She Regrets Nothing

by Andrea Dunlop

  “There you are!” Simon said.

  “Good morning,” she said sheepishly. She found she didn’t want to go any nearer to Simon, that she might be sick if she was close enough to smell him.

  “Please sit down, miss,” one of the servers clearing plates said to her. “What would you like for breakfast?”

  Laila let him usher her into a chair next to Simon and looked at him helplessly.

  “Egg-white omelet?” he suggested. She nodded gratefully.

  Simon pulled his chair closer as the others drifted away from the table with what seemed likely to be their second or third mimosas held aloft.

  “Did you sleep well, darling? Thought I’d better leave you to it.”

  Laila smiled and nodded, gulping the mimosa that had been placed in front of her. By the time she’d had two, she began to feel better. She could almost forget the heavy thud of Simon’s body collapsing onto her own. Almost.

  That morning they buzzed around the island in their mules. All but Simon were on their first visit to Mustique, and he clearly relished being able to show the place off. The villas were like miniature kingdoms unto themselves, houses with thousands of square feet, containing commercial kitchens, numerous pools, and waterfalls, some with their own private golf courses. Even in her cousins’ rarefied world, Laila had never seen anything like it. The jungle that spread between the estates was lush, and along the pristine beaches were piled dozens of pink conch shells.

  Later, Laila went to Macaroni Beach with the two other women while the men left to play golf. The beach was like nothing Laila had ever seen: pure white sand, imposing green cliffs rising on either side, topaz waves crashing gently while the world’s most privileged children ran in and out of them. The women were relaxed and becoming a bit nicer, especially when Laila effusively complimented them on their bikini bodies and insisted on getting some snaps of all of them. By the midafternoon, she’d nearly forgotten the events of the previous evening. She took a video of herself walking along the beach, holding the camera at an expertly crafted angle. She needed something to document this, to make it look as though it had all been a beautiful walk on the beach.

  That night the group ate dinner at the massive table on the house’s outdoor patio. Simon’s pale skin was sunburned, and he’d had a bad round of golf that afternoon, which was making him surly. His attitude cast a shadow on the group, and from the way the other men appeared to be working overtime to cheer him up, Laila understood that she was not the only one whose way was being paid by the billionaire. Everyone seemed relieved by the time they piled in their mules to head down to Basil’s Bar.

  “So,” Simon began as he drove the mule too fast down the narrow road, “did you enjoy yourself today?”

  “I did,” Laila said, gripping her seat. It was the first time she’d been alone with Simon since the night before, and her heart was fluttering in her chest. She was not sure how she could spend the night with him again.

  “Bloody right,” he said, his posh facade slipping for a moment, a sliver of his East End origins coming through. “This is one of the most exclusive islands in the world. Do you know how few people get to come here?”

  “I do; I mean, yes. It’s really special. It was amazing of you to bring me here, I’m so grateful.” What could she say? She wanted to be here, of course, but with someone, anyone, else. She missed her cousins. She missed Tom. She fantasized about Cameron, who could easily afford to bring Liberty here.

  “Well, at least you appreciate it,” he grumbled. Laila wondered if somehow her fellow stowaways had failed to show sufficient gratitude by beating him at golf. “So goddamn tired of these people.” This he said to no one, to the night air.

  Basil’s looked like any other beachside tiki bar until you noticed the extraordinarily well-heeled clientele of minor European royalty, movie stars, and Manhattan socialites inside. The bar had a thatched roof and was open air; between the band’s songs, you could hear the waves crashing just outside.

  They filed into a booth and ordered champagne, which Simon drank glumly. The others seemed unable to resist the cheerful lure of the place.

  “Who is that?” Laila asked one of the other men in their group, Alex, who sat in the booth beside her. She pointed at an older man who seemed about eight feet tall and was dominating the dance floor. He looked like a cross between Morgan Freeman and Sidney Poitier, his graying hair a shock against his ebony skin. He wore a dashiki and the serious expression of someone who’s seen everything twice.

