The Last Good Paradise: A Novel Read online

  “Inez, that greedy sow, is suing me for more money. She says I lied and hid income. They froze the restaurant’s account.”

  Javi had always been the wild playboy with women problems all through CIA. After he married Inez, Ann and Richard thought he’d calm down, especially after the baby was born, but he still stalked the pretty young sous chefs, the hostesses/wannabe actresses. Javi joylessly womanized all through his divorce, and this pile of bills was an ugly diary of debt for back alimony, child support, health insurance, workers’ comp, rent, credit cards, utility bills, car payments, and a whole slew of unpaid disasters going back to and including student loans at Culinary Institute, going back even further to student loans for his first year of medical school, which he dropped out of, going all the way to the primordial debt of UC Riverside undergraduate. The ex-wife had sued and filed an injunction to freeze the restaurant’s accounts, claiming he had misrepresented income, although the money was Ann and Richard’s life savings, earmarked for a year’s worth of rent, payroll, purchase of kitchen equipment, dining tables and chairs, china and stemware, cutlery, the services of an interior decorator and florists, all of which had already been contracted out. They had committed to a five-year lease, signed with personal guarantees. In the parlance of the food industry, they were cooked.

  Things were so dire, Richard was actually roused to action. “I’ll talk to Inez. I’ll explain it’s our life savings. She’ll understand.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Inez likes us.”

  “I might have misstated things, like that you embezzled money from me.”

  That Richard didn’t even blink at this admission was an admission itself of how deep the trouble was.

  “Just so you know, I need to leave town for a few days.”

  “Now?” Richard was going to kill him with that ceramic knife.

  “I borrowed from some loan sharks to keep us afloat.”

  “Us?”

  “And I took the rest of the petty cash to the casino last night. Guess what? I lost.”

  “That’s the thing. I could win betting that you would lose.”

  Javi took a slug from the Cabo Uno Anejo. “Javi says, ‘Let them eat blinis.’” He cackled, the careening laugh, hysterical and threatening, then veering over into self-pitying sobbing.

  “They can’t do this,” Richard said, now considering using the knife on himself. “Ann will never forgive me. She’ll leave.”

  “Ann will never leave you. Trust Javi on this.”

  Richard’s insides had now gone to the last stage—hot, molten lava in danger of erupting any moment—the divergent tectonic plates of Javier (why was he suddenly referring to himself in the third person?), Ann, divorce, failure, penury, and possibly a future bout of shingles tearing him apart.

  * * *

  After Richard called Ann at work, she consulted with the only senior partner still there on a Friday, Flask Sr. Waiting while he finished up a phone call on a long, tubular Bang & Olufsen phone that came out from his ear like an ice pick, she stared at his latest artwork hanging directly behind his head on the wall—a grove of arthritic eucalyptus trees that looked as if they had a bad case of infectious skin disease.

  “So before we start, since we are fellow artists, how do you like my new plein air piece?”

  Ann nodded appreciatively, searching the canvas for something non-career-threatening to say. She was furious her artistic aspirations had somehow leaked out, and especially to a senior partner, who might use it to deny her the partnership that she didn’t want. “It’s like … I can actually smell the trees.”

  Of course. There had been a stupid morale-booster seminar months ago in a downtown hotel ballroom. Each of them had to stand up and tell what his or her hobby was, which was essentially a joke because, except for the senior partners, no one had time to sleep, much less have hobbies. “I’m a painter,” Ann had said. “I mean, I’d like to be. Paint on weekends, that is. Someday. When I’m not working.” She had kept on standing there, qualifying, like a punctured tire slowly leaking air.

  When Flask got off the phone, she outlined the basic parameters of her “friend’s” situation: the account had been frozen due to pending legal action, which could take years to resolve. Flask frowned. “What kind of friend are you?” He laughed, so Ann immediately backpedaled and tried to minimize the situation’s severity. He informed her the creditors could indeed freeze the account if it was opened as a legal partnership. Of course she knew this, but she was looking for some kind of insanity loophole, covering the possibility of your partner losing it and proceeding to ruin your life.

