Page 1 of That Island Feeling
Prologue
PEARL ISLAND,
SUMMER 1990
‘New swimsuit?’ Harry sets his snorkel aside and pulls himself up onto the pontoon. Droplets of water bead across his chest as he leans down to plant a kiss on his new wife’s bare shoulder, pausing to admire her pert nipples glistening in the sunshine.
‘It’s my honeymoon suit.’ Lily shuffles to get comfortable on her pillow.
‘Strikingly similar to your birthday suit, isn’t it?’ Harry raises an approving eyebrow as he sinks down next to her, his head nestling into her softness.
‘Same designer, I believe,’ she says. ‘Spot anything interesting down there?’
‘Some breathtaking Zooxanthellate scleractinia.’
‘Fascinating.’ Her tone tells him she thinks it’s anything but.
‘Also, the little mermaid,’ he adds, tilting his head to nibble on her earlobe.
‘Mmmmm.’
Now he has a captive audience. His hand instinctively moves between her legs.
‘Harry!’ she cries out.
He grins, sheepish. ‘There’s only the fish to watch us, Lil.’
Harry continues caressing until Lily brings him in for a kiss. Hard to believe this is the woman he gets to spend the rest of his life with.
‘Shall we make our baby?’ he whispers.
‘Careful,’ she giggles. ‘I’m all oysters and wine.’
ISLAND LIFE
Now
Chapter One
ANDIE
POP!
The sound is different to the eager pop of the Bollinger that had bubbled so hopefully in our glasses at Taylor and Mitch’s wedding reception eighteen months ago. This sound, although still somewhat hopeful, is hollowed, as though it’s already weary from the responsibility of punctuating Taylor’s new chapter.
‘I’m so glad we made this trip happen,’ I say, squeezing my best friend around the waist. ‘You’re absolutely glowing,’ I add, admiring her shiny blonde hair and cute sundress – the super-short kind I can’t wear without my kindergarteners running their small hands up and down my prickly legs, their fingers the incy wincy spiders.
‘Thanks, Andie.’ I catch a faint glimpse of a smile.
Taylor is the yin to my yang, the Cher to my Dionne, the Carrie to my Miranda. I hate thinking about what that arsehole Mitch must have put her through this past year. With the divorce finalised just two weeks ago, she truly deserves this holiday.
I pour the honey-coloured fizz into our glasses. ‘Drinks are up!’
Grace and Lizzie answer the primal girls’ trip call, leaping off their sun lounges and bounding over to our patio table by the pool’s edge.
Lizzie reaches us first. Growing up as the youngest of four siblings has instilled in her a perpetual fear of ‘missing out’, and parenting twins for the past three years has only intensified that feeling. Grace saunters behind her, her wrist still adorned with a fluorescent band from whatever last night’s escapades involved. To say that we’ve all been in different seasons of life is an understatement, which is why it feels like a minor miracle that we’re all here together now.
If we were to each have a season, Grace would undoubtedly be summer. It’s not just her sun-kissed skin; it’s the newly engaged aura she exudes, with life positively sparkling around her. Lizzie embodies winter, bunkered down, enduring the throes of early motherhood – but cosy and caring. Taylor is spring, poised for a magnificent rebirth, and I am autumn. Autumn is a perfectly pleasant season – Nora Ephron’s favourite, no less – if you’re simply passing through. But I remain stuck in life’s rut, surrounded by curled brown leaves, permanently shrivelled and on the brink of falling. It is moments like this, the rare glimpses of warmer notes of tangerine and saffron, that make it bearable.