Ellen brings up the rear with Baker. “She’s remarkable. When I was pregnant with Walter, I gained fifty-two pounds and sat in my house eating cherry pie filling from the can.”
“She’s been craving steamed artichokes,” Baker says. “Thank goodness her mother knows how to prepare them because I don’t have a clue.”
Steamed artichokes? Ellen decides not to comment. “How are things between the two of you? Is she still living alone in Mick’s old place?”
“She is,” Baker says. “Things are good. I see her almost every night. I’ve helped her fix the place up so that it’s ready for when the baby comes. She’s due in three weeks.”
“She’s going to stay in her own place after the baby is born? I thought she was moving in with you.”
“She wants to wait until we organically reach the moving-in stage of our relationship,” Baker says. “She’s keeping our relationship on a different timeline from the pregnancy.”
“What stage are you in?” Ellen asks. Up ahead, Wendy jumps down from a rock ledge, and Cash catches her. Becky is taking pictures with her phone, which Ellen hopes is waterproof. Debbie is asking the oldest of Gary Dane’s kids what colleges she’s looking at.
“Boyfriend and girlfriend,” Baker says. “I’m madly in love with her. I tell her this all the time, and in response, she laughs and kisses me.”
“She doesn’t say it back?”
“Not yet. But she will.”
He sounds pretty confident, Ellen thinks. “She better.”
The bar on the boat doesn’t open until after they finish snorkeling. “That’s by design,” Cash says as he pours painkillers for everyone. “To keep you alive.”
When they anchor in White Bay on Jost Van Dyke, Ellen feels let down. The sand is like powdered sugar, the water a spectral blue, there’s reggae music, and the smell of grilled meat wafts over from the Soggy Dollar, but there are only two other boats anchored there. Ellen had been anticipating something like an MTV beach party; this is decidedly more civilized.
The silver lining is that Ellen finds herself taking a seat next to Ayers in one of the Adirondack chairs placed in the shade of a small grove of coconut trees. The others are all up at the bar—Debbie is with Gary Dane, Wendy is with Cash, and Becky is talking to the bartender, who, Ellen can see, is falling in love with Becky (all men fall in love with Becky). Gary Dane’s daughters are lying out on the chaises, and the boys are playing catch in the shallows. If Gary Dane and Debbie get married, Ellen thinks, they’ll have eight kids—four girls and four boys. The Brady Bunch plus two.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Ellen says to Ayers. “Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to sit in front of Real Housewives and eat Doritos?”
“My first trimester was like that,” Ayers says. “But every week since then, I’ve felt healthier and stronger.”
“Baker says you’re staying in your place after the baby is born.”
“I am,” Ayers says. “Baker will be nearby. My parents too. But yeah, I want to live on my own for a while longer.” She leans in. “You had a baby by yourself, didn’t you?”
“All by myself,” Ellen says. “Sperm donor.”
“It wasn’t Baker, was it?” Ayers asks.
Ellen hoots. “No! Ahhh, that would have made this a very awkward conversation.”
“He’s a good father,” Ayers says.
“He’s a good person,” Ellen says. As she squints at the surreal view of the water and the green islands beyond, her vision blurs. Sunscreen in her eyes, maybe. “That’s why we all came down here. I mean, yeah, we wanted a Caribbean vacation away from our kids”—she laughs—“but we came to see Baker. He was our best friend at home. He was always helping us out, and not in a douchey, mansplaining way; in a genuine, caring way. He would clean our gutters, change the oil in our cars, bring us homemade lasagnas when we were having a tough week. He went with us to the Houston Ballet every year to see The Nutcracker. He took our kids to the park when the four of us wanted to go to yoga together; he gave us solid investment advice; he came to pick us up when we were out on a bad blind date; he gossiped with us, sent us songs he thought we would like, asked us for advice when he was having trouble in his own marriage. He listened. He was there. All together, the four of us have dated—and married—a lot of guys, and we’ve all agreed that each of us is looking for her own Baker Steele. He’s the gold standard.” She swallows. “Diamond. Platinum. What I’m trying to get at is, you have a treasure. And what I’m also trying to say is, please don’t hurt him.” Ellen closes her mouth before she can add, Or we’ll come back down here and haunt you.
Ayers puts her hand on top of Ellen’s. “I won’t,” she says. “And thank you for telling me all that, but I assure you, I know what I have. I know how lucky I am.”
Ellen studies Ayers for a second. Do I believe her?
Yes.
“Good,” Ellen says. “Now, please dish on the St. John school wives.”
When Treasure Island pulls into Cruz Bay at the end of the day, Ellen is happy, satisfied, and drunk. She’s so drunk that when they get back to Caneel Bay, it takes her a minute to make sense of the paper that has been slipped under her door. The words are blurry. Maybe it’s not the rum; maybe she needs reading glasses.
“What does this say?” Ellen asks, handing the paper to Debbie.
“They’re evacuating the hotel tomorrow,” Debbie says. “There’s a hurricane coming.” Tilda
La Tapa closes at the end of August, which seems like a natural time for Tilda to give her notice. Her future is on Lovango.
She thinks maybe the staff will plan a party or an outing for drinks on her last night—this is what normally happens
