What Happens in Paradise(23)

Oscar said, “I’m going to Christiansted tomorrow to kill that brother.”

I stopped in my tracks. Had anyone else said something like that, I would have scoffed, but what had landed Oscar in jail was stabbing his friend Leon for borrowing his Ducati without permission.

“You’ll do no such thing,” I said.

“Try me,” Oscar said. Then he suddenly dropped the tough-guy act and sounded like himself. “Rosie. Try me.”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I said. “Why do you come here when you know I’m working? There are ten other places you and your friends can hang out. Why come to Caneel? Because you want me to know you have the money to order Dom Pérignon? I don’t care! You want me to see that girls throw themselves at you? I care even less! I loved you when I was a girl—fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. But I’m a woman now, Oscar, and I’m moving on.”

“Baby,” Oscar said, and he grabbed the strap of my purse.

“Get off me!” I said. I put a hand against the unyielding muscles of his chest.

“Stop bothering the lady!”

Both Oscar and I turned to see who jogging toward us? Russell from Iowa City, that’s who.

Oscar laughed and I thought, Oh, dear Lord, no. It was probably a midwestern thing to defend a woman’s honor but it would end in disaster for Russell from Iowa City. I would have to call out for Woodrow after all.

“What you gonna do about it?” Oscar said. He kissed his teeth. “You gonna stop me?”

To his credit, Russell from Iowa City did not appear even a little afraid. He looked serious and disappointed, as though he were an assistant principal who had found his favorite student misbehaving and a suspension was coming.

“Yes,” Russell said coolly. “I’m going to stop you. Rosie, are you heading home? Can I escort you to your car?”

I tried to give him a look that said he didn’t have to defend me and he shouldn’t defend me because the consequences would be dire. Oscar would beat him to a pulp, or maybe just hit him once, or maybe just humiliate him, but whatever course of action Oscar took, it wouldn’t be worth it. I could handle Oscar; Russell from Iowa City most certainly could not.

Russell held out his arm like an old-fashioned gentleman caller. I sighed and hoped that maybe, just maybe, Oscar would be more afraid of violating his parole than of being shown up. I linked my arm through Russell’s.

From there, things happened fast. Oscar pushed Russell from behind and Russell let go of my arm and grabbed the front of Oscar’s shirt and they tussled while I searched the shadows for Woodrow on his golf cart—where was he?—and then, the next thing I knew, Russell from Iowa City had Oscar in a death grip and Oscar was gasping for air. It looked like Russell was about to snap his neck and I found myself fearing that Russell was going to kill Oscar instead of vice versa.

“Now,” Russell said in a calm-but-disappointed-assistant-principal voice, “I’m going to let you go. But you are to leave Rosie alone. Do you understand me?”

Oscar choked out an affirmative and Russell tightened his grip so that Oscar squeaked like a chew toy.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

Russell let Oscar go. Oscar buckled at the knees, stumbled a few yards away, and bent over in the grass, turning his neck to be sure it still worked.

Russell offered me his arm again.

“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked him once we were safely at my car.

“My father was a navy man,” Russell said.

I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “My hero,” I said.





The next day, almost without thinking, I drove to the East End to Miss Vie’s at Hansen Bay. I was like a woman possessed because there was no good reason to go all the way out to that side of the island; normally, if I wanted to go to the beach, I parked at the National Park Service sign and hiked down to Salomon Bay. But I somehow convinced myself that, on the Saturday of the holiday weekend, even Salomon would be overrun and that the only way to escape the crowds would be to go to Hansen Bay. Besides which, now that it was in my head, I couldn’t shake my craving for Miss Vie’s garlic chicken and johnnycakes.

I told myself it had nothing to do with Russell from Iowa City. I wasn’t attracted to him, or I hadn’t been until the incident with Oscar—but having one’s honor defended is a mighty aphrodisiac. Still, Russell was old enough to be my father (I now know he’s forty-five, double my age), but that, in a way, was also attractive because what I was looking for was someone older, someone responsible and stable, someone adult. Oscar was older than me by seven years but emotionally he was a little boy who had a bone to pick with everyone.

I wore my white bikini and a white T-shirt knotted at the midriff and a pair of white denim shorts. White is my color.

There was a line of cars, all rentals, parked along the road near Vie’s. There was no telling if one of them was Russell’s or if he’d taken a taxi or if he was even there at all. The East End was a hike from everywhere and he might have decided to go fishing with his buddies or cruise over to the BVIs for lunch at Foxy’s. The second I stepped onto the beach and scanned the chaises in the shade, I saw him, settled back with a rum punch in hand.

When he spotted me, he smiled, and by smiled, I mean he beamed like I was the only person in the world he wanted to see.