The Last Good Paradise by Tatjana Soli Page A

waited in a hushed silence. Ann, too, held her breath, expecting … what? A deflating slash with a long knife? Before she could say anything to Richard, the teak face cracked wide again, flashing teeth, and Loren high-stepped like a comical bird straight into the water, holding the ball overhead. The children raced, joyfully screaming, to the other side as he lobbed it across and then proceeded to play catch.
    Ann laughed.
    “What’s funny?” Richard asked, deep into his study of the menu.
    “Our host,” Ann said. “Get a lock for the bag.”
    On their way through the lobby to the gift shop for the lock, there was a commotion at the front desk. A man was being carried out on a stretcher.
    “What happened?” Richard asked.
    Steve shrugged, restored from his run-in with Loren by a change of clothes and a stiff shot of whiskey. “Bends. He was an experienced diver, but he stayed down too long. Rushed the decompression.”
    “That can happen?”
    “They get carried away.”
    “I had no idea.”
    Steve gave his official smile. “We give a complimentary first diving lesson.”
    “Not for this guy,” Richard said.
    “Polynesia is all about what’s under the water. The land part is only a glimpse of her real beauty. If you’re careful, nothing will happen. This is the safest place in the world.”
    Unless, Steve thought, you are unlucky enough to get tied up with grizzled old-timers like Loren. Steve liked this couple despite the fact that they came without luggage, which boded poorly for tips. They had not slipped him a hundred to get upgraded to the sunset side of the over-water bungalows. Besides that, he was being forced to comp their stay tonight and (if you factored in Loren’s discount) everything they ate and drank when they got to Loren’s motu .
    “What do you think?” Richard asked Ann. “It is free.” It became suddenly imperative to squeeze every last dime of value out of this trip.
    “Go,” she said, and to her surprise he did.
    *   *   *
    Ann escaped back to their air-conditioned bungalow and dropped on the bed shrouded in white mosquito netting. Alone. In the world’s honeymoon capital. Absurd that she was disappointed; they were as far from the circumstances of romance as could be imagined. It seemed impossible that their whipped-cream-seduction birthday dinner was less than a few days in the past. Why shouldn’t Richard be signing up for each and every thing that brought him a moment of escape? Still. In the old days, he would have eagerly followed her back.
    On their first night together, Richard had inexplicably left the bedroom before they made love to go check that the doors were locked, the windows bolted, the gas on the stove turned off, and then he tested the smoke detectors. Odd, but Ann liked a guy who took care of things.
    When she came out of his bathroom in his old T-shirt, he was lying on the bed, naked except for a towel neatly draped across his hips. She had giggled. Why the towel? Modesty? To protect her purity? Surely not. Nuzzling his ear, she decided it was more like those fancy restaurants where they bring your entrée under a silver cloche , set it down in front of you, and then fling the cover off before your eyes. Voilà! Even though you already knew perfectly well what you ordered.
    She had never dated a man who fed her so well. Food was love, and Richard lavished it on her, brewing her espresso in the morning and making her freshly baked brioche. Sometimes Dutch pancakes, sometimes Mediterranean omelets. He packed her off with a lunch bag of Parisian-ham-and-arugula sandwiches with olive tapenade, pistachio cantucci .
    Now, their life in tatters, he went off diving. Where had her protective, nurturing Richard gone? Amusing himself despite her torment. Ten years, every year since law school, lopped off. Ann worried because she knew from long professional experience that relationships only continued on some basis of parity, to be determined by the two