The Last Good Paradise (35 page)

*   *   *

Earlier, when Robby had jumped out of the boat along with two of Prospero’s attorneys, Wende just gave a short nod hello. From the old days, she suspected, rightly, opportunism on his part. A call had come in from Shawn that the yacht was headed back, and she was on her way to tell Richard and Titi the good news. Yes, she was extremely relieved—she surely didn’t want them getting radiated, or whatever it was—but the impresario within her was the smallest bit disappointed in the loss of a climax for the story. As dramatic as the paparazzi’s live feed of the police trawler had been, basically Dex, Cooked, and Ann had gone on a daylong joyride in a yacht. Now that Robby had shown up, stealing the thunder so carefully built up, who knew how that would affect public sentiment?

The wedding guests, despite the language barriers, were enjoying the paparazzi and their infinite capacity for alcohol, which even by Polynesian standards was truly impressive. Preparations were under way for the nuptial ceremony the next day that would last three more.

Was her project over? Wende lamented, watching the women weaving wedding mats from banana leaves. She didn’t want to turn
National Geographic
and film that. There would be a feast of native foods, drumming and dancing. There would be … Why not a concert with Dex and Robby? A benefit concert that featured the new song, with the money it earned going to victims of the radiation poisoning and a legal defense fund seeking reparations from the government. Wende forgot all about Richard and Titi being reunited with their loved ones, and ran back to give Robby a lavish hug and make nice.

*   *   *

When Cooked readied himself to jump out of the canoe, the eight “cannibals” were there to greet him. They had converted tomorrow’s wedding throne into a king’s throne—decorated with palm fronds and a feathered headdress at the back. They carried him to shore because a hero’s feet should not touch water. He was disappointed that Titi wasn’t on shore to kiss him. The paparazzi, bloated with photographic riches, snapped a few pics for their personal photo albums, then went back to their carousing. For many of them, this was the best assignment they had ever been on, probably would ever be on, and they were making the most of it.

Forgotten, Dex and Ann helped each other off the boat and through the water. No one was there to greet them. A young boy was plunging tiki torches into the sand and lighting them. A young woman in a pareu walked by and offered them fruit juice. They sat in the sand and toasted.

“Today was way cool,” Dex said.

Ann smiled. “It was.”

“Who would have thought the thing would grow so big?”

“We accomplished something.”

Wende walked up nonchalantly, as if they had been hanging out there all day. “Have fun on the boat? Robby and I need to talk with you real quick, Dex.”

“Ann and I are having a moment.”

“Oh. Sorry. Sure.”

Wende moved off with her clipboard, which now was an extension of her body, keenly aware that in the past Dex never had cared about marking
their
moments. Strike that—
that
was the old Wende. What mattered were rehearsals. It was all well and fine to get sentimental, but it was time to move on to the next thing. And if that worked out, great, then move on to the one after that, ad infinitum. They were going to have to start immediately if they were to have a chance of performing the concert before the momentum faded.

Dex and Ann sat side by side on the beach. They faced the east, which was dark. The fiery brilliance of sunset was behind them.

“Do you think there is anything back there for us?” Ann asked.

“That’s home,” Dex said, waving his arm out in front of him. “That is the direction of hope, of dreams, of happiness.”

A pause.

“Are you sure that’s east?” Ann asked.

Wende was seething by now and wondered if they were stoned. Precious minutes were going down the toilet. Did no one want to be serious about anything?

“You guys are looking south. Nothing between you and Antarctica.”

*   *   *

After Cooked was congratulated by all two hundred and fifty guests and even some of the drunk paparazzi, after he was slapped on the back so many times he felt bruised, after he was toasted with so many shots of moonshine that he was seeing double, Titi finally rescued him and took him away to their honeymoon
fare
at the quiet, secluded corner of the beach that was no longer quite so secluded, amid much joyful crowing and howling. When she shut the door and closed the blinds against peeking kids, Cooked experienced his first moment of peace. She unwound his bandage and discovered the tiniest divot had been taken from the top of his ear, like a mouse’s nibble out of a piece of cheese.

“I’m so proud of you,” Titi said, and her pareu, as if of its own will, dropped, revealing the naked, oiled gift of herself.

