Chapter 25
CJ
It’s a three-hour drive from Lisbon to the Faro District, and CJ pretends to be asleep for two hours forty-five of it. Ash has been unrelenting in the short window in which they’ve spoken, and CJ needs time to digest.
This past fourteen days she’s kept her distance, turning over in her mind, over and over again, what it means to have …
feelings (question mark? Urgh! She can’t even say it without questioning herself!) for the girl.
As she played with Jorge on the beach, ate fish in a small taverna by night, read her messages and then ignored them, she slowly, inch by inch, let herself believe that maybe Ash could handle the truth.
It is terrifying to have these feelings, of course it is, and it’s not because Ash is a woman that CJ holds such fear.
It’s because Ash will leave anyway, and once the words have left CJ’s mouth they won’t belong to her any more, she won’t be able to control them, and if she can’t control what Ash thinks of the words, and the fact that Ash will, to reiterate, be leaving soon …
well. Add that to the fact that Ash has just made it clear as day she doesn’t feel the same, and CJ just needs to close her eyes and rest, let all the feelings course through her so she can get through the next twenty-four hours without another emotional outburst that will take the best part of two weeks – wasted time, when Ash’s departure is looming – to get over.
‘Whoa, this is gorgeous,’ Ash says, as the bus pulls up at the bed and breakfast they’ll all be staying at tonight.
‘Isn’t it?’ asks CJ. ‘I’m sure you’ve read all about it in your planning—’
‘I have done no research on this place,’ Ash interrupts. ‘I actually forgot I’d signed up for it. I tell ya, I haven’t been the same since you started ghosting me! I’ve been like a lost little puppy without you!’
Hearing this makes something in CJ’s chest hurt.
They file off the bus, drop their bags with a waiting concierge at the door of the bed and breakfast.
CJ doesn’t know what to say – Ash pined for her? – so she focuses on reciting the small bit of history she knows about the place, from biannual CoLab trips taken over the past decade.
‘Well,’ CJ presses, not addressing Ash’s declaration of fondness.
‘Faro is the best-known city in the Algarve. You’ll see we’re actually in a cliffside location.
Down there –’ she points to an alleyway that leads to the sea – ‘is where we’ll have our barbecue party tonight.
There’s a lot of steps, so save some mountain goat energy for that steep climb. ’
A few other CoLab-ers have gathered around her to hear her spiel. ‘Oh,’ CJ says, noticing. She hates being the centre of attention. ‘That’s it, guys. Luis is your man for any questions!’
Ash laughs at her and then links an arm through hers. She’s in a crisp white T-shirt tucked into high-waisted beige linen shorts, and her skin is already warming up from the pleasant 24-degree weather. ‘Exploratory walk and then hit the sand?’ she asks CJ.
CJ decided back on the bus to make up an excuse about needing to attend to CoLab business so she doesn’t have to be weird around Ash any longer than necessary, even though she feels the pull of wanting to make the most of her remaining time.
That’s the small mercy in all of this, that at least these feelings will eventually go away, because once Ash is gone, she’s gone.
It’s not like CJ has to live with the knowledge of unrequited love forever. It’s just for the next few weeks.
‘OK, great,’ CJ finds herself saying. Because goddamn it, she can’t unhook her arm now it’s there, nestled in against Ash’s smooth torso, Ash’s free hand clasped over CJ’s bicep, a grin wider than the moon.
They meander over the white cobblestones, marvelling at the white facades of grand two-storey villas with their painted green shutters and wrought-iron balconies.
They weave in and out of the tourist shops, not far from the shore, where the buildings get closer together and postcards of naked women and blow-up beach balls are sold.
Every other shop is actually a café, with cheap plastic chairs around cheap plastic tables, silver napkin dispensers and sachets of ketchup and salt thrown into small bowls in the middle.
Being further into the season, now, it’s pretty busy – far busier than their last beach trip, when it felt like they were the only ones there, really, the CoLab lot.
Now children weave around parental legs, intergenerational families trundle along eating ice creams, stopping at the fountains to sit a while and rest weary legs.
Ash watches, smiles, pulls CJ in closer, and CJ pretends not to have a heart attack at the nearness of her.
‘I’ve been meaning to thank you,’ Ash says, as they circle back to where they came from, with the intention of getting to the beach, where Luis should be setting up with the owners of the barbecue for later on.
‘For what?’ CJ asks, wondering what Ash could possibly have to thank her for.
‘Making me think, I suppose,’ Ash says. ‘Between you and Mona, I’ve really been starting to let myself wonder about a life different to what I thought I wanted.’
‘Oh?’
They’re on the steps now, a winding, wooden descent that only allows for single file. Over her shoulder Ash continues, ‘Yeah. Obviously you have a non-traditional set-up, and Mona never had kids at all. I’ve talked to her about what that was like, if it felt like something was missing.’
‘And was it?’
They spot Luis, wave at him, but don’t walk towards him. Ash says she wants to put her feet in the ocean, first.
‘Maybe? But then, people who have kids miss out on the life they could be living as free, untethered adults, and that’s a kind of grief as well. She made me realise we’re all grieving the could-haves, the other lives we might have chosen, no matter how much we love what we have.’
‘Where does that leave you, then?’ CJ asks.
They’ve dropped their bags on the sand, slipped off their shoes.
They stand side by side in the surf, yellow sand between their toes, cold saltwater lapping up over their skin and then abating, like a game.
