The Last Good Paradise (6 page)

“What’s that smell?” he asked, coming close to her.

“DEET.”

“Hand me your bag,” he said.

“That’s okay.”

“Ah, one of those angry American fem-lib types.”

She carried the bag into the customs building to change, turning just in time to see Loren retch over the side of the boat.

*   *   *

They were supposed to go straight across the lagoon and then on to the more remote
motu
where their lodgings were, but Loren mumbled about difficulties getting supplies. Ann had overheard Carl mention a burned-out engine and saw money exchange hands. They were comped a night at the fancy main resort, and would meet up in the morning to continue out.

Beyond jet lag and on their way to serious collapse, Richard and Ann agreed, grateful to be stationary with the prospect of a night’s uninterrupted sleep.

Ann stood looking down at their aquarium coffee table, surveying the rocks, coral, and fish suspended in the water below as if in blue amber.

“What are we doing here?” Richard asked, not expecting even the effort of an answer. He flipped on the flat screen and searched for the Cooking Channel. “We could at least be in Paris or Nice. Eating to die for.”

“I’m sick of food.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

When she had first met him, Richard had been wire thin and passionate about being a great chef. They would eat at restaurants, and if he approved, he would bang his hand down on the table in approval. She found his excitement sexy. Now he had what was commonly known as “chef’s slump.” A combination of too much tasting and too little time out in the sun doing things like jogging. The extra pounds gave him a ponderous, rolling gait and fallen arches.

“I’m sick of fancy food. I’d be fine if I never touched another mole again.” Oaxacan Mole Negro was Javi’s signature dish. Ann had turned cruel.

Despite all the water and humidity, the billowing pink clouds on the flat horizon, there was a great impression of dryness on the islands that made her parched. She downed the small green bottles of mineral water in the minibar one by one.

“You know those are ten bucks each? A dollar a swallow,” Richard said, reading the in-room menu.

He felt sorry, culpable for his own part in the restaurant fiasco, but still he couldn’t stop himself from complaining. He wanted to get back to LA and somehow fix things. Maybe Javi could explain the situation to the bank, or better yet to Inez. Maybe the loan shark would be interested in having a personal chef to work off the debt? Even if it took another ten years to set things straight, that was better than standing still, there, which was basically nowhere, the end of the earth, doing nothing. “We could go home tomorrow. Return the money. Start over. I mean, what’s the plan here?”

“The plan is to not have a plan right now.”

Had she really just said that? She had told the human resources person at the firm that a family emergency had come up, and she would be out of town indefinitely. If this wasn’t an emergency, she didn’t know what was. If her actions were discovered, she might be fired. Even if she wasn’t dismissed, the hint of impropriety would blow her chances of making partner.

*   *   *

They picked their way gingerly across the narrow beach of crushed coral, under a scraggly row of desiccated palms. The place gave off the ramshackle aura of a B-movie set. Felled, diseased coconut trees were scattered throughout the beach, victims of the last hurricane, poisoned by the salt water. Neat little pyramids of coconuts were stacked here and there, resembling rusted cannonballs or shriveled heads, some already splitting open, sprouting shards of neon-green leaf.

At the hotel bar, they sipped drinks prickling with more paper umbrellas. Ann’s stock-in-trade irony, her anger-tinged sarcasm, had been declared strictly verboten on this trip as per Richard. It almost killed her to not make a quip about the European diver set sprawled around the hotel, wearing Speedos the colors of tropical fish, sporting long, unkempt hair, pierced and inked body parts, trying for the vintage Richard Gere, Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler looks of the ’80s. She felt like a downed electrical wire, bouncing, snapping, smoking, useless.

After another round of drinks, they held hands, giggling as fish passed under the glassed insets in the floor. Ann remembered, as if she had forgotten, that she really did love Richard, and that it was just bad luck and contrary fate that had estranged them.

“Let’s go have a feast,” she said.

On the way to the dining room, the concierge waved them over with an urgent message. Richard blanched as he read the note. “It’s Javi. How did he know we were here?”

“Lorna might have told him.” She was disappointed that their secret was already out. She had wanted to make Javi suffer even as she told Lorna to look after him.

“He’s says he’s taking care of things.” Richard blinked. “He says he loves us.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s try to be happy tonight. Keep it light.”