  “It’s unfair,” she said.

  “That’s the law, honey.”

  Now literally she was in the client’s Italian-designed seat, and the view was very different. She knew only too well how she could be messed with, the agony and lack of ecstasy of interminable litigation, a long, slow bleed that won by attrition. Was this one of those karmic retribution things like in the movies? She felt deep remorse for causing Mrs. Peters’s victory the day before. She reddened at the memory of the OxyContin gambit. Shame, shame on her.

  Outside the senior partner’s heavy, closed mahogany door, with its raised gold lettering that spelled out his name, Ann stood, realizing with a sense of premonition that she would never be behind such a door with letters spelling out her name; that the plush gray Berber carpet, the paneled walls, the tastefully spotlit artwork that had given her such a sense of permanence and security working there were not actually there for her at all. They were to instill awe and respect among clients, who were billed astronomically, by the hour, as they sat on those deep, ergonomically designed sofas in the waiting room, or enjoyed the espresso-pod coffee brought over by the discreetly sexy receptionist; the intention of the furniture, the offices, the fine accoutrements of lawyering was to lull, to make believe that the law had some weight to it, that the clients weren’t at the mercy of chance, that their fates weren’t left to the vagaries of interpretation. These partners, who were so tastefully and expensively dressed, whose whole presentation shouted success, were not saviors or even guides of the legal system; they were enablers. Like in Las Vegas, the house always won, and the Flask, Flask, Gardiner, Bulkington, Bartleby, and Peleg partners—mostly male, quickly walking, making adjustments midstride to go around the marooned and stationary Ann in the hallway—were sharks who kept moving, kept litigating, or died. Ann had made a terrible, terrible mistake, thinking herself a shark, spending all those years in law school honing a bloodlust she had no appetite for. Now, after a decade practicing law, she had to admit she didn’t understand the first thing about the law; it was beyond right or wrong or justice; it was about hours billed and petty vendettas, and the lawyers were paid mercenaries sent out to do unfair battle. The last time Ann felt she had truly ministered justice was as a five-year-old, when she presided as judge over a friend who had stolen her toy: “Guilty,” she had pronounced, “but still innocent.” Ann hadn’t gotten any smarter since. Drifts of briefs like snowfall blanketed her desk, covered and muffled every good intention. She could not bear the thought of growing old inside these walls; she had worked there ten years and did not have a single person whom she could truly call friend, if “friend” meant someone she could tell of her unhappiness in being there. The embarrassing truth was that she wanted to be loved, and people hardly ever loved, or even liked, their attorneys; they were a necessary evil, like dentists or hookers.

  * * *

  Mrs. Peters, riding high on her bonsai win, had sent a Swedish, pink-leather, hammered-silver cocktail shaker with a big “A” embossed on it as thanks. After Richard’s call, Ann had stared at the extravagant accusation of it on her desk and then broken down in tears.

  And then the revelation. It occurred to her that the court order might not yet have arrived at the bank. In a daze, Ann drove to the local branch and told the teller she needed to get a cashier’s check for the entire total in the account. House down p
ayment. To hide her shaking hands, she clutched her cell phone. The teller had been there only a week and was impatient to close up her window and get to her salsa class, all of which she told Ann as she processed the paperwork.

  “I’ve always wanted to learn to dance,” Ann said, light-headed, black spots floating in front of her eyes. “We’re buying a second house in Mexico, and they demand all cash.”

  “Really?” The girl did it without question, impressed by Ann’s expensive handbag, her expertly highlighted hair, the glasses that clarified nothing.

  For the first time in her good-girl life, Ann got the adrenaline high of being on the wrong side of the law. She simply stole what was about to be stolen from her, but the cashier’s check was a hot potato because any claim on the payee, Ann, would render it void. Her only option was to cash it somewhere fast. The only person she could call was her loyal, unprincipled best friend from law school, who also happened to be a kick-ass class-action attorney, Lorna Reynolds. Lorna would get off on the risk and, if necessary, handle any legal ugliness that arose.

