Troubles in Paradise

by Elin Hilderbrand

  One day, she sees Treasure Island heading out of the harbor in the wrong direction—toward St. Thomas—and realizes the boat is probably going for its yearly maintenance. They don’t run charters in the autumn. Tilda wonders what Cash is doing over the break. She’d love to invite him to work on the resort. That had been the plan. Everyone is keen to have a robust water-sports program and a series of hikes across the island both as workouts and nature walks, and this was supposed to be Cash’s department—but Tilda blew that chance. She hasn’t even told her parents the truth. They know that Cash broke up with Tilda but they don’t know that Tilda and Dunk hooked up on St. Lucia right after their couples massage, which was before she talked to Cash, so, technically, she cheated. And Cash could tell, she knew he could, so the breakup was her fault. Tilda generally discusses everything with her mother, but her behavior was so shameful and so unlike her that she can’t share it with Lauren.

  Tilda has just woken up in the Lovango cottage when her phone rings. Granger, calling from Dubai, where her parents are attending a conference this week.

  “Inga is going to be a problem,” Granger says.

  Tilda must still be asleep because she has no idea who Inga is. Maybe it’s the woman at the Health Department over in St. Thomas? “Why?” Tilda says.

  “She’s picking up speed and strength, and right now she’s on a direct course toward St. Thomas, St. John, Tortola, Jost, Virgin Gorda, and, although they didn’t mention it by name, Lovango.”

  “Dad,” Tilda says. “What are you talking about?”

  “Inga,” Granger says. “The hurricane.”

  Like a newborn with indecisive parents, a hurricane first forms without a name, as a collection of thunderstorms—so says Tilda’s favorite weatherman, Dougie Clarence of the CBS Evening News. Tilda is watching Dougie on her phone in bed—the cottage has no TV, and even if it did, there’s no cable—as he explains that Hurricane Inga started a few days earlier, August 27, as a Cape Verde hurricane, forming off the African continent and organizing near the Cape Verde Islands with a big push from the westerly trade winds, a term originating from the beneficial wind direction for early colonial traders. (Dougie always throws interesting factoids into his forecasts, which Tilda loves.) Inga has had a thousand miles of warm tropical waters to nourish her. In the past forty-eight hours, Dougie says, Inga’s maximum winds have increased from forty miles per hour to one hundred and fifteen.

  “It will bear down on Barbuda, the sister island to Antigua, in the next twenty-four hours,” Dougie says. “It might disassemble a bit with landfall, but if it doesn’t, it will hit the Virgin Islands with its full strength.”

  “Um…okay?” Tilda says.

  She calls Dunk, gets his voicemail. She checks the time; he must be meditating. He’ll meditate until eight thirty, then he’ll drink four espressos while he prepares Olive’s daily meals. Then they’ll drive to town and he’ll call Tilda to pick them up in the skiff right around nine thirty. Can she just wait until then?

  The chyron on the screen beneath Dougie says HURRICANE INGA ON DIRECT PATH FOR VIRGIN ISLANDS.

  She calls Dunk again. Voicemail.

  Texts him: Call me! Urgent!

  Calls him again, even though she realizes it’s pointless. He’s unreachable while he’s meditating.

  She calls him at 8:31 sharp.

  “What?” He sounds pissed for some reason, maybe because she called during his sacred time. She doesn’t care.

  “There’s a hurricane, category four, Inga, bearing down on Barbuda. And then, maybe, us.”

  “I’ve been tracking it all night,” Dunk says.

  Good, Tilda thinks. She doesn’t want Dunk to accuse her of manufacturing drama, hurricane as monster under the bed. “Is it something we need to worry about?”

  “Hell yes,” Dunk says. “I have blokes coming to shutter this place up and I talked to Topher. He’s coming to scoop up Olive and me tomorrow morning.”

  Wait…what? “You and Olive? Scoop you up to go where?”

  “Back to Houston first, then probably on to Vegas. You know Topher.”

  Tilda does not know Topher; she only knows of Topher. He’s Dunk’s friend and bandmate in Wasps of Good Fortune (he’s the bass player), and he’s even wealthier than Dunk. He has his own plane, a G5.

