Nestor goes back inside.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Baker says. “You’re going to apologize to Swan in an e-mail. You’re going to offer her her job back. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Dunk says. His eyes keep sweeping to the other side of the truck. He’s worried about his vape pen, Baker realizes. Baker is never going to let Floyd start vaping.
Baker lets Dunk go, and in a few quick strides, Duncan retrieves the pen and pods from the ground.
Baker leans back against the driver’s-side door. “One more thing,” Baker says. “There’s nothing I can do for Cash—all’s fair in love and war, and Tilda chose you, a decision I’m sure she’ll come to regret. It was dirty pool. I know it; you know it. I now work with Jacqui at the Westin time-share office, and what you might not know about Jacqui is that she is very well connected. We wouldn’t want her spreading any rumors about you. People on this island already think you’re sketchy—the sex app, the weed-edibles company, the jeans-and-Sambas thing, the fasting—but what if they hear that you’re an untrustworthy snake, a two-timer, a Me Too menace?”
“What do you want?” Dunk says.
“I’d like full use of your villa for one week this summer,” Baker says. “I donated a week at my father’s villa at an auction to benefit my son’s school, but now my father’s villa is gone so I’m left in a bit of a pickle. The high bidders paid fifty thousand dollars, so in addition to the villa, I’ll need at least one vehicle and staff, if you have any.”
“A housekeeper,” Dunk says. “And a landscaper. Any week in July works. I spend the month skiing in Tazzie.”
“Great, thank you,” Baker says. “I have your card. I’ll call you to confirm. Don’t forget the e-mail to Swan.”
“Granger will call her,” Dunk says. “He wanted to hire her back anyway.”
“You reach out to her,” Baker says. “With a sincere apology.” He moves toward Dunk and Dunk stutter-steps back.
“Okay, mate, I will.”
“You’d better,” Baker says. “Jacqui’s a talker…”
“I will,” Dunk says.
“Good,” Baker says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my ice cream is melting.”
Everyone knows that Huck tries to stay away from Jake’s at the Lumberyard because he had a brief fling with Teresa, the breakfast waitress, after LeeAnn died.
It’s therefore unfortunate that when Huck asks Irene what she wants to do to celebrate her fifty-eighth birthday, which is in the middle of July, she says, “I want the whole gang to go to breakfast at Jake’s.”
“Jake’s?” Huck says. He has to head this off at the pass. It’s not that things between him and Teresa ended badly, but they do their best to steer clear of each other. Huck doesn’t ever go up Margaret Hill Road, where she lives; he doesn’t drink at the Quiet Mon Pub, where she likes to hang out; and he no longer goes for breakfast at Jake’s, where she (famously) works seven mornings a week. “Why don’t you pick another place? How about a nice dinner for everyone at Morgan’s Mango? Or the Terrace?”
“I don’t want anything fancy or over the top,” Irene says. She gives him a stern look and he recalls that her husband hired an airplane to pull a banner on her fiftieth birthday. “And I want the kids to come. What I’d like is a long, leisurely breakfast with mimosas and Bloody Marys at Jake’s.”
“Or,” Huck says, “we could all go to the Concordia in Coral Bay. They do a terrific breakfast and it overlooks Ram Head.”
“Listen to me, Huck,” Irene says. “The morning after my first night at your house, Maia offered me a piece of toast slathered with papaya jam from Jake’s. It was the first thing on my new mental Pinterest board.”
“Your new mental what?” Huck says.
Irene shakes her head. “I want to celebrate my birthday at Jake’s. Besides, it’s an island institution and I’ve never been.”
“It’s always crowded,” Huck says. “And it gets hot up there.”
“It’s open-air,” Irene says. “And we’ll have nine people.”
“Nine?”
“I want Ayers to come, obviously,” Irene says. “And her parents, Phil and Sunny. Let’s make it ten people—I’ll see if Cash wants to bring a friend.” She puts her hands on the sides of Huck’s face and brings him in for a kiss. “They take reservations for parties over six. Do I have to call to arrange my own birthday party, or will you do it?”
“I’ll do it,” Huck says.