“What do you say we try the tuna carpaccio?” she said as a peace offering.

“Sure.”

Their courtship had been a gastronomic whirlwind. Food their lingua franca. He had courted her through all the great winery-restaurants of Napa, courtesy of his school connections, teaching her to pair a zinfandel with an heirloom tomato pasta sauce. They visited San Francisco and the great kitchens in Chinatown dedicated to dim sum, where she sampled rice noodle rolls, egg tarts, and chicken’s feet. When she was swamped with work, they stayed in LA, trying the unique fusions of Cal-Mex, the mysteries of blood-orange margaritas and grilled mako shark tacos. It wasn’t until she met Richard that Ann understood that food could be sexy.

The tuna came, ruby fleshed, on a bed of emerald arugula.

“Are we a couple?” Richard asked as his fork hovered over a bite of tomato-and-caper-topped fish.

“Of course,” Ann said. “Yes, definitely. Yes, yes, yes,” she said, but it came out,
Shush, shush, shush
.

“Okay.”

“Are we on the lam?” She giggled, drunk beyond the abilities of mere alcohol.

Outside, across from the pool filled with fluorescent-suited children, stood Loren, tattered shorts the color of driftwood riding low on his narrow hips, talking with the hotel manager. Ann didn’t care for his type, or the type he seemed to be: a hustler, maybe a dissolute, once-upon-a-time gigolo? Blasted good looks. Unlike the tourists—doughy white and sunburned pink, swaddled in garish tropical prints—Loren’s dry, weathered self blended in naturally on the island. And yet, in the middle of all the high spirits of tourists on vacation, the laid-backness of the natives and expats who lived there, Ann sensed that for the three of them—Loren, Richard, and herself—things were deadly serious. Loren’s sepulchral gaze across the pool alarmed her. She was pretty positive she didn’t want him as their host.

*   *   *

Loren had had it with Steve, the manager. Loren’s collection of huts
rustique
had a loose reciprocal agreement with the main resort. Alone, the place was too financially unviable in its remoteness to be kept supplied, despite the steep price tag for the eco-experience of existing without electricity—as in no light, air-conditioning, TV, computer, WiFi (yes, he did have to explain that)—and with the ban on cell phones equipped with long-range GPS satellite, as well as children under eighteen. They had worked out a symbiotic relationship because Loren did provide an
expérience sauvage
, and there was a certain clientele that hungered for that exclusive, minimalist luxury. Ironically, two decades before, Loren had had the real experience he was now selling on these same beaches, minus the mosquito-net canopy beds, plunge pools, and gourmet dinners. For him it had just been the magic of grilling fish over a fire and sleeping on a mat.

The problem was that Steve wanted to tack on another 10 percent for groceries and alcohol.

“You’re killing me,” Loren said.

“Listen, my costs are going up. If I don’t pass them on, I start losing money.”

“Occupancy has been bad. I’ve had to refurbish some bungalows. Bad timing.”

Steve frowned. Steve was a prig. In his thirties with salt-and-pepper hair and a soft voice, he could have passed for an English butler except for the Polynesian shirt and flip-flops.

“I’m not running a charity for you out there.”

“How long have you been in the islands?” Loren asked, knowing beforehand the answer. “Let me explain to you. I am your bling. Your celebrity bait. I’m what brings out the travel writers for their castaway experience. Without me, you’re just another tiki lodge with second-rate food and a fake pearl farm with low-grade product brought in from the Philippines. No Lindsay Lohan, no Sarkozy. No
New York Times
travel spreads, no
Travel & Leisure
awards, no
Le Monde
, not even TripAdvisor.
Comprenez-moi?
Do you hear me?”

Steve’s face had gone boiled-lobster red. He resembled a balloon under pressure of bursting.

“I’ve been here over twenty-five years,” Loren said. “I’ll be here long after you’ve packed up your bags and gone back home. What I require is loyalty. And I repay it. Otherwise I cut you off. I’ll get you fired. It will be so bad, you’ll never want to see sand again the rest of your days.”

“I’m going to take a loss on everything I give you,” Steve squeaked out.

“I’m glad we have this understanding. If you ever get a lady friend, the stay’s on me. On your next pickup from the airport, I need you to give Cooked’s brother, Teina, a lift.”

