Page 2 of Troubles in Paradise
Turtles in Salt Pond Bay.
Full-moon parties at Miss Lucy’s.
Mosquitoes in Maho Bay.
Iguanas.
Long lines at the Starfish Market (bring your own bags).
Cruise-ship crowds on the beach at Trunk Bay.
Steel-drum music and Chester’s johnnycakes.
Snorkelers, whom we fondly call “one-horned buttfish.”
Driving on the left.
Nutmeg sprinkled on painkillers (the drink).
Captain Stephen playing the guitar on theSinging Dog.
Eight Tuff Miles, ending at Skinny Legs.
A smile from Slim Man, who owns the parking lot downtown.
Nude sunbathers on Salomon Bay.
Rum punches and Kenny Chesney.
Afternoon trade winds.
Chickens everywhere.
St. John has no traffic lights, no chain stores, no fast-food restaurants, and no nightclubs, unless you count the Beach Bar, where you can dance to Miss Fairchild and the Wheeland Brothers in the sand. St. John is quiet, authentic, unspoiled.
Some people go so far as to call our island “paradise.”
But, we quickly remind them, even paradise has its troubles.
Irene
Cigarette smoke. Bacon grease. Something that smells like three-day-old fish.
Irene opens her eyes. Where is she?
There’s a blue windowpane-print bedsheet covering her. She’s on a couch. Her neck complains as she turns her head. There’s a kitchen, and on the counter, a bottle of eighteen-year-old Flor de Caña.
Huck’s house.
Irene sits up, brings her bare feet to the wood floor. A suitcase with everything she owns in the world is open on the coffee table.
She hears heavy footsteps and then: “Good morning, Angler Cupcake, how about some coffee?”
She drops her face into her hands. How can Huck be thinking about coffee? Irene’s life is…over. This time yesterday she’d been steady and stable, which wasno small featconsidering only a little over a month has passed since her husband, Russell Steele, was killed in a helicopter crash and Irene, who’d believed Russ was in Florida playinggolfand schmoozing withclients,discovered that Russ had a secret life down here in the Virgin Islands complete with mistress, love child, and a fifteen-million-dollar villa. Irene handled that newspretty damn well,if she does say so herself. Another woman might have had a nervous breakdown. Another woman might have set the villa on fire or taken out a full-page ad in the local paper (in Irene’s case, theIowa City Press-Citizen) announcing her husband’s treachery. But Irene adapted to the shocking circumstances. She found that she liked the Virgin Islands so much that she’s returned here to live—maybe not forever, but for a little while, so she can catch her breath and regroup. Just yesterday she was looking around Russ’s villa, thinking how she would redecorate it, how she might turn it into an inn for women like herself who had survived cataclysmic life changes.
Just last night, Irene felt like a teenager falling in love for the first time because, in a plot twist that happens only in novels and romantic comedies, Irene has developed feelings for Huck Powers, the stepfather of Russ’s mistress. The universe did Irene “a solid” (as Cash and Baker would say) when she met Huck. He’s an irresistible mix of gruff fisherman, devoted grandpa, and teddy bear. What would Irene’s situation look like if she hadn’t become friends with Huck? She can’t imagine.
But entertaining notions of a love life is a luxury she can no longer afford. Last night, FBI agents seized Russ’s villa. It’s now the property of the U.S. government.
