What Happens in Paradise

by Elin Hilderbrand

  “That pool,” Cash whispers. He’s carrying Max like a bride over the threshold. She’s snoring.

  “The pool is for Granger, my dad,” Tilda says. “He’s very intense about his swimming. About everything, actually.” Tilda sighs. “The only person who makes him seem relaxed is my mom. Now, she’s a maniac.”

  Cash wants to hear more but Max is getting heavy. “Which way?”

  They head out a side door and down one of the covered walkways into the guest wing. It’s two stories, complete with its own garden and plunge pool. They are so high up that Cash can see all of Jost Van Dyke and Tortola.

  The bedroom is on the first floor. Tilda throws Max’s bag down and hurries to sweep back the white sheers from the side of the mahogany four-poster bed so Cash can set Max on it. It’s like they’re in some kind of weird fairy tale.

  Max rolls onto her side and continues to snore.

  “She needs to sleep it off,” Tilda says. “Wanna go get a drink?”

  “Yes,” Cash says. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  They go back to town and Tilda picks a place called the Lime Inn, where they sit at the open-air horseshoe-shaped bar. Tilda orders them each a cocktail called the Danger, which is probably the exact opposite of what Cash needs right now, but he rolls with it.

  “So your parents…”

  “Run an international headhunting firm,” Tilda says. “Specializing in IT. My mother is the owner and CEO and my father is the CFO. I’m proud of them. When I was young, my mother worked in HR at a software company in Peoria and my father was a financial adviser for a lot of the top execs at Caterpillar. Then, when I was eight, my mother had an idea for this business. We moved to Chicago right before I started high school and by the time I was a freshman at Lake Forest, their company was everywhere—India, Australia, Eastern Europe, South Africa.”

  It’s not so different from Cash’s own story. Russ took the job with Ascension when Cash was sixteen and life changed—for the better, he’d thought at the time.

  “My parents want to invest in a business for me,” Tilda says. “But I’m not sure what I want to do yet. So I’m living down here, waiting tables at La Tapa, and I volunteer at the animal shelter.”

  “You do?” Cash says.

  “I love dogs,” Tilda says. “But I can’t have one because…a white house.”

  “I have a golden retriever named Winnie,” Cash says. “She’s my world.”

  “I’d love to meet your world sometime,” Tilda says. “Should we have one more Danger or do you have to go?”

  Cash thinks about it for a second. “Let’s have one more,” he says.

  Tilda is cool. And she’s really smart. She has a degree in economics from Lake Forest. She gave business school some thought, but she’s grown attached to St. John.

  “I’m thinking about starting an eco-tour company here,” she says. “Hiking, kayaking, snorkeling. But I’d want to provide lodging too, I think, so I’ve been checking out real estate. I’m not going to jump into anything.”

  “I wish I’d been as savvy as you,” Cash says. He taps his fingers alongside his glass, wondering how in depth he wants to get with Tilda. “You know that my father was killed in the helicopter crash with Rosie?”

  “You told me,” Tilda says. “A few weeks ago, when you were hitchhiking and I picked you up. You remember that night, right?”

  “Kind of,” he says. He remembers Tilda picking him up; he hadn’t recognized her as working at La Tapa until she reminded him. That was the night he’d gotten drunk at High Tide after his fight with Baker. He can’t recall a thing that he and Tilda talked about. At that point, Tilda had been a minor character, someone in the background. But now that Cash is getting to know her, he’s intrigued. It’s enough of a plot twist that she’s a child of enormous wealth, but it’s an even greater twist that, despite this, she works her ass off and volunteers and is researching business ventures. “So what did I tell you about my dad?”

  “That he had been killed in the copter crash, that he was Rosie’s lover, and that he’d bought you two outdoor-supply stores in Denver that went under.”

  “I told you that? Ouch. I can’t believe you’re still sitting here with me.”

  “You invited me to Breckenridge to ski!” Tilda says. “You made me promise I would come.”

  Cash laughs. “Did I?”

  “And…” Tilda fiddles with the straw in her drink. “You told me that both you and your brother were in love with Ayers.”

  Cash drops his head into his hands. “Idiot,” he says. “I’m an idiot.”

