This Vacant Paradise Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  PART TWO

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  PART THREE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright Page

  In gratitude

  to

  C.P.

  What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

  GEORGE ELIOT

  PART ONE

  1

  CHARLIE MURPHY WAS on his way to Image Makers, which sold merchandise to those who, as advertised, “have everything.” After ascending an escalator from the parking lot (Image Makers was located in the indoor-outdoor shopping plaza Fashion Island), Charlie paused before the picture window of Shark Island, restaurant and bar. In the late-afternoon sun, the glass had a golden shimmer and allowed voyeurs to see directly into the U-shaped bar. It was a one-way window: From inside, the glass looked like a shiny onyx wall.

  As Charlie stood at the edge of a walkway, the hurried crowds of shoppers moved around him. His gaze passed over the men and women at the bar. Despite their casual demeanors, he believed they were anxious and lonely.

  A man stopped, stood beside Charlie. Snowy-haired and with unruly eyebrows, he wore a black silk shirt emblazoned with miniature pineapples, and tan corduroy pants. “Met my ex-wife,” the man said, as if talking to the window, “in there. Bought her a tequila sunrise. A barracuda in hiding, man. She looked like a model. You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to go in there—just a bunch of fucking barracudas, ready to eat my balls.”

  Charlie acknowledged him with a commiserating head nod. The man shook his head; his hands were in his pockets—Charlie heard the faint jingling of car keys and loose change—and then the man shuffled on.

  Charlie was about to leave also, but there—in the midst of the fake palm trees and plastic bamboo, the seasonal holiday lights and decorations—were the shoulders and back of Esther Eileen Wilson.

  Stunned, trying to make sense, he looked away—past the stores and escalator and parking lot, all the way to the horizon. The late-afternoon sun reflected across the surface of the ocean, like a shimmering sheet. There was the speck of a motorboat and its tiny foam trail.

  Esther, he believed, had the capacity to be his barracuda. If only they’d had more time together. She had dated him six months before, for about a month, and he had fallen for her, sure he had, only for her to break up with him for no good reason. Then he’d discovered the reason: Paul Rice, an idiotic man with the advantage of a stunning inheritance, care of the Rice Corporation.

  When he looked back, Esther hadn’t changed her position. She appeared lonely—possibly because she was alone. Visible through the wicker-mesh barstool, one foot was crossed over the other, high-heeled shoe dangling, ready to slip off.

  She was drinking what appeared to be, by the shape of the glass on the bar top, her favorite drink, an apple martini. There was about her figure the subtle look of coolness, but with a pleasing vulnerability and availability.

  Considering he was only an appreciative spectator, it seemed silly to feel such trepidation and awe. He was safe, watching. Carried on the breeze was a hint of garlic, the aroma of grilled chicken—it came and went.

  And then she did a remarkable thing: Her hand casually readjusted her long hair, back slightly arched—revealing her neck, the hair shifted to her shoulder.

  Charlie made himself move away from the window, and his walk to Image Makers was mechanical, forced. At the horizon, the small red sun quivered against the ocean. In his jacket pockets his hands clenched in fists.

  He remembered Esther pulling away from a kiss, leveling her eyes on his; letting him (only him, for a passing, terrifying, thrilling moment) witness her fragility. And it had surprised him so much that he’d felt himself open to a deeper possibility between them. But then she’d ruined everything.

  AT IMAGE MAKERS, Charlie appeared to be oscillating between the purchase of a step-on glass scale or a foldaway elliptical strider, as any consumer might struggle, if not for a perfect Christmas gift, then for an adequate one.

  He needed to buy a present for his parents, something to validate their acceptance and devotion, because instead of showing the slightest interest in the family business, he’d become an academic; and instead of marrying and presenting his parents with grandchildren, at thirty-eight, he was a dedicated bachelor.

  But the strain inside him was more profound.

  “Do you need any help?” a saleswoman asked, startling him. Her hair was dyed the harshest of blonds—metallic.

  He didn’t respond, hoping she might leave, but she took his silence as an opportunity to speak about the elliptical strider. She liked him, he could tell. Women liked that he never appeared free from thought, which was ironic, considering they were usually appreciated for having the opposite, trouble-free demeanor.

  “I’m looking for a present for my parents.”

  She nodded and continued her canned speech. “Stainless-steel finish,” he heard; “instantly measures heart rate in beats per minute.” She appeared to be middle-aged. He guessed by necks and hands. But it was difficult to decide. She might be an old woman who looked young, or a young woman who looked old.

  No matter what, he took it as his personal duty to notice and appreciate women.

  Her bust was of note: The issue was not whether they were natural—they weren’t—but how the artificial could assume the properties of the natural. At what point did the distinction between genuine and imitative collapse? Ample breasts and narrow hips, fulfilling men’s latent homoerotic desires: like having big boobs attached to a male essence.

  Having had the close and personal scrutiny of both types, he believed there was no substitute for natural, no matter the shape, size, and flaws; he thought of Esther’s dark-pink nipples: one in his mouth, the other in his hand. A stirring in his groin followed.

