Tatjana Soli - The Last Good Paradise

“I’m sick of fancy food. I’d be fine if I never touched another mole again.” Oaxacan Mole Negro was Javi’s signature dish. Ann had turned cruel.

Despite all the water and humidity, the billowing pink clouds on the flat horizon, there was a great impression of dryness on the islands that made her parched. She downed the small green bottles of mineral water in the minibar one by one.

“You know those are ten bucks each? A dollar a swallow,” Richard said, reading the in-room menu.

He felt sorry, culpable for his own part in the restaurant fiasco, but still he couldn’t stop himself from complaining. He wanted to get back to LA and somehow fix things. Maybe Javi could explain the situation to the bank, or better yet to Inez. Maybe the loan shark would be interested in having a personal chef to work off the debt? Even if it took another ten years to set things straight, that was better than standing still, there, which was basically nowhere, the end of the earth, doing nothing. “We could go home tomorrow. Return the money. Start over. I mean, what’s the plan here?”

“The plan is to not have a plan right now.”

Had she really just said that? She had told the human resources person at the firm that a family emergency had come up, and she would be out of town indefinitely. If this wasn’t an emergency, she didn’t know what was. If her actions were discovered, she might be fired. Even if she wasn’t dismissed, the hint of impropriety would blow her chances of making partner.

* * *

They picked their way gingerly across the narrow beach of crushed coral, under a scraggly row of desiccated palms. The place gave off the ramshackle aura of a B-movie set. Felled, diseased coconut trees were scattered throughout the beach, victims of the last hurricane, poisoned by the salt water. Neat little pyramids of coconuts were stacked here and there, resembling rusted cannonballs or shriveled heads, some already splitting open, sprouting shards of neon-green leaf.

At the hotel bar, they sipped drinks prickling with more paper umbrellas. Ann’s stock-in-trade irony, her anger-tinged sarcasm, had been declared strictly verboten on this trip as per Richard. It almost killed her to not make a quip about the European diver set sprawled around the hotel, wearing Speedos the colors of tropical fish, sporting long, unkempt hair, pierced and inked body parts, trying for the vintage Richard Gere, Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler looks of the ’80s. She felt like a downed electrical wire, bouncing, snapping, smoking, useless.

After another round of drinks, they held hands, giggling as fish passed under the glassed insets in the floor. Ann remembered, as if she had forgotten, that she really did love Richard, and that it was just bad luck and contrary fate that had estranged them.

“Let’s go have a feast,” she said.

On the way to the dining room, the concierge waved them over with an urgent message. Richard blanched as he read the note. “It’s Javi. How did he know we were here?”

“Lorna might have told him.” She was disappointed that their secret was already out. She had wanted to make Javi suffer even as she told Lorna to look after him.

“He’s says he’s taking care of things.” Richard blinked. “He says he loves us.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s try to be happy tonight. Keep it light.”

“What do you say we try the tuna carpaccio?” she said as a peace offering.

“Sure.”

Their courtship had been a gastronomic whirlwind. Food their lingua franca. He had courted her through all the great winery-restaurants of Napa, courtesy of his school connections, teaching her to pair a zinfandel with an heirloom tomato pasta sauce. They visited San Francisco and the great kitchens in Chinatown dedicated to dim sum, where she sampled rice noodle rolls, egg tarts, and chicken’s feet. When she was swamped with work, they stayed in LA, trying the unique fusions of Cal-Mex, the mysteries of blood-orange margaritas and grilled mako shark tacos. It wasn’t until she met Richard that Ann understood that food could be sexy.

The tuna came, ruby fleshed, on a bed of emerald arugula.

“Are we a couple?” Richard asked as his fork hovered over a bite of tomato-and-caper-topped fish.

“Of course,” Ann said. “Yes, definitely. Yes, yes, yes,” she said, but it came out, Shush, shush, shush .

“Okay.”

“Are we on the lam?” She giggled, drunk beyond the abilities of mere alcohol.

Outside, across from the pool filled with fluorescent-suited children, stood Loren, tattered shorts the color of driftwood riding low on his narrow hips, talking with the hotel manager. Ann didn’t care for his type, or the type he seemed to be: a hustler, maybe a dissolute, once-upon-a-time gigolo? Blasted good looks. Unlike the tourists — doughy white and sunburned pink, swaddled in garish tropical prints — Loren’s dry, weathered self blended in naturally on the island. And yet, in the middle of all the high spirits of tourists on vacation, the laid-backness of the natives and expats who lived there, Ann sensed that for the three of them — Loren, Richard, and herself — things were deadly serious. Loren’s sepulchral gaze across the pool alarmed her. She was pretty positive she didn’t want him as their host.

* * *

Loren had had it with Steve, the manager. Loren’s collection of huts rustique had a loose reciprocal agreement with the main resort. Alone, the place was too financially unviable in its remoteness to be kept supplied, despite the steep price tag for the eco-experience of existing without electricity — as in no light, air-conditioning, TV, computer, WiFi (yes, he did have to explain that) — and with the ban on cell phones equipped with long-range GPS satellite, as well as children under eighteen. They had worked out a symbiotic relationship because Loren did provide an expérience sauvage , and there was a certain clientele that hungered for that exclusive, minimalist luxury. Ironically, two decades before, Loren had had the real experience he was now selling on these same beaches, minus the mosquito-net canopy beds, plunge pools, and gourmet dinners. For him it had just been the magic of grilling fish over a fire and sleeping on a mat.

The problem was that Steve wanted to tack on another 10 percent for groceries and alcohol.

“You’re killing me,” Loren said.

“Listen, my costs are going up. If I don’t pass them on, I start losing money.”

“Occupancy has been bad. I’ve had to refurbish some bungalows. Bad timing.”

Steve frowned. Steve was a prig. In his thirties with salt-and-pepper hair and a soft voice, he could have passed for an English butler except for the Polynesian shirt and flip-flops.

“I’m not running a charity for you out there.”

“How long have you been in the islands?” Loren asked, knowing beforehand the answer. “Let me explain to you. I am your bling. Your celebrity bait. I’m what brings out the travel writers for their castaway experience. Without me, you’re just another tiki lodge with second-rate food and a fake pearl farm with low-grade product brought in from the Philippines. No Lindsay Lohan, no Sarkozy. No New York Times travel spreads, no Travel & Leisure awards, no Le Monde , not even TripAdvisor. Comprenez-moi? Do you hear me?”

Steve’s face had gone boiled-lobster red. He resembled a balloon under pressure of bursting.

“I’ve been here over twenty-five years,” Loren said. “I’ll be here long after you’ve packed up your bags and gone back home. What I require is loyalty. And I repay it. Otherwise I cut you off. I’ll get you fired. It will be so bad, you’ll never want to see sand again the rest of your days.”