Tatjana Soli - The Last Good Paradise

“They’ll forget. Haven’t you noticed? People always do.”

Ann stepped forward. “Then the arrangement between the new Mara ‘amu and your resort is severed?”

“You bet it is unless I get some cooperation pronto.”

“I’m sorry, I’m being dense here — just to restate: there is no legal relationship. It was strictly a verbal understanding between the deceased ex-owner, Loren, and your resort, represented nominally by you.”

Steve was changing from shrimp to boiled-lobster hue. “ Who are you?”

“I’m legal counsel for the Mara ‘amu. Which, as of this morning, is fully booked for the next five years.”

Ever since Dex’s appearance on the live cam, inquiries to the resort had exploded. There would be initial difficulties finding a regular supplier from Tahiti, but they could be solved.

“You don’t live here—”

“A technicality, as I will soon.” She had not known the truth of it till the words left her lips.

“What do you mean?” Richard asked.

“What do you mean?” Steve said.

But Ann forgot all about Steve now that her intention had blurted itself out. Again, Richard was the last to know. She took her husband aside. “I love it here. I don’t want to go back. Can you possibly understand?”

She was too old at thirty-eight. The world’s injustices could not be turned away from any longer. Surprise of surprises to discover she was a lawyer after all. She saw it then so clearly … She was a scalpel, but a scalpel that could be used for good or bad. She would simply retool her sharp shark teeth.

Everyone turned away, embarrassed for Richard.

“What about us?”

“That’s the thing — it’s a terrible thing to ask … but I can only imagine doing it if you are with me.”

At last Ann thought she had figured it out, even though it involved leaving behind everything and grasping after the unknown. In her case, happiness might be as simple as a beach, a hut, and a man who loved her. Never mind that she would be an attorney for a multinational resort complex; lives in the twenty-first century were complicated. Even the no-nonsense men in white wigs who wrote her country’s founding document understood that happiness — or at least its dogged pursuit — was important enough to equate with life and liberty as their guiding lights. They couldn’t promise its attainment, or even its preservation once achieved, but Ann thought if you pursued the wrong kind of happiness, it eventually grew stale on you, disappointing, like crackers that were already soggy when you opened the cellophane wrapper. You moved on, literally searching for crisper, greener, happier pastures that didn’t involve desires you were brainwashed to want. Eventually, lemminglike, you struggled blindly on and stumbled across it — the you that you are to become — and what other definition of happy could there possibly be?

* * *

Steve, irate, started the boat’s motor, and the remaining passengers paired up as if they were boarding Noah’s ark: Dex and Wende, Robby and Lilou, and, surprisingly, a lone Javi.

Ann, Richard, Titi, and Cooked stood and waved good-bye.

Richard had known his answer before Ann asked the question. He would have gone on his knees and begged to spend the rest of his life with her no matter where. That’s just how it was. And, too, every paradise needs its great chef.

“You guys will take my calls from now on, right? We’ll Skype?” Javi yelled.

A thundercloud of sharks, like a blessing, escorted them out of the lagoon.

They watched until the boat shrank to a small white dot in the universe of blue. Some of Captain Cook’s men stayed behind on the islands. Each ocean voyage took a three- or four-year bite out of their lives back in England. They knew if they returned, their old lives would not fit as well as they formerly had. On the islands they fell in love, or decided that only a permanent change of venue would suit. They stayed for pleasure, or opportunity, or a dream, or some combination of the three, but not a one of them failed to feel a lump in his throat as his known life sailed away.

Ann squeezed Richard’s hand. They turned their backs on the disappearing boat and ran.

A few books were invaluable to my understanding of French Polynesia, most notably Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook by Nicholas Thomas; Fatu-Hiva: Back to Nature by Thor Heyerdahl; Representing the South Pacific: Colonial Discourse from Cook to Gauguin by Rod Edmond; Tahiti Beyond the Postcard: Power, Place, and Everyday Life by Miriam Kahn; Daughters of the Pacific and Pacific Women Speak Out by Zohl dé Ishtar; and Poisoned Reign: French Nuclear Colonialism in the Pacific by Bengt Danielsson and Marie-Thérèse Danielsson.

A huge hug to Rabih Nassif for endless patience in reading successive drafts. For the illustrations, I want to thank my husband, Gaylord Soli. I would like to thank Hilary Rubin Teeman and Dori Weintraub for their brilliance and advocacy through three books. Lastly, to Andrew Wylie for his belief in me.

Tatjana Soliis a novelist and short story writer. Her New York Times bestselling debut novel, The Lotus Eaters , was the winner of the James Tait Black Prize, a New York Times Notable Book, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award. Her critically acclaimed second novel, The Forgetting Tree, was also a New York Times Notable Book. Her stories have appeared in Zyzzyva, Boulevard , and The Sun and have been listed in Best American Short Stories . She lives with her husband in Southern California. Visit her online at tatjanasoli.com. Or sign up for email updates here.