The day of Irene’s birthday, July 21, is hot but not beastly hot—a stroke of luck—and the sky is a deep blue. The members of the Steele party (Huck made the reservation under Irene’s name) climb the stairs to the legendary open-air breakfast-and-lunch spot, Jake’s, which is decorated with fun tropical kitsch. The faux vintage sign that greets them says DRINK COFFEE: DO STUPID THINGS FASTER, WITH MORE ENERGY! The place is packed, as Huck predicted. Brian and Michelle Zehring, who own the sleek new Midnight Express charter boat New Moon, are there with their daughters. Candi from Candi’s Delights is there with her husband, who some of us jokingly call Mr. Candi. Bridgett and Jimmy from Palm Tree Charters are having cocktails with their favorite clients, DeeDee and Michael Napp. A trio of National Park rangers are drinking coffee at the bar; James, the captain of Treasure Island, is having pancakes with his wife and daughter; Slim Man, who owns the parking lot in town, is there with his new bride. Skip, the bartender from La Tapa, is sitting next to Jacqui from the Westin time-share office at the bar counter in the front of the restaurant, which has magnificent views over Cruz Bay. (Skip and Jacqui were seated next to each other randomly, and Jacqui is worried people are going to think this is a morning-after date.)
Off to the left side is a table set for ten (though Cash did not end up bringing a friend). The Steele party has so much crossover with people already in the restaurant that when they walk in, the decibel level rises considerably. Cash and Ayers talk to James; Maia talks to Candi and Mr. Candi; Baker talks to Jacqui; and Phil and Sunny talk to Skip. Huck stops to talk to the Napps, who own a racetrack in New Jersey. As he’s hearing about life in the fast lane, he scans the restaurant for Teresa but sees only Diane, the other waitress. Is it possible that Huck has hit the jackpot and Teresa isn’t working today? Did she maybe take a summer vacation to visit her sons in…Idaho?
Eventually the members of the Steele party settle; Irene sits between Huck and Floyd.
Huck feels a hand land on his shoulder, a subtle squeeze.
“How are we all doing?” Teresa says. “I hear we have a birthday!”
Mimosas: Irene and Sunny.
Bloody Marys: Phil, Baker, Cash.
Fresh pineapple juice: Ayers and Maia.
Fresh OJ: Floyd.
Coffee and a Bloody Mary and a michelada while you’re at it: Huck.
“Looks like someone’s celebrating.” Another hand lands on Huck’s shoulder. It’s Rupert.
Rupert? In Cruz Bay? What’s happening here? Well, it turns out that Josephine is providing the live entertainment at Jake’s this morning. Rupert takes the tenth seat at their table, and when the drinks arrive, they all raise their glasses and toast Irene.
“To Mom,” Cash says. “May this year be better than last year.”
“I’ll second that,” Baker says.
“To Irene,” Sunny says. “My sister-grandmother.”
“To Grammy,” Floyd says, holding up his juice glass. “My…grammy.”
“To the Angler Cupcake,” Huck begins. He waits a beat; he has to swallow the lump in his throat. “The most remarkable woman I know. Happy, happy birthday.”
Josephine sings “Ain’t No Sunshine.” Cash checks his phone and answers a text under the table. Teresa asks Diane to help her run the food—biscuits and gravy, south-of-the-border omelets, a breakfast burrito with extra home fries, banana-walnut pancakes, sweet bread French toast, a “regular” (eggs, bacon, home fries, toast) with a side of chocolate pancakes (this is for Ayers, who is eating for two), and…an ord
er of gingerbread pancakes with a side of sausage for the birthday girl, with two jars of papaya jam to go. Teresa sticks a candle in the pancakes. She cues Josephine and the whole restaurant sings “Happy Birthday.”
More mimosas. More Bloody Marys. Coffee for Baker, who is falling asleep at the table. Ayers elbows him in the ribs. “You think you’re tired now, wait until the baby comes.”
Josephine sings Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” which has long been one of Teresa’s favorite songs. It’s a hymn, an anthem, and it only adds to the cinematic quality of the scene, the restaurant perched high above the streets of Cruz Bay on a summer Sunday morning.
I’ve heard there was a secret chord…
Churches across the island will be letting out about now, so the restaurant will get a little busier, but not much. Teresa always jokes that, for Jake’s clientele, pancakes are their religion. (As is strong coffee. And vodka.)