Beyond exhaustion, Cooked felt vanquished but in a good way. He could only stare at this girl whom he had known and loved all his life, who tomorrow would be his wife. He had done okay today, he thought. But even if he hadn’t, she would still love him.

“I haven’t had much rest,” he said, hedging his bets.

“I’ll do all the work.” She smiled, the crescent of her smile glowing, an interior moon.

Cooked had been able to endure the humiliations of the past days only because of her.

She pulled him to her.

Later, when they lay in the plunge pool to cool off, she fed him cut-up chunks of Bounty bars, his favorite treat.

“It will be good after the ceremony is over and everyone leaves. They mean well, but they’re trashing the island,” she said.

“How will we manage alone?”

“Loren will stay. He belongs here.”

“They expect us to fail. Get us to sell cheap.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, kissing his arm, his neck, then starting all over. “Today you were my hero.”

*   *   *

Ann sheepishly went in search of Richard, disappointed that he hadn’t been waiting at the beach to greet her. She found him in the kitchen with Javi and a dozen Polynesian women, involved in the monumental production of a wedding feast. She stood in the doorway, and he and Javi saw her at the same moment.

“Ann!” they said simultaneously, turning to look at each other rather than her. Neither came forward.

“I’m back,” she said, stating the obvious to the void of silence that hung between them.

“Good,” Richard said, and went on stirring.

“Richard?”

He didn’t move.

“What’s wrong?”

“I told him I love you,” Javi said casually as he kept chopping.

She looked at him, furious. “Why did you come here?”

Javi shrugged. “I missed you guys.”

Lorna had straightened everything out with the creditors, the ex-wife, and the loan sharks (she had enough underground connections that this wasn’t beyond her purview). Although Javi omitted the fact that he had used the money she loaned him partly for a little R & R in Tahiti and Bora-Bora before continuing on to see them, he had taken full responsibility, declared bankruptcy, and sold every last thing, even returning the beautiful new Corvette, to satisfy everyone. Everyone, that is, except for them. Technically they had spent their money at their own discretion. Was it his fault they wanted to live it up?

“I’m a new man,” Javi said. “As in brand-new. No credit. I’ll be working restaurants the next decade to catch up. But you guys are free and clear.”

“Free,” a relative term when they had just dropped a major chunk of change at a five-star luxury eco-resort for almost three weeks. Not including the sizable bar tab, first-class airfare (was it a time to go economy?), and incidentals. Everything in the restaurant had been sold off at ten cents on the dollar. The space was now occupied by a Pilates studio. There would be no resurrecting the restaurant. El Gusano was dead.

“Well, that settles that. I’m heading back to LA,” Richard announced.

The “I” instead of “we” was a noticeable omission to all three of them.

“Don’t blame Ann,” Javi said, but Richard raised his hand to stop him, then walked out.

“What’s eating him?”

Ann looked at Javi. As if the restaurant wasn’t enough, he had just ruined her marriage. Of course, it had been her fault, too. At the time of the affair, Richard and she were splitting up. Sure, it had been a questionable judgment call, she had made a mistake, but people do. Ten years of good behavior afterward didn’t count for anything? Life was messy, and she didn’t know if she wanted to spend the rest of hers with someone who didn’t understand that. She would have forgiven him. But had she?

*   *   *

Ann and Richard sat on the beach, surrounded by families settling in for the night, spreading blankets on the sand to stretch out under the stars. It was obvious that the simple Tuamotuan lifestyle was unavailable to them. And yet.

“It meant nothing,” Ann said.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Javi loves you. As much as he is capable. You and I were about to break up. You were cold and distant after your trip to France, and I thought you’d fallen in love with a girl. It happened, and then it was over. Why hurt you? We were doing fine.”

“I should have been told.”

“You needed Javi for the restaurant.”

“Look where that got us.”

“Things happen. We’re adults.”

Richard pounded his fist in the sand. “I’m not.”

She had to bite down hard on her cheek not to smile. “Maybe I’ve babied you too much.”

“You lied to me.”

“Like you lied to me all these years about your problem with meat. That’s what happened to you in France, wasn’t it? Don’t you think that was a pretty important detail to omit?”

“Sorry if I can’t compete with almost being contaminated by radiation while hanging out with a rock star.”

“What about your lusting after Wende? Your eyes almost pop out of your head every time she walks by.”

