Page 27 of Friends with Benefits

With impeccable timing, a low voice comes from inside the house – a mixed-up American accent with a French lilt, or maybe a French accent with an American lilt. ‘I have focaccia, brie, jambon, fine wine.’

Edmond steps onto the decking with his arms full of boxes. Amelie appears at his side, holding two large, brown paper bags of food, a baguette poking out the top of one.

8

JESS

Seeing Jake with his friends and family warms my heart. The way he cares for them is something I’ve admired in him since the first day we met. It’s something I never had, and I’ll admit it makes me a little envious. I’ve never had a network of people to love, and love me back, the way Jake has. And he’s so easy around them. The way he is with me. He’s himself with everyone. He doesn’t play up to crowds. That charm, which is sometimes flirtatious, sometimes endearing, and sometimes a little goofy, is natural for him. He’s a nice guy, a great guy. And, boy, he can make me laugh. For the last two years, he’s continuously managed to find a smile in me that I didn’t think I had.

It’s not that I’m unsociable, or that I never wanted to be happy. I just wasn’t. I like chatting to people and learning new things. I love that my travels have meant I’ve experienced so many cultures and walks of life. But I can’t boast that I ever had friends. The closest I came to friends were ladies working in rice paddy fields who didn’t speak my language, and Danny. He’s the one exception. And that didn’t end well.

I was fourteen years old when I arrived in Laos with my aunt and uncle.

‘Look at the lush greenery. Smell that air.’ Aunt Ruth sucked in a breath that made her nostrils flare.

As I breathed in with her, I got the distinct scent of fish and something foisty coming off Laos’s Mekong River. I didn’t get the freshness she was talking about at all.

I had to release my breath before my aunt. Her daily yoga and meditation meant she could inhale for an insanely long time before needing to release. Despite being forced to do yoga, tai chi, and meditation a lot over the last two years, I wasn’t at her lung capacity. Not even close.

‘I can sense the tantra is going to be wonderful here,’ Uncle John said.

Aunt Ruth rocked into his side with a short giggle, which told me they weren’t talking about Hindu and Buddhist traditions but tantric things between the two of them that I didn’t need to know about. That I didn’t want to know about.

As our large backpacks – basically containing the entire contents of our lives – were lifted off the barge and set down among a pile of other backpacks, we wormed our way between the gap-year students and found our luggage.

At this stage, despite the weight of it, I was a dab hand at swinging my backpack up from the ground and onto my back. Laos was the eighth country we’d moved to in the, more or less, two years I had been in the care of my aunt and uncle.

After Mum died and the funeral was done, we spent one week buying second-hand trek clothes and camping gear before we set off on our travels. During those years, I spent some time in formal education but mostly I was home-schooled by my aunt and uncle. My uncle was an ex-professor of history and classics, until he met my aunt and they found themselves in the Galapagos Islands.

As they traveled, my aunt and uncle picked up jobs here and there, teaching English and yoga. Working bars. But mostly they did that to ‘give back’ because they lived reasonably well – for nomads – on the small amount of rent their few properties brought in each month.

The sun was setting over the Mekong River as I looked back in the direction we had traveled. The humidity, together with being squished onto a barge with a load of other travelers for too long, had me feeling grotty. I wanted a shower but I didn’t want to use a hand-held hose to trickle water over me as I sat on a toilet because the bathroom was too small for separates. I wanted to go home. At least, to the home I used to have with my mum and dad. I wanted to shower in my own bathroom and sleep in my own bed.

But I reminded myself, I didn’t have a home any more. They were gone.

I hoisted my luggage higher on my back and tightened the padded straps across my shoulders. I nudged through the crowd of travelers with their Lonely Planet guides and set off up a hill with my aunt and uncle. After twenty minutes, we found the hostel we were spending the night in.

A petite Asian lady met us at the entrance of the single-story concrete structure, which looked like it had been painted white a long time ago. ‘Sabaidi.’

The three of us dipped our heads in reply, repeating her greeting. Ruth paid six dollars for a double room for her and Uncle John and four dollars for my bunk in the unisex dorm.

Even though I was younger than the gap-year students, they always smiled and said hello. The lone travelers always tried to talk more.

I found my bunk bed and took off my backpack. A girl, maybe nineteen or twenty, hung over the side of the top bunk and held out her hand. ‘Hi, I’m Meredith.’

‘I’m Jess.’

‘Are you traveling alone?’

I shook my head. ‘My aunt and uncle are staying in a private room.’

She chuckled. ‘They’ve found tantric practice then?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘God, don’t joke. I can barely deal with their level of hippie. If I think about them sustaining sex for as long as they can, it might finish me off.’

We talked a little as I unpacked my washbag, my shorts and vest to sleep in, and some clothes for the next day, knowing we were moving on early. I didn’t ask too many questions about her and I didn’t bother telling her much about me. We spoke about the books we were reading and where in England we came from. There was little point establishing any kind of friendship.

After showering, I lay on my bunk and read, using my small flashlight once the dorm lights were turned out. When I finished the book – my tenth in the last three and a half weeks – I set it on the floor, where someone else would find it and make use of it when I was gone, and I went to the place I went every night. I went to find them.

---