The Last Good Paradise (10 page)

The house fell into a spell of neglect that Ann assured herself was only temporary. The kitchen remodel would have to wait. Weeds appeared in the backyard, the pool turned green, Optimistically, Ann still shopped flea markets—a French wire egg basket, a needlepoint stool—a habit she had developed with her mom when times looked bleak. As she would have argued in a court of law, they still had a dream—it had just been postponed.

*   *   *

During the chemo and radiation treatments, her mother suddenly had decided that the house needed remodeling. This from a woman who allowed her husband’s frat house sofa to be in the den years after they married.

“Are you sure?” Ann asked, not wanting to ask the obvious: Did she have the energy for that kind of undertaking?

Each day they drove to antique shops and estate sales, studied books to learn about period furniture, zeroing in on French. They discovered parts of Los Angeles they had never been to before. They stopped for breakfast and lunch at places no one they knew went to. It was their first adventure together. The house transformed from casual ’70s-style ranch house to bohemian Parisian apartment.

When they hauled in a particularly large toile French settee, her father took her aside. His eyes, magnified by thick lenses, appeared anxious. “I just don’t understand this furniture obsession, do you?”

“I don’t know…”

“What happened in Paris?”

*   *   *

Ann understood that houses, like marriages, were about process, that one was never truly finished. Finished people, as per her clients, usually sold, divorced, or died. So Ann was fine with the empty bedroom that would one day be a studio. She bought a used easel at a garage sale and set it up in a corner; she stacked canvases against the back wall. All in the service of someday. Another bedroom, furnished with only a futon for Javi’s sleepovers, was the future nursery, although neither of them discussed that right now. It was at this juncture that Ann had to force herself to stop thinking. This was the point beyond which she could go no further. Beyond this point, there be dragons. The whole thing now threatened to have to be sold bare bones, dream-stripped.

*   *   *

“So what do you do?” Dex asked Ann.

Silence.

“Ann is an attorney,” Richard volunteered.

His answer was truncated, unsatisfactory. It was too little. A pause opened up for her to fill, which she emphatically chose not to.

Why did Americans always insist on asking about occupation, as if what you did was who you were? In other cultures it was considered rude, like asking someone’s income or weight or age. Or maybe it was Ann’s hypersensitivity to
her
profession, being pigeonholed. The silence echoed with the pain of a thousand lawyer jokes that had rained down on her over the years:

Q: What’s the difference between a jellyfish and a lawyer? A: One’s a spineless, poisonous blob. The other is a form of sea life. Q: How many lawyers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Three. One to climb the ladder, one to shake it, and one to sue the ladder company. Q: What does a lawyer get when you give him Viagra? A: Taller. Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a vulture? A: The lawyer gets frequent-flier miles. Q: If you see a lawyer on a bicycle, why don’t you swerve to hit him? A: It might be your bicycle. Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a leech? A: After you die, a leech stops sucking your blood. Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and God? A: God doesn’t think he’s a lawyer. Q: How are an apple and a lawyer alike? A: They both look good hanging from a tree. Q: How can a pregnant woman tell she’s carrying a future lawyer? A: She has an uncontrollable craving for bologna. Q: How many lawyer jokes are there? A: Only three. The rest are true stories. Q: What are lawyers good for? A: They make used-car salesmen look good. Q: What do dinosaurs and decent lawyers have in common? A: They are extinct. Q: What do you call twenty-five attorneys buried up to their chins in cement? A: Not enough cement. Q: What do you call twenty-five skydiving lawyers? A: Skeet. Q: What do you call a lawyer gone bad? A: Senator. Q: What do you throw to a drowning lawyer? A: His partners. Q: What is brown and looks really good on a lawyer? A: A Doberman. Q: Why did God make snakes just before lawyers? A: To practice. Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a herd of buffalo? A: The lawyer charges more. Q: What’s the difference between a tick and a lawyer? A: The tick falls off you when you’re dead. Q: How was copper wire invented? A: Two lawyers were fighting over a penny. Q: Why does the law society prohibit sex between lawyers and their clients? A: To prevent clients from being billed twice for essentially the same service. Q: How can you tell a lawyer is lying? A: His lips are moving. Q: Why did New Jersey get all the toxic waste and California all the lawyers? A: New Jersey got to pick first. Q: Why don’t lawyers go to the beach? A: Cats keep trying to bury them. Q: What do you call five thousand dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start. Q: What’s the difference between a dead skunk in the road and a dead lawyer in the road? A: There are skid marks in front of the skunk. Q: What do you call a smiling, sober, courteous person at a bar association convention? A: The caterer. Q: Why are lawyers like nuclear weapons? A: If one side has one, the other side has to get one. Once launched, they cannot be recalled. When they land, they screw up everything forever. Q: What do lawyers and sperm have in common? A: One in three million has a chance of becoming a human being. Q: Why won’t sharks attack lawyers? A: Professional courtesy.