  They decide to stay at the Lime Inn for dinner. Tilda gets the grilled lobster, which she says is the best on the island, and Cash gets the guava pork ribs, and when their food comes, they push their plates together and share.

  “Eco-tourism, huh?” Cash says. “Do you like to hike?”

  “Obsessed,” Tilda says. “I’m trying to do every hike on the island this year.”

  “I told Maia I’d do the Esperance Trail with her,” Cash says.

  “To see the baobab tree?” Tilda says. “I haven’t done that one yet!”

  “Well, let’s plan a time and you can come with us,” Cash says.

  “Are you asking me on a date?” Tilda says. She leans into him, much like Max did at lunch, but instead of being irritating, it feels nice. Tilda smells good. She’s tomboyish, which he finds sexy. Her short hair draws attention to her light brown eyes.

  “A date?” Cash says. “Aren’t we on a date now?”

  “Are we?” Tilda says.

  “I don’t know, aren’t we?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t examine it too closely,” Tilda says.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Cash says. “The hike would be with Maia. So I don’t know how romantic it would be.”

  “No kissing under the baobab tree?” Tilda says.

  Cash puts his hand over Tilda’s. “I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  Tilda turns her hand so that it’s clasping his. Cash feels a rush. Does he like Tilda?

  “Just do me one favor,” Tilda says.

  “Okay?” Cash says.

  “Don’t use me as a substitute for Ayers.”

  “What?” Cash says. “I know what I supposedly told you in the car, but I was very drunk. Ayers and I are just friends.”

  “I’m not stupid, Cash,” Tilda says. “And I don’t blame you. I get it. Ayers is a queen. She’s the complete package. I know you and your brother both have a thing for her—”

  “Baker might,” Cash says. “But I—”

  “You do too,” Tilda says. “Trust me, I get it. If I were still in my lesbian phase, I’d go after Ayers.”

  Cash takes a deep breath. This has been a very long, very strange day. “Lesbian phase?”

  “High school,” Tilda says.

  “Max?” Cash asks.

  Tilda swats him. “Come on, let’s get a nightcap.”

  They walk hand in hand over to La Tapa.

  “It’s kind of a thing we do,” Tilda says. “Whenever we’re out on our nights off, we stop in for a drink.”

  “I would think it’d be the last place you’d want to go,” Cash says.

  “Except we all love it,” Tilda says. “It’s so gratifying to watch everyone else work.”

  “Ohhhhkay,” Cash says. He wonders if Ayers will be there and, if she is, what she’ll think when she sees him with Tilda. Will she be jealous? She had been jealous of Cash’s attention to Max, that’s for damn sure.

  Cash worries that he is using Tilda. But he likes Tilda and he doesn’t want to stop holding her hand.

  Maybe he shouldn’t examine it too closely.

  By the time they reach La Tapa, service has ended. Ayers is nowhere to be seen, though there are still a few people sitting at the bar. Cash and Tilda take seats on the corner and Skip, the bartender, looks between the two of them and glowers.

  “Hey, Skip,” Cash says.

  “So, what, are you two toget
her now?” he asks. He glares at Tilda.

  “I’ll have a glass of the Schramsberg, please,” Tilda says.

  “Beer for me,” Cash says. “Island Hoppin’. Please.”

  “I’m helping these people right now,” Skip says. He holds up a bottle of wine for the couple sitting next to Cash to inspect. “This is the Penfolds Bin Eight Cab. It has notes of imitation crabmeat, hot asphalt, and a one-night stand.”

  Nervously, the couple laughs.

  Tilda says, “Don’t do this, Skip.”

  Skip opens the bottle with a flourish and pours some in the woman’s glass. She brings it to her lips. “I can definitely taste the one-night stand,” she says. “The asphalt is harder to detect.”

  “He’s a maniac,” Tilda whispers.

  “What’s going on with you two?” Cash asks.

  “Nothing,” Tilda says. “And I do mean nothing.”

  “But something did happen, right?” Cash says. “Let me guess. You had a thing, then you broke it off and he’s pissed. That’s the vibe I’m getting.”

  “A very short thing,” Tilda says. “A very insignificant thing.”

