Элин Хильдебранд - What Happens in Paradise

“Why won’t we have neighbors?” I asked. We were down on the private beach—I had decided to leave Maia with Huck so we could have some alone time—sitting together on one of the brand-new chaise longues that Pauline had bought. We were drinking champagne, the Krug. “Russ?”

I was leaning back against Russ, tucked between his legs, and he murmured into my hair, “We sold those lots to fictional entities. Shell companies that we set up…”

“So, wait,” I said. “Is that legal?”

“People do it all the time down here,” Russ said. “To clean money, to hide money.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Russ squeezed me tight. “This is the Caribbean, Rosie,” he said, as if it weren’t the only home I’d ever known.

Russ is in the business of money-laundering and tax evasion. I said I didn’t believe him capable of it, and once I pried a little more, he admitted that he’d taken the position at Ascension thinking it was 100 percent aboveboard, but once he’d figured out it wasn’t (in addition to everything else it did, the company invested money for some bad people—bad both morally and politically), it was too late. He was in too deep to protest.

“Then there’s the fact that both Todd and Stephen know about you,” he said.

Without a word, I got to my feet and bent down to kiss Russ on the cheek. “Be right back,” I said. I ascended the eighty steps to the villa, got in my car, and drove home.

I hate that I now know Russ is cheating the system—and yet, what did I expect? He’s cheating on his wife. I’m an integral part of the grand deception. I’m a lie. Maia is a lie. Mama was right, so right, to tell me to stay away from him. But had I listened? No. Three days after she was gone, I was back in his bed.

It’s over, I’ve decided.

When I kissed Maia as she lay sleeping, I thought, I am going to find a man who deserves to be your father.

February 14, 2017

The money still arrives in packages, only instead of depositing it in a bank account for Maia’s college, I’ve started stacking it neatly in the bottom drawer of my dresser. If the money is illegal, someone will trace it to my bank account eventually. Cash is safer.

Then, this weekend a text came to my phone from a foreign number. It said: Please come to the villa. I want to see you. Things will change, I promise.

I blinked, read the text again, read the text a third time. Russ had never texted me before. We’d both agreed cell phones weren’t safe.

Things will change, I promise. It wasn’t a text saying he had left Irene, but I gave in anyway. I ached with missing him.

March 2, 2017

Love is messy, complicated, and unfair.

Things have not changed in any way except that the villa is newly redone and Maia has been allowed to decorate one of the rooms as her own. Also, I finally came clean with Huck and Ayers and told them that, yes, there was a man—I even said his name out loud once—but my relationship was nobody’s business but my own.

Huck and Ayers disagreed. Huck wants to meet the guy and so does Ayers; I’ve put them both off, saying that when the time is right, introductions will be made. When the time is right will be when Russ leaves Irene. He says he’s getting closer to making a clean break. They live separate lives. Baker and his family are happy in Houston, and Russ has just set his son Cash up in an outdoor-supply business in Colorado. Once Irene finishes working on the house in Iowa City—it still isn’t done—he’ll move down here full-time.

He doesn’t talk about work and I know enough not to ask. He spends a lot of time in the Cayman Islands as well as the BVIs—in Anegada, specifically. He asked me if I wanted to go back to Anegada; it’s the one place he’s not afraid to be seen with me.

“Maybe?” I said the last time he asked. I worry that he has business interests in Anegada, and I can’t risk getting mixed up in them.

Huck calls Russ the Invisible Man, and I don’t object. That’s exactly what he is.

November 3, 2018

I haven’t written in ages, and usually when I take breaks like this it’s because too much is going on for me to stop and write about it. But life has been relatively placid, if also topsy-turvy. When Russ is away, I work at La Tapa, live with Huck, hang out with Ayers, and take care of Maia, who is growing into a very cool young person. When Russ is here, I live with him. Sometimes Maia comes with me; sometimes she decides that she would rather stay home.

“It’s not that much fun watching you guys kiss all day,” she said. “Even if there is shuffleboard and SpaghettiOs.”

We didn’t tell Maia that Russ was her father; she told us. One day when it was pouring rain and there was nothing else for Maia to do, she deigned to come to the villa with me, and while she and Russ were playing Scrabble (they had graduated from Chutes and Ladders), Maia looked up and said, “You’re my father, right?”

Russ had searched my face in wild panic. “Uh…”

“Right,” I said. “How did you know?”

“How did I know?” Maia rounded the table and put her face cheek to cheek with Russ’s. “Come on, Mom. Really?”

I’m writing now not because of any great upheaval in my life but because Ayers and Mick broke up. What happened was that Mick hired a girl named Brigid to work at Beach Bar and something about Brigid set off warning bells with Ayers. Sure enough, a couple nights ago, at three in the morning, Ayers drove into town and caught Mick and Brigid together. Mick was basically living at Ayers’s place in Fish Bay, but Ayers threw him and his dog, Gordon, out. For the past two days I’ve had to listen to what a disgusting liar and cheat Mick is and what an unforgivable harlot Brigid is because Brigid knew Mick was in a committed relationship and still she fooled around with him. While I do agree that Mick is weak and Brigid doesn’t deserve to have another female friend as long as she lives, this situation has also led me to some painful introspection.

I am Brigid. I know Russ is married and still I am involved with him. Deeply involved.

Russ showed up a few days ago—hurricane season is now officially over and the island is gearing up for the holidays—and I told him about Ayers breaking up with Mick because she had caught him cheating. Russ nodded distractedly.

I said, “These aren’t fictional characters from a book I’m reading or a show I’m watching, Russ. These are my friends. You don’t know them because you can’t meet anyone in my life, but they’re real to me, they’re important to me.”

“I know, Rosie,” he said. “I’ve been hearing about them for years. They’re real to me too.”

“I want an engagement ring,” I blurted out. “By the new year. Otherwise I’m done for good. Maia just turned twelve. She’s a young woman, Russ. She’s been very accepting of our arrangement, but someday soon she’s going to start asking the hard questions.”

“I know,” he said. “And believe me, I want to give you an engagement ring. Things are tough at work right now…”

Tough at work. That old chestnut.

“I’m thinking about quitting,” he said. “I love my income, but if I left, I’d have a shot at getting my integrity back. The things we’re doing…they aren’t right, Rosie.”

“Don’t tell me!” I said. I have this notion that if I don’t know any particulars, I’ll be safe. I have almost a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in my bottom drawer. It’s a lot, but is it enough to live on for the rest of my life? I thought about Maia going to high school—I want to be able to send her to Antilles on St. Thomas—and then to college in the States. Russ must have savings, right? If not, we could sell the villa and move someplace smaller. We don’t need nine bedrooms; we never have guests. Seven of the bedrooms have never even been slept in.