  “Would you like a demonstration?” She began to adjust the elliptical strider on the carpet. He didn’t answer. “How about the Ultimate Human Touch Massage Chair?” Abandoning the strider, she pointed to a lounge chair. “Memory-foam cushions. Isolated massage pressure points.”

  He lifted the step-on glass scale—thin and weightless—as if to privately observe its features.

  “Why don’t you tell me about your parents,” she suggested, “and we can go from there?”

  “I’ll come back another time.”

  She smiled for him, a private little smile, before turning and walking in the other direction, the T-shaped outline of her thong visible against her khakis.

  Setting the scale on the floor, he left. Walking toward the parking lot, he considered the conspicuous wastefulness at the heart of Fashion Island. A bronze wind chime sculpture, bells hanging from ceiling to asphalt, was a fitting commentary: It was recorded in Guinness World Records as the world’s largest wind chime, but it was a useless d
ecoration, silent, no whistling, no chiming.

  The sky was swathed in reds, air laced with ocean, and something he didn’t know how to describe: sweet, heavy air.

  And then he was standing in front of the Shark Island window, inwardly conceding that he’d been hurrying, hoping that Esther hadn’t left.

  Her shoulders were forward, the bulk of her hair on her right shoulder. She lifted her martini glass. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew her lips were touching the rim. An empty plate was on the bar top. What had she been eating? She set the glass down, and he imagined her gaze traveling over the other patrons. A group of businessmen sat across from her, powerless; even her seemingly insignificant gestures, he believed, were visual hooks.

  A twosome of women entered, greeting two other women—a severity to their hair, makeup, bodies, clothes.

  He preferred Esther. Her focus, for a short time, appeared to be on the women, but then her face tilted up, as if acknowledging the ceiling fan and vents, and hair tumbled from her shoulder to her back. As it brushed against her skin, the back of his neck prickled.

  Her hands—her fingers—slid up and down her arms (she must be cold!); then she rested her chin on her palm, watching a television in the corner of the bar, with an air of helpless defeat, as if whatever she saw rendered her childlike.

  He looked to the screen: A man was surfing, his board’s fin slicing through a wave like a knife, opening the water, leaving a peel of white.

  When he looked back at her, she was peering over her shoulder. If he hadn’t known the glass to have one-way visibility, he would’ve sworn that she was staring at him, challenging him. Desire and fear came upon him. She was staring right through him. But she was looking at the shiny black glass, a fluke turn of her head, and then she turned back around.

  2

  ESTHER’S FAVORITE DRINK was the sour apple martini, and as she sipped from the shallow glass, she watched her image in the beveled mirror behind the stacked glasses and bottles of the bar. She saw a corner of her face: lips, cheekbone, eye. This was enough to reassure her, and she set her glass on the palm leaf–embossed cocktail napkin. Her image pleased her, as it did the three businessmen across from her, their ties loosened, watching her while they talked, daring each other to take the initiative. One of them would walk over soon, egged on by the others, and if she played her cards right, she wouldn’t be paying her bill. At thirty-three, she was well acquainted with the rules of attraction and commerce.

  Esther had come from her four-hour shift at True Romance. Besides ringing up clothing sales, she also offered the women demure praise and encouragement on their selections. Sometimes she wore the luxury clothes as a walking advertisement, but she was forced to rehang the garments after her shifts (even with her 10 percent employee discount, she couldn’t afford them); but as consolation, she often overcharged the women and then helped herself to the five, ten, or twenty dollars from the cash register, cosmically fine-tuning the inequities of the universe.

  Esther had had many mind-numbingly dull dates with Paul Rice, an overly empathetic man, son of Michael Rice, number 223 of Forbes magazine’s “400 Richest Americans.”

  Despite an involuntary tremor in his hands, Paul had been ranked number three among Orange Coaster’s most eligible bachelors. He’d come into Shark Island one evening, setting off a buzz up and down the bar: Paul Rice, Paul Rice, Rice Corporation, Rice Corporation. She’d pushed her hair off her back, leveled her gaze. And he’d approached her.

  A bouquet of butter-yellow tulips, petals rimmed with scarlet, as if they’d been dipped in paint, had been hand-delivered to her this afternoon. The card had read, simply: “Yours, Paul.” Tulips were her favorite—durable as well as delicate. They could decorate a prison cell, if necessary.

  Her last date with Paul, he’d steadied one hand on her knee, leaned in for a kiss. She’d hoped that by opening her mouth, letting his tongue play with hers (all the while, his hand inching up her thigh, beneath her skirt, fingertips nosing at the elastic of her underwear), she would feel more natural toward him, more desirous, as woman to man. She let herself be consumed with thoughts of his power and his money. But his tongue had felt foreign, like a child’s finger probing her mouth, and she’d reluctantly pulled away, leaned back into the couch. (“You okay?” he’d asked. She hadn’t answered, but he’d found an answer that suited him, looking down at his lap, saying, “I didn’t mean to rush you, Esther. I’m sorry.”)

