What Happens in Paradise

by Elin Hilderbrand

  “She’s grounded for a week,” Huck says. “But I’m sure she’ll be bugging you as soon as she’s a free woman.”

  “I hope so,” Cash says. He offers Huck his hand. “Thanks for coming all the way up here to apologize, that was above and beyond. But I have an early morning tomorrow…”

  “Right,” Huck says. He turns toward the door, then stops. “Is your mom still awake, do you think?”

  “Probably,” Cash says. “She just headed upstairs a minute ago. Do you want me to check?”

  Huck hesitates. He could just wait and talk to Irene on the boat tomorrow.

  “I’ll get her,” Cash says. “I’m sure she wants to know about Maia.”

  Cash disappears up the stairs, and a moment later, Irene comes down. Her hair is out of its braid, wavy over her shoulders. She’s wearing gym shorts and a gray Iowa Hawkeyes T-shirt. Huck feels himself trembling.

  “I owe you an apology, AC,” he says.

  Irene points at the door. “Let’s go outside.”

  This is a good sign, he thinks. He holds the door open for her and she heads out to the railing at the edge of the deck, where they can look out over the water. The pool is gurgling to their right and glowing an ethereal blue.

  “Maia is okay?” she asks.

  “She was at the beach with her friends,” Huck says. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

  “It was understandable,” Irene says. “She’s your girl.”

  “That she is,” Huck says. “I vowed she would be my first and only priority. I can’t let anything happen to her.”

  “She’s lucky to have you,” Irene says.

  Huck throws caution to the wind and gathers Irene up in his arms. She allows this, but he can feel tension in her body.

  “What’s wrong?” he says.

  “The other night was magical…” Irene says.

  Huck loosens his hold on her. “But?”

  “Meeting you, becoming friends with you, has been nothing short of miraculous. That first day of fishing…it saved me.”

  And me, he thinks.

  “I love working on the boat. Not just because I like the work but because I enjoy your company—”

  “Did I mess things up by kissing you?” he asks. Meeting him was miraculous, he saved her, she enjoys his company…but that doesn’t mean she feels romantic about him.

  “Yes and no,” Irene says. Without warning, tears pool in her eyes. “When we kissed…I never thought I’d feel that way again.” She sniffs. “There’s a way in which I’ve never felt that way before, ever.”

  “That’s good, right?” Huck says.

  “It’s too soon, Huck,” she says. “This whole situation is still so fresh. I know you don’t think we need to worry about the authorities hauling us off to jail like they did the Vickerses, but I do anyway.”

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Huck says. “I care for you.”

  Irene reaches up to touch his face. “And I care for you. But I need more time. I just…I need time.” She rests her hand on the side of his neck. “I want you to promise you won’t give up on me.”

  Huck isn’t sure he can speak. He’s disappointed. Crushed. Can she not feel the chemistry here? The love? He’s not sure how he’ll be able to hold himself in check. And yet he’s also relieved. Irene is nothing if not a woman of her word. She does have feelings for him. She’s not ready. Is Huck going to give up on her? Hell no.

  “You have my word, AC,” he says.

  She pulls him close and rests her head on his chest for a moment. “We have an early day tomorrow,” she says.

  “You’re right,” he says. “I should go.” It’s difficult, but he releases her. “See you tomorrow, AC.” He strides across the deck without looking back, but he hopes it’s like the movies and Irene is staring after him with longing, telling herself she’s made a mistake, that she is in love with Huck and should chase after him and let him know.

  Huck is halfway down the stairs when he sees a pair of headlights winding up the hill toward the villa. Then he sees another pair, and another and another. Four vehicles are winding their way up Lovers Lane.

  Baker

  On Tuesday, he calls an emergency breakfast meeting at Snooze. Once his friends are assembled and they all have coffee—he can’t expect them to provide any kind of decent advice without coffee—Baker passes around his phone.

  On the screen is a picture of Mick on one knee, proposing to Ayers, with Cash’s text: She said yes, dude. Sorry.

  Debbie says, “Wow, she’s hot. I know you said she was hot, but…wow.”

