Page 62 of What Happens in Paradise
“Yes!” Irene says. “He went out with Tilda.”
“Who’s Tilda?” Floyd asks.
“A friend of your uncle’s,” Irene says.
Baker can’t describe his relief. He tousles Floyd’s hair. “You want some ice cream, buddy? They had red velvet cake at the Starfish Market.”
Baker puts Floyd to bed, then decides to turn in himself, mostly because there’s nothing else to do. Cash is still out and Baker has no other friends. If he were at home in Houston right now, he would smoke some weed and crash out in front of the TV—he needs to catch up on Game of Thrones—but he can’t watch that with Irene around.
His phone rings. This, he thinks, will be Anna, just getting home from work at nine o’clock at night. He steels himself. It would be just like Anna to have glanced at his text distractedly and responded with K, but then, after running the whole thing past Louisa, suddenly have a list of objections.
Baker should have texted Louisa.
But his display says Ayers.
“Ayers?” he says.
“Hey.” Her voice sounds funny—sad, trembling, like she’s been crying. “Are you busy?”
“Not at all,” he says. “I just put Floyd to bed so I can talk. What’s up?”
There’s a pause. “Can you get out? Is Cash there? Or your mom? To watch Floyd?”
“Uh…yeah. Cash is out but my mom is here.” Baker stands up and checks himself in the mirror. He hasn’t shaved—or showered, for that matter, unless swimming in the pool counts as a shower—since the day he went to Gifft Hill, Monday. He does have a nice tan now, but he looks like a Caribbean hobo. “Do you want to meet somewhere?”
“Can you just come here, to my place?” Ayers asks. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Your place?”
“Fish Bay,” Ayers says. “It’ll take you fifteen minutes if you leave right now.”
“Right now?” Baker says. And before he can explain that he needs to shower and change, she’s giving him directions.
Unlike the rest of the island, Fish Bay is flat. And really dark. Ayers said she lived past the second little bridge on the left, but Baker would have missed her house if he hadn’t caught a flash of green, her truck, out of the corner of his eye.
She’s standing in the doorway, backlit, hugging herself. He doesn’t need to feel bad about not showering, he sees. She’s still wearing her Treasure Island uniform and her hair is wild and curly.
“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”
She moves so that he can step past her, inside.
Her place is small, cute, bohemian. There’s a tiny kitchen with thick ceramic dishes on open shelves. There’s a papasan chair, a bunch of houseplants, a glass bowl filled with sand dollars, and a gallery wall of photographs from places all over the world—the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramids, the Matterhorn. Ayers is in every picture; in many, she’s a kid.
“Have you been to all these places?” Baker asks.
“Story for another day,” she says. “Come sit.”
Baker picks a spot next to Ayers on a worn leather sofa draped with a tapestry. There’s a coffee table with three pillar candles sitting in a dish of pebbles, and lying across the pebbles is a joint.
Are they going to smoke?
“Would you like a glass of water?” Ayers asks.
“Maybe in a minute,” Baker says. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”
Ayers folds her legs underneath her. How is it possible that even when she looks awful, she’s beautiful?
“This morning—” She laughs. “Which now feels like three days ago.” She picks up the joint and lifts a barbecue lighter off the side table, then seems to think better of it and sets both down. “It’s been a very long day.”