Closer, closer, up, and then away again.
The sea is like trying to fall in love, CJ thinks.
It’s playing kiss chase with us to see if it’s safe.
Safe. Safety. It all comes back to that. She’s never thought about feeling ‘safe’ before in her life, and now, with Ash, it’s a concept, an idea, that she just can’t shake. What does it even mean, to be safe with somebody?
Ash slips her hand into CJ’s and grips on tightly. CJ lets her. That. That’s what safe means.
‘I don’t know where it leaves me,’ Ash says, looking out to where sky meets sea. ‘But I have a feeling I’m ready to decide.’
For a while, they don’t talk.
‘I think Willow is going to sell the company,’ Ash says, after a while.
‘I’m not sure if she even realises it herself yet, but from everything she’s saying, I can see it happening.
Did you know the average age for a career change is thirty-nine?
That’s her and me both. I think we’re both wanting something … new.’
CJ turns to look at her, to try and read her face. Her voice, after all, is giving her no clues as to how that makes her feel.
‘Are you worried?’ CJ asks.
Ash shakes her head. ‘No. I don’t even think I want to go back to that job. I think …’
She doesn’t say what she thinks, just sighs. They’re still holding hands.
‘What do you think?’ CJ pushes. She feels herself hold her breath, leaning in towards Ash, waiting to see what she might come out with next.
This isn’t CJ. CJ is a leader, not a follower.
She sets the tone, she doesn’t try to decipher it.
And yet, no matter what she tells herself about Ash, she is here, willingly, happily, leaning into her friend and trying to understand how she’s feeling because, on some level, what she hopes Ash will say is, CJ, do you think this, you and me, do you think it could be something?
And CJ will say, I think we’d be stupid not try, and then they’d kiss, and it would be just them, on purpose, not some silly game to entertain themselves or titillate Luis, and it would be everything.
‘I have enough money to take a break, to not work for a while,’ Ash says. ‘I could stay here, even, although I’m not really sure what I’d do.’
CJ’s heart thuds even faster, harder. Can Ash tell?
‘I could go to Bali, maybe, or India. Australia.’
‘The world is your oyster,’ CJ says, and if it sounds empty it’s because she’s disappointed.
Ash doesn’t want to stay here, she just doesn’t feel great about going home.
Who would, after experiencing the Lisbon way of doing things?
‘Although,’ CJ adds, ‘of course, nobody wants to return to work after a holiday. You’ve probably just forgotten how much you enjoy your life back in Bristol. ’
‘Maybe,’ says Ash, sounding just as hollow. ‘I mean, probably not, but I see what you mean.’
CJ couldn’t say who drops whose hand, but they part, step back, look vaguely over in Luis’s direction, where he’s drinking beer and flirting with other CoLab girls, and they don’t shift to join them all. Instead, they flop to the sand, legs touching.
‘Anyway,’ Ash says. ‘I don’t feel afraid. I was a very afraid person when I got here, and it’s you, and your influence, that has made me braver. So, thank you.’
‘I think you’ve always been brave,’ says CJ. ‘Heart on your sleeve, unafraid of your big feelings.’
‘I don’t know. You’re the brave one. Making your own rules. Living on your own terms. Forever being so … unruffled.’
‘I wasn’t unruffled at Luis’s party.’
‘No,’ Ash says. ‘But I didn’t want to pry. It didn’t seem fair.’
‘That’s kind,’ says CJ, and alarm bells ring in her mind: Ash knows. Ash knows how CJ feels about her. This is awful. Her throat constricts, palms sweat.
Ash knocks her shoulder into CJ’s. ‘Do you want to hang out when we get back?’ she asks.
‘Can we, I mean. I’m starting to feel the ticking of the clock, and with me taking a week with Willow in Porto – urm, actually, I don’t think I’ve told you that.
I’m meeting Willow in Porto for a week – time feels even shorter.
I’d love to make the most of it, make some plans together?
I really value you, CJ. You’ve made me better.
I know you hate compliments, and your favourite hobby is like, batting them away or whatever, but I need you to hear it.
You’ve changed me. I am so, so grateful.
You make me feel safe. It’s safe to be myself with you, but you challenge me, too, to examine my values and then act accordingly.
That feels special. I just need you to know that.
You make me feel like it might just all end up OK. ’
And CJ finds herself nodding, looking at Ash’s lips, the outline of her impeccable nose in the sunlight, her heart aching, thumping for attention dramatically.
How ironic, that CJ can make Ash feel safe, and CJ feels the exact opposite of safe with Ash.
Ash is not safe. CJ has to remember that.
Ash could really hurt her. Ash will really hurt her.
This is inevitable. And yet, even though she’s willing herself to make an excuse, to spend no further time with Ash to make the separation easier, when it comes, to give herself space to start to forget Ash already, CJ smiles, looks from the ocean to the woman who makes her so fucking nervous and unsettled, and she says, ‘Yes, babe. Let’s do that.
Let’s spend as much time together as we can.
You’ve changed me, too. I can’t remember what it was like to ever not be your friend, actually. ’
‘Are we like, best friends?’ Ash says, in a stupid American accent. It defuses the moment.
‘Totally,’ CJ says.
And then, despite the fact they really should go and join the others now, they don’t. They sit, and twilight sets in, and they talk about their lives and what they should do before Ash leaves the country, and nobody comes to get them.