The Last Good Paradise: A Novel Read online

  * * *

  “So what do you do?” Dex asked Ann.

  Silence.

  “Ann is an attorney,” Richard volunteered.

  His answer was truncated, unsatisfactory. It was too little. A pause opened up for her to fill, which she emphatically chose not to.

  Why did Americans always insist on asking about occupation, as if what you did was who you were? In other cultures it was considered rude, like asking someone’s income or weight or age. Or maybe it was Ann’s hypersensitivity to her profession, being pigeonholed. The silence echoed with the pain of a thousand lawyer jokes that had rained down on her over the years:

  Q: What’s the difference between a jellyfish and a lawyer? A: One’s a spineless, poisonous blob. The other is a form of sea life. Q: How many lawyers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Three. One to climb the ladder, one to shake it, and one to sue the ladder company. Q: What does a lawyer get when you give him Viagra? A: Taller. Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a vulture? A: The lawyer gets frequent-flier miles. Q: If you see a lawyer on a bicycle, why don’t you swerve to hit him? A: It might be your bicycle. Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a leech? A: After you die, a leech stops sucking your blood. Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and God? A: God doesn’t think he’s a lawyer. Q: How are an apple and a lawyer alike? A: They both look good hanging from a tree. Q: How can a pregnant woman tell she’s carrying a future lawyer? A: She has an uncontrollable craving for bologna. Q: How many lawyer jokes are there? A: Only three. The rest are true stories. Q: What are lawyers good for? A: They make used-car salesmen look good. Q: What do dinosaurs and decent lawyers have in common? A: They are extinct. Q: What do you call twenty-five attorneys buried up to their chins in cement? A: Not enough cement. Q: What do you call twenty-five skydiving lawyers? A: Skeet. Q: What do you call a lawyer gone bad? A: Senator. Q: What do you throw to a drowning lawyer? A: His partners. Q: What is brown and looks really good on a lawyer? A: A Doberman. Q: Why did God make snakes just before lawyers? A: To practice. Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a herd of buffalo? A: The lawyer charges more. Q: What’s the difference between a tick and a lawyer? A: The tick falls off you when you’re dead. Q: How was copper wire invented? A: Two lawyers were fighting over a penny. Q: Why does the law society prohibit sex between lawyers and their clients? A: To prevent clients from being billed twice for essentially the same service. Q: How can you tell a lawyer is lying? A: His lips are moving. Q: Why did New Jersey get all the toxic waste and California all the lawyers? A: New Jersey got to pick first. Q: Why don’t lawyers go to the beach? A: Cats keep trying to bury them. Q: What do you call five thousand dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start. Q: What’s the difference between a dead skunk in the road and a dead lawyer in the road? A: There are skid marks in front of the skunk. Q: What do you call a smiling, sober, courteous person at a bar association convention? A: The caterer. Q: Why are lawyers like nuclear weapons? A: If one side has one, the other side has to get one. Once launched, they cannot be recalled. When they land, they screw up everything forever. Q: What do lawyers and sperm have in common? A: One in three million has a chance of becoming a human being. Q: Why won’t sharks attack lawyers? A: Professional courtesy.

  Ann felt sick to her stomach.

  Dex was a celebrity, a rock star. No one asked what he did. He looked like what he did, even if one didn’t know his band or his music. Wende was a muse. Loren, a hotelier. A darker realization came to Ann—soon she wouldn’t even be a lawyer. One couldn’t possibly introduce oneself as an ex-lawyer. It was a little like explaining one used to be a genocidal dictator. Once … always.

  “I’m a chef,” Richard said.

  “A chef? Whoa, I love that.”

  “We own a restaurant.” Richard downed his wine in one swallow and poured another glass to the brim.

  Ann looked at him, startled, then pleased. Under the table she squeezed his knee.

  Richard had upped his alcohol consumption considerably since leaving Los Angeles, and yet he felt surprisingly peppy. His stomach had stopped its fierce gurgle; his hives had calmed down. “It’s called El Gusano.”

