The Last Good Paradise: A Novel

by Tatjana Soli

  A year later, Richard received a photo of Chloe in a white skirt suit, a small, insouciant pillbox hat perched on her head, standing in front of a Gothic church on the arm of the man who was her new husband. His mother shook her head and tsk-tsked, but he guessed she was impressed at Chloe’s resilience. After that, Richard received postcards from exotic places: France (of course), but also Spain, Morocco, India, Thailand, and Japan. The notes always centered on food. At Christmas he would receive packages: herb bundles from Provence, a tea set from Japan, Turkish delight from Istanbul. Chloe was his proof that second acts were possible.

  * * *

  Getting into CIA had been a culmination of everything Richard had worked for starting from those Chloe days, but for Javi it was a reprieve, an escape, a place to chill out. The housing department had put them together simply because Javi’s last five roommates had moved out of the apartment within a month’s time. Javi cultivated a constant party atmosphere. Strangers could be found wandering the rooms at all times of the day and night. Because he was a lady’s man, there was always a couple of mournful women in tow—women who cleaned the place and brought flowers, trying to win his heart. As often as not, Javi would go straight from CIA to some other party and would never show up at home at all, and these women fell into Richard’s sympathetic orbit.

  Was Richard taking advantage? Was he a cordial predator? He had a certain desperate, grateful charm. They were all beautiful in his opinion—women he wouldn’t have been brave enough to talk to in any other circumstance—but there they were in his apartment, alone, jilted, and he was willing to pour them wine and listen to their heartache. Usually he was rewarded. He realized years later they were probably in all likelihood simple mercy beddings, but you had to start somewhere.

  Afterward, he would take these lovelies, wrapped in his old bathrobe, to the kitchen and begin his true seduction. Perhaps a simple apple-and-sage croque monsieur toasted in the oven? Maybe a salade frisée aux lardons with poached egg and bacon fat? Or maybe a basic roasted-cherry-tomato-and-feta omelette, accompanied by an appropriate wine? He would try to make another date as they finished the last forkfuls, almost never offering to share. They adored his food but warily stood at the front door like loyal dogs waiting for the return of their prodigal master, deflecting his efforts at getting their number. Future meetings would be left vague. Already he knew they would not return to clean the apartment or to warm his bed. As they kissed him on the cheek good-bye, it was always with the same words: “You should really open a restaurant. Please tell Javi to call me.”

  That all changed when he met Ann. When she came to the apartment, it was only for him; she was not even aware of Javi’s existence. On their first date, while his famous coq au vin was simmering on the stove, he snuck downstairs and left a bread bag tie on the mailbox, his and Javi’s signal that the apartment was romantically occupied. The tie stayed in place the whole weekend.

  * * *

  When Richard took off to go snorkeling with the other couple, Ann sat under a palm tree and pouted. She admitted it—she was angry that he was taking it all so well. As if in fact they were on a vacation instead of hiding out. Why did she want him beside her—to beg her forgiveness, plead for her to be a little happy? Richard was being Richard. He tried to be sympathetic, to act like their mutual problems were mutual, but he easily reverted to his perpetual Zen state where all he thought about was food. Even after all this, his mistress was still the kitchen, and he longed to be back with her. It was like infidelity, but in a more subtle, unfightable form.

  Despite her best efforts, Ann could not hold on to her pique. The island took care of that. She looked across the beach at the gently spooling waves and thought, this is what paradise means. Her dream. What struck her was that there was so very little to it. It was characterized by lack, like a minimalist painting. How could you paint it and not have it turn out like a souvenir-shack paint-by-numbers? How to convey the fullness of the experience rather than emptiness? She thought she was on the verge of an original composition—a band of land and sea, with the majority of the canvas filled with sky—but her first impulse, rather than to try to find supplies to paint it, was to call Lorna or Javi to talk about it. Until she realized she couldn’t.