  “Wow,” Wendy echoes when she gets the phone. “Debbie’s right.”

  “That’s not helpful,” Baker says morosely.

  “Can we talk about the manipulative nature of public proposals in general?” Ellen says. “Why do people do it?”

  “Insecurity?” Becky says. “Fear? Or is it the opposite—hubris.”

  “I think it’s romantic,” Wendy says. “And fearless. Don’t you think it takes courage?”

  “You’re off topic,” Baker says. “I’m now moving myself and my four-year-old son down to a remote Caribbean island for a woman who just agreed to marry someone else.”

  “This is Mick, right?” Ellen says. “The guy who cheated on her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ew,” Debbie says.

  “He’s not bad-looking,” Wendy says. “But he’s not you.”

  “Cool dog,” Becky says. “Is that Mick’s dog? Or Ayers’s dog?”

  “Mick’s,” Baker says. “He has a cool dog but I have a cool kid.”

  “That’s a pizza boat in the background?” Ellen says. She looks at the others. “A pizza boat! We need to plan a trip to St. John.”

  “We’ll come visit you,” Debbie says. “The villa has room, right?”

  “Nine bedrooms,” Baker says. “But again, off topic. Should I even go? Or should I stay here?”

  “Wearing my human-resources hat, here’s what I think,” Becky says. “I like this move for you. It’s not necessarily permanent. You go down there, you coach at the school, you get Floyd situated. He’s a bright, perceptive, resilient kid and he’s a sponge. I think it’ll be good for both of you to live somewhere else for a while. You’re renting your house, not selling it, so you can always come back. Think of it as a sabbatical of sorts. And then if Ayers sees the light and you two get together, you can make it more permanent.”

  The other women nod their heads.

  “What did I tell you before?” Ellen says. “You won’t hit the ball if you don’t swing.”

  Baker appreciates his friends’ advice, but there’s no way he’s making such a huge leap of faith without talking to Ayers.

  But first, Baker tries Cash. He would like some intel. Has his brother talked to Ayers about the engagement? What does he know? Cash doesn’t answer his phone; either he’s very busy or he doesn’t want to get involved. Baker assumes it’s the latter, but why did he send the photo, then? To be informative or to be a jerk?

  Baker tries Ayers on Tuesday evening, a full twenty-four hours after he received the photo. It doesn’t seem quite as horrific now that some time has passed. Engagements get broken every day, right?

  She doesn’t answer either, which could be a bad sign—she’s with Mick, she’s finished with Baker, she wants him to go away—in which case, Baker will just stay in Houston.

  He doesn’t leave a voicemail—no one ever listens to them—but he does shoot her a text. Any chance I can talk to you tonight?

  A little while later, there’s a response. I’m at work. I’ll call on my way home.

  Baker stares at the words for a long time, trying to imagine what Ayers is thinking.

  Well, he’ll know in a few hours.

  He feeds Floyd and reads him three stories, but Floyd is keyed up because they’re supposed to leave in the morning. Floyd has already said goodbye to his friends and his teachers. He’s excited to live on an island.
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br />   “Dad,” he says. “Islands are surrounded by water.”

  “That’s right,” Baker says.

  “Gramma has a job on a boat,” Floyd says. “Catching fish. And Uncle Cash has a job on a boat, giving tours to people from other places.” Floyd closes his eyes. “I want to work on a boat.”

  “Okay, buddy,” Baker says, ruffling Floyd’s hair. “We’ll get you a job on a boat.”

  Floyd’s eyes fly open. “Really?”

  Baker laughs, and he thinks of what a unique and amazing experience it would be for Floyd to grow up on a Caribbean island. He’ll learn to sail and navigate; he’ll become familiar with the natural world. And maybe he will grow up to be a person who contributes so much to the island that it makes up for his grandfather’s wrongs—whatever those turn out to be.

  Baker indulges in some red velvet–cake ice cream but resists the temptation of marijuana.

  At nine fifteen, his phone rings. It’s Ayers.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey.”

  “You heard?”