Ann felt sick to her stomach.

Dex was a celebrity, a rock star. No one asked what he did. He looked like what he did, even if one didn’t know his band or his music. Wende was a muse. Loren, a hotelier. A darker realization came to Ann—soon she wouldn’t even be a lawyer. One couldn’t possibly introduce oneself as an ex-lawyer. It was a little like explaining one
used to be
a genocidal dictator. Once … always.

“I’m a chef,” Richard said.

“A chef? Whoa, I
love
that.”

“We own a restaurant.” Richard downed his wine in one swallow and poured another glass to the brim.

Ann looked at him, startled, then pleased. Under the table she squeezed his knee.

Richard had upped his alcohol consumption considerably since leaving Los Angeles, and yet he felt surprisingly peppy. His stomach had stopped its fierce gurgle; his hives had calmed down. “It’s called El Gusano.”

“Seriously? Too funny.” The men high-fived. “Where is it?”

“Venice.”

“I live there! Part-time.”

“It’s opening in a month.” Richard took a big swallow of wine.

“Ah,” Dex said. “Resting before the storm?”

“You got it.”

“What kind of food?”

Richard paused. “Mexican-French fusion. We don’t want to be stuck with labels.”

“Fuck no! My kind of guy. Why do you think I’m hiding out? Out of reach of those corporate bloodsuckers. I’ll be at El Gusano. With friends. Famous ones. Reporters will come. Get you a write-up.”

Richard nodded. He was close to tears.

The lie had been a necessary one. The restaurant was still alive to both Ann and Richard; admitting its demise was like a death. They needed time to adjust to their new circumstances. In their imagination El Gusano, The Worm, had taken the place of their house as the locus of their idea of who they were. Imagining its possibilities occupied every spare minute. Ann, who kept away from the kitchen, obsessed over the look of the place. She studied the effect of stemware, silverware, plating. It was their creation, especially precious after all the years of slaving in someone else’s space, following their rules.

Titi made a last pass around the table with coffee and cookies. In a spasm of coughing, Loren excused himself, and she finished the service alone. A look relayed its way around the table. After drinking a bottle of wine at dinner, Loren had faded quickly. Still early evening, but the island was already shut down. Dex brought out his guitar and a ukulele he had ferreted from Cooked, and played back and forth between the two instruments.

“Ask Cooked to come play drums,” he said to Titi, but she shook her head no.

“He’s tired.”

“You are exhausting my drummer.” Dex smiled. “Go on. We’ll close shop.”

Prior to Richard and Ann’s arrival, an informality had descended on resort service that would remain in force. For the money they were paying, Ann wouldn’t have minded a little more pampering.

A cigarette hung from Dex’s lips while he played; he removed it only to drink alcohol. With his long hair and tattoos, he reminded Ann of a child who had outgrown his Halloween costume.

“I know you,” he said, strumming his guitar while Richard, whose spirits had miraculously picked up, played checkers with Wende in her short shorts and halter top.

“I don’t think so,” Ann said, staring out at stars that were eerily large. It felt like being in outer space. She could sense the immense night around them, the buffer of thousands of miles of watery emptiness between them and home. Dex went away, then came back with a bottle of tequila and two glasses. He poured; Ann drank. She considered the capriciousness of happiness, how all those years ago this moment would have been the high point of her life. Instead she had hidden in the bathroom, Lorna had French-kissed him, and the possibility had vanished.