  Another technology withdrawal pang. Nomophobia. The fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Maybe she would write down what she was thinking on a piece of paper and text it as soon as she got to the airport or to a decent connection, but that seemed like cheating. Social networking was about spontaneity, and having what amounted to a prepared statement seemed disingenuous.

  She loved paradise. But how in the hell would she last two weeks unplugged?

  * * *

  For the next three days the pattern repeated: Cooked took Dex, Wende, and Richard out for snorkeling and diving. Ann stayed on shore, reading, napping, and eating lunch alone.

  The searing silence of the place poured into her. Her thoughts slowed, then slowed some more, until there were gaps where she was only aware of sun and wind, the sound of the surf that was like her own breath. Although her annoyance at Richard might have daily increased, the reverse happened—time away made her want to see him more. She looked forward to hearing about his underwater adventures precisely because she had no intention of joining in.

  “It’s just so mind-boggling down there,” Richard said, his Wende-sparked lust fueling detailed descriptions of fish and coral he had seen.

  “You seem to really be into it,” Ann said.

  “It’s … otherworldly.”

  “Wow. Fish.”

  “I wish you were down there with me.”

  “Why?”

  Why? Because he loved his wife and was desperate to transfer Wende’s hotness to his longing for Ann. He reached out and touched the strap of her dress.

  They made love without the aid of whipping cream.

  Afterward, Ann lay on her back and stared up at the dark cloud of their money bag suspended overhead.

  “I can’t believe the restaurant is gone,” she said.

  And like that, all the euphoric diving and sex chemicals pumping through Richard’s body washed away, and he was miserable again.

  * * *

  When asked how she spent her days, Ann was evasive. Her experience, or lack of it, was so indescribable it was … indescribable. She sat on the beach all day. She stared at the water and the clouds. The changing colors of the lagoon slowed her heartbeats. There were moments when it became hard to believe that the rest of the world existed—Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York seemed imagined places, filled with imagined importance. Even harder to believe was the struggle that she had been consumed by these last years, a struggle that now seemed so insubstantial it could be lost in the break of a wave. Time stretched elastic like a rubber band, became wobbly at its edges (only an hour passed? an afternoon?) and infinite at its molten core. The likelihood that FFBBP had fired her for absenteeism, if not for outright embezzlement, didn’t greatly trouble her. The longer Ann stayed on that beach, the more she was convinced that it was the only place she had ever truly belonged. But what did that mean?

  A resort couldn’t serve as one’s spiritual home. Solitude at this level was prohibitive. Besides being totally fake. Maybe Richard and she could find their own island, rent a small hut? Surely there was someplace where they could go native, become recluses, live off the land? Could this technically be called an early midlife crisis?

  On the morning of the seventh day, she was worried over the distinct possibility that she was going a little nutty in her splendid isolation.

  Loren was fiddling with a telescope he had brought out. When she asked him about it, he said it was for the Transit of Venus that would occur in two weeks.

  “It won’t happen again for another hundred years.”

  “We’ll be long gone from here by then. Two more weeks. What would that cost?”

  As she prepared to leave for another day of beach watching, Loren stopped her.

/>   “When we sent the latest charges, they were refused. Your card is maxed out. Can you give me another one?”

  A pause.

  “Is there a discount for cash?” she asked.

  He looked at her quizzically. “We’ll work something out.”

  “Is that offer of a picnic still good?”

  * * *

  They waded around to a sheltered cove the color of jade on the other side of the motu. Ann lagged behind, slipping on the algae-draped stones. After watching her grow more and more frustrated, Loren set the basket high on a rock and returned to help her, cupping her elbow and directing her steps.

  “Don’t put your weight down till you feel around with your foot for a secure hold.”

  She rested her hand on his shoulder and followed his footsteps.

  Leaving her to read in the shade under a tree, he spearfished in a deep tidal pool. Although Cooked was supposed to catch something that day, if what Loren caught was big enough, it would serve for dinner. The last few days Cooked had come in empty-handed, besotted by their busty guest, and upsetting Titi, who then lagged at her work. At least that distraction was better than his messing in politics. A good boy, but in that direction lay only doom. When had truth and justice ever coexisted for any length of time?