  “Don’t you know?” Alex said, teasing her. Everyone was at least a little drunk by that point. “That’s Basil, the king of Mustique. He owns this joint and half of the village. He’s the most famous person on the island,” he continued, clearly delighted to be in the know. “The legend goes that Colin Tennant found him by the side of the road in Saint Vincent after he was injured in a motorbike accident. Gave him a job as a bartender at Cotton House. The rest is history.” Colin Tennant was the eccentric British founder of the island, and Cotton House was one of only two tiny, exclusive hotels on the island. At that moment, Basil noticed the pair looking at him and walked over to their table.

  “Young lady,” he said, holding out his hand to escort her to the dance floor. He told her that the way she danced reminded him of Princess Margaret when she was young, that she’d been a close friend of his. Laila was suddenly on top of the world or rather, at the white-hot center of it. She handed her phone to Alex to get him to take some video of them dancing. She imagined telling her cousin, Nora, look, it was so amazing Nora, look. I belong.

  Once freed from her shackles at Simon’s side, Laila had no wish to return.

  She pulled up a seat at the bar where she could watch the reggae band playing on a small stage in the middle of the floor. There was a very drunk man harassing one of the steel-drum players, seemingly trying to convince him to let him join them onstage. He was middle-aged with a face that must have once been handsome and a chin-length mane of salt-and-pepper hair. He looked as though he might have been tumbling around in the ocean for a while before washing up onshore.

  “What is that guy doing?” Laila said to the woman sitting next to her at the bar.

  “Oh God,” she replied. “He’s been bothering everyone on the island. German media mogul, just lost his company, or at least that’s what I heard. He must be on some kind of bender. We saw him drinking an entire bottle of wine by himself this morning at breakfast.” The two women watched, enthralled, as he gave up on the drummer and began dancing awkwardly.

  Not five minutes later, the German had cornered Laila by the bar and introduced himself to her breasts. Laila saw a young, cool-looking girl standing by the bar alone, shining like a beacon. She excused herself from the German with a brief, “Sorry, I just see my friend over there.”

  “Don’t leave,” he ordered. “Where are you going?” If he’d been able to figure out how to take a step in her direction, he surely would have followed her.

  “Hi,” she said to the girl. “I’m Laila.”

  “Persephone.” She smiled serenely and offered her hand. She had on a filmy white dress that hung loosely off her sculpted shoulders, and her hair was done up in elaborate braids.

  “What a fantastic name.”

  “Thanks,” she said, “I was born in Eugene, Oregon. Hippie parents.”

  “Oregon? Wow, you’re a long way from home. Who are you here with?”

  “I live here,” she said, taking a sip of her caipirinha. “I’m a yoga instructor. I teach group classes at Macaroni Beach four mornings a week. I do privates as well; great way to see all the villas.”

  Laila was relieved to have someone to talk to, and found herself fascinated by Persephone; she’d traveled all over South America and Europe teaching yoga, sometimes living in hostels for months at a time. Laila’s eyes brightened as she talked about teaching on the Amalfi Coast two summers before, and she wondered how often anyone here asked about her life at all. Laila found herself po
uring out the whole story of how she’d come here and was now, it would seem, trapped under the thumb of the lecherous and grouchy Simon.

  A gorgeous young man with blue eyes and a deep tan emerged from the crowd and kissed Persephone’s cheeks.

  “All right, Perse?”

  “Hi, Chad,” she said. “This is my new friend, Laila. We have to save her from the awful Brit she came here with.”

  Chad leaned over and kissed her cheeks. He smelled like the ocean: salty and vast.

  “Bloody Brits on this island; that’ll teach you,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Good thing you’ve found us now.”

  He was Australian, and he taught surfing and kiteboarding to the bored-looking offspring of the wealthy island guests who would otherwise be left to wreak havoc. Laila had seen a boy who couldn’t have been more than twelve drinking a beer and driving his parents’ mule just that afternoon.

