Page 8 of You Lied First
‘I swear this view lowers my blood pressure,’ says Celine.
Margot can feel her own blood pressure inching up by the minute. She catches the waiter’s eye and signals for the bill.
But Sara gets up and says, ‘Back in a sec.’ She walks over the grass towards the beach, and when she comes back her face is glowing as the wind coming off the sea whips her hair.
‘It’s gorgeous!’ she says. ‘The tide’s out and the path goes for miles. The beach is so wide! I had no idea the sand would be so dark!’
‘Maybe we should walk off the croissants if we’re going to be driving around all day,’ Celine says, and Margot could quite literally throttle her.
‘Good idea,’ Guy replies. He pays the bill and then takes Margot’s arm. ‘Remember how we used to walk here when you were pregnant?’ Margot does, but now’s not the time.
They set off, and while everyone exclaims about the view, she mutters to herself, ‘God’s sake. It’ll still be here tonight.’
7
SARA
‘Sorry about the shorts,’ I say to Liv as we make our way back towards the car. She’s now wearing a maxi skirt that swishes around her ankles. ‘I thought they looked great, but you know …’
‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘No biggie,’ but I’m still feeling inadequate for not being the one who sent her back to get changed. I should have handled it better. I had one job, as they say.
‘By the way, I couldn’t get my seat belt to work on the way here,’ Liv says.
‘What?’ I ask. Maybe this is my chance to show some good parenting. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’
She shrugs.
‘It wasn’t far,’ Celine says and I feel a flash of irritation. Liv is my child, not Celine’s, and what she’s just said goes against everything I’ve ever taught Liv about getting into cars. I’m very aware that now she’s seventeen her friends are starting to learn to drive, and I’m haunted by images of cars packed with teens not wearing seat belts and distracted by mobile phones. It’s a critical time for me to push home all the safety messages I can. I also want to teach her that it’s okay to stand up to pressure from others in this type of situation.
‘Livvie, it’s important. You must always wear a seat belt! No exceptions.’
‘Let me take a look,’ Guy says. He stretches into the last row of seats and pulls and pushes and pants before backing out, shaking his head. ‘I can’t get it out. It’s jammed.’
‘Okay, well, we have seven seats so I’ll just squish in the middle with Flynn and Liv then everyone has a seat belt,’ I say. ‘Better safe than sorry.’
‘“Sara says” don’t get in a car without seat belts, eh?’ Guy says, laughing. ‘You’re on holiday now! You can take a break from doing the right thing.’ He puts his arm around me and gives me a little squeeze aiming to take the sting out of his words, but I’m appalled that he’d be such a bad role model to Flynn and potentially Liv, too.
‘Laugh if you want but I’d rather be laughed at than dead,’ I say.
‘Right, if everyone has a seat belt now, can we please get going?’ Margot says, and so we all pile in. ‘As we’ll be going past the Royal Opera House anyway, I think we should make a quick stop there. It’s a beautiful building. We can walk around a bit and take in the architecture. Just a few minutes, please. You can get some photos. It’s really something.’
‘Sounds great!’ I say because no one else seems enthusiastic.
When we get there, I see that Margot is right: the structure and its grounds are stunning. We walk around, taking pictures of the walkways and arches then head back to the car.
‘I’ll drive you through Muscat so you can see differentdistricts, then over to Muttrah,’ says Margot. ‘It’s not terribly far, but we’ll go through the mountains.’
‘Muttrah is where the souk is,’ Celine tells me. ‘It’s better to go in the evening, though. A different vibe. There are all these little alleyways. It’s so atmospheric. You’ll feel like you’re in a movie. I absolutely love it. If you want to come back another time, I’ll happily come with you.’
I throw her a smile. ‘Thanks! I might take you up on that.’
We drive past an amusement park.
‘Is that Marah Land?’ Flynn asks. ‘We used to go there, didn’t we? I have a memory of this ride … God, I thought it was a dream but it was here, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, we took you once,’ Margot says. ‘You loved it.’
‘Can we go?’ Flynn asks. ‘I’d love to see it again.’