“Where’s he been?”

“He just got out of prison in Papeete. Long story you would rather not know.”

“Wonderful. You want me to be your mule and run drugs, too?”

*   *   *

A beach ball rolled up and bounced against Loren’s ankle. He picked it up and tucked it under his arm while he finished talking with the manager, who appeared to be suffering sunstroke. The children in the pool waited in a hushed silence. Ann, too, held her breath, expecting … what? A deflating slash with a long knife? Before she could say anything to Richard, the teak face cracked wide again, flashing teeth, and Loren high-stepped like a comical bird straight into the water, holding the ball overhead. The children raced, joyfully screaming, to the other side as he lobbed it across and then proceeded to play catch.

Ann laughed.

“What’s funny?” Richard asked, deep into his study of the menu.

“Our host,” Ann said. “Get a lock for the bag.”

On their way through the lobby to the gift shop for the lock, there was a commotion at the front desk. A man was being carried out on a stretcher.

“What happened?” Richard asked.

Steve shrugged, restored from his run-in with Loren by a change of clothes and a stiff shot of whiskey. “Bends. He was an experienced diver, but he stayed down too long. Rushed the decompression.”

“That can happen?”

“They get carried away.”

“I had no idea.”

Steve gave his official smile. “We give a complimentary first diving lesson.”

“Not for this guy,” Richard said.

“Polynesia is all about what’s under the water. The land part is only a glimpse of her real beauty. If you’re careful, nothing will happen. This is the safest place in the world.”

Unless, Steve thought, you are unlucky enough to get tied up with grizzled old-timers like Loren. Steve liked this couple despite the fact that they came without luggage, which boded poorly for tips. They had not slipped him a hundred to get upgraded to the sunset side of the over-water bungalows. Besides that, he was being forced to comp their stay tonight and (if you factored in Loren’s discount) everything they ate and drank when they got to Loren’s
motu
.

“What do you think?” Richard asked Ann. “It is free.” It became suddenly imperative to squeeze every last dime of value out of this trip.

“Go,” she said, and to her surprise he did.

*   *   *

Ann escaped back to their air-conditioned bungalow and dropped on the bed shrouded in white mosquito netting. Alone. In the world’s honeymoon capital. Absurd that she was disappointed; they were as far from the circumstances of romance as could be imagined. It seemed impossible that their whipped-cream-seduction birthday dinner was less than a few days in the past. Why shouldn’t Richard be signing up for each and every thing that brought him a moment of escape? Still. In the old days, he would have eagerly followed her back.

On their first night together, Richard had inexplicably left the bedroom before they made love to go check that the doors were locked, the windows bolted, the gas on the stove turned off, and then he tested the smoke detectors. Odd, but Ann liked a guy who took care of things.

When she came out of his bathroom in his old T-shirt, he was lying on the bed, naked except for a towel neatly draped across his hips. She had giggled. Why the towel? Modesty? To protect her purity? Surely not. Nuzzling his ear, she decided it was more like those fancy restaurants where they bring your entrée under a silver
cloche
, set it down in front of you, and then fling the cover off before your eyes.
Voilà!
Even though you already knew perfectly well what you ordered.

She had never dated a man who fed her so well. Food was love, and Richard lavished it on her, brewing her espresso in the morning and making her freshly baked brioche. Sometimes Dutch pancakes, sometimes Mediterranean omelets. He packed her off with a lunch bag of Parisian-ham-and-arugula sandwiches with olive tapenade, pistachio
cantucci
.

Now, their life in tatters, he went off diving. Where had her protective, nurturing Richard gone? Amusing himself despite her torment. Ten years, every year since law school, lopped off. Ann worried because she knew from long professional experience that relationships only continued on some basis of parity, to be determined by the two parties. Where was that parity now?

The deep dark unspoken reason that she couldn’t entirely blame Richard was that she, Ann, ruthless lawyer to the stars, aspiring big fish, had not done due diligence on Javi as a business partner because he was Richard’s best friend, his best man at their wedding, the intended godfather of future children that they could probably no longer afford to have—and of course because of The Lapse, although she had banished it from being a factor in her thinking. Or had she? The 101 of law school: In business, you have no friends. She had known better, yet obviously she had not.