Page 29 of What Happens in Paradise
You’re hiding something,” Mick says. It’s one of their rare nights off together and they’re having dinner at the bar at Ocean 362, where they can watch the sun set. Ayers spent the afternoon on Salomon Bay by herself; Mick asked to come along but Ayers said she wanted to be alone. It was important, this time around, to preserve her me-time.
I want to lie in the sun and think about Rosie, she said.
You can think about Rosie with me right next to you, Mick said. You can even talk about Rosie. I’ll listen.
It’s not the same, Ayers said. You’ll distract me. What she didn’t tell Mick, couldn’t tell him, was that she needed time to read Rosie’s journals. She had made it from the year 2000—Rosie at age seventeen—all the way through her tumultuous relationship with Oscar to the weekend in 2006 when she met Russ. Ayers was just getting to the good stuff, the important stuff—but it was tricky, finding blocks of time to read.
“If you’re suspicious,” Ayers says now, “it’s probably because of your own guilty conscience.” She digs into the walnut-crusted Roquefort cheesecake.
“What?” he says.
“Don’t act offended,” Ayers says. She lowers her voice because the bartender, Alex, is a friend of theirs and she doesn’t want him to hear them squabbling. “We agreed we wouldn’t dance around the topic of your infidelity. We agreed you would own it and that I was free to bring it up at any time.”
“Within reason. We said ‘within reason.’”
“You’re accusing me of hiding something,” Ayers says. “Meanwhile, you haven’t even fired Brigid.”
“I can’t fire her just because we broke up,” Mick says. “That’s against the law.” He pulls his phone out because the sun is going down and one of Mick’s passions is photographing the sunset every night, then posting it on Instagram as #sunset, #sunsetpics, #sunsetlover. Ayers has forgotten how this annoys her. She enjoys a good sunset as much as the next person, but she finds pictures of the sunset #overdone.
“You can fire her because she’s a terrible server,” Ayers says. “She’s the worst server I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re biased.”
Ayers carefully constructs a bite: a slice of toasted baguette smeared with the Roquefort topped with the accompanying shallot and garlic confit. “How do you think I feel knowing that she’s right there under your nose every single night? The answer is: not great. But do I complain? Do I sniff your clothes or show up at the restaurant unannounced? No. Do I accuse you of hiding something? I do not.”
“You’re right,” Mick says. He’s distracted by his sunset posting. “I’m sorry.”
Ayers lets the topic drop because guess what—she is hiding something! She’s obsessed with Rosie’s journals, and she isn’t using that word cavalierly like the rest of the world now does (“I’m obsessed with AOC’s lipstick” or “mango with chili salt” or “‘Seven Rings’ by Ariana Grande”). If Ayers didn’t have two jobs and a boyfriend, she would lock herself in a room and binge on the journals until she had the whole story—but there is pleasure to be had in pacing herself. Read, then process.
Of course, it’s more difficult to hold back now that Russ has entered the picture.
Ayers and Mick finish dinner and decide to end the evening by going to La Tapa for a nightcap. To an outsider, it might seem pathetic that Ayers can’t stay away from her place of employment on her night off, but the fact is, La Tapa is her home and her coworkers are her family. Skip and Tilda finally hooked up—they’ve been circling each other since October—and Tilda told Ayers that for three days straight, they did nothing but drink Schramsberg, eat mango with chili salt, and have wild sex. But on the fourth day, Tilda woke up at Skip’s place and wondered what the hell she was doing there.
It was like the fever broke, Tilda whispered to Ayers as they polished glasses before service. I’m over him. In fact, looking at him makes me feel kind of sick.
Human nature being what it is, when Tilda’s enthusiasm cooled, Skip’s grew more intense, and Tilda confided to Ayers—yes, somehow Ayers and Tilda were becoming confidantes—that Skip followed her home to her parents’ villa one night after work. (Tilda’s parents are quite wealthy and have a home in Peter Bay. Tilda doesn’t have to work at La Tapa but she’s determined not to “play the role of entitled rich kid,” so she hammers out four shifts a week and also volunteers at the Animal Care Center, walking rescue dogs. The more Ayers learns about Tilda’s life outside of work, the harder it is not to admire and even like her.) When Tilda explained to Skip in her parents’ driveway—she was not about to invite Skip in—that she thought maybe they had gotten too close too quickly, Skip had started to cry.
Now, apparently, he’s venting his anger at the restaurant during service; he’s been acting erratically with the customers.
And sure enough, after Ayers and Mick claim two seats at the bar and order Ayers’s favorite sipping tequila, Ayers overhears Skip describing a bottle of Malbec for the couple sitting a few stools away like this: “This wine is a personal favorite of mine,” Skip says. “It has hints of hashish, old piñata candy, and the tears of cloistered nuns.”
“What?” the woman says. “No, thank you!”
Ayers waves Skip over. “You okay?”
“Great, Ayers, yeah,” Skip says, scowling. “Seriously, never better.” He looks over Ayers’s shoulder and his expression changes. “Hey, man, how’re you doing? Good to see you! It’s…it’s…I’m sorry, bud, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Cash,” a voice says.
Ayers whips around. “Cash!” she says. She hops off her stool. It’s Cash Steele, here at La Tapa! Ayers remembers too late that she’s angry with him. She finds that she’s happy, really happy, to see him. She inadvertently checks behind him to see if maybe Baker followed him in.
No. But Ayers finds her heart bouncing around at the prospect of his being here.
“Hey, Ayers,” Cash says. He offers Skip a hand across the bar. “Good to see you, man. Just got in on the ferry. I’m starving. Can I get an order of mussels and the bread with three sauces?”
“You got it, Cash,” Skip says.
Cash eyes the stool next to Ayers. “This taken?”
