And I’m still wearing my wedding ring. At least I’ve escaped having to explain things to Annabeth, and all the crying I would have had to endure. Summer won’t pry. She knows all about me and Noah.
But that’s all behind me now. My last day in New Zealand, I went to a beauty parlor and treated myself, as my symbolic way of leaving Noah behind. I scrolled through my Facebook page, looking for a photo of me at my best so I could show the beautician how I liked my hair to be styled and my eyebrows to be shaped, but I couldn’t find one that looked right. In the end, I had to make do with an old photo of Summer that I happened to have in my wallet. Well, not that old. It was from her wedding day.
“Make me look like that,” I said to the girl.
“Gosh, I can hardly believe it’s you,” the little cow said. “Your eyebrows look so different. Weren’t you a beautiful bride? And your husband looks like a movie star!”
Our eyebrows are the only way people can tell Summer and me apart. My eyebrows are thicker and lighter. Summer’s are two neat dark lines, a surprising contrast to her golden hair, with an annoying sharp arch to them. But the beautician did a great job. She replicated them exactly.
Of course, I didn’t think I’d be seeing Summer straight after the eyebrow-and-hair job. It’s a little awkward as it looks like I’ve copied her, which is already something she seems to half believe. I can tell, although she never mentions it.
I’m wrangling my suitcase in the arrivals lounge when a strong arm lifts it out of my hands, and I’m wrapped in a muscular embrace. Adam.
“Twinnie,” he murmurs. “God, we’re glad you’re here!” He presses my face into his neck and holds me.
He smells sweet and musky, and his warmth catches me off guard. I’ve only met Adam a few times, on my visits home for family occasions such as his wedding to Summer, yet he always acts as though he knows me as well as he knows my sister, calling me by our twin nickname and including me in their in-jokes about the rest of our family. I hold my body still and remind myself that I’m his sister-in-law. Think sister. Friendly, not too friendly.
I look him in the eyes and frame a smile. “Adam! Good to see you. I was expecting Summer.”
Adam’s even taller than I remembered, and his voice is so deep it vibrates through me. His skin is tinted a beautiful red-gold; it’s not much darker than mine and Summer’s, but his black curls and radiant smile show that Africa has played a part in his heritage. Adam came to Australia as a teenager, the only child of globetrotting parents, and took to the country so zealously that his parents were persuaded to stay.
It’s the kind of move only Summer could pull off, after her endless succession of interchangeable surfer-blond boyfriends, this out-of-the-blue marriage to a widower who already has a kid. Coming from the Seychelles, a country I had barely heard of, Adam’s more glamorous and mysterious than a homegrown Australian husband could ever be. Of course, it helps that Adam runs a high-end travel agency and owns a clifftop mansion on Seacliff Crescent, one of Wakefield’s most exclusive streets.
“One of us has to stay with Tarq all the time,” Adam says. “The surgery went well, but he’s got to fight off the sepsis.” His tone is solemn.
Damn. I should have opened with a concerned inquiry about “Tarq.” Never mind; I’m sure I’ll be hearing plenty about him. “The poor little poppet,” I say with a frowny face.
“We need to get back to him,” Adam says. “He hasn’t woken up yet. I want to be there when he does. God, you’re the image of Summer, Twinnie. I’ll never learn to tell you two apart.” He hugs me again, a bear-like embrace. His face is in my hair. I swear he breathes in, like he wants to smell me.
Now he’s striding toward the exit, and I struggle to keep up. Seems we’re headed straight for the hospital. Am I facing an all-night bedside vigil? So much for cocktails at the marina.
The airport crowd is an even mix of Thai and farang, as they call us. I wonder as we sweep through the doors, do Adam and I look like husband and wife? It’s always obvious that he and Summer are a couple, despite their contrasting looks, but perhaps it’s marital bliss, radiating outward, that marks them as belonging together.
What do Adam and I radiate? Awkwardness? Whenever I’m with him, it’s hard not to think about how much Summer might have told Adam about me. The things he might know without being told. By being married to her, it’s like he’s seen me without my clothes.
Adam finds a taxi, opens the door for me, and helps me into the back seat. “Shove over,” he says with a smile as his thigh presses against mine.
I wriggle across the seat and wind down my window to breathe in the night. The driver sets off at a hectic pace. Typically, Adam has trouble remembering the name of the hospital.
As we head south, I try to update my mental map of Phuket after nearly ten years away. I’m looking forward to checking out my old haunts and dredging up some Thai phrases. But everything has changed. Narrow alleys of tuk-tuks and pedestrians have become multilane highways crammed with cars. My memories have been paved over. Even the smells are different. I remember night jasmine, not traffic fumes and sewage.
Adam has a lot to tell me, but his words are a jumble of hospital jargon and sentimentality. Unlike Summer, he skirts around any description of the infected body part that has brought me here. Through the haze of parental obsession, I glean a few useful facts. Bathsheba is in good shape, ready for sea and loaded with food and spare parts. Summer has stocked the yacht with enough provisions for at least two months. The SSB radio has broken down and the emergency beacon is obsolete, but Adam’s bought a handheld satellite phone, which can download emails and weather forecasts, and make and receive voice calls. That’s all we’ll need for a safe passage.
“It’s hard to schedule a convenient time to call, and the rate for live phone calls is outrageous,” says Adam, “so we’ll use email unless there’s an emergency, if that’s all right with you.” He actually seems to care whether I’m happy with his arrangements. As if there’s anybody I need to talk to during the next few weeks. Or ever.
Adam seems to have come to grips with the essentials of yacht maintenance, and I soon feel comforted that Bathsheba’s not going to spring a catastrophic leak or lose her mast between here and Africa. I figure I can handle anything else that happens at sea.
“I gather it’s all over with Noah?” Adam asks, leaning close.
I nod.
“The man’s insane,” says Adam, “but his loss is some other lucky guy’s gain. I guarantee you won’t be the one looking back with regrets, Iris. Summer agrees with me. You’re far too good for him.”
“Well, you have to think I’m pretty.”
I cringe at my flat joke, but Adam grins as though it’s an everyday observation. “Don’t let my wife hear you say that,” he says. “Pretty is faint praise. I know you two are beauty queens.”
Beauty queens? Has Summer told Adam about the beauty pageant? Adam’s open gaze reassures me that he can’t know he’s hitting a sore spot. Yet the compliment does seem to be an allusion to that day.
We pull up to a clean, modern building. Adam leads me through quiet, well-lit corridors to Tarquin’s room, while I mentally rehearse my concerned-auntie routine.