  “Seriously? Too funny.” The men high-fived. “Where is it?”

  “Venice.”

  “I live there! Part-time.”

  “It’s opening in a month.” Richard took a big swallow of wine.

  “Ah,” Dex said. “Resting before the storm?”

  “You got it.”

  “What kind of food?”

  Richard paused. “Mexican-French fusion. We don’t want to be stuck with labels.”

  “Fuck no! My kind of guy. Why do you think I’m hiding out? Out of reach of those corporate bloodsuckers. I’ll be at El Gusano. With friends. Famous ones. Reporters will come. Get you a write-up.”

  Richard nodded. He was close to tears.

  The lie had been a necessary one. The restaurant was still alive to both Ann and Richard; admitting its demise was like a death. They needed time to adjust to their new circumstances. In their imagination El Gusano, The Worm, had taken the place of their house as the locus of their idea of who they were. Imagining its possibilities occupied every spare minute. Ann, who kept away from the kitchen, obsessed over the look of the place. She studied the effect of stemware, silverware, plating. It was their creation, especially precious after all the years of slaving in someone else’s space, following their rules.

  Titi made a last pass around the table with coffee and cookies. In a spasm of coughing, Loren excused himself, and she finished the service alone. A look relayed its way around the table. After drinking a bottle of wine at dinner, Loren had faded quickly. Still early evening, but the island was already shut down. Dex brought out his guitar and a ukulele he had ferreted from Cooked, and played back and forth between the two instruments.

  “Ask Cooked to come play drums,” he said to Titi, but she shook her head no.

  “He’s tired.”

  “You are exhausting my drummer.” Dex smiled. “Go on. We’ll close shop.”

  Prior to Richard and Ann’s arrival, an informality had descended on resort service that would remain in force. For the money they were paying, Ann wouldn’t have minded a little more pampering.

  A cigarette hung from Dex’s lips while he played; he removed it only to drink alcohol. With his long hair and tattoos, he reminded Ann of a child who had outgrown his Halloween costume.

  “I know you,” he said, strumming his guitar while Richard, whose spirits had miraculously picked up, played checkers with Wende in her short shorts and halter top.

  “I don’t think so,” Ann said, staring out at stars that were eerily large. It felt like being in outer space. She could sense the immense night around them, the buffer of thousands of miles of watery emptiness between them and home. Dex went away, then came back with a bottle of tequila and two glasses. He poured; Ann drank. She considered the capriciousness of happiness, how all those years ago this moment would have been the high point of her life. Instead she had hidden in the bathroom, Lorna had French-kissed him, and the possibility had vanished.

  “‘For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.’”

  “Impressive,” Ann said.

  “Melville. I’ve been reading from Loren’s library. Trying to get into the spirit of the place.”

  Behind them, Wende squealed, laughing. “No fair!”

  “You live in LA.” Dex took a drag from his cigarette. “I bet we met at the Troubadour or the Whisky.”

  Ann downed her shot. “Not in this decade.”

  “Could’ve sworn.”

  Ann walked away to the water, her skirt dipping in the surf as a rogue wave washed up around her, the soaked cloth manacling her ankles. Dex was harmless, but she didn’t need to have the past rear up now. She was having enough trouble deal
ing with her present. What were the odds that Dex Cooper would be there? Part of her wanted to get on the phone to Lorna and gossip. The withdrawal from not being able to connect to any electronic devices felt like rehab. It made her as jittery as giving up coffee.

  She stretched out on the cool sand, hiking the sodden fabric up on her thighs. Wende, having won at checkers, plopped herself down next to her.

  “Boring, boring. It’s, what, nine o’clock? I’m bored to death.”

  Ann nodded.

  Seashells scuttled back and forth in the darkness, hermit crabs drunk-driving.

  “You’ve got nice arms and legs. Any tats?” Wende asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Tattoos. I did some of Dex’s. You should let me do you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Ann said.

  “I thought we were going to Bali. Nightclubs. Or Phuket. No offense, but you two coming has been the most exciting thing to happen.”