  “I did. Cash sent me a picture of Mick slipping the ring on your finger.” Baker pauses. “I guess the breakup didn’t last long.”

  “I was taken by surprise,” Ayers says.

  “But you said yes, right?” Baker says. “And it was still a yes once you were alone with him? I mean, I understand the manipulative nature of public proposals…” He shakes his head; he’s parroting Ellen.

  “Yes,” Ayers says. “It was manipulative. Good choice of words.”

  Ellen has never steered him wrong, he thinks. “You’re going to marry Mick? Even though he cheated on you? Even though you said yourself that you can’t trust him?”

  “Do you have time for a story?” Ayers asks. “This is something I’ve never told anyone—not Mick, not Rosie, not anybody.”

  “I have all night,” Baker says.

  She takes a breath. “When I was Maia’s age—younger even; ten or eleven—I lived in Kathmandu with my parents.”

  “Kathmandu.” Baker remembers all the photographs on Ayers’s wall. Story for another day. “In Nepal?”

  “Yes,” Ayers says. “Kathmandu used to be this frenetic, dirty, dusty, poverty-stricken place where emaciated cows roamed the streets along with the cars and the motorbikes. My parents and I lived in a backpacker hostel. My mother, Sunny, tended bar at an expat pub, I can’t remember the name, only that it had a snooker table, and while my mother worked, my father would try to teach me to play, but my arms were too short to hold the cue stick. Anyway, the manager of the pub was this guy named Simon and he was the most handsome man I have ever seen in my life—and he liked my mother. Even at my tender age, I figured out that was why my father kept me in the pub playing snooker rather than exploring the city.” She sighed. “But my father couldn’t keep me there too late, so eventually every night we’d go back to the hostel. One night, something must have happened with Simon because my mother didn’t come home. For three days, we didn’t see her.”

  “What did your dad do?” Baker asks.

  “He moved us to this place called the Hotel Vajra, which looked like it was pulled out of a fairy tale. The beds had crimson silk spreads and the doors were made of carved teak. At night they lit pillar candles up and down the hallways, and my father and I would go to the rooftop terrace restaurant and eat lamb momos. It was a big change for me, having a hotel room to myself and eating out in a fancy restaurant, and I knew, somehow, that we were doing it only because my mother wasn’t there. I think I even knew that we were doing it to get back at her.” Ayers sighs. “Anyway, one morning as we were headed over to Mike’s, this place that served a real American breakfast, we saw my mother sitting in the front garden, waiting for us. She linked her arms through ours and we all went to Mike’s and ordered big stacks of pancakes.”

  “Did she say where she’d been?”

  “No,” Ayers says. “Nothing was ever mentioned about it to me. My mother quit the job at the pub and we moved to Vietnam.” She pauses. “Now, as an adult, I can only assume my mother had a fling with Simon and my father waited it out.”

  “Are your parents still together?” Baker asks.

  “Yes,” Ayers says. “They’re very happy. To my knowledge, nothing like that has ever happened again, on either side. It was like a hiccup.”

  “A hiccup,” Baker says. “And that’s how you see Mick’s behavior with Brigid? As a hiccup?”

  “Mick took a detour,” Ayers says. “But he found his way back to me. And I truly believe it was a one-and-done. He knows what he lost and he won’t risk it again. I’ve asked him for years to find a better place to live, and on our way to the boat yesterday, he drove me past this house he rented. It’s gorgeous.”

  “Where is it?” Baker says. “I’ll buy it right out from under him.”

  “Baker,” Ayers says.

  “You said you have feelings for me,” Baker says. “You said you couldn’t stop thinking about me.”

  “That’s true,” Ayers says. “Even on Monday before Mick proposed, one of the mothers from Gifft Hill was talking about this hot new dad, and I knew it was you and I was…jealous.”

  “Think about that,” Baker says.

  “I have been thinking about it!” Ayers says. “But Mick and I have been together a long time. He knows me. We have a life here that we built together, month by month, year by year. I can’t just throw that away for something new.”

