What Happens in Paradise(44)

This made Russ laugh and he reached over to the nightstand and plucked a pale pink hibiscus blossom out of a water glass. He tucked it behind my ear.

“You’re right,” he said. “You’re far prettier than the Mona Lisa.”

I swatted him to downplay how happy that made me—show me a woman who doesn’t like being compared to a masterpiece—then said, “I’m starving.”

It was dark outside. The bedside clock said twenty past nine. It was too late to get dinner anywhere on this sleepy island, besides which I was basically in hiding. So we ordered room service, lavishly, recklessly, like we were rock stars on the last leg of a world tour—one bacon cheeseburger, one lobster pizza, French fries, a Caesar salad, the key lime pie, a hot fudge sundae, and, of course, conch fritters, because now that was our “thing.” I would never see Russell Steele again but every time I put in an order of conch fritters, I would think of him. I told him this and he threw me down on the bed and said, “God, Rosie, how can I ever leave you? I’m…different now, in such a short time. I’m changed.” He was putting words to what I felt as well. I had tears in my eyes as I tried to control my crazy, runaway heart.

Don’t leave me, I nearly said—which would have been pathetic after a relationship of only twenty-four or forty-eight hours (depending on how you looked at it)—but I was saved from myself by a knock at the door.

It was room service with our food, which I knew would be delivered by Woodrow, so I had to go hide in the bathroom while Russ answered the door.





I stayed overnight Sunday; Todd Croft and the other guy, the company lawyer, Stephen, were due to pick Russ up at noon. I had been up since dawn worrying about how the goodbye would go and I even brazenly wandered out to the beach where I saw my donkeys, Stop, Drop, and Roll, eating grass at the edge of the beach. I decided to take their presence as a positive omen. This is my home, this is where I belong, and I need to find someone who calls St. John home as well. The reason that getting involved with a married man is wrong is that it hurts. I knew that if it continued one minute past noon today, it would be destructive. What did I want Russ to do? Go home and tell his wife that he was leaving her for some woman half his age with whom he’d had a fling in the Caribbean?

Hell no!

We lay in bed together until the last possible minute. Then Russ showered and dressed and I thought, What can I give him to remember me by? I wished I’d dived down at Waterlemon and picked up a shell or a piece of coral—some island token—but I hadn’t. And so I rummaged through the desk in the room and found a postcard with a picture of the Sugar Mill on the front, and I wrote, I’m going to miss you. I signed it with the initials M.L., for Mona Lisa. I wasn’t sure he would figure that out, but I enjoyed imagining him puzzling over it. I stuck the postcard in the side zip pocket of his bag and right as he was gathering up his things to go, I told him I’d left him a surprise in that pocket that he should look at before returning home. The last thing I wanted was for Irene to find it.

He held my face in his hands. Out the window I could see the yacht anchored and a crew member pulling the skiff around (it fit, somehow, underneath the boat or inside of it). Russ kissed me hard and deep. It was the kiss you give someone when you’re absolutely, positively never going to see her again.

“I don’t have anything to leave you with except for that,” he said. Then he turned and left the room and I was so addled, so undone, that I hung in the doorway and watched him trudge through the sand. He raised an arm to Todd Croft, who was standing on the deck of the boat.

Bluebeard was the yacht’s name. I hadn’t noticed that before.

I saw Todd Croft see me; his head tilted and his smile grew wider, and I disappeared into the shadows of the room, cursing myself. I was wearing my swim cover-up. If Todd asked, Russ could say we’d struck up a friendship and I’d come to say goodbye. It didn’t matter, I would likely never see Todd Croft again, but I regretted not leaving first. I should have headed for home an hour or two earlier, but that would have meant losing time with Russ, and I hadn’t wanted to do that. For my greed, then, I was punished. I became the one who was left behind.

As I drove home, I thought of how the weekend had been a Cinderella story, minus the part with the glass slipper. I was returned to my ordinary self, in my proverbial rags, facing my scullery work. The only part of that magical story I could claim was that I had enjoyed a night (in my case, two nights) of bliss. I had successfully charmed a prince, only the prince was a midwestern corn-syrup salesman. A married corn-syrup salesman.

Mama was at work when I got home, despite the holiday, and I was momentarily relieved. Now I’m locked in my room, writing this down, because supposedly “getting it out” is a kind of catharsis. I have an hour left to get ready before I have to go back to Caneel, where I will work and pretend that everything is just fine.



February 23, 2006

I’ve decided that Bluebeard is an appropriate name for the yacht that delivered Russ to me and then took him away.

He was a pirate.

He stole my heart.



March 30, 2006

Mama was the one who noticed that I looked peaked and that I wasn’t eating much. When had I ever said no to her blackened mahi tacos with pineapple-mango salsa? Never was the answer. But they just didn’t seem appealing. Nothing seemed appealing.