  Cash puts his hand on the slender stalk of Tilda’s neck and pulls her in close. “Tell you what,” he says. “I promise not to use you as a substitute for Ayers if you promise not to use me as revenge for old Skippy here. Deal?”

  Tilda pantomimes picking up a glass—her champagne has not yet, and may never, arrive—and raises it to Cash. “Deal,” she says.

  Huck

  At the end of his first week of fishing with Irene, he writes down the following in his ledger:

  Monday: 3 adults, 1 child; last name Ford; Calabasas, CA. 2 hardnose, 1 blue runner, 2 blackfin (1 keeper)

  Tuesday: 2 adults; last name Poleman; Winchester, MA; 2 mahi (2 keepers)

  Wednesday: 2 adults, 3 children; last name Toney; Excelsior, MN; 2 barracuda, 3 wahoo (3 keepers)

  Thursday: 2 adults, 4 children; last name Petrushki; Chapel Hill, NC; 4 wahoo (4 keepers), 2 barracuda; 1 mahi (keeper)

  Friday: 4 adults; last name Chang; Whitefish Bay, WI; 3 barracuda, 3 mahi (3 keepers), 1 wahoo (keeper)

  These are the usual details that Huck records, along with the credit card numbers or a notation that the client paid with cash. He used to include where the clients were staying on the island and how they’d heard about his charter, but then he decided it didn’t make any difference. Nearly everyone finds him one of two ways: word of mouth or the GD internet. Huck pays a computer whiz named Destiny over in St. Thomas to make sure that when someone types in deep-sea fishing and St. John USVI, the Mississippi is the first link to pop up. Destiny also runs the cards and sends Huck a brief text the night before a charter so he knows what he’ll be dealing with the following day.

  What Huck doesn’t write down is the way that having Irene on the boat has changed the experience of going to work. Adam was good. Adam was great. He was technically sound with the rods and the gaff, he was excellent when driving the boat, and he was usually pretty friendly with the clients—some more than others, of course, but that’s true of Huck as well. Huck doesn’t need to be friendly; he’s the captain. His only responsibilities are keeping everyone safe and putting people on fish.

  If Huck had any reservations about hiring Irene—and yeah, there had been a couple moments when he’d wondered if he was making a giant mistake—they were erased on the very first day. Irene showed up at the boat even before he did, bringing two cups of good, strong, black coffee and two sausage biscuits from Provisions. She was wearing shorts with pockets and a long-sleeved fishing shirt and a visor and sunglasses; her hair was in that fat braid of hers and she looked every inch like the fisherwoman of Huck’s dreams. He had forwarded Destiny’s text to Irene so she knew they were expecting three adults and one child from Calabasas, wherever that was, someplace in California.

  “Los Angeles suburb,” Irene said. “The Kardashians live there.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” Huck said gruffly, though he did, sort of, because he lived with a twelve-year-old girl.

  The three adults turned out to be a gay couple, Brian and Rafael, and a drop-dead gorgeous Swedish au pair who wore only a bikini and a sarong. They wandered down the dock with an eight-year-old boy who was crying.

  Irene looked at Huck and said, “We’ll stay inshore?”

  I love you, Huck thought. “You bet,” he said.

  The charter—one Huck and Adam might have written off as a bad blind date due to the crying child and uninterested nanny—had been a big success. Brian was an interior designer to the stars who had zero interest in fishing. Rafael was Brazilian and had grown up fishing in Recife, so he was enthusiastic. The au pair lay across the bench seating in the sun and Irene—somehow—worked magic with the kid, whose name was Bennie. She not only got him casting but helped him when he got a bite. Together, Irene and Bennie reeled in a blue runner; it wasn’t a keeper but it was a good-looking fish in pictures. Rafael caught two hardnoses and a blackfin that was too small to keep, but all that action made him happy. While checking everyone’s lines, Irene chatted with Brian about restoration glass (whatever that was) and epoxy floors (whatever those were). The coup de grâce, however, came near the end of the trip when Irene encouraged the au pair, Mathilde, to cast a line and she caught a nice-size blackfin that they could take home. It was big enough for a sushi appetizer.

  “That’s the first useful thing she’s done all week,” Brian whispered. Huck watched him slip Irene a hundred-dollar bill.