  Esther limited herself to two martinis—this was her first—and breaded zucchini. Years ago, she’d gotten drunk at a charity ball, only to find herself in a hallway closet with a sexually adventurous Tibetan monk who carried a flask in a hidden pocket of his dark-orange–colored robe. Ever since, she had been respectful and vigilant with alcohol.

  She was not unhappy, but solitary and introspective.

  On one of the three muted television screens, she observed President Clinton taking long strides across a grassy lawn, his hand in the air, waving. She thought he was sexy but she told no one, considering he was so disliked. If Clinton were here, she imagined he would sidle up to her, calculated, daring: “Hey there, darlin’,” not even bothering to hide his wedding ring.

  Onscreen, Clinton was boarding a helicopter, and as he got closer, his slacks and suit jacket flapped against his body, the grass flattened.

  Paul wasn’t ready to introduce Esther to his parents, and tonight he was obliged to join them for dinner. Rather than being discouraged or expediting the process, Esther welcomed the opportunity to regroup, as a football team huddled for strategy before returning to play.

  Lights in the palm trees and lining the bar top blinked and winked, as if to remind her that Christmas, a week away, held the possibility and probability of a check from her grandmother.

  The last two Christmases, Grandma Eileen’s caretaker, Rick, at the direction of Grandma Eileen, had at some unidentified point during Christmas Eve, much like Saint Nick, placed seven thin unsealed envelopes amongst the lights and Southwestern-themed decorations on the Christmas tree.

  One for Esther; one for Aunt Lottie; one for Lottie’s new husband, the former golf pro George Famous; one for Uncle Tim; one for his wife, Mary; and one each for Uncle Tim and Mary’s dull-witted but attractive teenage children.

  Inside each envelope, without holiday sentiment or card, was a crisp check in the amount of ten thousand dollars and no change. Esther wished for a brood of children and a husband, if only to increase her intake. She owed over ten thousand on her Visa alone and would have appreciated Mary’s thirty thousand more; she was jealous of Mary, with her teenage children and new-age piety, although she wouldn’t want to look like Mary, a dowdy ex-hippie.

  The idea of the Christmas check—all those zeros—lurked behind her emotions like a great shadow. She needed it. Oh please God, she thought, make Grandma Eileen increase the amount.

  But this was unlikely: Grandma Eileen gave erratic gifts of money, and only enough to encourage dependence.

  If she were Paul’s wife, everything would change: With his money, she wouldn’t be beholden to her family, and the check, instead of being a means for survival, would be like a holiday bonus, good for a vacation, perhaps, or a shopping spree.

  A tax write-off for Grandma Eileen’s estate, the envelope gifts usurped the presents underneath the Christmas tree, and last year Aunt Lottie had had the nerve to sulk, check in hand.

  Aunt Lottie was waiting, not so patiently, Esther thought, for the time when her forceful and decipherable handwriting on the pale green checks, not Grandma Eileen’s elderly, dismissive scrawl, would direct and ensure gratitude and deference. That day might not be far off, as Grandma Eileen, in her mid-eighties, had been increasingly, belligerently, destructively courting death.

  Two women entered the bar, their entrance designed to attract attention. Shrilly, they greeted two other women. Hugs, kisses, squeals of delight, an overwrought display of approval and excitement ended with a purring of small talk. Three
out of the four were fake-breasted, and there was a uniformity in the way the women dressed and talked, the way their hair swung at their backs, even the way they laughed.

  Why did women act like hyperactive children? Esther hoped that she didn’t unconsciously behave like them. But she felt a paternal-like sympathy, knowing that no matter how much money, no matter how much plastic surgery, they would never be as physically attractive as she was at this very moment.

  The bar was kept air-conditioned cool, and Esther looked up to the ceiling, adorned with slowly moving fanlights, and saw that she was sitting in the direct path of a ventilator. She slid her hands up and down her arms.

  On another television screen, elevated in a corner, a surfer skimmed down a wave, his surfboard creating a foamy seam. She wished to somehow shake off thoughts of her family, but not of the check. She had nothing in common with her family, except a painful past and a tormented, hollow present.

  One thing was certain: Aunt Lottie and Mary had better not touch her share of Grandma Eileen’s estate. She was owed.

  Thoughts of her father entered, and she turned her head to look over her shoulder, with the sense that she could turn away from grief. She stared into the shiny dark glass of a mirrorlike window. The glass gave a blurred reflection of her blank-staring face, the figures of the men and women, and the muffled lights and decorations. She stretched her arms and turned back.

  She looked down at the darkened bar top, a smudgy gleam from the overhead track lights. Her resentments acted as a buffer, familiar and safe, and she directed her thoughts back to Aunt Lottie and Mary.

  A figure moved behind her, and she took no notice, continuing to stare at the bar top, thinking it was one of the businessmen passing by on his way to the restroom. But then the person came close and she felt fingers on her shoulder.

  When she looked behind her, Charlie was already placing his blazer around her. She felt a soothing warmth, but at the same time, a defiance. His skin, smell, and presence were a dead-end temptation.