Ann looked at him, startled, then pleased. Under the table she squeezed his knee.
Richard had upped his alcohol consumption considerably since leaving Los Angeles, and yet he felt surprisingly peppy. His stomach had stopped its fierce gurgle; his hives had calmed down. “It’s called El Gusano.”
“Seriously? Too funny.” The men high-fived. “Where is it?”
“Venice.”
“I live there! Part-time.”
“It’s opening in a month.” Richard took a big swallow of wine.
“Ah,” Dex said. “Resting before the storm?”
“You got it.”
“What kind of food?”
Richard paused. “Mexican-French fusion. We don’t want to be stuck with labels.”
“Fuck no! My kind of guy. Why do you think I’m hiding out? Out of reach of those corporate bloodsuckers. I’ll be at El Gusano. With friends. Famous ones. Reporters will come. Get you a write-up.”
Richard nodded. He was close to tears.
The lie had been a necessary one. The restaurant was still alive to both Ann and Richard; admitting its demise was like a death. They needed time to adjust to their new circumstances. In their imagination El Gusano, The Worm, had taken the place of their house as the locus of their idea of who they were. Imagining its possibilities occupied every spare minute. Ann, who kept away from the kitchen, obsessed over the look of the place. She studied the effect of stemware, silverware, plating. It was their creation, especially precious after all the years of slaving in someone else’s space, following their rules.
Titi made a last pass around the table with coffee and cookies. In a spasm of coughing, Loren excused himself, and she finished the service alone. A look relayed its way around the table. After drinking a bottle of wine at dinner, Loren had faded quickly. Still early evening, but the island was already shut down. Dex brought out his guitar and a ukulele he had ferreted from Cooked, and played back and forth between the two instruments.
“Ask Cooked to come play drums,” he said to Titi, but she shook her head no.
“He’s tired.”
“You are exhausting my drummer.” Dex smiled. “Go on. We’ll close shop.”
Prior to Richard and Ann’s arrival, an informality had descended on resort service that would remain in force. For the money they were paying, Ann wouldn’t have minded a little more pampering.
A cigarette hung from Dex’s lips while he played; he removed it only to drink alcohol. With his long hair and tattoos, he reminded Ann of a child who had outgrown his Halloween costume.
“I know you,” he said, strumming his guitar while Richard, whose spirits had miraculously picked up, played checkers with Wende in her short shorts and halter top.
“I don’t think so,” Ann said, staring out at stars that were eerily large. It felt like being in outer space. She could sense the immense night around them, the buffer of thousands of miles of watery emptiness between them and home. Dex went away, then came back with a bottle of tequila and two glasses. He poured; Ann drank. She considered the capriciousness of happiness, how all those years ago this moment would have been the high point of her life. Instead she had hidden in the bathroom, Lorna had French-kissed him, and the possibility had vanished.
“‘For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.’”
“Impressive,” Ann said.
“Melville. I’ve been reading from Loren’s library. Trying to get into the spirit of the place.”
Behind them, Wende squealed, laughing. “No fair!”
“You live in LA.” Dex took a drag from his cigarette. “I bet we met at the Troubadour or the Whisky.”
Ann downed her shot. “Not in this decade.”
“Could’ve sworn.”
Ann walked away to the water, her skirt dipping in the surf as a rogue wave washed up around her, the soaked cloth manacling her ankles. Dex was harmless, but she didn’t need to have the past rear up now. She was having enough trouble dealing with her present. What were the odds that Dex Cooper would be there? Part of her wanted to get on the phone to Lorna and gossip. The withdrawal from not being able to connect to any electronic devices felt like rehab. It made her as jittery as giving up coffee.
She stretched out on the cool sand, hiking the sodden fabric up on her thighs. Wende, having won at checkers, plopped herself down next to her.
“Boring, boring. It’s, what, nine o’clock? I’m bored to death.”
Ann nodded.
Seashells scuttled back and forth in the darkness, hermit crabs drunk-driving.
“You’ve got nice arms and legs. Any tats?” Wende asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Tattoos. I did some of Dex’s. You should let me do you.”
“I’ll think about it,” Ann said.
“I thought we were going to Bali. Nightclubs. Or Phuket. No offense, but you two coming has been the most exciting thing to happen.”
“None taken.” The girl was unformed, a hard, unripe fruit who in a strange way reminded Ann of herself at that age — never able to rest in the minute, always looking for more. “Tell him to take you someplace else.”
In college, Ann dated a theater major, drank Manhattans, and wore black — a nonrebellion by other people’s standards but outrageous by her family’s. Her father had been a patent attorney, and when he retired, he taught theory at the law school. There was never a doubt that her older brother and sister would study law. The household lived, breathed, and ate jurisprudence. Around the dinner table, they talked of nothing else but the latest article in ABA. Outside interests and hobbies were considered an eccentricity.
Her mother, though, was mutinous. She and Ann would hole up in the den and watch foreign films. From her, Ann discovered the possibility of a secret life — doing what was expected of you on the surface while the subterranean you bubbled along underneath.
Wende snorted. “Dex thinks this is great. Just snorkeling, eating, and getting laid. Writing new music. No fans bothering him. I don’t mind the fans. Fans are fun.” Wende looked over her shoulder, then leaned over. “Between us, he’s a little old for me.”
“Why’d you come then?”
“I know what you’re thinking — dumb groupie from Idaho. Yeah, and a father fixation. It’s simple: I love his music. My mom played it all the time when I was growing up. I just admired him so much. But up close, his insecurity, his drinking, his using sexuality as a substitute for intimacy, as a marker for masculinity, well, it wears on you. I didn’t sign up to be his mom.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
Going on thirty-eight. Ann had been wrong. This girl was far more together than she was now.
“I have my own CD. It was my dream back in Idaho. But seeing the business up close, I’m having second thoughts about spending my life that way. Having my image manipulated by a corporation sexing up my work for their profits, being at the mercy of a young, unsophisticated, fickle public. Yuck, you know?”
“Sure.”
“Being here has got me thinking about doing something with the environment. Engaging my passion, but not in a self-involved way. Being of service, you know? Like sharks.”
“Sharks aren’t self-involved?”
Wende giggled. “They are being overharvested, and no one cares because of their bad PR image. Jaws and so forth. I’m sorry, I’m talking way too much.”
“Listening to you makes me feel young again.”
“That’s what Dex says. I think he uses me as his base target demographic. Until I met him, I’d never been out of the country before, except Cabo. I want to experience things before I settle down like you and Richard.”