  “You can, though,” Baker says. “Because I’m moving to St. John tomorrow and I’m going to stay. I got a coaching job at Gifft Hill. I’m going to take scuba lessons…” He doesn’t know where this idea comes from, it just pops into his head, but it sounds good. “I’m going to work on getting my real estate license down there. I’m going to build a life, month by month, year by year, and I want you to be in that life. When I first saw you, I felt like I was the one who had been struck by lightning—only instead of dying, I came to life.” Is this corny? He can’t tell. “I made a decision then and there that I was going to marry you. So you can hang up with me now thinking you’re going to marry Mick. But I promise you, I promise you, Ayers, that I can do better than Mick. I will be true and steadfast and devoted and crazily in love with you until the day I die. I will never have any hiccups. Ever.”

  Ayers is quiet.

  “If a proposal is what you want, then you have one from me. I want to marry you as soon as I’m legally able.”

  “You barely know me,” she says, but her voice is softer. He’s getting to her, maybe.

  “We can worry about that later.”

  Ayers laughs, but her laugh is cut short. “Oh, hey,” she says. “Maia is calling in on my line, and I should take it. It’s late and she never calls me this late. She never calls me at all, she only texts.”

  “By all means, take it,” Baker says. “I hope everything is okay.”

  “Me too,” Ayers says. “I’ll let you know. Bye.”

  Baker stares at the blank screen of his phone. If Floyd weren’t asleep, he would play the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” at top volume. What the hell—he finds his AirPods and cranks the song up.

  If I go, there will be trouble.

  And if I stay it will be double.

  Repeat song, repeat song, repeat song.

  During his fourth time through—Baker is still waiting for the answer to be revealed—he sees a text from Anna. What does she want? he wonders.

  Louisa and I have some concerns about you uprooting Floyd, the text says. Please hold off on your move until we talk. I should have some time for a conference call next week.

  “Ha!” Baker says to the empty living room. “That’s rich. That’s really rich!” ‘Louisa and I have some concerns’ means that Louisa has concerns, because Anna said she was ‘K’ with it last week.”

  Baker knows the text should persuade him to stay put, but it does exactly the opposite. Louisa has concerns about Baker uprooting Floyd to take him to St. John, but A
nna and Louisa uprooting Floyd to take him to Cleveland was fine?

  Ha!

  Ha!

  Another text comes in, and Baker assumes it’s Anna burying herself even further—she doesn’t even have time to talk about it until next week!—but the text isn’t from Anna.

  It’s from Ayers.

  Maia saw Mick kissing Brigid on the beach tonight. I’m giving the ring back.

  Baker shuts the music off and heads upstairs to bed. He has an early flight in the morning.

  Rosie

  January 1, 2015

  Love is messy and complicated and unfair.

  I see Russ when he’s here, which is every few weeks for a couple of days. I’m elated for forty-eight hours before he arrives and devastated for forty-eight hours after he leaves. Actually, the leaving part is getting worse.

  I see him often enough that it’s getting hard to keep secret. I have to lie to Huck, say I have friends from the States in town and would he mind watching Maia for a couple of days? Huck is always happy to do this. I think being with Maia helps get his mind off Mama. He’s started taking Maia out on the fishing boat. Even though she’s only five, he says she’s a natural, and it’s important for her to get her sea legs. Huck asked the names of my “friends from the States,” and I said Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe. He didn’t pick up on my joke—I knew he wouldn’t—but he must be getting suspicious. Since when do I have friends from the States, or friends at all except for Ayers? I’m sure he suspects it’s a man.

  Russ and I can’t go anywhere or do anything; he doesn’t even want to risk a trip back to Miss Vie’s on Hansen Bay. I visit him in room 718 at Caneel, which requires me to sneak in the back way from the parking lot, or, if Russ has the yacht to himself, I visit him there.

  I show him pictures of Maia. He wants to meet her but I’m not allowing that. Every time he leaves, I know I might never see him again.

  Once you prove to me you’re staying here, I said, you can meet her.

  June 24, 2015

  Russ is leaving right before Carnival and he says he won’t be back again this summer, which means the earliest I’ll see him is September, but September is hurricane season and Caneel is closed, so it’ll most likely be October or possibly even November.