Элин Хильдебранд - What Happens in Paradise

“Los Angeles suburb,” Irene said. “The Kardashians live there.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Huck said gruffly, though he did, sort of, because he lived with a twelve-year-old girl.

The three adults turned out to be a gay couple, Brian and Rafael, and a drop-dead gorgeous Swedish au pair who wore only a bikini and a sarong. They wandered down the dock with an eight-year-old boy who was crying.

Irene looked at Huck and said, “We’ll stay inshore?”

I love you, Huck thought. “You bet,” he said.

The charter—one Huck and Adam might have written off as a bad blind date due to the crying child and uninterested nanny—had been a big success. Brian was an interior designer to the stars who had zero interest in fishing. Rafael was Brazilian and had grown up fishing in Recife, so he was enthusiastic. The au pair lay across the bench seating in the sun and Irene—somehow—worked magic with the kid, whose name was Bennie. She not only got him casting but helped him when he got a bite. Together, Irene and Bennie reeled in a blue runner; it wasn’t a keeper but it was a good-looking fish in pictures. Rafael caught two hardnoses and a blackfin that was too small to keep, but all that action made him happy. While checking everyone’s lines, Irene chatted with Brian about restoration glass (whatever that was) and epoxy floors (whatever those were). The coup de grâce, however, came near the end of the trip when Irene encouraged the au pair, Mathilde, to cast a line and she caught a nice-size blackfin that they could take home. It was big enough for a sushi appetizer.

“That’s the first useful thing she’s done all week,” Brian whispered. Huck watched him slip Irene a hundred-dollar bill.

Huck figured that was beginner’s luck. However, the entire week had gone smoothly. No matter who walked down the dock, Irene was ready, friendly but not too familiar (Adam would have fallen all over himself with the Swedish au pair). After the first day with Bennie, Irene made a habit of bringing snacks—boxes of cheese crackers, bags of hard pretzels. On Friday, Irene showed up with two dozen lemongrass sugar cookies and after Huck tasted one, he took the whole bag from her and said, “These are too good to share.”

Irene laughed and tried to take the bag back and soon they were in a tug-of-war and Irene shrieked, “Huck, you’re going to turn them to crumbs!” Her tone was playful and the delight on her face made her look even younger and more beautiful than the Swedish au pair and Huck had relented because at that moment, all he wanted to do was kiss her.

He didn’t, of course. He couldn’t—not on the boat, not while she was working for him.

That wasn’t the first time he realized he might be falling in love with Irene. The first time it hit him was Thursday, when they had the family from Chapel Hill on board. The Petrushkis were a mixed-race couple—husband a big white dude, wife a dark-skinned lady—and they had four children: twin fourteen-year-old girls, Emma and Jane, a ten-year-old son, Woody, and a four-year-old son named Elton. Huck had no opinion, really, when it came to children; all he wanted to know was whether they were interested in fishing and, if not, whether they were able to sit on a boat for six or eight hours without causing trouble. If a child was “cute” or not didn’t enter his brain. All children were cute, except for Maia, who was exquisite. But even Huck would have had a hard time saying that Elton Petrushki wasn’t the cutest child he’d ever seen. He had café-au-lait skin, like Maia, big brown eyes, and chubby cheeks, and as soon as he climbed aboard the boat, he attached himself to Irene and started asking, “We gon’ fish? We gon’ fish?”

Irene said, “Yes, yes, Elton, we gon’ fish.”

“We gon’ fish!” Elton announced to Huck.

Elton sat with his mother for the trip offshore. Huck was always worried about taking children offshore but Mr. Petrushki assured him that the kids had grown up on the water. The Petrushkis owned a vacation home on Wrightsville Beach on the North Carolina coast and they boated around Cape Fear.

When they slowed down to troll out at Tambo, the fertile spot where Huck and Irene had had such phenomenal luck just after the new year, Huck ran through the drill with Mr. Petrushki and the older kids. He was extra-kind and solicitous—maybe he was trying to show off for Irene—while she dealt with little Elton, who was dead set on catching a fish of his own.

“He gets a fish on, you hold his rod,” Huck said. “Wahoo gets a hold of that line, kid’s going in. Shark bait.”

“Understood, Captain,” Irene said. “Nothing is going to happen to this child in my care.”

The Petrushki family had, in fact, enjoyed a banner day. Mr. Petrushki got a fish on first—Huck was secretly relieved because plenty of time, he had seen grown men bitter about being shown up by their own children—then Huck tossed chum into the water and they got more hits. Mister brought in a wahoo, then one of the twins brought in a smaller wahoo, then a few minutes later, the other twin brought in a wahoo exactly the same size. It was almost eerie. With the appearance of each fish, Elton Petrushki would jump up and down and yell, “Got fish! Got fish!” He stood over the hold staring down with wide eyes as Huck tossed the fish in.

There was a little bit of a lull at one point but Huck saw birds diving and directed the boat over. Sure enough, the ten-year-old Woody caught a barracuda, and then Mr. Petrushki caught a barracuda.

Mrs. Petrushki was reading a book bigger than the Bible, the Collected Works of Jane Austen .

“I love Jane Austen,” Irene said.

“So do I!” Mrs. Petrushki said. “I’m a professor at UNC. I teach the Austen survey course.”

“Oh, I get it now,” Irene said. “The children’s names! Emma, Jane, Wood for Woodhouse, and Elton.”

“Yes, I did my thesis on Emma, ” Mrs. Petrushki said. “I’m a bit obsessed, as my girls like to say.”

Huck was in awe at the same time that he felt like an illiterate dummy.

Mrs. Petrushki closed her book and beamed. “Looks like wahoo for dinner.”

Elton gazed up at Irene. “We gon’ fish?”

“We gon’ fish,” Irene said. She got a determined set to her mouth. “Elton is taking the next fish.”

A few minutes later, they had a bite. Irene steered Elton to the port rod. “We have a bite, Elton,” she said. “We are going to reel in your fish. But you have to do exactly what I say.”

“Listen to Miss Irene,” Mrs. Petrushki said.

Irene showed Elton how to spin the reel; meanwhile, she had her hand firmly on the rod. Huck could see the tight clench of her fingers and he was glad. The rod bowed dramatically; this was a big fish.

“Irene,” Huck said.

“We’ve got it, Captain,” she said. “This is Elton’s fish.”

The fish put up a terrific fight, Huck thought, and by terrific, he meant terrible. Irene could maybe have brought the fish up alone but she had Elton squeezed between her legs and her hand over his hand on the reel. Huck was about ready to suggest she pass the kid off to his mother when he saw the flash of green-gold under the surface. He grabbed the gaff and brought up a gorgeous bull mahi that was nearly as big as the one Irene had brought up their first time out.

The other kids were impressed and Elton was beside himself. “My fish! My fish!” As soon as Huck yanked the gaff out and extracted the hook, they all watched the fish flop on the deck while Elton danced alongside it, yelling his head off with joy.

Elton decided he wanted to sit next to Irene going home and it was then, as Huck caught a glimpse of the two of them—Irene with her face raised to the mellow late-afternoon sun, Elton Petrushki tucked under one arm—that he realized he was in serious danger of falling in love with the woman. When Huck looked at Irene, he could see the future. That could be her, fifteen years from now, with Maia’s child.