  “So you’re leaving the island?” Tilda says. “You’re just…leaving?”

  “There’s a hurricane coming, mate. A ballbuster. Maybe a cat five.”

  “What about…this place? Lovango? The construction, the work trailer, my cottage, the de-sal plant, the pool? We can’t just leave it.”

  “If I were you,” Dunk says, “I’d have Keith and the crew secure what they can over there and then you and your parents should have the caretaker shutter up Peter Bay and hunker down on the bottom floor.”

  “My parents,” Tilda says, “are in Dubai.”

  “You must have the caretaker’s number? Call him yourself. Be an adult.”

  “I am being an adult,” Tilda says. “I’m not worried about my parents’ house. It’s made of stone.”

  “Even so, mate. It needs to be shuttered.”

  “I’m worried about here. Lovango. The resort we’re building.” She laughs. “I can’t believe you’re leaving with Topher. For Vegas. Do you not care about the resort?”

  “I own the land,” Dunk says. “Nothing is going to happen to the land.”

  “So now you care only about the land?” Tilda says. “What about the hundreds of thousands of dollars my parents have poured into building this place? That doesn’t interest you, I guess. Unless it gives you a chance to meet one-on-one with a hot woman, then you’re front and center.” She understands in that moment that Dunk “forgot” Olive’s lunch that day on purpose so he could meet alone with Swan.

  “You’re acting like a possessive child. If you’re so worried about what you and your parents are building, then protect it, mate. I’m protecting what’s mine, then I’m getting out of Dodge.”

  “I’m not going with you, Dunk. I’m staying on Lovango.”

  “I didn’t invite you,” Dunk says. “Did I?”

  Did he? No, he didn’t. Tilda can’t believe how much she hates him in this moment. She isn’t sure how to respond but she wants to pour gasoline on his heart and set it on fire with her words.

  But she isn’t quick enough. Dunk hangs up.

  “I’m not your mate!” she says.

  Tilda calls her parents and the three of them make a plan. Granger will get their caretaker to shutter the Peter Bay house. Tilda will meet with Keith and they’ll secure Lovango the best they can. There are tens of thousands of dollars of building materials to protect. Tilda will shutter the cottage herself. There are three generators on the island; Tilda will get gas for all of them and stock up on provisions. She needs to go soon; the markets on St. John will be complete pandemonium. Or maybe not. Maybe she’s overreacting.

  “You’ll stay at Peter Bay,” Granger says.

  “No,” Tilda says. “I’m staying over here.”

  “Tilda,” Lauren says.

  “The cottage is sturdy, Mom,” Tilda says. “It faces northwest and the storm is coming from the east-southeast. I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t want you staying by yourself,” Lauren says. “Call a friend. Or ask Keith to stay with you.”

  “Keith has a family, Mom. Little kids.”

  “Where’s Dunk?” Granger asks. “Will he be there with you?”

  “He’s going to Vegas,” Tilda says.

  “Vegas!” Lauren cries.

  “I don’t know why you started seeing him,” Granger says. “That had disaster written all over it.”

  You were the one who sent us away together, Tilda thinks. What did you expect would happen? Though there she goes again, acting like a child, not taking responsibility for her own decisions. She entered the relationship with Dunk of her own free will—and yes, it was a disaster.

  “What about Cash?” Lauren sa
ys. “Cash is so sweet.”

  Cash is sweet. And cool. And superior to Dunk in every way, starting with the fact that Cash would never abandon Tilda on Lovango with a hurricane coming and go to Vegas with his filthy-rich degenerate buddy. But Cash is also very, very angry with Tilda. And can she blame him? A couple months earlier, Tilda reached out to him via text just to see how he was doing, and he’d shut her down, saying, Fine, thanks for asking. Tilda deserved no more than this; she’d been awful to him, so awful that, frankly, she doesn’t like to think about it. She ditched him for Duncan Huntley because…why? Dunk is rich, Dunk has a beautiful boat and an enormous villa with staff and a G-wagon and a lovely dog. Dunk has built and sold companies. Listening to Dunk’s accent gave her a buzz. When they were on vacation together, he wowed her with how generously he tipped and how much he knew about the islands; he seemed like an evolved person who cared about the actual place and the actual people, and he made Tilda want to be more than just a resort tourist. All of Dunk’s weird rituals made Tilda think he was enlightened and interesting. He knew a lot about old punk rock, which wasn’t too surprising because he was in a band, but then one morning at breakfast on St. Lucia, he had identified Brahms, then Mozart, then Schubert coming from the piano player, and Tilda had been gobsmacked by his range.