  “None taken.” The girl was unformed, a hard, unripe fruit who in a strange way reminded Ann of herself at that age—never able to rest in the minute, always looking for more. “Tell him to take you someplace else.”

  In college, Ann dated a theater major, drank Manhattans, and wore black—a nonrebellion by other people’s standards but outrageous by her family’s. Her father had been a patent attorney, and when he retired, he taught theory at the law school. There was never a doubt that her older brother and sister would study law. The household lived, breathed, and ate jurisprudence. Around the dinner table, they talked of nothing else but the latest article in ABA. Outside interests and hobbies were considered an eccentricity.

  Her mother, though, was mutinous. She and Ann would hole up in the den and watch foreign films. From her, Ann discovered the possibility of a secret life—doing what was expected of you on the surface while the subterranean you bubbled along underneath.

  Wende snorted. “Dex thinks this is great. Just snorkeling, eating, and getting laid. Writing new music. No fans bothering him. I don’t mind the fans. Fans are fun.” Wende looked over her shoulder, then leaned over. “Between us, he’s a little old for me.”

  “Why’d you come then?”

  “I know what you’re thinking—dumb groupie from Idaho. Yeah, and a father fixation. It’s simple: I love his music. My mom played it all the time when I was growing up. I just admired him so much. But up close, his insecurity, his drinking, his using sexuality as a substitute for intimacy, as a marker for masculinity, well, it wears on you. I didn’t sign up to be his mom.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  Going on thirty-eight. Ann had been wrong. This girl was far more together than she was now.

  “I have my own CD. It was my dream back in Idaho. But seeing the business up close, I’m having second thoughts about spending my life that way. Having my image manipulated by a corporation sexing up my work for their profits, being at the mercy of a young, unsophisticated, fickle public. Yuck, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  “Being here has got me thinking about doing something with the environment. Engaging my passion, but not in a self-involved way. Being of service, you know? Like sharks.”

  “Sharks aren’t self-involved?”

  Wende giggled. “They are being overharvested, and no one cares because of their bad PR image. Jaws and so forth. I’m sorry, I’m talking way too much.”

  “Listening to you makes me feel young again.”

  “That’s what Dex says. I think he uses me as his base target demographic. Until I met him, I’d never been out of the country before, except Cabo. I want to experience things before I settle down like you and Richard.”

  “We’re settled all right.”

  “I see how he looks at you. In love, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.”

  Was that true? On top of all his other worries, did he have to worry about her? “He knows I’m not going anywhere.”

  “An outsider sees things. My mom says I have the sight.”

  Ann got up and dusted the sand off, pleased despite herself. Although she didn’t believe a word, it was falsely reassuring, like a good fortune cookie.

  She headed back to the fare, looking forward to seeing Richard, maybe apologizing for being a little too hormonal, too type-A lately, but when she got there, the room was dark and he was asleep.

  * * *

  She woke early to the sound of a boat engine. Outside, John Stubb Byron and his silent knitting wife hurried onto the boat as if they were making a getaway. Cooked waved at Ann, and she waved back vigorously, as if to say, I see you, I see you. The boat motored out of the lagoon.

  Later at breakfast, Ann asked about the couple.

  “They say it’s too crowded here.” Loren lifted his thin shoulders and dropped them in a noncommittal way.

  Only Ann and Richard showed up for breakfast. Mango was served, a splendid thing—voluptuously split open, orange flesh shiny under Ann’s spoon. She never ate mangoes at home; she didn’t know why. She avoided them at the grocery store. They seemed exotic, difficult with their thick greenish-yellowish-red skin bruised like a sunset, and the large pit pinioned down within its fibery strings. A mystery how to prepare one, but here the fruit was opened, diced, ready and willing. Here mangoes were lovely. She promised herself that, from now on, she would eat them at home to remember being on the island. While they lingered over a third cup of coffee, Loren brought Ann a fax from the main resort. It was yet another note from Javi:

  Spent the night in jail. Lorna bailed me out. Don’t worry—everything will be fixed. BTW, Lorna’s not as stuck up as she used to be. Hope you don’t mind me asking her out.