Teresa takes a minute to gaze out at the water—the ferry coming in from Red Hook, the Singing Dog heading out for a sail, maybe with a stop at Carval Rock for a snorkel. When Teresa gets in the weeds at the restaurant, she always imagines herself afloat, her mask submerged in the clear turquoise water, taking in the teeming life of the coral reef. Other people like the fish, the rays, the turtles, but Teresa is fascinated by the coral itself: the intricacies of the brain coral, the grooves of which look like a maze; the staghorn; the boulder star; the elkhorn (Teresa’s favorite); the layers of lettuce coral; the ivory bush; the clubbed finger. It’s a city down there, a world, a universe that manages to be productive but very, very quiet.
That David played, and it pleased the Lord.
Teresa doesn’t remember every detail of the night she first hooked up with Captain Huck Powers, but certain things stand out. She’d met her coworker Diane at High Tide, then they’d cruised down to the Beach Bar with a stop at Joe’s Rum Hut. There was a band at the Beach Bar, and Teresa danced with a charter captain named Pat; he was a full head shorter than Teresa and a little handsy. She escaped to the bar, and that’s where she found Huck.
“Why the long face?” Teresa asked. As soon as the words were out, she realized her mistake. She had heard that LeeAnn Powers, Huck’s wife, had died a couple of months earlier. She didn’t know Huck well, though he would, on occasion, come into Jake’s for a cup of coffee and the breakfast sandwich to go, or he’d bring his granddaughter in for the chocolate pancakes. (That was back when the girl was small, five or six years old; Teresa can’t believe how grown-up she looks now, and how much like her mother.)
To cheer Huck up, Teresa asked Mick to hand over the dice to roll, but the dice did nothing but take Teresa’s fiver, so then she asked for the Connect Four. It was a kids’ game but everyone at the Beach Bar was so far gone that it was just about all they could handle.
Huck and Teresa split the first two games and then Huck won the third, which cheered him a bit. They headed over to Drink for a shot—a prairie fire, which was whiskey with tabasco—and then, feeling no pain, they went to 420 to Center. Pat was there. He bummed a cigarette off Teresa and tried to engage her in conversation, and Huck took over then, wheeling Teresa out of the bar, saying, “Let’s get you home.”
He spent that night with her and was up and out at five thirty, which was when she left for work. He didn’t ask for her number and she didn’t offer it—but the next week, she was drinking up at the Quiet Mon and Huck took the stool next to hers. That was how he found her the third time as well, only the third time he suggested stopping by the side door at Castaways to get a couple of orders of the blackened mahi tacos and, why not, the disco fries. They ate on Teresa’s tiny deck and they talked. Teresa told him about her kids, Jasper and Graeden, both working as bartenders in Sun Valley, Idaho, and their dad, Teresa’s ex, a former member of the U.S. ski team who’d become a sales rep for Salomon and who lived it up, bouncing from one ski resort to the next, good for him. Huck didn’t talk about LeeAnn but he did talk about Rosie and Maia and how he knew Rosie probably wanted to move out and get her own place now that her mother was gone but that he hoped to God she didn’t.
Although I’d like her to meet someone, he said. A good man.
After that third time, Teresa thought maybe their relationship would continue; maybe she would be a rebound for a while or maybe it would become something more. She wanted that, naturally, because Captain Huck Powers was—excuse the pun—a catch in anyone’s book.
But Huck must have gotten scared about sharing as much as he had, by their talking and breaking bread (stuffing cheese-and-bacon fries into their mouths) in addition to sleeping together. Teresa never heard from him again. There were a couple of times she felt someone take the seat next to her at the Quiet Mon and thought it was him, but it was just Pat—at which point, she got up and made the lonely walk home.
She didn’t think much about Huck after that—not until Rosie was killed on New Year’s Day. Teresa was serving up breakfast to a very hungover clientele when Clover, the hostess at La Tapa, came in with the news, and even though it was eighty degrees, a polar-cap wind blew through Jake’s. Teresa remembered what Huck had said about wanting Rosie to find a good man, and she damn near cried.
