What Happens in Paradise(9)

The center photo is of Maia, taken outside the Gifft Hill School. She’s very small, wearing a backpack that is nearly as big as she is, and in the photo she’s on her tiptoes, reaching for the latched gate of the fence to let herself in. The picture is precious and Ayers can imagine Rosie in the parking lot, possibly crouched down between two cars so Maia wouldn’t see her, capturing this early expression of independence.

Maia’s relationship with Rosie had been less contentious than Rosie’s with LeeAnn, but that’s not to say it was all milk and cookies after school and snuggles and stories at bedtime. There was a ferocity that ran through the female line of that family—maybe LeeAnn, Rosie, and Maia were all too similar—and Ayers had seen Rosie and Maia butt heads again and again. When Ayers was called on to referee, she usually sided with Maia, causing Maia to utter the famous line that Ayers was like a mother to her but better, because she wasn’t her mother.

The third photograph is of Rosie and Ayers on Oppenheimer Beach, back when the tire swing still hung from the crooked palm that stretched out over the water. The tire swing was more fun to look at than actually ride on, as Ayers had learned the hard way, but this picture of the two of them in bikinis is the best picture of them ever taken. Ayers keeps the same photo on her phone as her screen saver, and she will never replace it.

She feels honored that she has earned a spot on Rosie’s bedroom wall. It seems to mean that Rosie considered her family.

Ayers can’t help but notice that there is no picture of Russell Steele on the wall.

If there are secrets to discover, Ayers predicts she’ll find them in the top drawer of the dresser. That’s where people put intimate things, right? Women their lingerie and men their condoms. Rosie’s top drawer holds the expected collection of bras and panties, some functional, some recreational, as well as teddies and slips, cotton socks, a box of tampons, two full carousels of birth control pills, and a plastic bag containing six tightly rolled joints, which Ayers slips right into her purse. Rosie would definitely want Ayers to take those so Maia doesn’t find them and get thoughts about experimenting.

The middle drawer is a jumble of bikinis, nearly all of which Ayers recognizes; at least half a dozen are white. The rest are black, red, blue gingham, kelly green with hot-pink piping. There’s a pink smocked top that Ayers loves, and then she remembers a supercool turquoise crocheted bikini that Rosie got from Letarte. Ayers digs for it, but it’s not there—maybe Rosie wore it to Anegada? A sobering thought. Then Ayers finds something intriguing. Beneath the bikinis is a layer of clothbound books. But they’re not books, Ayers realizes when she opens one and sees Rosie’s handwriting. They’re journals.

Ayers extracts the journals like she’s unearthing the bones of ancient peoples on an archaeological dig. She reads from the one on top.

January 1, 2000

It’s not only a new century but a new millennium. I, Rosalie Veronica Small, am seventeen years old, a senior at Charlotte Amalie High School. I’m in love with Oscar Cobb and nothing my mother or Huck can say will keep us from getting married on my eighteenth birthday.



Ayers shuts that journal and scrambles for one closer to the bottom of the pile, from 2015. Her breathing is shallow.

January 1, 2015

R. has stayed in Iowa through the holidays because his older son is visiting from Houston with his new baby. I wanted to text him a picture of me and Ayers doing tequila slammers up at the Banana Deck but of course the rule is “no texting.”



Ayers closes the journal, then her eyes. Tequila slammers at the Banana Deck, New Year’s Eve four years earlier. Yes; they had stopped there after the end of service at La Tapa but before they went to the Beach Bar to dance to Miss Fairchild. It had been a fun night, recklessly wild. They had closed the Beach Bar, gotten high, skinny-dipped in Frank Bay, then crashed a party all the way out on Ironwood Road in Coral Bay and stayed up to watch the sun rise. Ayers knew then about the Invisible Man, but he was just some guy who showed up every now and then to wine and dine Rosie and give her lavish presents. If Ayers is remembering correctly, it was right after that New Year’s that Rosie got a new Jeep, a four-door Wrangler in stingray gray with all the bells and whistles.

Whose is that? Ayers had asked when Rosie pulled up in it.

Mine, Rosie said without another word of explanation. Ayers had known then that it was from the lover, the Invisible Man, and that was when Ayers started to wonder just how serious that relationship was.

Ayers turns around to make sure the bedroom door is closed. How is she going to smuggle the journals out of there? If there’s any question as to whether she’s the right person to read them first, she pushes it aside. God only knows what kind of details they contain; Ayers can’t risk letting Maia read them before she does. And Huck made his feelings clear.

Despite this, Ayers doesn’t want to tell Huck she’s found them.

Why?

Well, she’s not sure why. It’s just a gut instinct. What if curiosity or ego gets the best of Huck and he decides to read them himself?

Ayers can practically hear Rosie saying, Noooooooooo!

Ayers looks under the bed and on the floor of the closet for a duffel or a suitcase but finds nothing. Then she hears a car and peeks out the window to see Huck pulling out of the driveway. He must be on his way to get lunch from Candi’s—perfect. Ayers heads out to the kitchen and pulls a reusable shopping bag off the hook next to the sink. She loads the journals up and hurries them out to Edith, her truck. She throws a beach towel over them for good measure.