Tatjana Soli - The Last Good Paradise

“You have a copy?” Wende asked.

Dex fed the last page to the flames, then bowed and walked out of camera range. “What would be the point of that?”

“So that was the only one?” Wende said.

“Do you think I’m some narcissist? Faking it? It was a sign when we didn’t leave the island, when you fell overboard. The universe doesn’t want me to go back. This is good-bye to the band, to music. This time I’m doing it right.”

Wende ran to the fire, as if by sheer will she could pull out the pages intact. “You’re making a mistake.”

“I feel wonderful. I’m no longer a puppet to worldly desires.”

“You have no right!” she screamed.

“It’s my destiny.”

“It isn’t. Not anymore. You involve other people. It’s a gift, and you shit on it.”

Dex sighed. “Women.”

“You’re not so pure either. You complain about Robby, but a few years back you dumped him when you thought you could go out on your own.”

“You’re young,” Dex said, and turned his skinny back on her.

“Robby needs to make a living. He doesn’t have a rich dad and a trust fund to fall back on.”

“Stop it,” Dex said.

“I better leave,” Ann said.

“No!” Wende held her arm. “I want a witness. He doesn’t like to talk about all that because it doesn’t go with his image.” She turned to Dex. “I’ve sacrificed two years with you. It hasn’t been all games and fun. The best part of Dex Cooper is when he’s out on the stage playing music. You’re not much good any other time. I’m out.”

With that, Wende took off down the beach.

* * *

Dex couldn’t put out the flicker of doubt that she had ignited. She was screwing with his enlightenment. What do you do after being famous? It wasn’t like being an accountant, where you can retire. The only retirement from fame was obscurity. Nonfame. As in No Longer Famous. Thrown out of the club. Which, back to the Buddhist texts, pretty much came down to nonbeing. How did he like them apples?

Dex gave a fake bark of a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Women.”

Ann felt awkward staying but feared leaving him alone. Undecided, she sat on the sand. There was a bit of Girl Scout and do-gooderism in her that mirrored Richard’s.

After a long period of silence, Dex asked, “What do you think?”

“Wende? Gone.”

“I can’t live without her.”

Ann didn’t know for sure how to take this, but he seemed sincere enough to worry. It was like reasoning with a child’s outsize emotions.

“Go after her then.”

He shook his head.

Pride, she thought. Men. “Start by rewriting the damn song at least. Wende is a muse, and you’ve insulted her.”

She studied Dex. Fame had the effect of making one self-conscious of observing its object, but they had been living in close proximity for more than two weeks. Now it was hard to equate this guy with that fame. One on one, it disappeared. Dex’s face was aged and craggy — he looked like a cowboy in a cigarette ad, except instead of a hat, there was spiky, dyed-black hair and an ear bolt. It was hard to explain, but somehow Dex added up to more than the sum of his parts. He oozed sexuality; he was like a human USB port, appealing to a great variety of women. Ann was disappointed to find herself ever so slightly preening.

“If things work out with Wende, do yourself a favor and get a prenup. I’ll draw it up for you.”

She would omit the fact that his potential fiancée was a would-be terrorist, not to mention reckless in jumping out of a boat and almost getting Cooked and him drowned.

“Never,” he said.

“Why not? You’ve been married five times before.” She knew because one night in Loren’s office she had googled him and read the gossip columns. Was she stalking him?

“Six times. That would be like starting the game betting you were going to lose.”

“You’ve never had a prenup?”

“It’s glorious supporting a village.”

“We better head back.”

Dex nodded and helped her up. They walked along in silence.

“Richard lied to you. He didn’t mean to, but he did. There is no restaurant. It’s a long story … I took some money. We’re in hiding.”

“Cool, so you guys are outlaws!”

“White-collar, corporate kind of ones.”

“Those are the most deadly kind. My dad was a CEO.”

“So Wende was telling the truth?”

“A hell of a pedigree.”

“Can’t be that bad. What did his company do?”

“They made deals. Sold banned pharmaceuticals to third-world countries for record profits. Backed a supplier of depleted uranium-ammo for the Gulf War, then denied its side-effects. Were involved with financial institutions and hired a PR firm that manufactured public opinion to go to war in the Gulf. Possibly masterminded the story about Saddam’s men pulling babies from incubators in Kuwait. The usual stuff.”

“That couldn’t be your father?”

“It gets better. Not only did he buy his own bullshit, he sent his oldest son to Kuwait to fight. Even after Harry’s death, he never admitted he was wrong … I miss Harry every day of my life … I’ll never forgive him for that.”

They stood watching the waves.

“I like you,” Ann said. “I mean you . Not DEX COOPER. You’re nothing like I thought you were.”

Dex bowed his head, flushed with pleasure.

“I lied, too,” Ann said. “We did meet.”

“I knew it! I never forget a pretty face.”

“At the Troubadour with my best friend, Lorna. You bought us drinks. Whiskey sours? Whenever I order one, I remember that night.”

“What else happened?”

“You had us drive you home. Your license had been revoked … You suggested things.”

“Sure I did.”

“You kissed Lorna, and we went home. Sometimes, over the years, I regretted it wasn’t me.”

Dex shook his head, smiling. “I was bad news back then.”

“You’re right.”

“Man!” he said. “We two are seriously messed up.”

“I don’t feel messed up. Not right now.”

Close up, Ann noticed the details of Dex’s tattoos: a long twisting dragon around his arm, and a bitten apple on his shoulder (Wende’s doing?). She did a double take. “What’s that?” she said, using the tattoo as an excuse to touch his skin with her fingertips. A shiver went through her. The only other man to affect her that way had been Javi.

“That was a joke my first wife, Jamie, played on me,” Dex said, grabbing her hand and clamping it under his armpit so Ann had to walk sideways, like her arm was being swallowed by a cuddly alligator. “Eve and the apple? Temptation. She did it in the mid-’80s when the computer company was about to disappear. How did we know that they would turn things around, that the logo would become the most recognized one in the world?”

“Funny.”

“Kids think I’m pushing Apple products. Like I’d turn my body into a corporate billboard.”

“Get it lasered off.”

“Then I’d be cowing to the pressure of their imaging. Do they own the apple fruit? I think not.”

He had extraordinarily big hands, elegantly shaped, with long tapered fingers. In another life, he could have been a concert pianist; the span of his fingers easily could cover the interval of a thirteenth on a keyboard. What would those hands feel like on her hips?

Silence dropped between them, and again there was that electricity thing from their touching, and she needed to change the mood fast.

“Is Dex short for Dexter?”

“Dex is made up. Dex is nothing. Dex is reinvention. Couldn’t go by Adam Knowlton and be associated with the old guy, right?”

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. Then he held her arm as he started to trudge into the surf.