  Huck figured that was beginner’s luck. However, the entire week had gone smoothly. No matter who walked down the dock, Irene was ready, friendly but not too familiar (Adam would have fallen all over himself with the Swedish au pair). After the first day with Bennie, Irene made a habit of bringing snacks—boxes of cheese crackers, bags of hard pretzels. On Friday, Irene showed up with two dozen lemongrass sugar cookies and after Huck tasted one, he took the whole bag from her and said, “These are too good to share.”

  Irene laughed and tried to take the bag back and soon they were in a tug-of-war and Irene shrieked, “Huck, you’re going to turn them to crumbs!” Her tone was playful and the delight on her face made her look even younger and more beautiful than the Swedish au pair and Huck had relented because at that moment, all he wanted to do was kiss her.

  He didn’t, of course. He couldn’t—not on the boat, not while she was working for him.

  That wasn’t the first time he realized he might be falling in love with Irene. The first time it hit him was Thursday, when they had the family from Chapel Hill on board. The Petrushkis were a mixed-race couple—husband a big white dude, wife a dark-skinned lady—and they had four children: twin fourteen-year-old girls, Emma and Jane, a ten-year-old son, Woody, and a four-year-old son named Elton. Huck had no opinion, really, when it came to children; all he wanted to know was whether they were interested in fishing and, if not, whether they were able to sit on a boat for six or eight hours without causing trouble. If a child was “cute” or not didn’t enter his brain. All children were cute, except for Maia, who was exquisite. But even Huck would have had a hard time saying that Elton Petrushki wasn’t the cutest child he’d ever seen. He had café-au-lait skin, like Maia, big brown eyes, and chubby cheeks, and as soon as he climbed aboard the boat, he attached himself to Irene and started asking, “We gon’ fish? We gon’ fish?”

  Irene said, “Yes, yes, Elton, we gon’ fish.”

  “We gon’ fish!” Elton announced to Huck.

  Elton sat with his mother for the trip offshore. Huck was always worried about taking children offshore but Mr. Petrushki assured him that the kids had grown up on the water. The Petrushkis owned a vacation home on Wrightsville Beach on the North Carolina coast and they boated around Cape Fear.

  When they slowed down to troll out at Tambo, the fertile spot where Huck and Irene had had such phenomenal luck just after the new year, Huck ran through the drill with Mr. Petrushki and the older kid
s. He was extra-kind and solicitous—maybe he was trying to show off for Irene—while she dealt with little Elton, who was dead set on catching a fish of his own.

  “He gets a fish on, you hold his rod,” Huck said. “Wahoo gets a hold of that line, kid’s going in. Shark bait.”

  “Understood, Captain,” Irene said. “Nothing is going to happen to this child in my care.”

  The Petrushki family had, in fact, enjoyed a banner day. Mr. Petrushki got a fish on first—Huck was secretly relieved because plenty of time, he had seen grown men bitter about being shown up by their own children—then Huck tossed chum into the water and they got more hits. Mister brought in a wahoo, then one of the twins brought in a smaller wahoo, then a few minutes later, the other twin brought in a wahoo exactly the same size. It was almost eerie. With the appearance of each fish, Elton Petrushki would jump up and down and yell, “Got fish! Got fish!” He stood over the hold staring down with wide eyes as Huck tossed the fish in.

  There was a little bit of a lull at one point but Huck saw birds diving and directed the boat over. Sure enough, the ten-year-old Woody caught a barracuda, and then Mr. Petrushki caught a barracuda.

  Mrs. Petrushki was reading a book bigger than the Bible, the Collected Works of Jane Austen.

  “I love Jane Austen,” Irene said.

  “So do I!” Mrs. Petrushki said. “I’m a professor at UNC. I teach the Austen survey course.”

  “Oh, I get it now,” Irene said. “The children’s names! Emma, Jane, Wood for Woodhouse, and Elton.”

  “Yes, I did my thesis on Emma,” Mrs. Petrushki said. “I’m a bit obsessed, as my girls like to say.”

  Huck was in awe at the same time that he felt like an illiterate dummy.

  Mrs. Petrushki closed her book and beamed. “Looks like wahoo for dinner.”

  Elton gazed up at Irene. “We gon’ fish?”