  If Loren could get them to marry and settle down to work the resort, Cooked would forget the rest. That was why he turned a blind eye to their long nonworking afternoons. His wedding present would be the title to the property upon his death. Wasn’t there a lovely, poetic justice in that? A small enough present with the huge debt owed and the dwindling revenues, but that was in the future. Loren had more immediate problems to keep him occupied, and what he longed for that moment was to get his mind off everything.

  Her eyes were green, mocking. Eyes that her husband no longer looked into? Was that the problem? She made him feel unsure, self-conscious, alive. Not the type to be pushed around. Seduction was a great game he never tired of, like hunting the most elusive reef fish. A thrill when the spear impaled it, but also an immediate sorrow. Once caught it was not the same thing at all.

  The hideous khaki walking shorts made her look like a British female birder. They ballooned up around her legs and hips like a bun smothering a hot dog, denying her figure. He imagined the shape of her ass underneath like a sculptor shaving away layers of marble to uncover the masterpiece waiting to be revealed.

  * * *

  She looked up from her book, Stevenson’s South Seas Tales. She always read thematically on trips, although this once she was woefully underprepared (having reread The Moon and Sixpence four times already) and was at the mercy of the communal library, where her current read had been stashed away among the donated pulp thrillers and romance novels of past guests. Loren was crouched still as a statue, resembling a huge egret; his whole body tensed as he watched what lay beneath the water.

  Her agreeing to lunch was partly embarrassment at the denied credit card. She sensed it might be best to make him an ally, but also she realized she had judged him unfairly. He was not the shallow, beachcomber gigolo she had labeled him. At dinner he made intelligent and witty conversation, but it was when he felt unobserved that she was most interested. Then his face took on a deep melancholy, making it clear that he was more than his circumstances. Just as she wanted to amount to more than hers.

  A true host, he took his cue and made her comfortable by their mutual silence. Neither of them was a talker. Time passed so slowly and peacefully that by two in the afternoon, Ann was starved for both food and conversation. When she went with Richard anywhere, he exhausted her by not being able to sit still, always reaching out for lifelines—eating, searching for restaurants, talking to chefs, even grocery shopping—anything to avoid inaction.

  “Ready for lunch?” she shouted.

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  Loren opened a nice bottle of Montrachet. As he plied the corkscrew, she noticed the first joint of his ring finger was missing.

  “Fishing accident?”

  “Polynesian rite of mourning,” he said.

  She waited, but he said no more. She spooned out shrimp-and-papaya salad. The trip was turning out to be altogether not a poor exile. Luxurious. Not like poor Crusoe eating his goats.

  A real gadfly, Loren entertained her with tales of the stupidity of local politics in Tahiti, which he knew plenty about, and misbehaving guests, including Eve. He enjoyed her laugh.

  “You have found a good life here.”

  He nodded.

  “Was it hard, leaving everything behind?”

  He didn’t know her well enough to say that in his experience what people left behind ended up being much less important than they thought. It was a kind of ego, imagining one’s life irreplaceable and unique.

  Loren had long practice at framing his story so that it both amused and obscured. People came to the islands to ditch reality at least for a few days. They did not want a sad-sack story. Nor did he intend to provide it.

  “In Paris, I worked as an artist briefly. Sometimes I miss that.”

  “An artist?”

  Loren shrugged. “I fell in with an avant-garde group. I needed money, so I thought I could pull off installations like others were doing. It worked for a time. But when I came here, no regrets.”

  “Do you still do art?”

  “The urge has left me.”

  “Can it just go away like that?”

  “It’s an appetite like any other.”

  “I lied earlier. We’re escaping, running away from trouble. The credit card issue won’t be resolved, but I have cash.”

  Loren waved off her apology. “I came here to escape also. It worked for me—perhaps it will for you.”