  Drinking, laughing, and dancing with Chad and Persephone, it occurred to Laila how much they had in common: they were the young and beautiful people rich people paid to keep around; rich men, mostly, for weren’t many of the wives on this island just like the three of them in that way? It was only the degrees of freedom that differed. Chad and Persephone were just doing jobs, which they clocked in and out of and from which they maintained their dignity, but still got to live in this miraculous place.

  Chad leaned down and whispered something in Laila’s ear, pulling her close.

  “I couldn’t hear you.” Laila leaned up to his ear, her lips almost grazing it.

  “You’re gorgeous,” he said again louder, nearly shouting it with a big, bright smile. Laila felt the jealousy of the wives radiating in her direction, and out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Simon glowering at her from the booth.

  “Can we get out of here?” Laila said to both now, suddenly desperate to be away from the place.

  “Let’s take her to our beach, Perse,” Chad said.

  As the three of them walked down the dirt road by the harbor, they came upon the fishing village, which looked as though it might have been hastily erected that afternoon or else had been there for a thousand years. The men sat around on the beach outside their huts drinking rum in the moonlight, which bounced off the calm seas for miles.

  “This might sound totally obtuse, but it’s strange to me that anyone lives on this island,” Laila said. “The whole place seems like a hotel.”

  “They were here first,” Chad said, gesturing to the rows of crooked shacks on the small beach.

  “Amazing,” Laila said, and just then she caught eyes with one of the fishermen who looked back at her impassively. She felt an unexpected flash of kinship. They’d been forced to the edges of what was rightfully theirs and were now dependent on the goodwill of those who had taken it. Just as she depended on her cousins.

  They took Chad’s mule careening through the foliage to a secluded beach. As they rode through the trees and spilled onto the moonlit sand, Laila felt the relief of putting distance between her and Simon; somewhere on the periphery of her thoughts, she knew she would pay for what she was doing now, but she pushed this from her mind.

  And who could think of anything negative as they drank rum punch in the moonlight and watched the glowing jellyfish phosphorescent beneath the waves? Chad and Persephone seemed so happy, so light in spirit—Laila wondered if she could just abandon the mess she’d made in New York and set herself free. She liked yoga; how much would it really take to be an instructor? Did she even want the life her cousins had?

  She pulled out her phone and took some video of them dancing in the waves. Persephone snapped a picture of Chad holding Laila in his arms as she pretended to swoon in the style of a romance novel cover.

  They settled onto some blankets to look at the stars.

  “Here,” Persephone said, passing her a bottle of rum punch.

  “I probably shouldn’t.” She knew she’d already drunk too much champagne at the bar.

  “Mandatory, love,” Chad said, leaning over to give her a lingering kiss on the mouth.

  She giggled and took the bottle from Persephone.

  “You guys seem really happy here.”

  “How could we not be?” Persephone asked. “Look at this place.”

  “I love New York, but sometimes I think that if I find my way in, I’ll never find my way out.” She knew she was barely making sense. She hadn’t told them about her family, only that she lived in New York and worked for a literary agency.

  “There’s always a way out,” Chad said, squeezing her hand.

  Laila woke up to the blazing sun on her face, sand sticking to her burning skin, her head throbbing like she’d been hit with a two-by-four. She propped herself up gingerly on her hands. Her ruined dress was splayed around her legs, and her gold sandals had been placed next to her. She was alone.

  She rummaged in her purse for her phone. What time was it? Where was she? Her phone was dead.

  She looked behind her, but there was no sign of anyone. All that remained were the tire tracks of the mule leading back into the forest.

  Was this a prank?

  “Persephone? Chad?” Her only answer was the sound of a large manicou scurrying through the woods.

