwittingly!” he exclaims.
“Ssh!” Rachel laughs, looking around to check if Ali’s in earshot, not that she’s got the wherewithal to hear.
“She never used to be like … this,” he says, waving his arm about. “It seems to me that she’s got a drinking problem. She doesn’t know her limits and then becomes this caricature of herself, who spouts garbage.”