  * * *

  In her less kind moments, Ann thought Lorna had lately turned a little neocon in her politics, but she preferred to remember the two of them as they had been a dozen years before, smoking pot and listening to rock music. Lorna’s irreverence had saved her through a dark period.

  According to Ann’s family, becoming an attorney started with having to go to the right school. Her father and sister went to Yale; her brother rebelliously opted for Harvard. Ann had dutifully applied and gotten into both, with UCLA as her backup. Her siblings were back east when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Ann could not, would not, leave her alone with her father, who, although not unkind, was incapable of transcending the cool logic of his profession. Exhibit A: He was incapable of boiling an egg. Exhibit B: He rose from the dinner table in the certain knowledge that the dishes somehow always made their way back to the cupboard clean without him. Ann’s compromise was accepting the backup and living at home.

  All families have their peculiarities, but it was impossible to describe to outsiders how shaming her decision was to them. Her father could barely look her in the eye; her siblings distanced themselves. They all thought her weak—everyone except her mother. Fifteen years later, her mother was fine, and Ann never once regretted her decision. But it was Lorna who got her through.

  They used to joke about dropping out of law school and becoming groupies to some of the bands they were enamored of like American Music Club, the Talking Heads, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Rolling Stones, the Wallflowers, U2, Guns N’ Roses, and Prospero, especially the lead singer, Dex Cooper, whom they met one night stone-cold drunk at the Troubadour. They were there pretending to be bad, wild girls and not buttoned-down law students. After plying them with whiskey sours (Ann’s first), he invited them both to come back to his place, provided they could drive him since his license had been revoked courtesy of a DUI.

  As luck would have it, Ann was driving. Dex promptly fell asleep in the backseat. She remembered getting lost as they wound up into the steep, overgrown canyons of the Hollywood Hills. The house was a throwback to the ’50s, a glass-and-stucco bachelor pad at the top of the hill. As they walked to the front door, Ann noticed the yard was weed-choked. Inside, it smelled of cats, although none were in evidence. Dex quickly went to the bar, backed up by a plexiglass panel into the pool, very James Bond. Ann rolled her eyes at Lorna. Dex poured gigantic drinks and then took off his shirt.

  “So what do you girls do?” he slurred.

  “Go to school,” Lorna said, gulping down her drink.

  “Which high school?”

  The girls dissolved into laughter while Dex patiently drank.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” Ann asked and made her escape.

  The bathroom, along with the rest of the house, was filthy. It seemed Dex was camping rather than living there. She poured her drink down the toilet. When she came back to the living room, Lorna was French-kissing Dex on the sofa.

  “I need to get home,” Ann said.

  “Curfew?” Dex asked. “Want to get high first?”

  “No!” Ann said.

  Lorna sat up and straightened her blouse. “Don’t bother. Ann’s a prude.”

  Dex nodded. “That’s too bad.”

  Once they reached the driveway, they fell into each other’s arms giggling.

  “Oh my God,” Lorna said. “Oh my God!”

  “I know!”

  “Dex Cooper!”

  “You kissed him!”

  “I would have given him a BJ if you didn’t barge in.”

  “Lorna!”

  “Dex Cooper!”

  “Still.”

  They broke down in laughter all over again.

  Later, Lorna said she was holding out for her number one, Axl Rose, as unlikely as that was to happen. Ann claimed to have always preferred Eddie Vedder, but it lay as an unspoken truth between them that Lorna had passed the wild test while Ann failed.

  * * *

  With the hot-potato check, Ann drove aimlessly in her Toyota as she dialed Lorna. “You won’t believe the shit that has just covered my entire life.”

  Lorna directed her to go to the nearest branch of her bank, which she GPS-ed on her iPhone, and told her to put the signed-over check in the night deposit box, directed into Lorna’s account. “I’ll figure the rest out. Lie low. I’ve got contacts at my bank. Come by my office tomorrow, and I’ll give you cash. Then get out of town for a while so you can’t be deposed. Out of sight and the limits of jurisdiction, out of mind.”

