Chapter 13: The Afternoon

Roxie got me a drink at the outdoor bar and introduced me to three other women whose names I immediately mixed up. They were all friendly. They asked about Iowa, the kids, and how long we had been here. They didn’t make me feel like the new person who didn’t know anyone. Roxie stayed next to me the whole time. She touched my arm when she talked. She laughed easily. She said things I would never have said out loud.

“Marriage is work,” she told me at one point, low enough that only I heard it at first. “But the sex doesn’t have to die just because you’ve been together a while. Ryan and I figured that out the hard way. Now we make sure we still fuck as if we mean it. You and Nick will get there.”

I nearly choked on my drink. She said it like she was talking about the weather. No shame. No lowering her voice. The other women nodded like this was normal. I felt my face heat again. I felt something else, too—a strange pull. Roxie was everything I was not. Confident. Open. Comfortable in a bikini that left almost nothing to the imagination. She knew she was sexy and she did not apologize for it. She wanted people to see it. I had spent years trying to disappear into modest clothes and careful sex. Watching her made me feel inadequate and, at the same time, strangely drawn to her. She seemed fully comfortable with herself. I could not remember the last time I had felt that way.

She led me over to an area where seven other women were relaxing and talking on sun loungers and introduced me to everyone. Roxie sat next to me on a lounge, and her hands seemed to constantly be touching different parts of me: my arm, my knee, my thigh, around my waist. She never did anything inappropriate, and while I was extremely uncomfortable at first, within an hour and after two drinks, I no longer even seemed to notice it. I figured that was just who she was: a very open, handsy person.