Why didn’t you say anything earlier?’ Openmouthed, Jess stared at Elly from across the table, her eyes as round and huge as saucers. ‘Did I really need to pick up this to figure out what’s going on?’ She snatched up a glossy magazine, nimbly opening it on the proper page with speed that would make an Olympic sprinter jealous. She smoothed out the paper, then jabbed one accusing finger at a photo. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ Elly wished she could say it wasn’t her. She would have loved to tell her friend that she had no idea what she was talking about. She wanted to change the topic to anything else—anything at all, even the fact that the coffee they had ordered with their lunch was very bitter and very weak. It might distract Jess for long enough to forget the whole hubbub. But she could see herself very clearly in the snapshot of her and Adam on his motorcycle. It glared at her from the pages of the trashy magazine. Must have been taken when we were going to the beach, she thought absentmindedly as the spread jogged her memory.
