The Paradise Guest House (21 page)

In the middle of the night, Gabe heard Jamie call out his name. He went to her doorway and waited, unsure if he
had dreamed it. But again he heard his name, this time a whisper.

He opened the door and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

“Can you sit with me for a minute?” she asked. Her voice sounded shaky—she must have had another nightmare.

“Of course,” he said, moving to the chair by the window.

“No. Here,” Jamie said, patting the side of her bed. “That’s too far away.”

He was wearing boxer shorts—he hadn’t slipped his jeans on. But she was half asleep and the room was nearly dark, so he perched on the edge of the bed. She rolled onto her side to face him.

“Were you sleeping?” she asked, her voice soft.

“I’m not sure,” he told her. “I kept pulling myself out of dreams. It already feels like it’s been a long night.”

“What time is it?”

“Two. Two-thirty, maybe.”

“What were you dreaming about?”

“The sea,” Gabe said. “I was falling into the sea from a great height. I had to wake up before I hit the water.”

“I saved you,” Jamie said.

He smiled. “Yes. You saved me.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“I stopped taking the pain pills,” she told him.

“Are you still in pain?”

“Yes.”

“Then you should take one.”

“On the flight home. Right now I don’t want to be cloudy.”

“Maybe that’s why you can’t sleep,” he said. “You’re in pain.”

“No,” Jamie said. “I can’t sleep because of you.”

Gabe looked toward the window. He could see the silhouette of a tree bending against the wind. Finally he turned back to her. She was lying on her side, the sheet pulled up to her waist. She wore the shirt that Gabe had bought for her in town:
BALI BABY
.

He reached over and brushed her hair away from her face, letting his fingers run along the line of her jaw. When he touched her neck, she closed her eyes.

He lay down on the bed, facing her.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. He could see so much in her eyes—her need, her guilt, her gratitude. He touched her lips as if to say: Don’t speak. Just look at me.

She placed her hand over his and gently pressed his fingers against her lips. Then she moved her hand to his mouth and traced his lips with her finger.

His own hand ran along the outside of her shirt, over her breasts, her stomach, and when he lifted the shirt to touch her skin, she made a sound he had not heard before—some mix of desire and pain.

“Should I stop?” he asked.

“Get this shirt off me,” she said breathlessly.

He smiled. He unbuttoned it and carefully worked it over her cast.

She rolled onto her back. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and with the light of the moon, he could see that her breasts were full and round, so tan that he knew she had been sunbathing naked somewhere in the world. When he ran his fingers over them, she opened her lips and breathed deeply.

“Please,” she said, her voice low and soft. “Touch me.”

He leaned over and kissed each nipple and then reached up to kiss her face.

She winced, and he pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s worth it,” she told him, smiling. But she put her hand over her bandage, and a furrow appeared between her brows.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He kissed a line down her torso, and when he came to her belly he pulled back to read a tattoo that was inscribed well below her navel.
Take me higher
, it said in an elegant cursive.

“How old were you when you had that done?” he asked, grinning.

“My eighteenth birthday.”

“Does it refer to drugs, sex, or mountains?”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” she told him.

“Man, are you trouble,” he said, and then he ran his tongue over the letters.

“It’s working,” she murmured.

He pulled down the sheet and gazed at her. Her legs were bruised. He had a flash of memory: pulling debris off her in the burning club. He rested his hand very gently on her thigh.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered.

“You won’t. You make me feel—” She stopped.

He looked up at her.

“—everything,” she finished.

He lay down again at her side.

“That is exactly what you do for me, too,” he said, and then he took her in his arms.

They made love slowly, carefully, rearranging themselves
around her cumbersome cast. Gabe touched her as if discovering everything he didn’t yet know about her. And when she reached for him, pulling him toward her, he said, “Slow. Take it slow.”

“You’re killing me,” she said, but she was smiling.

Their bodies found rhythms that Gabe didn’t try to control—he let himself move with her and ride her, and then she rode him, and when they came they didn’t stop wrapping themselves around each other.

“Slow,” Jamie said, teasing him as he hungrily pulled her to him.

“Every day has been so long,” he said in her ear.

“Yes,” Jamie whispered, and then she climbed on top of him again.

Gabe smiled as soon as he began to stir. His eyes still closed, he remembered a moment in the middle of the night. He had wakened and sat up in bed to gaze at Jamie. She slept with her broken arm resting over her head, as if the cast was no longer shielding her. She looked peaceful for the first time since the bombing. There were no lines between her eyes, no scream caught in her throat.

Gabe had watched her sleep, tracing the line of her hip with his finger.

He leaned over and kissed her hip bone. It was perfect. No bruise, no swelling, no cuts or scrapes. He let his lips rest there.

And then he curled around her and fell back to sleep.

Now his hand reached to the edge of the bed—no Jamie. He opened his eyes. The sun was up, filling the room with a soft green light.

“Jamie?”