How does it feel for Teresa to see Huck with his granddaughter and Ayers and the Invisible Man’s widow and two sons? (Because we all know who they are by now; they aren’t quite locals—that will take years—but neither are they strictly tourists.) Well, Teresa isn’t hurt or jealous. What passed between Huck and Teresa was half a dozen years ago. If Teresa had to pick a word, she would say that she’s surprised—not just by Huck and Irene cozied up together but by the whole situation. The people at the table are talking and laughing and singing along to Josephine and sucking down drinks and debating whether or not to start ordering food from the lunch menu now that they’ve finished breakfast.
They look happy, Teresa thinks. They look like a real live happy family.
Ellen
Has anyone out there tried to plan a weeklong vacation for four women who are all single mothers of young children? That’s what Ellen, the ringleader of Baker’s Houston school wives, is trying to do. Simply finding a mutually agreeable week requires both a flowchart and a deep reserve of patience. Becky has full custody of her girls all summer while her ex-husband fishes for salmon in Alaska. She calls on her mother to stay with the girls, but her mother decides she wants to go to Branson during the week they’ve tentatively picked. Three of Debbie’s four kids are with her ex all summer, but her son Teddy is with her because he has sports camps in Houston, though he can maybe stay with his buddy Campbell for the week. (Ellen knows Campbell’s mother, Tish—stick up her ass. Poor Teddy.) Wendy’s ex-husband, Ian, will take the kids “as a favor” (can parenting your own children ever be called a “favor”?), but he has to work such long hours and travel so often that she has to find a sitter anyway. Ellen has recently hired a full-time au pair from Thailand named Za; she is still learning English and still learning to drive, so this week will give new meaning to the phrase trial by fire. But Ellen’s bar is low—“Just keep him alive” is her parenting motto. She promised herself when she became a single mother by choice at the age of forty that she would not act like a typical older parent. She would neither coddle Walter nor shield him, and she wouldn’t insist on organic milk and produce. Ellen grew up on frozen waffles, Cheetos, and ice cream sandwiches—Walter can too.
Ellen has known her school-mom friends for over five years, ever since she had Walter, but in planning the trip, she discovers new things about them. Becky prefers to roll without a set plan while she’s on vacation because her usual life is so regimented. (Ellen gets this, in principle, but she must have a plan at all times. If she went on vacation without a plan, she might miss something!) Debbie is a tough negotiator and enjoys herself more when she thinks she’s getting a bargain. (Ellen just pays the asking price for things, like an idiot.) Wendy is very concerned about exercise. (Ellen is concerned with breakfast, lunch, happy hour�
��preferably with snacks—and dinner.)
Ellen learns something new about herself as well: she loves to take credit for everything.
They end up picking August 29 to September 5, Thursday to Thursday, because the one thing they all agree on is that there’s no experience more soul-destroying than traveling on the weekend.
They fly United. Ellen would like to upgrade to first class but Debbie feels the best value is in premium economy. Then Wendy announces that her ex, Ian, has donated his miles so they can all fly first class. They immediately forgive Ian for his “as a favor” comment.
Ellen has booked two beachfront suites at Caneel Bay—one room for herself and Debbie, one for Becky and Wendy. She rents a four-door Jeep Wrangler hardtop, though Baker has warned her against ever taking the top off. It rains every day for fifteen minutes in the summer.
Baker! They will finally be reunited with their school husband, Baker. They will get to experience St. John, the island he now calls home.
“More important,” Debbie says, “we’ll get to meet the girl.”
“She has no idea what she’s in for with us,” Becky says.
“We have to be nice,” Wendy says. “She’s pregnant.”
Ellen obviously wants to meet the mysterious Ayers Wilson but she also wants them to have at least one night with Baker alone so they can find out what’s really going on.
Not to toot her own horn, but Ellen’s planning pays off. The trip down is smooth, their luggage is the first off the carousel, they get into a shared taxi that delivers them to Red Hook with just enough time for one rum punch before the ferry. When they disembark in Cruz Bay, they can’t stop talking about the color of the water. It’s pure Crayola turquoise, clear to the white sandy bottom. It’s the most beautiful water any of them have ever seen. (They’re used to the chocolate-milk-hued water of Galveston, and Debbie, the only East Coast transplant, grew up going to the Jersey Shore, which looked nothing like this.)
Troubles in Paradise Page 26
