by Tatjana Soli
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 roman
ce 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.
Richard came back hours later, lips and fingers pruned, exhilarated. “You have no idea! The fish!” He promptly lay down and fell asleep.
Ann dozed until midnight, then was wide-awake. Jet lag and worry made rest impossible. Perhaps she had been too hard on Richard—didn’t he deserve any break from the tension that he could get? What was so bad about being underwater, looking at Technicolor fish, if it helped you forget your problems? She tugged on him, nibbled on his shoulder, but he swatted her away, unwilling to rise back up to consciousness.
She rose and stepped out on the deck, closing the glass door behind her to seal in the coolness. Better that Richard didn’t wake, that she didn’t make her desperate effort at intimacy. The air lay hot and close, heavy as if she were in a sauna; the lagoon a pellucid blue under the moon, inviting as one of those azure martinis they served in the hotel bar. Richard had compared it to drinking pool water, but Ann topped him, claiming it was like drinking antifreeze. She climbed down the steps of the ladder and dipped her toes, surprised at how deliciously inviting it felt.
They had both known what a wild card Javi was—brilliant and passionate and petty and malicious and, on top of it all, careless. Was it even possible that she once had thought she loved him, that she had considered leaving Richard for him? That was years ago, in the way past. Javi and she had put it behind them, yet this betrayal stung all the worse for it. Wasn’t there still some love, some protectiveness for her? For Richard, whom he supposedly loved as a brother? But she knew deep down in her heart that Javi was hurting the worst of all.
The scariest thing was that a secret part of her rejoiced at the news of Javi’s profligacy, the restaurant’s demise, her professional ruin. It forced her to do what she had been too cowardly to do otherwise: crush family expectations, risk the censure of friends and colleagues, endure her own guilt over failing Richard financially. She might very well have plodded on until retirement on the unhappy path she had picked. That was all over now.
Ann pulled her nightgown over her head and slid naked into the water, which had a refreshing bite to it once she was fully submerged. Underwater, rocks and bursts of coral appeared like dark clouds in the distance. The world turned topsy-turvy. She went on her back—the stars overhead hung ripe and heavy like fruit. Time passed, unmarked, as if she had fallen asleep, dreaming of floating, or floating while dreaming, when something slippery, cold, and bone-crushingly powerful brushed underneath her bare back, lifting her ever so slightly up out of the water. Out of nowhere came the image of Loren, teak chest and narrow hips, pressing against her. She pushed the thought away, dutifully replaced it with the matrimonially sanctioned image of Richard, before she flipped over on her stomach, looking down into the water in time to catch the pound of something dark throbbing away through the water even as she reached out her hand to touch and caress the danger at her fingertips.
She lifted herself to the bottom step of the ladder and sat shivering in the moonlight.
A mistake to have left the firm citing a personal emergency, handing her caseload over to a coworker who would undoubtedly bad-mouth her now. This would be seen as weakness. One of the senior partners, Peleg, whose wife of thirty-five years died of cancer, managed to put in a half day after the morning funeral. No mercy would be shown to Ann.
She didn’t always hate the law.
During her summer breaks from law school, she interned for eccentric Professor Faucett, who drove a beat-up old VW van and lived in a shack in the shabby part of Silver Lake, brilliantly defending clients against corporations. Ann spent all-nighters, all-weekenders, with a group of a half dozen other idealistic types known as the “Faucetts,” who literally ate and slept in order to come to work, driven by the passion he inspired to do good.
Faucett had bad teeth, frizzy gray hair, and irregular laundry service, but none of that mattered because he was beating up the bad guys. After taking out living expenses (minimal), paying alimony (hefty) to a wife in the Palisades, who was not about to wait for the meek to inherit the earth, and child support (hefty) for their daughter, who attended private school and drove a BMW convertible, Faucett plowed every remaining last dime into defending the defenseless.
Ann was as in awe of Faucett’s selflessness as she was appalled by the wreck of his personal life. From his example, she, too, longed to do good. That summer she liked feeling that what she did mattered. She loved bolting out of bed in the morning like a legal knight in shining armor. But everything around her, from the expensive clothes in the Beverly Center to the big houses in Bel Air and Brentwood, suggested that the direction Faucett had taken was a fool’s path, one not capable of being followed, as impossible to replicate as trying to imitate Mother Teresa.
Just as in med school, where all the first-years professed a desire to help mankind and by the fourth year were clawing for specialties in dermatology or plastics, Ann noticed during the last year of law school that the aspirations of her fellow Faucetts underwent a seismic shift. Gone was the talk of pro bono work and public defenders. Now they were trying to guess the needs of the big firms: Patent defense? Estate planning? Now it was the address of the firm, the view from the office, the make of one’s car that determined one’s choices.
She never got in touch with Faucett again after being hired by FFBBP because she couldn’t bear confessing that the summer had been the equivalent of a moral one-night stand. She had sold out when the concept was still a valid one. Now guilt over selling out was as quaint and old-fashioned as knitted doilies, what with A-list actors hacking sheets through Kmart, and famous lawyers making cameos on TV shows. She joined the ranks of the dissatisfied, hating her job and dreaming of the day she could retire early and follow a passion—painting, or producing artisanal cheese, or deoiling penguins.
Ann was climbing back to th
eir deck to towel off when she heard the snap of a door closing nearby.
* * *
In the harsh morning light, Loren, hungover, watched Ann come out of the hotel and walk down to the dock in a somber brown one-piece suit that looked proper for a grandmother taking a pram walk on the cold, rocky coast of Normandy. The suit flattened her breasts and covered every inch of derriere. A crime. An oversize straw hat hid her face, the zinc oxide 50 SPF sunblock giving her a Kabuki-like ghostly glow underneath.
If he didn’t know better, he would have thought her coldhearted, but he guessed she was merely unhappy, like many of his tourists. In the old days, if she had been single, he would have had her in bed within a day. If married, two. She was his type: good-looking but not flashy, intelligent but not dried out. Out of his league in the States, but all was possible in the islands.
One discovered interesting things about people when they were on vacation. Loren would take out a high-powered, arrogant businessman on a diving trip—the kind of guy who wouldn’t give anyone the time of day back home, insulated by at least three levels of assistants—but stick an oxygen tank on his back and drop him in shark-infested waters, and he’d become as docile and compliant as a puppy.
Couples were trickier. Other than lust-besotted honeymooners, one either had two partners who were sick to death of each other or two strangers who hardly knew each other, suddenly thrown together with no distractions. Always a volatile mix.
Droves of Westerners flew to the islands with some variation of castaway fantasy. He got a high percentage of honeymooners, who were the best because they stayed in their fares most of the time, only coming out for food and alcohol, and they rarely complained. The second biggest group was the retireds—wrinkled, tired, unsure, bewildered by their sudden release into leisure. They would stare at the overpriced menus in the tourist hotels, wondering if this was what they had worked so hard for, saved for so parsimoniously, to waste money like this. An existential question for sure. They complained about everything because nothing could measure up to their impossible longings. He was sympathetic, but these weren’t his bread and butter. The last group—the unhappys—these had been Loren’s specialty.