He looked toward the bathroom. The door was closed. He rested his head back on the pillow. Soon he would take her to the airport. First he would make her breakfast and they would drink coffee, sitting in the balé. Maybe they would make love one more time. He would talk to her about breathing exercises he learned after Ethan’s death, when panic attacks would pull him from sleep in the middle of the night. He wouldn’t ask her to stay; she needed to get home. But he would visit her soon in San Francisco.

“Jamie?”

He sat up in bed. He didn’t see a light under the door. Was she in the kitchen?

He walked to the bathroom door and rapped lightly with his knuckles. When there was no answer, he opened it and peered inside.

Empty.

It was then he noticed that her few toiletries were gone. The counter was wiped clean.

He looked back in the bedroom. The suitcase, which had been perched on a bench at the foot of the bed, was gone.

Racing to the living room, he called out, “Jamie!”

But the room was empty, the doors to the garden thrown open. He ran to the door and searched in all directions. She wasn’t relaxing in her chair on the patio; she wasn’t sitting in the balé with a cup of coffee, waiting for him.

His car, he thought. He’d drive the streets, searching for her.

He found his jeans and T-shirt and dressed in a mad rush, pulling the shirt on inside out. He searched for his car keys—they weren’t in the pocket of his jeans. He glanced at the kitchen counter. They were sitting on top of a note.

He forced himself to pick it up.

Jamie had written on the bottom of her sketch of the garden.

Gabe. I’m so sorry. I woke up very early in the morning, thinking of Miguel. I should have been thinking of him when I called to you in the middle of the night. It was wrong to turn to you when I’m still mourning him
.

I’m going to take a taxi to the airport. Miguel deserved better, and so do you
.

Thank you for everything
.

She didn’t sign the note.

Gabe drove north to Ubud. He had cleaned up Billy’s house, leaving the sheets in the washing machine, the towels on the floor beside it. He had written a note for Billy’s cleaning woman, thanking her for finishing the work. He stashed some money with the note.

He had already called Lena to tell her that he would be at work in an hour. She had told him not to worry—so few kids were showing up that one teacher could take care of all of them—but he insisted.

“I need to work,” he told her.

“I understand,” she said.

What happens next? he wondered as he drove toward the mountains of Bali. He felt the weight of all that had happened that week descend on him.

The rain began, and he turned on the windshield wipers full speed. It soon became difficult to see through the torrent pummeling
the car window. He pulled off to the side of the road and watched as the water drenched the rice paddies. A man on a bicycle rode along a path between the paddies, rain streaming from his hat.

You keep going, he thought.

And so, after a moment, he pulled back onto the road. And then he drove on, deeper into Bali.

Part Three

2003

“Don’t walk away from me,” Jamie says. “Please.”

Gabe has not yet turned away, but she knows, somehow, that she will lose him. After one long year and so many miles, she can’t let that happen. She, too, has an urge to flee—seeing him brings a surge of emotion that feels too big to contain. His green eyes recognize her immediately, and she’s scared of what will happen if she matches his gaze.

Did I invent the story of that week? Jamie thinks. How much of love is invention?

“Give me a chance,” she says. “Let me explain why I left.”

Gabe lowers his eyes. “I know why you left,” he says softly.

A motorbike drives toward them and then stops. As soon as Jamie looks up, the young man on the bike says, “Transport?” She shakes her head. She wants the rest of the world to go away. Except for Gabe. She needs him with a ferocity that astounds her.

“Can we take a walk?” she asks. Give me time, she wants to beg. Let me look at you awhile longer. I need to know you again.

“Jamie,” Gabe says, his tone already telling her no. And then his expression changes—what might have been the shock of recognition turns to something like anger. His face darkens.

“I don’t want to see you,” he tells her. “I can’t—” He stops abruptly and turns his face away from hers.

It’s as if he can’t bear to look at her. Is he scared that he’ll soften if he gives her a chance? Then he has to give her a chance. Her mind fills with a storm of pleas, none of them strong enough to make him stay.

“Sorry,” he mutters. And then he walks away.

She wants to run after him, to take his arm and stop him. She wants to pull him toward her and to press her body against his. Remember me.

But he does remember her. He remembers that he woke up in the morning and she was gone.

She leans against the tree, pushing her back into the hard bark. She curls her fist against the ache in her chest.

Turn around, she pleads silently. Come back to me.

But he continues to walk down the street, away from her. A man walks toward Gabe, who stops, and the two shake hands. They are too far away for Jamie to hear their words. She can’t see the expression on Gabe’s face, but his friend smiles broadly. Jamie feels desperate to see Gabe’s smile, even if it’s not directed toward her. She remembers how he smiled in his sleep as she slipped out of bed that last morning. He murmured her name as she silently lifted her suitcase from the bench and tiptoed from the room.

Now he pats his friend’s shoulder, and then, without looking back, he turns the corner and disappears. Jamie leans her head against the tree and closes her eyes.

For the last year, she played out every scenario in her mind: He would listen to her, he would rage, he would cry, he would hate her or love her.

But he never walked away.