  Fine, he has range, but he’s a jerk—and by jerk, Tilda means a lot of other things she’s too polite to say.

  She closes her eyes and does her own meditating. It was a mistake to date Dunk. Everyone could see that but her. But she’s young, and Tilda is at least self-aware enough to admit failure, pick herself up, and dust herself off. She needs to apologize, big-time, to Swan Seeley. She will do that—but right now, there’s a hurricane bearing down.

  There’s another person to whom she owes an apology, and this one can’t wait.

  She calls Cash.

  Huck

  A hurricane watch is issued for the U.S. Virgin Islands. The clock starts ticking; they have forty-eight hours.

  Cash calls Huck. “I need a favor.”

  Huck closes his eyes and summons every bit of patience he has as Cash talks. Cash would like a ride over to Lovango Cay because he’s going to wait out the hurricane in a cottage on a cliff overlooking Congo Cay and Jost Van Dyke with…Tilda Payne, the girl who left him for the guy who bought Lovango.

  “I have no other way to get over there,” Cash says.

  Huck and Irene swing down to the Happy Hibiscus so Huck can pick up Cash and drop off Irene. They find Cash and Baker talking in Baker’s driveway. Cash throws his duffel in the back of Huck’s truck.

  “Are you sure about this?” Huck says. “I can take you there, but once I do, that’s it. I won’t be able to get you until after the storm passes.”

  “It’s a terrible idea, bro,” Baker says. “We should all stay here at the Hibiscus. Together. Besides, Tilda screwed you over, and the second she crooks her finger, you run back to her? Seems a little weak.”

  Huck’s glad Baker is the one who said this.

  “She’s all by herself,” Cash says. “Dunk left her. He’s flying to Vegas with one of the guys in his so-called band.”

  What a douche-canoe, Huck thinks.

  “She made her bed,” Baker says. “You should not get back together with her. And besides, I thought you liked Wendy.”

  “She lives in Houston,” Cash says.

  “What about Bonny, then?”

  Huck can see Cash’s neck growing flushed. “Bonny’s fine. I went on one date with her, she’s nice, but it wasn’t a love connection. Tilda means something to me.”

  “She let you stay with her for weeks,” Irene says. “Do you feel like you have to repay the favor?”

  “I want to be there for her,” Cash says. “She can’t stay over there alone.” He appeals again to Huck. “Can we go?”

  “We can go,” Huck says.

  First they stop at St. John Market, which has both registers open and ten people in each line, including—Huck gathers from eavesdropping—two couples who have only just arrived for a week’s vacation at the Westin and who are provisioning with things like Doritos and mango-flavored Cruzan rum. Huck wants to tell these people that their time would be better spent trying to book a flight back to where they came from. For years, there’ve been false alarms—cat 1 or 2 hurricanes that fell apart and made landfall as nothing more than forty-mile-per-hour winds and two inches of rain—but this storm is picking up power like a snowball rolling down a mountain. This isn’t going to be a “Let’s get drunk, play gin rummy, and listen to that Scorpion song on repeat” kind of hurricane.

  Cash buys two cases of water, two loaves of bread, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, Cheez Whiz, pickles, a bag of apples, a carton of pineapple juice, and two bottles of Cruzan aged rum. He wants beer as well but Huck steers him toward toilet paper, candles, batteries, bug spray.

  From their spot way back in line, Huck texts Irene. Fill the gas cans first, then get to the store. This place is packed already.

