What Happens in Paradise(52)
Ayers can’t stop herself from jumping in. “Is your friend named Brigid, by any chance?”
“No,” Maxwell says.
“Long shot, I know,” Ayers says. “You just remind me of someone.”
“Anyway,” Maxwell says, now showing Cash one creamy shoulder, “she encouraged me to come out on this tour. She said it’s the best.” She beams at Cash, as though Treasure Island’s sterling reputation is all Cash’s doing. “I think she was trying to get rid of me. I can be a lot.”
“You?” Ayers says.
The boat engine starts. Cash says, “I have to go tend to the ropes. Excuse me, Maxwell.”
“Just call me Max,” she says. “When you’re finished, will you come back and make me a painkiller, extra strong?”
“You got it,” Cash says. He gives her a wink and shoots out a finger like Isaac, the bartender from The Love Boat, a cultural reference Ayers suspects is lost on Max.
Ayers wrestles with her wandering mind. She told Cash she would keep an eye on the kids and let him handle the adults, but by now, all six of the boys might have drowned.
Ayers puts on her headset. “I’m about to give the safety talk,” she says to Max. “You should listen.”
The ride to Virgin Gorda is smooth. Ayers makes herself notice how glorious the water, the sky, and the emerald-green islands are. She is so lucky to live here, to have this job and her job at La Tapa, her friends, her community, Maia and Huck. Rosie is gone, but at least while Ayers is reading the journals, it feels like she has Rosie back. It feels like Rosie is, finally, telling her everything.
But then she succumbs to the red, hot, itchy temptation of thinking about Mick and Brigid. Brigid! If Ayers had seen Mick with anyone else—Emily Ratajkowski, Scarlett Johansson with her tongue in Mick’s ear—it wouldn’t have sickened Ayers the way seeing him with Brigid has. Why did he even bother getting back together with her? Because she was hurting? Because he felt sorry for her? Because her apartment was far more homey and comfortable than the rat hole where he and Gordon lived? Is he using her? Preying on her pain and her wobbly judgment? She’s actively mourning the loss of her best friend and she has been trying to hold it together so she can be whole and strong for Maia. How dare Mick go behind her back again after all Ayers has just been through. That is what makes this unforgivable.
She scans the boat, looking for anyone who seems to be suffering from seasickness, but the passengers look calm and happy, their faces turned toward the sun, hair blowing back in the breeze. The six boys are sitting on a bench between the statuesque bookends of their parents, and there isn’t a single electronic device among them, which Ayers finds impressive.
She leans toward the mother, Donna, and says, “Your boys are so well behaved.”
Donna wraps her arm around the youngest, Dougie, who is sitting next to her, and kisses the top of his head. “Believe me, this is a rare moment of peace. We told them if they behaved today, we’d rent a dinghy tomorrow and go to the pizza boat in Christmas Cove.”
“Good bribe!” Ayers says. “I love Pizza Pi.” Mick had said something the night before about borrowing his boss’s boat so they could raft up in Christmas Cove on Monday—eat pizza, listen to live music.
Maybe now he’ll take Brigid.
“How do you manage six boys?” Ayers asks. Because she’s an only child, she has always been fascinated by big families and she still harbors a fantasy of having a bunch of kids herself someday. Which will probably never happen, seeing as how she can’t even sustain a relationship. (She has to lasso her psyche! Stay in the moment!) “Isn’t it a lot, to keep track of their sports and activities and their dental appointments and haircuts and stuff?” Just looking at the Dressler family brings up visions of reminders written on a chalkboard in the mudroom, a color-coded calendar, baskets labeled with each boy’s name to hold hats and gloves and rainboots.
“They’re all swimmers,” Donna says. “I just drop them off at the Y on Saturday morning and collect them at the end of the day. I go to some of the meets, though I’ve learned to pick and choose. I used to go to every single one and my hair turned green just from sitting in the pool balcony for so long.” She laughs. “They aren’t interested in impressing me, anyway. They want to impress their coach, their teammates, and each other. They all swim freestyle and do the IM, so it’s pretty intense competition.” She looks down to the end of the bench and whispers, “DJ has just committed to swim at Stanford.”
“That’s so cool,” Ayers says. “Where are you guys from?”
“Philadelphia,” Donna says. “The Main Line.”
Sure, of course, Ayers might have predicted that. The Dresslers probably live in an old stone house that has a creek running behind it. The husband, Dave, probably takes the train downtown to work, and Donna probably makes enormous dinners—Taco Tuesdays!—that the boys devour, exhausted from a day of school and swimming the fifty-free in under a minute. Ayers feels herself falling in love with the Dressler family. Adopt me, please, she thinks.
But maybe there are secrets, like soft spots on a seemingly perfect apple. Maybe Donna is having an affair with the kids’ swim coach; maybe Dave is a degenerate gambler who has lost the college savings; maybe the oldest boy got his girlfriend pregnant, which he’ll reveal the day they get home from this vacation, and suddenly, Stanford will be called into question.