Winter in Paradise (Paradise #1)(26)

“Oh,” she says. “It’s fine. Chester is keeping me in rum punches.” She holds up a plastic cup containing an inch of watery pink liquid, a maraschino cherry, and an orange slice. “He’ll be back soon, I’m sure.” She sets down the cup and offers a hand. “I’m Ayers Wilson, by the way. I was Rosie’s best friend.” She tilts her head. “I don’t think I recognize you. How did you know Rosie?”

“I… uh… I didn’t, really,” Baker says. “I came with someone who knew her. My brother. He’s at the bar, getting me a beer, I hope.”

Ayers laughs. “Nice brother,” she says. “How did he know Rosie?”

“Um…,” Baker says. “He worked with her.”

Ayers’s eyes widen. “Really?” she says. “Who’s your brother? Is it Skip? Oh my God, that’s right, Skip’s brother from LA, right? But, wait… he’s… she’s transitioning to a woman. That’s not you, I take it.”

“No,” Baker says. Just like that, he’s been caught. “Actually, my brother is at the bar, but he didn’t work with Rosie.”

Ayers shakes her head. “Don’t tell me,” she says. “You guys are crashing, right?”

Baker sighs. “Kind of.”

“Here on vacation, saw the crowd, smelled the pig roast, and figured why not?” Ayers gives him a pointed look and he feels like an idiot. Before he can decide if he should tell her who he really is, she shrugs. “I honestly don’t blame you.”

“You don’t?” Baker says. “I didn’t want to come. My brother insisted.”

“I’m actually happy to meet a complete stranger who has nothing to do with any of this,” Ayers says. “Half the women here are pissed that I’m doing the guest book instead of Rosie’s third cousin or Maia’s preschool teacher, and as if that’s not bad enough, over there in the doorway are my ex-boyfriend and the tramp he left me for.”

Baker looks toward the doorway and sees a chunky guy with a buzz cut and a woman in her twenties who has seen fit to come to a memorial reception without either washing her hair or wearing a bra.

He turns back to Ayers. He’s still holding the pen.

“Just write your name,” Ayers says. “I’ll remember you as the crasher and that’ll cheer me up.”

“Okay.” Baker says. He writes: Baker. Then he hands the pen back to Ayers.

“Baker,” she reads. “Well, Mr. Baker, it was nice meeting you.”

“Baker is my first name,” he says.

“Gotcha,” Ayers says. “You’re afraid to write your last name in case I call the police? Or do you go solely by your first name, like Madonna and Cher?”

“The latter,” he says. She’s flirting with him, he thinks. He stands up to his full height and squares his shoulders.

“Do you want to come outside with me and have a cigarette?” she asks. “Or are you horrified by a woman who smokes?”

He would follow her to East Japip to drink snake venom, he thinks. He answers by scooting the table aside so she can step out. “Lead the way,” he says.



She navigates around the crowd to the back of the tent, where a West Indian man with an orange bandana wrapped around his head is tending to the pig. There’s a rubber trash can filled with beer and ice. Ayers grabs two, then says to the man, “You forgot about me, Chester. I’m taking these.”

Chester waves his basting brush in the air. “Okay, doll.”

Ayers leads Baker to the edge of the parking lot, where there is a tree with a low branch big and sturdy enough to sit on. Ayers pulls a pack of cigarettes out of a little crocheted purse that hangs across her body and lights up. “I’m horrified by people who smoke,” Ayers says. “But my best friend just died and so I’m going to give myself a pass for a while to indulge in some self-destructive behavior.” She hands the cigarette to Baker. “Want to join me?”

“Sure,” he says. He inhales and promptly coughs. “Sorry, I’m out of practice. I haven’t had a cigarette since I was fourteen years old standing out in back of the ice rink. It’s been only weed for me since then.”

This makes Ayers laugh. “So where are you visiting from, Baker?”

“Me?” he says. “Houston.”

“Houston,” Ayers says. “Never been. Are you a doctor? You look like a doctor.”

No, he nearly says. But my wife’s a doctor.

“I’m not a doctor,” he says. “I used to trade in commodities but now I’m kind of between jobs. I do some day-trading and I’m a stay-at-home dad. My son, Floyd, is four.”

“Floyd,” Ayers says. “Cool name.”

“It’s making a comeback,” Baker says. “Your name is pretty cool.”

“My parents are wanderers,” Ayers says. “They travel all over the world. I was named after Ayers Rock in Australia, which is, apparently, where I was conceived. But since then the rock has been reclaimed by the Aboriginals and now it’s called Uluru. And so I am now politically incorrect Ayers.”

“It’s pretty,” Baker says. You’re pretty, he thinks.

“So what brings you down here?” Ayers asks. “Vacation?”