Page 47 of Troubles in Paradise
Cash responds by texting her a selfie he takes on the bow ofTreasure Island,his sunglasses and headset on, wind blowing his hair. He feels like a jackass.
The third day, Tilda sends a text that says,Off to St. Luscious!With a kissy-face emoji.
Cash texts back:Have fun.He can’t believe the minimalist nature of her communication. One text a day? No calls at all? Of course, Cash hasn’t called her either. Should he? No, he thinks. But an instant later, he does call her. The phone rings six times, he hears the funny tone that means she’s in another country, then her voicemail picks up. She texted only two minutes earlier; is she so busy that she can’t say a quick hello? Maybe she’s on the plane, or maybe she’s frantically packing, trying to get out of the hotel room to meet her car to the airport. There could be lots of reasons she can’t talk. Cash hangs up.
Cash realizes he hates being trapped in the villa in Peter Bay and—hidden cameras be damned—he starts flagrantly breaking the rules. Okay, maybe notflagrantly,Cash doesn’t have a rule-breaking bone in his body. Hecautiouslybreaks the rules. He drinks six of Granger’s Island Hoppin’ IPAs and samples the whiskey in the crystal decanter that he finds in Granger’s study. Granger’s study is dark and serious—there’s a portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the wall. Then again, the Payne familyisfrom Illinois, so maybe this makes sense. The desk is backed by a wall of books, nothing leather-bound, though they’re all hardcovers; fiction, it looks like—Tilda mentioned that Granger is a prodigious and serious reader. Cash sees they’re alphabetized by author, like in a bookstore—Nabokov, Nesbo, Ng. The surface of Granger’s desk is clear, and the drawers are all locked (Cash checks; he’s looking, of course, for notes, some record of Granger’s impressions of Duncan Huntley or possibly even their financial arrangement), so Cash takes only the whiskey, but even that feels like getting away with something.
Before going to sleep on the third night, Cash moves out of Tilda’s wing and into the guest wing, which is where Cash brought Tilda’s friend Max after Max got drunk and sick onTreasure Island.Tilda’s wing of the house is cluttered with Tilda’s clothes, books, magazines, sunglasses, bikinis, hair products, a bunch of half-burned Nest scented candles, corkscrews, the cheap vinyl drawstring backpacks she likes to carry, and pairs of hiking boots, water shoes, and work clogs as well as receipts and piles of cash, her tips from various nights that she doesn’t ever bother to count or deposit, but the guest wing is immaculate. The wing is two stories connected by a floating staircase that appears to be magically suspended in air. Upstairs is a comfy sitting room with a huge television and a perfect little palm-green-and-white-tiled kitchenette that has a petal-pink minifridge filled with soft drinks and beer. How did Cash not know about this? He takes an Island Hoppin’ IPA, thank you very much. The bedroom is downstairs. There’s a four-poster mahogany bed draped with white sheers that looks like what a bed in heaven must look like. Out a sliding glass door is a private garden and a deep, circular plunge pool.
Home for the night, Cash thinks. He doesn’t have to go into the main house at all.
He’s getting thirty-nine thousand dollars free and clear. After he finishes his beer, he feels happy about this. He can buy a truck and stop driving Tilda’s Rover around like he’s the errand boy.
Cash has a difficult time falling asleep in the guest wing. The bed is too soft and it doesn’t smell like Tilda. It’s quarter to eleven; he could still go out. Cruz Bay isn’t exactly a late-night town but Cash knows the Parrot Club will be open. He can take what’s left in his bank account and gamble, now that he knows there’s more money coming.
Cash gets all the way out to the driveway before he comes to his senses. He’s been drinking; he should not get behind the wheel of the Rover and he shouldnotpiss all his hard-earned money away at the Parrot Club. He has a full charter tomorrow. He should go to bed.
He does go to bed—back in Tilda’s wing, his face buried in her pillow.
Working onTreasure Islandhas been a good distraction. There’s nothing like being responsible for thirty people as they swim, snorkel (often for the first time), and drink copious amounts of alcohol to keep one in the present moment. But on day four of not talking to Tilda—honestly, what’s going on? Has she not thought to call Cash even once?—Cash finds himself short on patience. It doesn’t help that he has a guest on the boat who reminds him of Duncan. This guy, Bradley, is an aggressive, in-your-face hipster. He’s exactly Dunk’s height and build, and he’s wearing jeans—jeans, on a trip to the BVIs!—and a plain white T-shirt that looks like it came out of a three-pack of Hanes but probably was made by Rick Owens and cost four hundred dollars. And he’s wearing a flashy gold Omega. Cash notices the jeans and the watch when Bradley checks in but not his Versace slip-on loafers, which he refuses to be separated from when it’s time to board the boat.
