See You in Paradise (7 page)

Peck looked around the table, faintly smirking, for several seconds before he delivered the punch line. “The guy watched paint dry for two and a half months!”

Brant laughed along with everyone else, but mostly he watched Cynthia laugh. He was shocked to discover that he had never seen her laugh before (not with true abandon, anyway—giggling didn’t count), which is to say that he himself had never made her laugh. Well, why not? He was funny, right? Couldn’t he do a wide range of voices, including Old Jewish Lady, Old Black Guy, and Duck? Wasn’t he good at sneaking up on squirrels and then shouting “Booga-booga-booga?” Didn’t he own the entire run of
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
on DVD? He could, he was, he did! But he had never seen Cynthia like this: her hands clutching her cleavage, her mouth gulping air, her eyes wrinkled shut like a prizefighter’s. She looked … indecorous. He was loath to imagine what kind of hideous air-guitar faces he made when they were porking, but as for Cynthia, she always looked serene, sleepy, disappointingly pleased, as if there might be a hidden camera somewhere recording the moment for inclusion in some kind of X-rated home furnishings catalog. This was entirely different, this elasticized guffaw, and he didn’t much care for it. She looked like Seabiscuit, for crying out loud.

It took a couple of seconds for the hilarity to wane and for the guests to realize that they would now be expected to amuse themselves. During this awkward silence, Peck turned to Brant and, loudly enough so that others should hear, said, “You must be that Brant.”

“Yes!” Brant replied brightly.

The two stared at each other for a moment, and in that moment Brant saw his chance with this man roar past, flag-waving revelers shouting out its bunting-underslung windows, and recede into the distance. It was gone before he even knew what it was, a distant speck leading a dust cloud.

Peck was smiling at him. Brant had seen this face before, of course, in flash photographs in magazines or pen-and-inked onto the front page of the
Wall Street Journal
; it was familiar but unmemorable, like a second-rate old pop song. And the eyes: you’d expect the eyes of a man like this to be direct, penetrating, alive: but instead they were furtive, blurred, facing in slightly different directions. The skin was sallow, blotched, creased; the cheeks cadaverous. But the forehead! This, Brant thought, was what did all the work, this gleaming hemisphere that looked like it had been dragged here by a glacier. It bore neither hairs nor pores, this wall, and behind it the killing thoughts cozied up against one another. As Brant gazed at it the mouth beneath it opened and words came out. “Perhaps we ought to shake hands, Brant.”

“Oh, sure!”

Peck took Brant’s hand, but took it limply, making Brant’s strong grip, intended to express a marriageable masculine confidence, instead seem like a withering critique of the old man’s waning virility. Peck actually winced, and Brant jerked his hand away. “Uh, I ought to thank you, sir, for the—”

“Please,” Peck said, secreting the hand back under the table, “there’s no need to grovel. Now, Brant.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You’re diddling my daughter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re thinking of marrying her, right?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Getting yourself a piece of the family fortune?”

“Well, that’s—”

“Don’t be ashamed, Brant, that’s how I got started on mine. I took one look at Cynthia’s mother, at that stunning horse face and that glorious udder, and I said to myself, there’s a twenty-four-carat cunt if I ever saw one. You can believe I got in there but quick.”

There was nothing Brant could say to this; if he protested, he would be branded a liar; if he agreed, he would be a prick. If he said nothing, he would be a weakling. He said, “Uh huh!”

“But I’m not a pussy, Brant, and neither are you. I had to work for my supper, and so will you. I did my time at her father’s company, and so will you.”

“I will?”

“Yes. You’re going to man the home office.”

“I am?”

“Yes. You’re going to become chief of operations at headquarters.”

Brant didn’t get it. He said, “In New York?”

Peck laughed—it was what he wanted to hear. “Guyamón.”

“Guyamón?”

“It’s a lesser Bermuda. A tax dodge. We have to have an office there. Staffed by a staff of one. The job is currently occupied, but if you say yes, he’s fired.” Peck removed a cell phone from his pocket—a rather large one by present standards, mid-nineties vintage, a charming affectation. “If you say no, you can get the hell out of my daughter’s graduation party, and if you ever again so much as fondle a tit I’ll have all your arms broken. And don’t think I can’t do it.”

Brant looked past him to Cynthia, who, though while theoretically engaged in a conversation with an avid middle-aged couple, was glancing his way, her eyebrows expectantly arched, her mouth tilted in a hopeful, nervous smile. He had to admit that, for the whole night up until now, he had not been feeling super about Cynthia. The party had cast a tawdry light upon her; she did not seem worth all the hoopla, which in turn felt excessive, striving. But now, after staring at her father’s creepy mug for minutes on end, Brant experienced a loosening of critical faculties, and saw Cynthia as lovely and strong, and remembered her playfulness, her sexual enthusiasm, and her beautiful car, and suddenly he felt that he could not do without her. Something about her laugh, the one her father had drawn from her, made him hesitate, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted her. Hell, he loved her! He turned back to her father. He said, “I’ll do it.”

“Great,” said Peck, without much enthusiasm, and pushed two buttons on the phone. “Serkin? Peck. You’re fired. The plane leaves at seven p.m. Thursday. Get on it, or you’re stuck. Goodbye.” He pushed another button, and then two more. “Book Brant’s flight,” he said, and hung up.

“Go home,” he said now to Brant, tucking the phone back into his jacket pocket.

