Page 50 of What Happens in Paradise
The ride to Virgin Gorda is smooth. Ayers makes herself notice how glorious the water, the sky, and the emerald-green islands are. She is so lucky to live here, to have this job and her job at La Tapa, her friends, her community, Maia and Huck. Rosie is gone, but at least while Ayers is reading the journals, it feels like she has Rosie back. It feels like Rosie is, finally, telling her everything.
But then she succumbs to the red, hot, itchy temptation of thinking about Mick and Brigid. Brigid! If Ayers had seen Mick with anyone else—Emily Ratajkowski, Scarlett Johansson with her tongue in Mick’s ear—it wouldn’t have sickened Ayers the way seeing him with Brigid has. Why did he even bother getting back together with her? Because she was hurting? Because he felt sorry for her? Because her apartment was far more homey and comfortable than the rat hole where he and Gordon lived? Is he using her? Preying on her pain and her wobbly judgment? She’s actively mourning the loss of her best friend and she has been trying to hold it together so she can be whole and strong for Maia. How dare Mick go behind her back again after all Ayers has just been through. That is what makes this unforgivable.
She scans the boat, looking for anyone who seems to be suffering from seasickness, but the passengers look calm and happy, their faces turned toward the sun, hair blowing back in the breeze. The six boys are sitting on a bench between the statuesque bookends of their parents, and there isn’t a single electronic device among them, which Ayers finds impressive.
She leans toward the mother, Donna, and says, “Your boys are so well behaved.”
Donna wraps her arm around the youngest, Dougie, who is sitting next to her, and kisses the top of his head. “Believe me, this is a rare moment of peace. We told them if they behaved today, we’d rent a dinghy tomorrow and go to the pizza boat in Christmas Cove.”
“Good bribe!” Ayers says. “I love Pizza Pi.” Mick had said something the night before about borrowing his boss’s boat so they could raft up in Christmas Cove on Monday—eat pizza, listen to live music.
Maybe now he’ll take Brigid.
“How do you manage six boys?” Ayers asks. Because she’s an only child, she has always been fascinated by big families and she still harbors a fantasy of having a bunch of kids herself someday. Which will probably never happen, seeing as how she can’t even sustain a relationship. (She has to lasso her psyche! Stay in the moment!) “Isn’t it a lot, to keep track of their sports and activities and their dental appointments and haircuts and stuff?” Just looking at the Dressler family brings up visions of reminders written on a chalkboard in the mudroom, a color-coded calendar, baskets labeled with each boy’s name to hold hats and gloves and rainboots.
“They’re all swimmers,” Donna says. “I just drop them off at the Y on Saturday morning and collect them at the end of the day. I go to some of the meets, though I’ve learned to pick and choose. I used to go to every single one and my hair turned green just from sitting in the pool balcony for so long.” She laughs. “They aren’t interested in impressing me, anyway. They want to impress their coach, their teammates, and each other. They all swim freestyle and do the IM, so it’s pretty intense competition.” She looks down to the end of the bench and whispers, “DJ has just committed to swim at Stanford.”
“That’s so cool,” Ayers says. “Where are you guys from?”
“Philadelphia,” Donna says. “The Main Line.”
Sure, of course, Ayers might have predicted that. The Dresslers probably live in an old stone house that has a creek running behind it. The husband, Dave, probably takes the train downtown to work, and Donna probably makes enormous dinners—Taco Tuesdays!—that the boys devour, exhausted from a day of school and swimming the fifty-free in under a minute. Ayers feels herself falling in love with the Dressler family. Adopt me, please, she thinks.
But maybe there are secrets, like soft spots on a seemingly perfect apple. Maybe Donna is having an affair with the kids’ swim coach; maybe Dave is a degenerate gambler who has lost the college savings; maybe the oldest boy got his girlfriend pregnant, which he’ll reveal the day they get home from this vacation, and suddenly, Stanford will be called into question.
Ayers shakes her head. What is wrong with her today? She suspects it’s a combination of the diaries and seeing Mick and Brigid together. It feels like the whole world is hiding something.
Ayers lifts her gaze from Donna to the cabin of the boat. The past two days, Cash has circulated around the boat and introduced himself to the guests, but there he is, behind the bar, making that chick Max another drink.
In the seven years that Ayers has been working on Treasure Island, she has seen a spectrum of eye-popping outfits, which she and Wade have put into three categories. Category one, the most popular, was the Siren. This included teensy bikinis and wet T-shirts. Category two was the Riviera Gigolo, a gentle way of describing men who wore, instead of trunks, European-cut briefs—nut-huggers, grape-smugglers, banana hammocks. Category three was the Vampire. These folks showed up in head-to-toe Lycra—usually black, for some reason—because they couldn’t risk exposure to the sun. (The Lycra suits were always accompanied by wide-brimmed floppy hats.) Ayers was all about SPF but in her opinion, if exposure to sunlight was that verboten, then a day trip on Treasure Island—hell, a vacation on a Caribbean island in general—probably wasn’t for you.
Once Max takes the paisley peasant blouse off and slides out of her jean shorts, Ayers sees that the green bikini consists of only three tiny triangles of iridescent material (possibly meant to reference fish scales) and some string. It’s a dental-floss thong, leaving the pale orbs of Max’s buttocks exposed. Ayers notices a tattoo on the right cheek—a pair of lips.
Kiss my ass, Ayers thinks. Got it. Max’s body is a living rebus.
Ayers is dismayed that Max chose to wear such a revealing suit on a family-oriented boat trip. What must the six boys think? At least half of them will be ogling her all day; it’s impossible not to ogle her.
Donna gives Ayers a sympathetic smile. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”
That’s a generous perspective, Ayers thinks. She will bet anyone the keys to her truck that Max is going to lose her bikini when she jumps off the boat to swim into the Baths.
Ayers puts on her headset and runs through the drill: Jump in, swim to shore, here are the life vests, and does anyone need a noodle?
Everyone does just fine—including six-year-old Dougie—and then Max climbs up to the edge of the bow and turns around in a panic. “Where’s Cash?” she says. “I want Cash to go with me.”
“He’s onshore already, Max,” Ayers says. “See him there?” Cash is standing on the small golden beach herding everyone toward the entrance of the Baths. He’s going to lead the tour today and Ayers is bringing up the rear. “Just jump in and swim right for him, okay?”
“Oh, okay,” Max says. She waves both arms overhead. “Cash! Cash!” She loses her footing and falls in. Ayers peers over the edge, checking to see whether Max can swim or if Ayers will have to save her.
To be safe, Ayers jumps in a few feet away. “You okay?”
Max is busy doing the doggie paddle, eyes squeezed shut, and because she is, actually, making forward progress, Ayers lets her be, swimming behind her just in case.
She can’t believe this chick isn’t a friend of Brigid.
“Looks like you have a barnacle on your boat,” Ayers says to Cash once they’re all back aboard Treasure Island. Max had trailed Cash through the Baths so closely that whenever he stopped, she bumped into him. At Cathedral, she jumped off the ledge into his arms and clung to him far longer than was necessary.
“Huh?” Cash says. “Oh, yeah. She’s harmless.” They both turn to see Max standing at the bar, waiting for Cash so he can make her another drink and she can show him her chest.