“‘For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.’”

“Impressive,” Ann said.

“Melville. I’ve been reading from Loren’s library. Trying to get into the spirit of the place.”

Behind them, Wende squealed, laughing. “No fair!”

“You live in LA.” Dex took a drag from his cigarette. “I bet we met at the Troubadour or the Whisky.”

Ann downed her shot. “Not in this decade.”

“Could’ve sworn.”

Ann walked away to the water, her skirt dipping in the surf as a rogue wave washed up around her, the soaked cloth manacling her ankles. Dex was harmless, but she didn’t need to have the past rear up now. She was having enough trouble dealing with her present. What were the odds that Dex Cooper would be there? Part of her wanted to get on the phone to Lorna and gossip. The withdrawal from not being able to connect to any electronic devices felt like rehab. It made her as jittery as giving up coffee.

She stretched out on the cool sand, hiking the sodden fabric up on her thighs. Wende, having won at checkers, plopped herself down next to her.

“Boring, boring. It’s, what, nine o’clock? I’m bored to death.”

Ann nodded.

Seashells scuttled back and forth in the darkness, hermit crabs drunk-driving.

“You’ve got nice arms and legs. Any tats?” Wende asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Tattoos. I did some of Dex’s. You should let me do you.”

“I’ll think about it,” Ann said.

“I thought we were going to Bali. Nightclubs. Or Phuket. No offense, but you two coming has been the most exciting thing to happen.”

“None taken.” The girl was unformed, a hard, unripe fruit who in a strange way reminded Ann of herself at that age—never able to rest in the minute, always looking for more. “Tell him to take you someplace else.”

In college, Ann dated a theater major, drank Manhattans, and wore black—a nonrebellion by other people’s standards but outrageous by her family’s. Her father had been a patent attorney, and when he retired, he taught theory at the law school. There was never a doubt that her older brother and sister would study law. The household lived, breathed, and ate jurisprudence. Around the dinner table, they talked of nothing else but the latest article in
ABA
. Outside interests and hobbies were considered an eccentricity.

Her mother, though, was mutinous. She and Ann would hole up in the den and watch foreign films. From her, Ann discovered the possibility of a secret life—doing what was expected of you on the surface while the subterranean you bubbled along underneath.

Wende snorted. “Dex thinks this is great. Just snorkeling, eating, and getting laid. Writing new music. No fans bothering him. I don’t mind the fans. Fans are fun.” Wende looked over her shoulder, then leaned over. “Between us, he’s a little old for me.”

“Why’d you come then?”

“I know what you’re thinking—dumb groupie from Idaho. Yeah, and a father fixation. It’s simple: I love his music. My mom played it all the time when I was growing up. I just admired him so much. But up close, his insecurity, his drinking, his using sexuality as a substitute for intimacy, as a marker for masculinity, well, it wears on you. I didn’t sign up to be his mom.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

Going on thirty-eight. Ann had been wrong. This girl was far more together than she was now.

“I have my own CD. It was my dream back in Idaho. But seeing the business up close, I’m having second thoughts about spending my life that way. Having my image manipulated by a corporation sexing up my work for their profits, being at the mercy of a young, unsophisticated, fickle public. Yuck, you know?”

“Sure.”

“Being here has got me thinking about doing something with the environment. Engaging my passion, but not in a self-involved way. Being of service, you know? Like sharks.”

“Sharks aren’t self-involved?”

Wende giggled. “They are being overharvested, and no one cares because of their bad PR image.
Jaws
and so forth. I’m sorry, I’m talking way too much.”

“Listening to you makes me feel young again.”

“That’s what Dex says. I think he uses me as his base target demographic. Until I met him, I’d never been out of the country before, except Cabo. I want to experience things before I settle down like you and Richard.”

“We’re settled all right.”

“I see how he looks at you. In love, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.”

Was that true? On top of all his other worries, did he have to worry about her? “He knows I’m not going anywhere.”

“An outsider sees things. My mom says I have the sight.”