The Last Good Paradise (43 page)
At last Ann thought she had figured it out, even though it involved leaving behind everything and grasping after the unknown. In her case, happiness might be as simple as a beach, a hut, and a man who loved her. Never mind that she would be an attorney for a multinational resort complex; lives in the twenty-first century were complicated. Even the no-nonsense men in white wigs who wrote her country’s founding document understood that happiness—or at least its dogged pursuit—was important enough to equate with life and liberty as their guiding lights. They couldn’t promise its attainment, or even its preservation once achieved, but Ann thought if you pursued the wrong kind of happiness, it eventually grew stale on you, disappointing, like crackers that were already soggy when you opened the cellophane wrapper. You moved on, literally searching for crisper, greener, happier pastures that didn’t involve desires you were brainwashed to want. Eventually, lemminglike, you struggled blindly on and stumbled across it—the
you
that
you
are to become—and what other definition of happy could there possibly be?
* * *
Steve, irate, started the boat’s motor, and the remaining passengers paired up as if they were boarding Noah’s ark: Dex and Wende, Robby and Lilou, and, surprisingly, a lone Javi.
Ann, Richard, Titi, and Cooked stood and waved good-bye.
Richard had known his answer before Ann asked the question. He would have gone on his knees and begged to spend the rest of his life with her no matter where. That’s just how it was. And, too, every paradise needs its great chef.
“You guys will take my calls from now on, right? We’ll Skype?” Javi yelled.
A thundercloud of sharks, like a blessing, escorted them out of the lagoon.
They watched until the boat shrank to a small white dot in the universe of blue. Some of Captain Cook’s men stayed behind on the islands. Each ocean voyage took a three- or four-year bite out of their lives back in England. They knew if they returned, their old lives would not fit as well as they formerly had. On the islands they fell in love, or decided that only a permanent change of venue would suit. They stayed for pleasure, or opportunity, or a dream, or some combination of the three, but not a one of them failed to feel a lump in his throat as his known life sailed away.
Ann squeezed Richard’s hand. They turned their backs on the disappearing boat and ran.
A few books were invaluable to my understanding of French Polynesia, most notably
Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook
by Nicholas Thomas;
Fatu-Hiva: Back to Nature
by Thor Heyerdahl;
Representing the South Pacific: Colonial Discourse from Cook to Gauguin
by Rod Edmond;
Tahiti Beyond the Postcard: Power, Place, and Everyday Life
by Miriam Kahn;
Daughters of the Pacific
and
Pacific Women Speak Out
by Zohl dé Ishtar; and
Poisoned Reign: French Nuclear Colonialism in the Pacific
by Bengt Danielsson and Marie-Thérèse Danielsson.
A huge hug to Rabih Nassif for endless patience in reading successive drafts. For the illustrations, I want to thank my husband, Gaylord Soli. I would like to thank Hilary Rubin Teeman and Dori Weintraub for their brilliance and advocacy through three books. Lastly, to Andrew Wylie for his belief in me.
also by
tatjana soli
Tatjana Soli
is a novelist and short story writer. Her
New York Times
bestselling debut novel,
The Lotus Eaters
, was the winner of the James Tait Black Prize, a
New York Times
Notable Book, and a finalist for the
Los Angeles Times
Book Award. Her critically acclaimed second novel,
The Forgetting Tree,
was also a
New York Times
Notable Book. Her stories have appeared in
Zyzzyva, Boulevard
, and
The Sun
and have been listed in
Best American Short Stories
. She lives with her husband in Southern California. Visit her online at
tatjanasoli.com
. Or sign up for email updates
here
.
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Contents
Unnamed Atoll Somewhere in the Tuamotu Archipelago
Rock ’n’ Roll Will Save Your Life
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE LAST GOOD PARADISE.
Copyright © 2015 by Tatjana Soli. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by Olga Grlic
Cover illustration © Ashley McGinty / Shutterstock.com
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-04396-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-4230-4 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466842304
First Edition: February 2015