“Not true.”

“True.”

“Nothing happened.”

“If it did, I would forgive you.”

“So you forgive me hypothetically, and I’m supposed to forgive the real thing?”

“What’s the alternative?”

“Exactly.” And like he had slapped her in the face, Richard stood and walked away.

*   *   *

The wedding party started early in the morning and went on relentlessly for three days. At first the food and the feasting, the dancing and the drinking, were welcome after all the nuclear showdown theatrics, and then, like other pleasurable things done to excess, it chafed and made one feel tired and bloated. The Tuamotuans never seemed to run out of energy—even the children were wound up like forty-eight-hour clocks—but the paparazzi were dropping off like flies. One had to be medevaced out for supposed alcohol poisoning, which ended up being mere exhaustion.

Dex and Robby disappeared into rehearsals, joined by the native drummers for the wedding. It was promoted as a cross-cultural event, with hot dancers brought in from Papeete, fire-eaters, more drummers, etc.

Wende, bored now with nothing to do, filmed parts of the wedding ceremony and parts of the music rehearsals, ending up with a mix of
National Geographic
rerun and a frat-house reality show. She and Ann filmed the traditional inking of his and hers wedding tattoos, the first few lines started with the traditional shark tooth and ink before a modern electric needle was used.

Ann looked down at her own dismembered fish forlornly circling her thigh.

“Can’t you finish?”

“I thought you hated it.” Wende grimaced as a
tiare
flower was tatted on the inside of her ankle.

“I need change.”

“Change is good.”

“It hurts.”

“Some things are worth it, right? Let’s do it.”

Wende took her time and carefully worked the needle as Titi and the other women looked on, impressed with her technique. “I considered opening my own tattoo parlor a while back.”

There was no comparison—the back of the shark was much finer work than the earlier front. A new maturity was evident in Wende’s work as she bent over Ann’s thigh and asked for the flashlight to be brought closer. She had become a perfectionist. It had nothing to do with flesh, everything with spirit, as if she had lived through lifetimes in these last few days.

When the tat was done, the women clapped, and Wende bowed her head.

“You’re good to go and conquer.”

*   *   *

Wende cringed as the production values of the wedding/benefit concert began slipping. The problem with authentic was that it didn’t look the way anyone under the age of fifty had been conditioned by movies to think it should look. The grass anklets and arm cuffs looked stringy; the stumpy headdresses lacked majesty. Never mind the girls in nylon shorts and Pearl Jam T-shirts. Wende pursed her lips and drank some vodka-laced guava juice.

The highlight of day two of the wedding ceremony was Cooked and Titi being carried in from a boat in the lagoon on thrones balanced on the shoulders of six men. The thrones were lowered onto a carpet of banana leaves on which
tiare
, hibiscus, and ginger flowers had been scattered. Combined with the flowered leis of the women, the crushed petals emitted a rich perfume into the air.

At the height of the ceremony, Titi and Cooked kneeled facing each other and exchanged a single flower. The impermanence of the flower instead of something solid like gold rings was to remind the couple of the transience of their bond, and thus its preciousness.
Do not waste a single minute of this love.

Ann never cried at weddings, but now she did. She and Richard had squandered buckets of both time and love, and had only themselves to blame.

The hope of their simple civil ceremony years ago, the small dinner party with only their parents and Javi, had seemed to portend such an exceptionally authentic life, lived on their own terms. Richard had made reservations at the best French restaurant in town, a small place with only ten tables. They got married on a Friday afternoon, and when they arrived at the restaurant with their party, they found fire trucks in front. There had been a kitchen fire. Impossible to get reservations anywhere else on a Friday night—they ended up eating at a Chinese place down the block. Ann’s parents had been appalled, especially since she had refused their offer of a country club wedding. Richard’s parents seemed bewildered. In the way such things rarely happen, near disaster averted itself. Javi tried to lighten the mood by ordering a round of Chinese beer. When the staff found out it was a wedding dinner, they started to cook specialties not on the menu. Richard still talked about some of those dishes, which they never found again. The owner of the restaurant came out and sang Mandarin wedding songs, accompanied by a waiter on an oboe. The brillance and oddness of the evening broke down barriers between the parents. They closed down the place at midnight. It ended up being exactly the wedding they had hoped for.