  * * *

  The previous April, Ann and Richard had been to their first and only session of couple’s therapy, courtesy of a social acquaintance Ann knew through one of her professional women’s groups. The problem, as Ann saw it, was that she hardly knew her husband anymore. For the last ten years, they had both worked so hard they never saw each other. She had deferred her dreams of being a painter to first creating a successful restaurant for Richard, and that required earning money as an attorney, while what she wanted—a happy life with Richard—was moving further and further away till it was just a blur on the horizon. She was tired of catering to her spoiled clients, people who had either inherited their wealth or earned it too easily, dealing with children in the guise of adults for her livelihood. As she sat in the office, she realized the miscalculation of being there. She did not need to pay someone to tell her what was wrong. She needed a new life.

  She knew the therapist, Eve, from her Women Ethically For the Environment (WEFE) group that met monthly at various trophy houses on the Westside, and served organic vegetables paired with expensive imported alcohol. Eve’s style had impressed Ann, and the monthly WEFE meetings had made improvements in her life that made her feel nominally better, such as: she now recycled, ate organic and grass-fed, and wrote out checks (albeit for small amounts) to various international NGOs to make clothes and furniture out of recycled garbage.

  At Eve’s office, they sat marooned on a Balinese opium bed carved from sustainable teak.

  “Should I take off my shoes?” Ann asked, uncomfortable and unhappy. Through Eve’s eyes, Ann was aware that Richard appeared slump-backed and slope-shouldered, that his potbelly topped his belt like a muffin rising over its tin, or, in Richard’s case, a brioche. Eve’s husband, Guy, who attended black-tie environmental events with her, was a former B-list actor who now worked strictly as an activist, allowing him free time to spend every day at the gym maintaining his six-pack abs. He was on the correct side of open land, clean water, sustainable farming, and baby seals. The only thing that sustained Ann through her present mortification was that years ago, at an event, Guy had put his hand on her ass and made a pass, a klutzy move that she had deflected. Richard would never do that.

  “Shoes on, shoes off. Ann, do what makes you feel comfortable.”

  Which was impossible, because leaving the room was the only thing that would accomplish that. Ann
dropped one pump, and then the other, with a loud clatter on the Saltillo tile floor. “Nice floors,” she said to cover the noise.

  “Eduardo is the best. I’ll give you his number,” Eve said. “He’s a wizard. We just came back from a design trip to an island in French Polynesia. We discovered exotic woods. The heat and the light. The place is pure sex.”

  “Did Guy like it?” Ann asked.

  “He couldn’t come. So let’s get to work. Now what I’d suggest is for you and Richard to lie side by side and close your eyes.”

  Ann, grateful for the privacy of closed lids, felt herself burning with shame. It drove her crazy how Eve repeated their names back to them, as if reading off index cards, as if they might forget who they were. Too late, Ann saw the conflict of interest in discussing one’s personal issues with someone one ate canapés with. Someone who took her floor man to the South Seas. She would have to quit the environmental group and find another cause. A waste because she didn’t believe in therapy—in fact, prided herself on being the problem solver for others—and this exposure made her feel doubly humiliated. Thank God for the small favor that Eve had revealed that Guy had cheated on her numerous times (this after the hand-on-the-tush incident), and had come to see her a year ago about a divorce that never materialized.

  Eve coughed and spoke in a soft voice. “Now, Ann and Richard, I want you two to picture where you want to be a year from now.”

  Ann moaned, her eyes still closed, poisoned by her own words used against her. This was the question she had posed to Eve the year before, her standard for divorce cases. Eve had stolen it. Apparently the answer for Eve ended up being staying with Guy, whom she claimed had reformed. The law had shown Ann that people rarely changed. At best, the behavior went inward, underground, where lust carved out a dark and dangerous hole in one’s heart.