Page 21 of Troubles in Paradise
“Maia told me.”
“Oh, right,” Cash says. He hates to be a talker but he feels like there’s something going on. “Have you seen Baker?”
“He called once but I didn’t pick up,” Ayers says. “I’m not feeling great and I need some time.”
“Right, right,” Cash says. He will stop talking even though he wants to brag about how smoothly the charter went.
They swoop and dive around and over the hills—past Caneel, past Oppenheimer and Jumbie, past everyone packing up from a day spent at Trunk Bay—and then begin the climb up to Peter Bay. Cash speaks only to direct Ayers to the correct house. They careen down Tilda’s driveway, and when Ayers stops, Cash hops out. “I’ll go get Winnie, her food, her bowl, her leashes. Be right back.”
He returns with Winnie in tow and there’s a bit of a long goodbye because although Winnie is going to the best possible home, Cash is still going to miss her like crazy. “I’ll come see her tomorrow after work,” he says. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Ayers says. She sighs, and if Cash isn’t mistaken, her eyes glaze over like she might cry. “The more the merrier.”
The more the merrier?Cash thinks. He wonders if maybe Mick has left Ayers with his dog—that would be weird—and then he wonders if maybe Ayers plans on letting Baker and Floyd move in with her.
“Are you…do you have company?” Cash asks.
“Kind of,” Ayers says. “I’m pregnant.”
Maia
Her grounding lasts six days instead of two weeks, but even so, Maia misses the first meeting at the new clubhouse. She arrives at the second meeting early, by herself; everyone else is getting a ride but because Huck and Irene have tripled up on their charters, Maia has to take the bus and then hike. The new clubhouse isveryinconveniently located in the middle of nowhere—but that’s the point. It’s Par Force, the great house of the Reef Bay plantation, and it can be accessed only by a spur of the Reef Bay Trail. Maia hikes down the trail, and when the three tourists ahead of her veer to the right to see the petroglyphs, Maia goes left up a steep hill that switchbacks up an even steeper hill. Par Force is engulfed in vines and coral creeper; the brick walls and stone columns are barely visible. There’s a low hum surrounding the house that sounds like some kind of electrical force field. It’s bees, Maia realizes, feasting on the pretty pink flowers of the creeper. Maia heads up the staircase to the main entryway. Unlike most of the ruins of houses on the island, this one still looks like a house. It has arches and columns and window openings, and the walls and roof are still mostly there.
But—Maia’s not gonna lie—it’s spooky, even during the daytime, and she wishes someone else were here. They all agreed they would meet at two thirty on Saturday; earlier today, Bright had basketball practice, Colton guitar lessons, and Shane an orthodontist appointment over on St. Thomas. Joanie is getting a ride from her mom, who’s happy Joanie and her friends are “finally taking an interest in hiking.”
Maia tries to text Joanie to ask if she’s OTW, but she has no signal. In her backpack, she has three bottles of water, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a banana, so she won’t die, but the idea of hanging out here alone much longer doesn’t appeal. Maia’s mother, Rosie, had brought her to Par Force only the year before.I can’t believe I’ve never shown you this place,she said. Then, once they were inside:I probably avoided it because it’s haunted.
Now that Rosie is dead, ghosts aren’t as scary as they used to be. Maia would welcome a visit from Rosie right now, in any form. Because where is everyone? She worries that this is some kind of prank, that while she was grounded, the rest of the group decided to trick her into going alone. Or maybe at the first meeting, they picked a different clubhouse location—Annaberg or Catherineberg, somewhere easier to get to—and forgot to tell Maia. Maia scrolls back through her texts with Joanie.Meet you at the place. Leaving for the place now.
Snap,Maia thinks. What ifthe placeJoanie is talking about isn’tthisplace?
But then Maia hears voices. She pokes her head through one of the crumbling stone window openings to see Joanie, Colton, and some girl Maia doesn’t recognize all climbing up the hill together.
“Hey,” Maia says. She’s relieved to see her friends but she wishes it were Shane. Shane is a year older than Maia and he goes to the Antilles School; he’s her crush, and recently he’s become more than just a crush. They have held hands on three separate occasions. Joanie has a crush on Colton, but Colton likes Joanie only as a friend. For now. Both Maia and Joanie are hoping the clubhouse—where they’re going to hang out without any adults watching them—will change this.
“Maia!” Joanie cries out. She runs up the stairs and gives Maia a hug, which seems a little strange since they just saw each other at school the day before, then gives Maia’s hand an extra-hard squeeze. It’s a message of some sort about this unknown girl. Friend or foe?
Colton and the girl follow.
Maia says, “Hey, I’m Maia.” The girl has milky-white skin, long red hair, and a pointy nose. She’s wearing white shorts and a regular pair of beach flip-flops that show off her green-polished toenails and silver toe rings. How did she hike all the way here in flip-flops?
“I’m Lillibet,” she says, shrugging. She peers around the dank inside of Par Force. “I’m in seventh; I go to Antilles. Is Shane here?”
“Not yet,” Maia says. “He had the ortho—”
“Yeah, I know, but he said he’d be here waiting.”
“You know who Lillibet’s sister is, right, Maia?” Colton says. “Dusty. Dusty Beck.”
Maia tries to hide her surprise. Dusty Beck is a bona fide St. Thomas celebrity. Maia—along with twelve million other people—follows Dusty on Instagram. Dusty was on the cover of last year’sSports Illustratedswimsuit issue, and Shane has a copy that she signed; he’d said he got it from “a kid in my class.” Which must have been the sister, Lillibet. What is she doing here?
“Cool,” Maia says. Joanie, behind Lillibet, has her arms locked across her chest and is rolling her eyes. Not cool with Joanie. Okay, then, not cool with Maia either. “Shane invited you?” Maia asks.
“Hey!”
They all turn to see Shane and Bright Whittaker racing up the hill. Maia tries to harden her facial expression, form it into some kind of shell. They created this club the night they met on the beach in Frank Bay because Colton was upset about his parents’ divorce. Colton is staying on St. John with his mom, but his dad is moving back to the States—to North Carolina, the Outer Banks—and Colton will see him only half the summer and at Christmas. As they were talking to Colton that night, trying to make him feel better, it came out that they all had stuff to deal with at home and no one to talk to about it. (That was really true for Maia—her mother had died and a new family had appeared out of nowhere!) So they’d decided to form a club and have meetings in person, not online, which felt old-fashioned in a cool way. They weren’t allowed to discuss club business on their phones. They weren’t allowed to take any pictures or post about the club. It would be a secret society, like the kind they had at Harvard and Yale.
Maia didn’t realize they were allowed to invite outsiders to join. She’d thought it was supposed to be just them—Maia, Shane, Joanie, Colton, and Bright. But five is an odd number, so Maia supposes adding another girl makes sense. She had sort of figured they would discuss it first and vote. But this isn’t Congress or Parliament; it’s a bunch of middle-school kids in the Virgin Islands.