  Huck drops Cash off at the Lovango dock; Tilda is waiting at the end in a John Deere Gator. The construction site seems to have been secured but there’s a trailer sitting on concrete blocks and all Huck can imagine is this bitch Inga picking it up like a toddler with a toy and tossing it into the sea.

  “That’s not where you’re staying, is it?” Huck asks Tilda.

  “No,” Tilda says. “There’s a cottage on the other side.” She and Cash load the provisions into the Gator. “Thank you for bringing him.”

  “You two be smart,” Huck says. “Charge your phones. Do you have a generator?”

  “Yes,” Tilda says. “And plenty of gas.”

  “Your place is shuttered?”

  “It is,” Tilda says.

  Huck doesn’t like leaving Cash and Tilda all alone on an island, not one bit, but he realizes he doesn’t have any say in the situation and he needs to get out of there.

  “Be safe,” Huck says.

  Huck is taking his boat to Hurricane Hole, where he will secure it with three anchors, strip it of all valuable electronics, then hope for the best. When he pulls into the Hole, he sees Captains Stephen and Kelly of the Singing Dog heading out.

  Where are they going? he wonders.

  He sees a few boats prepping in the Hole but not nearly as many as he thought he would. He putters over to What a Catch! “Where is everyone?” he asks Captain Chris.

  “Hurricane watch just turned to warning,” Chris says. “And they’re advising everyone to pull their boats. This storm is going to be a monster, worse than anything we’ve seen. Sustained winds of one fifty or higher.”

  Huck swears under his breath. The Mississippi can’t handle winds like that. “Where’s the Singing Dog going?”

  “They said the boat will be a goner on land or on sea,” Chris says. “So they’re going to try to outrun it.”

  “For the love of Pete,” Huck says. “What are you doing, staying here or trailering up?”

  “I was tempted to chance it here,” Chris says. “But now I’m having second thoughts.”

  Yes, so is Huck—and the decision needs to be made immediately. He waves to Chris, spins his boat around, and heads back to Cruz Bay.

  He calls Irene. “I need to trailer the boat,” he says. “Then I have to shutter my house.” Or should he shutter first, then deal with the boat? No, he can shutter in the dark if need be.

  “What can I do to help?” Irene says.

  “You and Baker are shuttering Hibiscus?”

  “Yes,” Irene says. “I’m making clam chowder, white chicken chili, a Mississippi roast, and your favorite cookies. Ayers is here, and so is Floyd. Phil and Sunny are on their way. Maia is at the school.”

  That’s right; Maia begged to be allowed to go to the Gifft Hill gymnasium to assemble and distribute hurricane survival kits, which include gallon jugs of water, flashlights, extra batteries, granola bars, and fudge that some of the mothers made (because who doesn’t need fudge in a hurri
cane?). All of Maia’s friends are doing it, she said. Plus, she wants to help.

  “Can you pick up Maia?” Huck asks.

  “Already planning on it,” Irene says. “Curfew is at eight. I figure I’ll get her around seven thirty.”

  Huck breathes out a “Thank you” and marvels at how much better his life is with Irene Steele in it.

  Huck hitches up his trailer and drives down to Chocolate Hole, where the boat is waiting. Getting the boat onto the trailer by himself isn’t something he would do under any but the most dire of circumstances. He should have called Rupert for help but Rupert is all the way out in Coral Bay and Huck doesn’t have time to waste. He has other friends but they all have their own boats to worry about. He considers driving back to Fish Bay to enlist Baker’s help, but again, there’s the issue of time.

  There isn’t a dinghy for Huck to borrow so he wades into the water up to his chest in order to climb aboard. The air is as hot and heavy as a blanket; the water feels wonderful. The sky glows an ominous green color. It seems to portend danger. Destruction.

  Or maybe that’s all in Huck’s head.

  He gets the boat trailered. That ends up being the easy part. The hard part is driving the trailer up Jacob’s Ladder. He has to take it slowly, begging the chipmunks in his truck engine not to die on him yet. Right before he faces the final hill, the steepest, his neighbor Helen comes out of her house holding a covered plate. Helen was LeeAnn’s best friend, a friend since childhood, though Huck has noticed she’s kept her distance since Irene moved in.