  She got to her feet. Her head was throbbing and spinning. Her mouth was parched. Her heart pounded as her circumstances dawned on her. She was alone on a beach, though she had no idea which one. She remembered the mule making its way through the trees, off any number of paths. Was this a hidden beach? Why would they leave her here? What had she done to them? She dragged herself under the trees and pulled her knees up to her chest. She fought back tears; she couldn’t afford to dehydrate herself any further. She strained to remember what had happened the night before, but only shreds remained. She recalled kissing Chad, kissing Persephone, and then . . . had the two of them argued?

  She tried to steady her shaking body and tumbling mind. She reminded herself that this island had to be one of the safest places in the world to be lost. All she had to do was find someone, anyone, and she’d be fine. One option would be to follow the coastline, which would at least keep her from getting lost. But the terrain between beaches was rocky, and there might be parts she couldn’t get across. She’d also be completely exposed to the sun, and her fair skin would surely fry. The other option was to follow the mule tracks back through the forest and hope they led her to a road. The thought of becoming lost in the woods was terrifying, but it seemed like the better option given the certainty that she would end up with a blistering sunburn otherwise. She felt as if she were in a Grimms’ fairy tale. The thought was unexpectedly galvanizing: yes, she thought, a heroine facing peril.

  She put her useless gold sandals back on her feet and began following the tire tracks.

  The calm of the forest began to seem menacing, and she longed for any sign of another person. Surely Simon would send someone to look for her. Wouldn’t he? If not him, then others in the house. Wouldn’t they?

  She hit her exposed toe on a branch and it started bleeding. Her feet were soft from regular pedicures, not suited for trekking across terrain any more challenging than a dance floor. Why had her new friends abandoned her like that? Had she been drugged, or did she simply have too much rum? Perhaps their relationship with one another was more complicated than the easy friendship it had appeared to be. The last thing she remembered was lying on the beach with them feeling happy and adored.

  At last she came to a road. Between her hangover, the accompanying dehydration, and her walk in the woods, her head spun and her legs quivered beneath her. She sat at the side of the road and waited for someone to pass by.

  A couple staying at one of the nearby villas found her sometime later. She wept with relief at the sight of them. The woman fell upon her with concern.

  “Oh my goodness,” she said, “what happened to you? Should we go to the police?”

  “No, no,” Laila said, “just back to the villa where I’m staying. I’m sure
they’re worried.”

  The husband seemed more concerned about missing his tee time than about seeing Laila safely home. “The head of the bank is going to be there, Geneva.”

  “Mark,” the wife said, “this is more important; golf can wait.”

  Laila had the feeling this was the kind of fight that carried on in different iterations over decades; it had the cadence of a well-rehearsed bit. As absurd as it was, the thought made her feel lonely. She didn’t even have anyone to bicker with—she was ever the disposable member of the family.

  The couple left her at the foot of the walkway to the door of Alumbrera. She thanked them and hurried to the door. She knocked and was greeted by the butler, “Hello, Ms. Lawrence.”

  “Well, you’re in a state,” Simon said, thundering forth. “What on earth did you do?”

  “They left me,” she said stunned. Something caught her eye in the corner of the foyer: her bags, packed. Her sun hat sat gingerly atop her luggage.

  “Your boyfriend? Oh, what a shame.”

  Laila saw a smile flash across the lips of the butler as he handed her a glass of water with a thin slice of cucumber at the bottom. What betrayal! She saw in a sudden moment what she was to the staff: just another spoiled, hysterical white girl. On the way to the villa, she’d built up a considerable head of rage about being abandoned, and now she unleashed the torrent of it, insisting to Simon that they go to the police, or to whatever equivalent existed there, about Persephone and Chad.

  “Did they steal something from you?”

  “No, but they . . . I think they drugged me!”

  “With Sunset rum?”

  She screwed her eyes shut to hold back the tears of frustration.

  “It sounds to me like you got shite-faced and passed out on the beach. Hardly anyone’s fault but your own.”

  “That is not what happened. I don’t drink like that; not ever!”

  “I’m not going to get two poor kids fired because you decided to go get drunk on a beach. Your entitlement is appalling.”