The Paradise Guest House Read Free

to the bomb site.”
    “Good. Lou thinks that would be good for you, but I don’t think it’s something you should have to go through.”
    Lou is Mom’s soon-to-be-husband, a psychologist and apparently an authority on Jamie, though he barely knows her. Jamie ignores most of her mother’s offerings of wisdom from Lou. She’s not thrilled about the marriage—Lou is twelve years older than her mom and seems like an ancient ruin to Jamie, parts of him chipping and peeling away day by day. Everyone else’s mom turned cougar and caught a hot young thing. Couldn’t Rose ever follow a trend?
    When Jamie asked her why they were getting married, Rose said, “He’s very good to me.” Which means: Your father wasn’t good to me . Which means: He’ll never cheat on me. I’ll never risk getting hurt like that again, even if it means I marry a relic .
    “Will you promise me you’ll be safe?” Rose says.
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “That’s always been your gift and your curse.”
    “What’s that?” Jamie asks, suddenly impatient.
    “You’re invincible,” Rose announces. Jamie has heard it all before. She knows what comes next. “No one’s invincible.”
    “Good night, Mom.”
    “I love you.”
    “Love you, too.”
    Jamie hangs up the phone, bombarded by the complicated swirl of emotions that she feels every time she talks to her mother. She climbs onto her bed in the cottage, tucks in the mosquito netting, and leans back against the wooden headboard. If she puts her head down, she’ll be sleeping in seconds. Her arm hurts, a deep ache at the elbow that was broken. The doctors have told her that it healed perfectly. The pain comes when she’s tired.
    She reaches for her sketch pad at the side of her bed, then turns the page and looks out the window. A wall of wisteria drapes over the cottage next door. She tries to sketch it with quick strokes, the flowers a rush of smudged pencil—and when she stops she takes a look at what she’s done. Not bad. She’s captured something primordial in the drawing—the flowers consume the cottage.
    For Larson , she writes at the top of the page. She gives the drawing a title: Nature Wins .
    She lifts her cellphone and clicks on his name.
    “Out climbing mountains,” his voice message tells her. “Leave a message.”
    She smiles. He recorded that voice message the day he started chemo. Larson’s the one who sent her to Bali in the first place, to scout out a new tour. “You didn’t tell me to scout outthe damn nightclub,” Jamie told him when he blamed himself for her trauma.
    Now she leaves him a message. “I made it to Bali safe and sound. Why did I think this was such a hot idea? Listen, call me.”
    Larson won’t tell anyone else he has pancreatic cancer and that he probably has about a year to live. His brother on the East Coast knows, but the guy is good for nothing but a weepy phone call every few days. Jamie has been Larson’s best friend ever since he hired her ten years ago. She loves him dearly, but she’s worried about what it means to be his only friend.
    Jamie scooches down in bed and stares up at the ceiling. A gecko makes his way across the mosquito netting.
    “Well, hello there,” Jamie says to him.
    He stops as if he hears her.
    “Don’t let me interrupt your travels,” she tells him.
    The gecko scurries on.
    She picks up her cellphone one more time. She dials the number she has for Gabe in Bali, a number she has never called. After one ring the connection is lost and a recording in Indonesian follows.
    She drops the phone beside her on the bed and turns on her side. She cradles her arm, pressing into her elbow to stop the pain. And then she sleeps.
    Jamie’s the only one at the table in the middle of the garden. It’s a small wrought-iron table with a tiled mosaic top, large enough for a couple of people. She expected dinner with the family, but that doesn’t seem to be the plan. Nearby, a stoneelephant spills water from its trunk into a