What Happens in Paradise(12)

Cash reads the link she’d texted him again. She must have sent it to him because she thought it would be a good fit. Right? Right? Or maybe it was a joke. For all Ayers knows, Cash is back in Colorado, skiing the bowl on Peak 8.

But he’s not. He’s in Iowa City without a job, without prospects. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine a life on the water.

With Ayers. He would agree to live in the space station if it was with Ayers.

He decides not to respond to the text right away. He wants to sleep on it.



In the morning, the text is still there and Cash is proud of himself for exercising restraint and not sending a knee-jerk response.

Winnie is asleep at the foot of the bed. When she feels Cash stir, she lifts her head.

“You liked St. John, right?” Cash asks. “Wanna go back?”

Of course, it’s not Winnie’s permission that he needs. Cash pads down to the kitchen in his pajama bottoms and a decade-old Social Distortion T-shirt he found in the bureau in his room. Irene is juicing oranges the old-fashioned way—by crushing the hell out of the buggers with a galvanized-steel juicer that had belonged to her own mother. Cash watches her as she presses and twists the orange under her palms. All of that energy for a dribble of juice. Though it’s probably not the worst way to release pent-up frustration.

“Mom,” he says. “I’m not going back to Colorado.”

“You’re not?” she says, relaxing her death grip on the orange in her hand and then tossing the rind in the sink.

“With your permission…” he says. His voice sticks. Asking her this is harder than he thought it would be. “I’d like to go back down.”

“Down?” she says, though he can tell she understands.

“To St. John,” Cash says. He clears his throat. “I have a lead on a job there. And I was hoping I could just stay in the villa.”

Irene abandons the juice project altogether in order to stare at him. He can’t tell what she’s thinking, but then, his mother’s expressions have always been inscrutable. Against all odds, they had both sort of fallen in love with St. John—at least, Cash did. He knows Irene had warmed to it as well; she went out fishing with Huck once in an attempt to get information, but she also took a second boat trip with him before she and Cash left. He supposes it’s possible that her feelings have changed since they’ve been back home and now the whole Caribbean represents an enormous, ugly deception that she doesn’t want to revisit. And maybe she’d prefer that Cash not revisit it either.

It’s the idea that Irene might say no, might ask him nicely not to go or forbid him to stay in the villa, that makes Cash realize how badly he wants to return and give life down there a shot. He won’t stay forever. Maybe just until summer.

“Is this about the girl?” Irene asks.

“What?” Cash says. He can feel his face turning red. “No, of course not.”

“Oh,” Irene says. “That’s too bad. I like her for you, you know.”

“So…is it okay?” Cash asks.

“Yes, honey,” Irene says. “It’s fine. The villa is just sitting there empty. Someone should use it. Let me buy your plane ticket and give you some money to get started.”

Cash wants to tell her she doesn’t have to—he’s too old to be taking handouts from his mother—but the fact is, he’s flat broke. Broker than broke.

“Thank you, Mom,” he says. “Thank you so much.”

Irene gives him a sad smile. “I’m jealous,” she says.





Huck




One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars; this is how much cash Huck and Ayers discover in the bottom drawer of Rosie’s dresser. It’s all banded up in neat bricks, just like in the movies. After they count the bricks, they count them again, announcing the amounts out loud as they go so they don’t lose track. Then Huck says, “Come into the kitchen.”

“I don’t think I can eat,” Ayers says.

“I’m not talking about barbecue,” Huck says. “I’m talking about rum.”

Ayers shuts the drawer, and the blue Benjamins disappear; Huck ushers her down the hall. In the kitchen, he takes two shot glasses out of the cabinet and brings his trusty bottle of eighteen-year-old Flor de Ca?a—useful in most emergencies—down from the shelf.

He pours two shots and gives one to Ayers. “I don’t know what to say,” he admits, raising his own glass.

“Me either.”

They clink glasses and drink. He notices Ayers eyeing the barbecue spread out across the counter. She grabs a drumstick dripping with comeback sauce. Huck follows suit. No matter what the circumstances, Candi’s is too tempting to resist.



After Ayers leaves, taking one yellow dress and three pairs of white jeans with her—the rest of the clothes they should let Maia go through, Ayers said, as soon as she’s old enough—Huck picks up the money, armful by armful, and stashes it under his bed. He’s aware that it has remained undetected in Rosie’s room, but he figures it’s only a matter of time before Maia goes snooping. Maia will never voluntarily enter Huck’s room. He’s messy, and Maia has declared on numerous occasions that, despite Huck’s valiant effort with the laundry, his room smells like fish guts, rotten fish guts.