What Happens in Paradise(8)

Maybe it was a bit of a stretch to imagine that Cash would drop everything and move to the Virgin Islands in order to crew on Treasure Island. Maybe he thought Ayers was teasing him or taunting him, but if so, wouldn’t he have shot back a snappy response?

“Not a word,” Ayers tells Huck. She tries to make this sound like a good thing, but he must know better, because he pats her shoulder.

“Holler when you get hungry,” Huck says. “I’ll bring you some lunch.”

“Great,” Ayers says weakly. She thinks of the awful fish sandwiches on buttered Wonder Bread that Huck packs for Maia.

“I’m picking up barbecue from Candi’s,” he says, and Ayers perks up. “Thank you for doing this.” He casts his eyes upward. “I’m sure Rosie would prefer to have you discovering her secrets rather than me.”



Discovering her secrets makes the work sound intriguing when in fact it’s merely heartbreaking.

Ayers starts with the closet. Rosie loved to wear white; it made her skin look luminous. The clothes in the right half of the closet are all white. Shades of eggshell, ivory, ecru, and pearl mix with the most blinding of whites. Everything is crisp and ironed, even her jeans. The clothes in the left half of the closet are full of color—Rosie’s bright printed handkerchief halters, her bohemian blouses, her simple cotton tank dresses. Nobody rocked a jersey patio dress like Rosie Small. Ayers’s favorite is a ribbed cotton racerback in brilliant marigold. She fingers it, remembering some special occasion at Chateau Bordeaux. The two of them had gone for cocktails to enjoy the spectacular view over Coral Bay, and Rosie had been wearing that dress.

Beneath the clothes are shoes—sandals, wedges, and the pair of black Dansko clogs marked with green tape that Rosie wore when she waited tables at La Tapa.

Ayers inhales through her nose, trying to stave off the tears. Everyone at La Tapa wore black clogs, and on Ayers’s very first day of work, Rosie had advised making hers distinguishable in some way. She showed Ayers the green tape. Looks like we wear about the same size, Rosie said. But if I ever see these on your feet, I’ll cut you. Hear?

Ayers could take the clogs now, of course, and wear them as a tribute—but is she worthy? Rosie was hands down the best server at La Tapa, the best server on the island, period. The guests clamored for her; her name was mentioned something like a hundred and seventeen times on TripAdvisor. Ayers would also like the marigold dress and all of the pristine white jeans. The handkerchief halters are so quintessentially Rosie that Ayers can only imagine giving them to Maia to wear when she’s older. Much older.

Ayers throws herself down on the bed. She’d look awful in the yellow dress. But maybe she’ll take it anyway and hang it in her closet, a reminder of her beautiful friend.

Foul play. The FBI. Russell Steele was into something illegal. He had enemies. Someone wanted him dead, and Rosie was collateral damage.

Ayers pushes herself up and goes to the corner to study the photographs. The top is a photo of Rosie with LeeAnn and Huck. Rosie is wearing a white cap and gown; it’s her graduation from the University of the Virgin Islands on St. Thomas. Huck looks pretty much the same as he does now, maybe a few pounds lighter then with a bit more red in his beard. Ayers studies LeeAnn, Rosie’s mother. She was tall and statuesque and wore her reddish-brown hair in a braided topknot. Ayers had heard all about the glamorous LeeAnn—that she had modeled as a teenager and gotten as far away as the fashion shows in Milan but had come home to marry her childhood sweetheart, Levi Small, who’d ended up leaving the island for good shortly after Rosie was born. LeeAnn had then gone to school to become a nurse practitioner. To hear some people tell it, LeeAnn was the most qualified caregiver at the Myrah Keating Smith Community Health Center, even better than the doctors. Ayers had found LeeAnn intimidating—initially, anyway. She exuded competence as well as something Ayers could only describe as a regal bearing. When LeeAnn first met Ayers, she’d seemed disapproving that Ayers had no college degree and no way to support herself other than the hand-to-mouth existence that waiting tables afforded. Don’t your parents want more for you? LeeAnn had asked. Ayers had tried to explain that her parents were wanderers without a home, without possessions, really, and that they counted wealth by life experiences. LeeAnn had met this news with a skeptical arched eyebrow. Don’t you want more for yourself? LeeAnn asked. Ayers had shrugged; she was twenty-two years old at the time. But it was LeeAnn Powers’s questions that led Ayers to get her second, slightly more professional job on Treasure Island. After that, LeeAnn’s opinion of her had seemed to improve. Learn everything you can about the business, LeeAnn said. Then save your money and buy it.

LeeAnn had been even tougher when dealing with Rosie. The worst insult LeeAnn could dish out was to say that Rosie took after her Small relatives. That look in Rosie’s eyes, for example, that fire, that defiance, was pure Small, LeeAnn said, and it had to be contained or the girl would ruin herself.

What would LeeAnn have made of the Invisible Man? Nothing good, Ayers guesses.

Ayers hasn’t said this out loud to anyone but she doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that Russell Steele, the “Invisible Man,” reappeared in Rosie’s life just after LeeAnn died. A few weeks ago, Ayers had learned that Russ was Maia’s father, meaning he had been in Rosie’s life a lot longer than anyone knew.

Oh, how Ayers longs to ask Rosie herself. You could have told me everything, Ayers thinks. I was a safe place for you.