Chapter 9
St Lucia was more beautiful than Naomi had ever imagined.
Looking out of the airplane window onto the azure waters below, blotted here and there by darker patches of reef as their flight descended, she wondered how anyone could not be mesmerised by this wonderful place.
How long had she wanted to visit? It seemed that with each passing year, there was another excuse as to why they couldn’t or shouldn’t go.
And of course, the last few years’ travel bans had put the kybosh on any adventures at all.
But this year, her boyfriend Greg had gone all out to ensure the trip could finally happen to coincide with her fortieth birthday.
He had even invited Naomi’s family – her parents, sisters and best friend Sam along for good measure.
It must have taken a lot of cajoling to get everyone on board, yet somehow (or for another reason besides the holiday, she thought smiling inwardly) he’d done it.
Strange for someone who was usually so careful with money.
Just now, her parents were comfortably seated a little behind them in premium economy.
If they were going to travel this far, it was the only way she would have them do it.
Despite her offer to upgrade them too, her sisters Karen and Judy seemed happy enough tucked away in economy, along with Sam.
Her siblings were bickering, which wasn’t strange, but for some reason, this time seemed worse than usual.
Whatever the reason they weren’t saying, but Naomi hoped this idyllic trip would encourage them to put their cares aside, quash whatever the trouble was and get them back on speaking terms.
She spent the remainder of their approach watching the water, how the various shades of blues and greens blended and transitioned into the other, making shades she was sure no one even had a name for.
‘How can you even concentrate?’ she asked Greg, who was currently staring at a spreadsheet on the laptop in front of him. ‘It’s so beautiful down there, surreal even.’
He sighed. ‘You knew that I would have to work on this trip,’ he murmured matter-of-factly, but Naomi guessed this was all part of the ruse too.
A few weeks ago, she’d overheard him on the phone discussing diamonds and his unfamiliarity with the various carats and origins.
Her heart had practically leapt out of her chest when she figured out the significance.
Of course, she couldn’t let on. How could she?
If a proposal on this trip was intended as a birthday surprise, she couldn’t spoil it.
She had to be patient and wait. Which was why all of Greg’s so-called grumbling about having to work on this trip wasn’t bothering her because she knew it was merely a smokescreen.
They’d been together a few years now, long before her little sideline ‘career’ had taken off, and had only recently taken the relationship to an entirely new level when they’d decided to move in together after being separated during the pandemic-related lockdown.
Barely six months before that, they’d met when Naomi got out of the lift in an office building on the wrong floor and was completely lost. She’d wandered into a nearby investment brokerage for help to get out of the maze of corridors and Greg had graciously offered to escort her back to the elevators, which was nice enough, but then proceeded to board along with her to see her to the right floor.
He even took her directly to the office she’d been looking for.
At the time, Naomi found him polite and reasonably attractive, but that was about as far as her mind wandered.
Until she went to leave the building an hour later and found him waiting for her downstairs at reception.
Initially, she wasn’t sure if she should be alarmed or flattered, so she went with the latter and when he offered to take her to lunch she agreed.
They’d been a couple ever since and, in the ensuing years, he’d been especially supportive of and instrumental in Naomi’s unexpectedly meteoric rise to social media fame as a mid-life fashion guru.
During the pandemic, in the hope of cheering herself up while home alone, she had decided to share pictures of herself dressed in upbeat sparkly outfits on Saturday nights. Hence the handle @SaturdaySparkles.
And, for some reason, likely because she wasn’t the only one bored and worried in those early days of lockdown, her joyful enthusiasm for all things sequin struck a chord, and soon Naomi found herself with a following of like-minded and passionate strangers, keen to emulate her fashion choices.
It wasn’t long before online retailers and other compatible businesses came knocking on her door offering lucrative endorsement contracts, most of which Greg, with his built-in business savvy, had since managed to grow exponentially.
It was still hard for Naomi to quite believe that anyone would be interested in, much less inspired to part with cash for what she was wearing in photos, but what had started as a loneliness lifeline had since given her a startlingly solid supplement to her rather meagre teacher’s salary.
She was certain the novelty would wear off and the fuss would go away once life returned to normal, but it seemed not.
Greg was adamant that the business side was nothing to be sneezed at and that there was a lot of money to be made, encouraging Naomi to take her current career break from teaching to help juggle everything.
Even so, she was sure these things had a natural lifespan, and while she’d enjoyed the fun and attention at the beginning, she was now tiring of the more performative aspect, and prepared, if not keen even, to have it all go away in the morning.
Regardless, Greg had been supporting her on the sidelines throughout all of it, and an engagement for them was the obvious next step.
Neither of them was getting any younger and they were great together.
Marriage would be the ultimate culmination of everything they’d built together over the last few years.
Or Greg had built, at least. Naomi’s popularity and the financial rewards it brought mostly remained a complete mystery to her.
Now, as she looked at him intently typing away on his laptop, his close-shaven head reflecting the overhead cabin lights, she tried to imagine what he’d looked like with hair.
She’d seen pictures of course, but he’d been shaving his head a long time before she met him.
He also really hated that he’d had red hair for some reason.
If it wasn’t for his mother, Naomi would never have known what colour it was.
She smiled, remembering the annoyance on his face the day he brought her home to Somerset for the first time and Mrs Rowland had pulled out the photo album.
Would their kids be ginger too, she wondered?
Or dark like her. Would their son have Greg’s pointed nose or her diamond-shaped one?
Would their daughter have a cleft in her chin like his, Naomi’s green eyes, or Greg’s grey ones?
It was a silly game, but she liked to play it.
What would their children – if they were lucky enough to have them – look like? Who would they become?
‘You’re freaking me out,’ he commented as if he could read her mind, though she could see his mouth rise in a smile and the adorable dimple he had beginning to form.
‘Am I? Sorry, I didn’t realise,’ Naomi said giddily, turning back to the window to continue her daydreaming.
It was almost nine hours since they’d left Gatwick and now the island of St Lucia was directly beneath them.
The turquoise water kissed the white palm-tree-lined beaches.
They were so close it felt as if she could reach out and touch the sand.
Fresh excitement welled up inside her as the captain made his final landing announcement.
She felt like a child on its first holiday overseas.
This trip was going to change her life. She knew it.