Until the Day I Die(20)
My dad, Perry Gaines, everybody’s hero, even at age six. I miss him so much.
Ben approaches me. “Ready to go?”
“Can we drop by Jax first? I left something in Dad’s office.”
“Sure.” He throws a look over his shoulder, and at first, I think he’s checking on Mom, but then I realize Layton’s still standing by the door. I wonder if I missed his signals, and it’s really Layton he’s interested in.
“We should go,” I say in a cold tone. Our eyes meet, and I’m pretty sure he gets my message. Whatever you’re up to, I’m watching.
“Hey, babe?” he calls to Sabine. “We’re heading out.”
Sabine blows me a kiss. “Good luck at school, Shorie.” The light slanting in from the breakfast room window haloes her, making her hair spun gold, her face like a Madonna in a painting. I wonder what she thinks about everything that happened last night. I wonder if she has questions about her husband. I wonder if she knows how he feels, or felt, about Mom. I wonder if she sees the way he is with Layton.
“Thanks,” I say to her, then flash a smile at Ben. “Let’s go.”
14
PERRY’S JOURNAL
Sunday, March 3
TO DO:
REI: tent, 2 sleeping bags, air mattress
e—(funny? hope so, probably not)
Schedule lunch with Dad—$$
Shorie Jax budget
Shorie letter
I know after the excitement and intensity of your Jax assignments, college work may feel boring. But core classes, while not difficult or time consuming, are still important. They provide a structure that’ll be good practice for you to navigate. Constraints are good things, Shor. They actually give freedom. And just think, you can use the extra time to socialize! Ha, ha.
Take a cue from your mom. She works social events like a boss—master of the three-minute small-talk personality assessment. She’s never misjudged an opponent . . . or failed to target an ally, not that I’ve seen. You two are different, but you can learn so much from her, Shor, if you’ll just give her a chance . . .
15
ERIN
I sleep a fitful eight hours, wake to Sabine’s phone call, and am whisked to the airport by Ben. They’re quite the magicians, my friends. Able to make me disappear in the blink of an eye.
The first flight to Miami, the seemingly endless second leg to Saint Lucia, and the ferry ride to Ile Saint Sigo happen without incident, but I barely register any of it. I’m too shaken from the intervention—but also Ben’s incessant apologizing on the way to the airport. He jabbered the whole way, saying he was the worst kind of douchebag, explaining why he’d done such a shitty thing like kissing me (he “didn’t know what the hell he was thinking”), and repeating how terrible he felt for taking advantage of me when the intervention was literally about to happen just on the other side of my front door.
Mostly to shut him up, I told him that I forgave him. But, really, I do forgive him. I mean, I’m an adult who makes my own decisions. And I put my arms around him, there on my front stoop, kissed him, and pressed my body against his. It would probably behoove me to examine the reasons why. Right now, however, it’s all I can do to think about how my life has gotten away from me so quickly. One minute, I’m seeing my daughter off to her freshman year of college. The next, I’m on my way to rehab.
Excuse me. Restoration.
It’s late afternoon when the driver meets me at the ferry terminal—if you can call the rickety wooden shack at the edge of town that houses a tiny ticket booth and a row of turquoise-painted benches that. He’s driving a sparkling town car, this freakishly good-looking guy in his twenties with a head of artfully mussed hair. And he’s dressed in khaki board shorts and a spotless white polo with a Hidden Sands logo embroidered in navy right over the swell of his perfectly proportioned pectoral muscle.
He’s Grigore from Moldova—my concierge, he says—and as he shakes my hand, his silver flat-link bracelet flashes in the bright sun. His hands and smile are warm and reassuring. I’m not exactly unappreciative. He’s cute. I guess this is one way of disarming your clients, preparing them for the regimen ahead.
After Grigore loads my duffel in the trunk and settles behind the wheel, he asks if I’d like a quick tour of this side of the island before we head inland to the resort. I agree, and as we embark, he gives me the rundown. Ile Saint Sigo, eight nautical miles off the east coast of Saint Lucia and a total of five miles square, shore to shore, boasts a total nontourist population of roughly four hundred. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it was a thriving sugarcane plantation, until after emancipation, when it fell into disrepair. The islanders who didn’t head for Saint Lucia in search of work subsisted on fishing and sporadic tourism until the early eighties.
That was when hotel magnate Edwin Erdman, wintering at his personal compound on Saint Lucia’s Jalousie Beach, spotted the tiny paradise during his morning helicopter ride. He built Hidden Sands and purchased three-quarters of the island, all owned under the Erdman International banner. When his daughter Antonia came of age, he handed the reins of the resort—and island—over to her. The town basically exists to support Hidden Sands, although there are still a few fishermen and farmers continuing to scratch out a living.