Cash says calmly, “Take your shoes off and put them in the basket or I will leave you here.”
“Oh yeah?” Bradley says, squaring his shoulders.
Cash lifts the rope from the bollard. Everyone is aboard except for Bradley, who remains in his shoes on the dock.
“Yeah,” Cash says.
Reluctantly, Bradley removes his precious shoes and hands them over to his girlfriend, who, Cash remembers from check-in, is named Gretchen Gingerman. She puts them in her oversize Fendi bag.
Bradley stays in the shade of the wheelhouse while Gretchen fetches him drinks. Gretchen has golden hair, is three inches taller than Bradley, and has the face and body of a supermodel; Cash tries not to look too closely but Gretchen Gingerman seems pretty damn perfect. And unlike Bradley, she’s cool. She leans across the bar and apologizes about the shoes, then says, “Bradley has a thing about people seeing his feet,” which is a statement so bizarre that all Cash can do is laugh, and Gretchen Gingerman laughs right along with him. Then Gretchen’s phone rings and she checks the display and says, “That’s him. He must be wondering where his drink is.”
“He called you?” Cash says. He takes his time making two painkillers. Let Bradley wonder.
Bradley stays on the boat during their trip to the Baths, since it can’t be done in jeans. Gretchen goes (she’s wearing a gold-lamé string bikini; Ayers would have had a field day, but Cash is inclined to cut Gretchen some slack, and besides, she looks amazing in it) and has a wonderful time. Gretchen also goes snorkeling at the Indians. Cash shows her his favorite staghorn coral formation, where they see a school of parrotfish and a baby barracuda, and when they get back to the boat, Bradley is glowering.
He says to Cash, “You trying to make time with my girl?”
Cash holds up his palms. “Just showing her the fish, man.”
They go to Pirates Bight on Norman Island for lunch; it has a dock, so Bradley can finally disembark. Cash always sits at the bar and orders the mahi sandwich (he isn’t required to socialize during lunch), but he can’t keep from seeking out the two-top in the corner where Gretchen and Bradley are sitting by themselves. This seems a little sad. By this point in the trip, most people have bonded with other guests and all sit at nearby or connecting tables so they can chat. Cash knows he shouldn’t…but he heads over to Gretchen and Bradley’s table. Gretchen is eating the fish and chips like it’s her last meal on earth, swiping her fries liberally through the tartar sauce, but Bradley has only a painkiller in front of him.
“Not hungry?” Cash asks. He’s poking the bear, he knows this, but he can’t help himself. “Did being on the boat make you nauseated?”
“He’s fasting,” Gretchen says. “He’s like Jack from Twitter. It’s a control thing.”
“Aproductivitything,” Bradley says. He shoots his watch to the end of his wrist; it actually looks a little big, like it’s his father’s watch. “Not that it’s any of this squid’s business whether I eat or don’t eat.”
Squid?Cash thinks. DidBradley,who came on an all-day swim-and-snorkel charter in a pair of skinny Calvin Kleins like he’s Brooke Shields, just callCasha squid?
Gretchen is giving Cash big apologetic eyes, probably imploring him not to engage, an expression that doesn’t escape Bradley’s notice. “Don’t ogle him,” Bradley says. He drains the painkiller top to bottom in one long gulp like it’s some kind of party trick.Guess what, Bradley,Cash wants to say.I see it all day, every day. Chugging a painkiller does not make you a badass.“Don’t you have to go swab the decks?” Bradley asks.
He’s small,Cash tells himself.And he’s insecure, even though he probably makes millions and has a smoke-show girlfriend.“Yes,” Cash says. He grins because Bradley is so mired in his own pointless misery that this seems like the response that would irk him the most. “See you on the boat at one thirty sharp.”
Their last stop is White Bay on Jost Van Dyke. On the way over to Jost, Cash mans the bar and Gretchen comes in for two painkillers.
“I’m sorry about Bradley,” she says. “I made him come on this trip when he didn’t want to. He agreed just to make me happy.”
