Page 70 of What Happens in Paradise
When the sun set, the rum came out and a steel band set up, and once I made sure Maia was safe, under the watchful eyes of her aunties, I found Huck and he poured some Flor de Caña and we did a shot together.
“We’re going to make it,” he said.
“Are we?” I said. I knew it was the right time for me to find a home of my own. I had plenty of money in the bank to rent a nice place, maybe even buy, but I knew that if I moved out, my heart would break and so would Huck’s. My mother was gone. We needed to stick together.
I found Ayers and Mick sitting on the beach together and I joined them and Mick’s dog, Gordon. We were such good friends that we didn’t have to speak; we could just be.
Mick whistled, snapping me out of my daydream. “Would you look at that,” he said. “Bluebeard.”
I made a sound, words trying to escape that I caught at the last second. Bluebeard? I stood up and, sure enough, there was the yacht, cruising across the horizon in front of us. Headed away from Tortola, it looked like, and toward…well, toward Caneel. Where else?
I stayed on Oppenheimer until the very end, helping to clean up until every trace of the celebration was swept away. Ayers and Mick offered to take Huck and Maia home. I wanted to stay there and hang out by myself for a while. They hugged me. They said they understood.
They did not understand. Ayers was my confidante but I hadn’t even told her the truth. I feared she would tell Mick, and Mick would tell someone who worked at the Beach Bar, and the next day, the whole island would know. Ayers thought Maia’s father, someone I called the Pirate, had come in on a yacht one weekend and then left, never to return.
Ayers hadn’t given a second thought to a yacht called Bluebeard.
By the time I got to Caneel, it was very late. I still knew people who worked there—Estella, Woodrow, and Chauncey, the night desk manager. I knew that Chauncey had grown complacent at his job. Absolutely nothing happened at Caneel between the hours of midnight and five a.m. Chauncey slept in the back on a cot.
I parked in the lot and sneaked across the property in the shadows, going past the Sugar Mill, the swimming pool, and tennis courts, across the expanse of manicured grass, to a string of palm trees that lined the beach.
Bluebeard was anchored offshore.
Honeymoon 718. I stood in front of the room trying to summon my courage. If I knocked and it wasn’t Russ’s room, whoever was in there might call security—and what would they think, seeing me there? They’d escort me off the property or they’d call the police or…Huck. Maybe someone would know me and realize I’d just lost my mother. They would chalk it up to grief.
The worst outcome would be if Russ did answer the door and he had a woman in there.
Irene.
Someone other than Irene.
I knew it was naive, but for some reason, I didn’t think Russ would take Irene or another woman to our room.
I stepped up and knocked.
Nothing. No rustle, no voices, no footsteps.
I knocked again, louder—and then I turned to look at the boat. Bluebeard. I could swim out to the boat, climb up the ladder at the back, ask for Todd Croft. I laughed. I was losing my mind.
The door to 718 opened.
It was Russ standing before me, blinking, befuddled.
“Rosie?” he said.
“Hi.”
“You’re real? I’m not dreaming?”
“My mother died,” I said. “Today was her service.”
“Oh, Rosie,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.” His voice was thick with sleep.
I peeked behind him. The room was dark, the bed empty. “Can I come in?”
“Yes,” Russ said. His eyes filled and I could see my own emotions reflected back at me. For eight years I’d told myself that staying away was for the best, that denying what we’d shared was for the best, that sacrificing this man was for the best.
I had lived with agony, with sadness, with longing.