  “What a relief it would be. Escape. I already feel healthy just not being connected.” Lightning should strike her for telling such a pointless untruth.

  * * *

  Ann had gone alone into the plunge pool the night before and felt around the grassy bottom with her feet till she retrieved the sat-phone. She had overheard Dex say how waterproof they were, and indeed, when she snuck down the dark beach and called Lorna, she answered on the first ring.

  “So how is it?” Lorna said.

  “You’ll never guess who is here.”

  After they had exclaimed over Dex, Lorna admitted that things were not going well.

  “Javi’s ex hired a barracuda. They are slapping all kinds of charges together against the three of you. Collusion, fraud, etc. Harassment, plain and simple. I’m trying to settle this thing. Get some dirt on her. Sit tight. It might take some time.”

  “How’s Javi holding up?”

  “Out of his mind to talk to you guys.”

  A thought occurred to Ann that she realized was the real motivation for her call. “Don’t sleep with him. He’s fragile.”

  “It’s been ten years since your fling. Statute of limitations. Bye.”

  * * *

  Now Loren started to put away the picnic things. “You are enjoying your unplugged vacation? How is your husband enjoying himself?”

  “He likes watching fish apparently.”

  “He seems a lost soul.”

  That stung. She blinked and looked away. “We’ve been under stress.” She gave a dry, dissimulating chuckle that she would have disliked in someone else. “Somewhere along the way we forgot how to be happy. Can we talk about something else?”

  Loren hesitated, then decided to take the gamble. “I saw you swim the first night at the hotel.”

  Her face went blank, unreadable. Professional training kicking in. “That must have been amusing.”

  A mistake, but there was no turning back. “I couldn’t look away.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  The idea of being watched infuriated her, but she pretended to not care. Caring meant you showed all your cards. After all, she had guessed his secrets already. When he bent over at dinner the previous night, she had seen the ugly bedsore-like bru
ises along his hips. In the firm’s minuscule pro bono work, all done for publicity, always dumped on the associates, she had been routinely assigned clients who didn’t have the insurance to cover the financial ravages of AIDS on themselves and their families.

  “I’m telling you in order for you to know me. So I’m not a perverti. Otherwise I’d have an advantage over you. In a friendship both people must be equal.”

  She smiled, her words out to haunt her again. “You could still be a pervert. A gentleman wouldn’t have looked.”

  The gamble had paid off. Sometimes risk made one appreciate the goal even more. He wanted this woman’s friendship more than he’d wanted anything in a long while. “I’d rather not be a gentleman than not to have looked.”

  Ann laughed. She had forgotten that delight could come so easily.

  * * *

  After lunch, Loren climbed back to his tidal pool. Going after one particularly tricky eel, he slipped and scraped his leg on a long branch of volcanic rock.

  Ann jumped up and grabbed a towel. “Let me clean it.”

  “No!” He put his hands out to stop her coming closer. The diversion of his game was now gone. He had functioned well for years, but his health was giving out. His reality was to quarantine himself until he was down to this island, to dismiss all his lovers and become a celibate as some kind of penance, but the course of his illness was relentless. The fact was that soon he would lose even this—palm trees, lagoon, ocean, sunset, self—when he could no longer work. Cruel fate would not even allow this one chaste conquest. “Stay away!”

  “Loren, I know.”

  “You know nothing.” He bowed his head, sweat beading on his forehead. “Hand me the towel.”

  After he wrapped his leg, he hobbled back to the compound in silence, leaving Ann to fend for herself while carrying the basket. She had to fight her instinct to pester him with questions, force him to a responsible course of action.

  There had been a time in her youth, in high school, when she had been too timid to ask questions, afraid of revealing what she did not understand. Later, in law school, she blossomed, grew provocative, argumentative, a know-it-all, intent to prove herself. But during these last years, she had settled back down into that familiar silence, comfortable in her not knowing until the information, ripe, fell into her lap. She would allow Loren to ask her for as much or as little as he chose.