  She balled up the paper, but there was nowhere to throw it, so she stuck it in the pocket of her cover-up. Titi glared impatiently at their empty plates, willing them to get up. As Ann and Richard poked along the beach, they saw her and Cooked disappear into the trees.

  It was strange to go from full-throttle panic to having nothing to do but worry about one’s tan lines. Should they have stayed back home and stuck it out? Should Ann even now be sitting in the prison of her job? Richard couldn’t bear the thought of his stillborn kitchen. Leisure time yawned in front of them, and without email or Internet, much less TV, Ann thought this might not have been the best idea to get their minds off things after all. Richard had not asked to see the fax, but now, alone, he hinted.

  “That from Javi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything I should know?”

  “He says, ‘Don’t worry.’”

  Richard gave his irritating tight nod.

  * * *

  When Cooked came back from his morning “nap,” he offered to take the two couples over to a nearby deserted motu for snorkeling.

  Ann declined.

  “Are you sure?” Richard asked. His voice wheedled like a young boy’s asking permission to go play, not wanting to give away his excitement.

  “Go enjoy yourself,” Ann said.

  Richard hesitated, knowing solidarity was what was called for, but why couldn’t Ann go along with the program just this once? He craved the release of being back underwater.

  She took his hand. “We can’t just sit and stare at each other, right? Nothing is going to get decided today.”

  “Can you remind me again what we’re doing here?”

  “Assessing our options.”

  “It’s not criminal, though, what we did, right? It was our money.”

  “It has more to do with intent. The truth is slippery sometimes.” Answered like a true lawyer.

  Wende came out in a tiger-print bikini, wearing oversize dark glasses. She tiptoed, as if too much motion hurt. Cooked’s eyes grew big, grinning at the invitation that was Wende as she climbed into the boat. Titi stood in the kitchen doorway, sulking.

  “Is there any way I could get some breakfast to go?” Wende asked.

  Now Cooked climbed back out and waded through the water to the kitchen. T
iti huffed inside. Sitting at the table, drinking coffee, Loren read his newspaper, ignoring the whole thing as if he were just another guest.

  The previous night they had been kept up by the rapt, orgasmic sounds of lovemaking coming from Dex and Wende’s hut. It had woken Richard from his exhausted slumber, and Ann and he had lain side by side in bed, listening. They snickered at the obvious showmanship, although the truth was that it made each of them mourn the disappearance of lust in their own lives. Why couldn’t they have had the island to themselves so that they could concentrate on healing through nature, communing with the solitariness that was the essence of the desert island ideal, or at least be with civilized people who muffled their cries of pleasure in their pillows?

  As they waited, Dex came out in long baggy swim trunks, whistling.

  When Cooked carried out a paper bag of fruit and folded pancakes, Wende called across the water: “Thanks, Titi. You’re the best.”

  Titi shrugged, not sorry in the least that she had spit on the pancakes. She watched the girl untie and shed her top as soon as the boat took off.

  When it was gone, Loren looked up, surprised to find Ann still sitting on the sand, nursing a coffee she had cadged from the kitchen.

  “You don’t go to swim with the fishies?”

  “I don’t like water.”

  Loren laughed. “Perfect.” He stared at her a moment. “I didn’t at first either. It scared me. But that’s why I eventually went in. I will make a picnic for us later.”

  “I came for solitude. I can entertain myself quite well.”

  “I’m a selfish man—I would like you to keep me company. If you change your mind, let me know.”

  * * *

  The boat motored out across the blue lagoon, and soon it was easy to forget that there was even such a thing as land—it seemed the entire earth was covered with this limpid, body-temperature bathwater. The sun overhead scalded, and Richard felt his skin starting to tingle from burn. He’d forgotten Ann’s sunblock. Although he tried to concentrate on the watery view ahead, Wende was slathering oil all over her lovely, bare brown self, smelling of coconut, and it was difficult not to be taken in by the display.