“I’m envious,” Saskia had said, in her cool Deborah voice. “I love Noosa. Where are you staying?”
“I think my partner has got us booked at the Sheraton,” Ellen had answered. Partner! She’d called Patrick her partner! Why had she done that? She didn’t even like the word. It was because Deborah seemed like the sort of woman who would find “boyfriend” too juvenile a term. But why had she even needed to mention Patrick at all? For some reason she had wanted Deborah to know that she was in a relationship. Because Deborah had seemed like an attractive professional fortyish woman who would be in one of those elegant relationships involving vineyards and boating and really high-quality sex, with no accidental pregnancies. She had wanted Deborah to think that she was in one of those relationships too.
So because of her foolish, unprofessional desire to impress a client (whom she should not have wanted to impress in the first place), she had helpfully let Saskia know that they were going away for a romantic weekend to the same place where she and Patrick had met.
She glanced at Patrick. He had leaned his head back against the seat and let his face relax.
“I don’t even realize how tense she makes me until I get away,” he said without opening his eyes.
Ellen dropped her head and hit the heel of her hand against her forehead in silent anguish. Instead of making life easier for Patrick, she’d actually aided and abetted his stalker. Her mouth went dry and she lifted her chin. Saskia wouldn’t follow them all the way to Noosa, would she? She couldn’t, for example, have booked tickets on this very flight?
Ellen unbuckled her belt and lifted herself slightly up in her seat to glance over the top at the faces of the passengers sitting around them. People avoided her eyes, or had their heads bent reading or talking. Only one little girl sitting on her mother’s lap and sucking crazily on a dummy stared back curiously. Ellen plonked herself back down, repressing a hysterical desire to giggle or cry.
Now she was going to spend this weekend lugging around not one but two major secrets. At any moment she could open her mouth and instantly wipe that relaxed expression off this poor man’s face.
He opened his eyes, and the sunlight pouring in from the window made them look very green. “You OK?”
“I’m great.” She patted his knee and turned to look out the window at the wing of the plane. “I’m just great.”
So I managed to get myself on the same flight as them.
They walked straight past me. Patrick was in front, frowning at the seat numbers on his boarding pass. Ellen was walking behind, looking dreamily about. I don’t need to frown at my boarding pass because my “partner” will find our seats. I’m so new age and happy and pregnant.
She’s going away with her “partner.” I hate that word. It’s so Sydney. What’s wrong with “boyfriend”? When he was with me he was my boyfriend. I was his girlfriend.
And we’re all off to Noosa for the weekend. A jolly threesome.
I dropped the boogie board when she said “Noosa.” Just when I think there are no new ways for him to hurt me. Why Noosa? They’ve got a whole country full of places for a romantic weekend away and he chooses Noosa.
I thought my memories of that week were safe. I thought nothing could touch that time. I feel like I can remember every minute. Every taste, every sound, every smell.
I can still feel the exact shape of my room key in the palm of my hand and taste the exact combination of salt and ice and alcohol in my mouth from the margaritas we drank as we stood together in the hotel lift, looking up at the flashing floor numbers, both of us knowing that we were going to my room to make love for the first time. I can still see the sunburned face of the young boy who wheeled in the clunky trolley with breakfast the next morning: the smell of fresh coffee and bacon. I can still see the croissant flakes scattering the front of the newspaper we read in bed.
He’s even staying at the Sheraton. Why would he book there? I can’t help but wonder if it’s because his memories of that week are just as special, and he thinks—he could be so stupid sometimes—that he can get back that happiness with someone else.
He can’t. He can’t just delete me from all his memories and replace me with another woman.
That’s why as soon as I got the call from the hypnotist I knew I had to go. I had to be there. I have to let him know that I’m there too. I’ll always still be there.
I’ll choose the perfect moment to let them know that I’ve come along. He’ll be angry but that’s OK. I’d rather his fury than his indifference. I’d rather he was yelling at me than not to exist at all.
Patrick was in the bathroom cleaning his teeth, and Ellen was already in bed watching a movie they’d paid for and eating chocolate from the mini-bar.
The room was perfectly lovely. King-size bed with crisp white sheets, big fluffy towels, soft shadowy lighting and neutral colors.
Exactly like other hotels where she’d stayed with other men.
“Where did you stay when you were here last?” Ellen had asked as they were going up in the lift.
“Here,” Patrick had answered, his eyes on the numbers of the floors flashing above them.
“So this was the hotel where you met Saskia?”
“Well, I knew it was good,” said Patrick, and then he laid a finger across her lips. “We’re not mentioning her name this weekend, remember?”
So poor Saskia had to hear that Ellen and Patrick were going to stay in the same hotel where they first met. For heaven’s sake, it was no doubt the same hotel where they’d made love for the first time. What would hearing that have done to her twisted mind?
Ellen looked at the door and thought of horror movies. They would order room service and Saskia would dress up as a staff member and wheel the trolley in with her head lowered and the music would be letting the audience know that something really terrible was about to happen, and then, just as the music reached its terrifying crescendo, she’d suddenly leap at them with a carving knife held aloft and—
“Did you remember toothpaste?” Patrick put his head around the door.
“Yep. There’s some in my makeup bag.”
He was still too polite to go through her stuff without permission.
And she was having his baby.
Too soon. Too soon.
“Well, of course you’ll have the baby,” Anne had said.