“Home?”

“To pack. You’re leaving tomorrow. A car will pick you up at noon. Good luck.” He cleared his throat and fell upon his meal, which had been placed before him by a napkin-draped arm.

“But don’t I—”

“Go,” muttered Peck through a mouthful of broccoli. “Don’t worry about the details. A packet will be waiting for you in the car. Go ahead, smooch your honey and vamoose.”

He rose, went over to Cynthia. “I have to go,” he whispered in her ear.

“So you said yes?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Brant!” she said, and craned her neck to kiss him. When he hazarded a glance at her father, he could see that he was paying no attention at all.

He left a message for his boss on voicemail. “I’m sorry,” he explained, “Peck’s making me take this job. I’ll send you an email.” But he wondered if there would even be email on Guyamón, or restaurants, or television. He would miss restaurants and television—would miss delivery food, football. But surely Guyamón had these things—it was the Bahamas, it was a tourist destination. Probably there would be cool mixed drinks served at rattan taverns on the beach. There would be friendly natives in colorful shirts, and drunk Americans, and crazy birds that made crazy sounds. “Don’t worry about your apartment,” a voice had said on his answering machine when he got home from the commencement dinner. “Don’t worry about anything. It will all be taken care of. Bring only those things you can’t do without.” For Brant, these were: his “property of” shirt from the business school, his Bob Marley CDs (and wasn’t Guyamón near Jamaica? Maybe he ought to have an atlas), a picture of his mom, a picture of Cynthia (presented to him on his birthday, it was taken by a famous fashion photographer Brant had never heard of and tucked into a neat silver frame), and a toothbrush. He brought along three suits and seven shirts, as well. All the next morning he tried to get in touch with Cynthia, but she wasn’t home. He left five messages. His boss called him and pleaded. He called his mother and sister, both of whom told him he was nuts. That was okay. In fact it was great! He felt, briefly, as if he were on the threshold of a fabulous future. “We thought he was nuts, but in the end, Brant was right.”

A dented Lincoln picked him up; the driver wore an old-fashioned driver’s hat and called him sir. He checked in at the airport, got on a plane, and flew first to New York, then Nassau. There, a gangly black man wearing aviator sunglasses (and why not?, he was an aviator) led him across a steaming tarmac to a little four-seater with a picture of a turkey stenciled on the side.

“What’s with the turkey?” Brant shouted over the buzz of the engine, a buzz that seemed somehow insufficient.

The pilot pointed to his ear, shrugged.

In an hour they were above Guyamón, circling what appeared to be a volcano. Smoke was issuing from it in long windless streaks. The air was hot as hell, even in here. Brant was pitting out big time. It was evening. They landed on a cracked strip of concrete, the pilot swearing all the way in. Brant shuddered in his seat and conked his head on the roof.

“Hey, man,” he asked the pilot as he got out. “That thing’s inactive, right?” Meaning the volcano.

The pilot laughed good and long.

There was a car here, a jeep actually, US Army issue as far as Brant could tell, repainted with what looked like yellow latex house-paint. The driver was a fat white man wearing a spotless white shirt and a gigantic straw hat.

“You gonna need a hat for that bald patch,” he said.

“I don’t have a bald patch,” said Brant. “Do I?”

The drive took half an hour. They traveled a mudded and pot-holed road to the base of the volcano, then turned right and edged around it. There were a lot of trees and ferns, except in the places where fresh lava had mowed them down. In places the lava covered the road and the jeep bumped jauntily over it. At last they arrived somewhere—a small stretch of paved cement before which stood a long row of cinder-block huts, about fifteen in all. They’d been built twenty or so years ago, and since then had been treated variously, some clearly abandoned and the windows and doors removed, some dolled up like vacation cottages. The jeep stopped in front of a middling one, its terra-cotta roof cracked and mossed, its walls in need of paint. The driver didn’t bother turning off the engine. He handed Brant the key. Brant took it, then waited for instructions.

“You’re supposed to get out,” the driver said.

“What then?”

“Then I leave.”

When the jeep was gone, Brant stood before the door, sweating. He put the key in the lock and turned it. The door creaked open.

The place had been ransacked. The mattress was slashed, stains that appeared to be red wine covered the walls. A dresser that stood at the foot of the bed seemed to have been urinated in. And in the middle of the floor sat a small pile of human feces, holding in place a handwritten note that read:

A few days later, though, Brant was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. The cottage was equipped with a telephone, a computer, a fast internet connection, and satellite TV. He had spent most of his time so far watching baseball games, talking to friends in America, and enjoying pornography. He’d never liked pornography before, he hated to cave in to such base desires, but there didn’t seem to be any girls here, and nobody he knew was likely to burst in on him, and so, from the computer’s tiny speakers could be heard, at all hours of the day, the quiet moans of nude actresses as they masturbated before the masturbating him. Three times daily a little truck came clanking by, and the denizens of the cottage row—six in all—would amble out of their dens and eat the food their respective companies had paid for. There were burgers and french fries and imported beers. There were omelettes and apples—apples!, in the Bahamas!—and Dove bars and club sandwiches. The six men were always in, because they all had to answer the phone if it rang, although the phones never rang. After the truck left, they would stand around and talk, clutching their brown paper bags of loot. They didn’t introduce themselves to Brant, but included him in their conversation as if he’d been there for a hundred years.

“See the Yanks?”

“Nah. Drooling over Nudie Village.”