Page 10 of Beach Bodies

‘Yeah, nice meeting you, too, Hannah,’ I say as she saunters off down the hall.

OK, OK. Time to go into this fucking room.

‘It’s not going to be the same as five years ago,’ I whisper to myself as I nudge the door open. Staff accommodation has always been more bare bones anyway, with plank floors, smaller beds, and furniture pieces displaying their long suffering in dings and loose drawer pulls.

Then I step inside, on to the thick carpeting. The familiar smell washes through my senses: coconut and lemongrass, the resort’s trademark scent. A total upgrade from the old staff quarters.

The room is pleasantly shaded, with a gentle light filtering in through the white gauze curtains that are drawn over south-facing sliding glass doors. Two single beds are made up in white sheets and comforters. A small balcony overlooks the pool, and the hum of the AC makes a soothingbackground of white noise, rippling the edge of one of the curtains.

Well, fuck.

It’s exactly the same as five years ago.

The only difference is that instead of two beds, there used to be one.

My knees turn to liquid. I lower myself to the floor, hand on the bed, clutching a wad of the comforter as I go down. My roller bag tips over. I tip over too, forehead to the floor, comforter now pulled sideways off the bed as all the parts of me I’ve held tightly together during this trip unravel on the plush carpeting of room 2208.

Can you believe we get to stay here for a whole week?Jessica, bouncing on the mattress five years ago, her face lit up with joy.

‘Unreal.’ Me, joining her, but cautiously, perching on the side of the bed.

‘Come on! Get in here!’ She tackled me from behind, pulling me back on to the soft cloud of the white blanket, wrapping her arms around me and nuzzling my neck. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s just so… fancy.’

‘Well, you deserve it,’ she said, which I supposed was sweet, though perhaps not accurate. As far as I’d seen in my twenty-four years of living, riches and merit had nothing to do with each other.

‘I was just lucky.’

‘Relax,’ she cajoled as we fell naturally into a spooning position. ‘We’re going to have an amazing week. I still can’t believe you won this for us. Thank you.’

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘You were caller number one hundred!’

‘Yes, I was.’ I twisted my head and gave her a peck. ‘I love you.’

She nudged my nose with hers. ‘OK, OK, there’s so much to do, we can’t just lie around here. There’s a seminar on the mind–body connection that I’m totally interested in. I want to meet my personal trainer asap, maybe they can give me tips on how to deal with this.’ She smacked her butt. ‘Oh, and did you see we each get a consultation with a nutritionist?’

‘You’re achef,’ I said. ‘You know plenty about nutrition.’

‘Yeah, yeah, but maybe she can help me lose those pesky twenty…’

‘Hey, I happen to like the sexy twenty,’ I pouted, turning around in the bed, surrounding her with my arms and making a teasing grab for her ass, all the while being careful not to press against her too hard in case she felt the little box tucked into my sweatshirt pocket. I hadn’t wanted to entrust it to our luggage; it felt safest with me.

A diamond. I’d cleaned out my savings and bought it the week before, an extravagance to fit the extravagance that was Jess in my life. The white rocks overlooking the beach would be the perfect place to propose. I already had a speech written out and mostly memorized.When you walked into that bar four years ago with your fake ID and your knockoff Gucci and ordered a Cosmopolitan, I knew that you and I would never in a million years be friends…

I keep my forehead pressed to the carpet as sobs ride my body. I don’t often cry; it’s not my thing. But didn’t I know this would happen, the second Nick told me I was poolside?Everything in here– the sights, the smells, the textures– is screaming,Jessica.

I pull the comforter the rest of the way down off the bed and wrap it around my body as I roll on to my side. I keep my eyes squeezed shut, because if I open them, I’ll see one thing and one thing only.

That Jess isn’t here.

Chapter Five

Seagulls cry overhead, and a gentle salt breeze teases my hair as I slide on my sunglasses and step on to hot sand, flotation device tucked under my arm, whistle around my neck, dressed in the high-cut red bathing suit. My skin is tacky with suntan lotion and the ocean waves are languid, relaxed. It’s a relief to be out of the hotel room and the pool of grief I sank into there. Being on the clock is just what I need to get my head in the game, so covering for my absentee roommate is probably a blessing in disguise. It’s going to force me to pull it together and stay sharp, which is extra important today of all days, especially considering what’s on the docket for tonight: breaking into Vic’s office.

The beach is pretty crowded, and a string of yachts bob out beyond the swimming line, wafting party music. It’s mostly resort guests on the beach– you can identify them by their resort-branded white towels– but not exclusively. The resort also sells day passes to people who want to enjoy the beach or the spa. The day trippers come over on the morning ferry from Saint Vitalis, usually rich party girls looking to detoxafter a rough weekend at the Mambotel, which you can see at night from the Riovan beaches, a blinking dot in the black ocean.

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