Rosie worked four evenings a week at La Tapa. She was a great server, the kind returning guests requested when they called to make their reservations. Having dinner at La Tapa wasn’t enough of a tradition; they had to have dinner at La Tapa with Rosie as their server—otherwise their trip wasn’t complete. Rosie knew a lot about wine and even more about food, and she liked to hang out with the kitchen crew to see how they prepared things. Rosie was a really, really good cook, and at home she made mostly Caribbean food, recipes she had learned from LeeAnn and that LeeAnn had learned from her mother—conch stew, jerk chicken, Creole shrimp over rice. She put peas in her pasta salad and raisins in her coleslaw just like everyone else in St. John, but Rosie’s versions of these dishes were better because she added a teaspoon of sugar.
Maia is old enough to wonder if her mother had aspirations. She sometimes talked about opening a food truck, but she thought it would be too much work. More than anything in the world, Maia knows, her mother had been passionate about the Virgin Islands—the USVI and the BVI—and when she was working at La Tapa, she was always giving people at her tables excellent tips, such as go to the floating bar, Angel’s Rest, in the East End; don’t miss the lobster at the Lime Inn; there’s yoga on the beach at Cinnamon and a really cool church service on the beach at Hawksnest. She could have been a tour guide, Maia thinks, or a yoga instructor, or owned a food truck, but Rosie had lacked ambition, whereas Maia has ambition to spare. She will need two or three lifetimes to reach all of her goals. Maia doesn’t like to think badly about her mother, though, so instead of believing her mother lacked something, she has decided to categorize her mother as content. She was so happy with her life—in love with Russ, absorbed with Maia, good at her job, and living in a place she adored, with friends everywhere she turned—that she had no reason to make any changes.
Maia tells Huck about her plan for a memorial ceremony out on the water, in the place the bird went down, and he agrees, as she knew he would. Huck has always been Maia’s favorite. Her mother and grandmother loved her because they had to. Huck loves her because he wants to.
Originally, she was only going to honor Rosie, but at the last minute, she chose a bath bomb for Russ as well.
Maia’s feelings about Russ are mixed. She first remembers him as the man with the lollipops—flat, oval Charms pops, strawberry, Maia’s favorite. Then Maia remembers him teaching her to swim at their private beach. Then, when she was nine, he let her decorate her room in his house however she wanted. But there was a part of Russ that made Maia uneasy. He didn’t stay on St. John; he came and went. When he came, Maia’s mother was happy—ecstatic, even. Impossible to bring down! And when Russ left, Rosie was devastated. It broke her every time, she said, and the leaving, the worrying that he would never be back, never got any easier.
Normally when he came, Rosie and Maia went to his villa. They swam in the pool or at the beach, they ate at the house—food Mama fixed or that Miss Paulette dropped off from different restaurants. Russ liked the lobster tempura from Rhumb Lines and the key lime chiffon pie from Morgan’s Mango. They read books and watched movies and played shuffleboard. But they didn’t go anywhere, and once they returned to their own lives, to the house where they lived with Huck, Maia wasn’t allowed to talk about Russ or the villa at all. She had heard Huck and other people refer to Russ as the Invisible Man, and it did sometimes seem to Maia that Russ only existed for Rosie and Maia. It was as if they and Miss Paulette and her husband, Douglas, and the man who came to do the landscaping and service the pool, were the only people who could see him. Maia wondered how Russ got on and off the island. Did he take the ferry, like everyone else? It seemed inconceivable. Maia had asked her mother, and Rosie had said, “Sometimes he takes the ferry, yes. Sometimes he flies in a helicopter. Sometimes his business associates pick him up by boat down on the beach.” The helicopter and the private boat sounded reasonable; Maia could not imagine Russ waiting in line at the ferry dock, or sitting on the top deck, the way Maia liked to, or disembarking in Red Hook. She thought Rosie was trying to make Russ seem like a normal person, when it was quite obvious to Maia that he was not.
When Maia got older and had friends and activities and plans of her own, she started opting to stay at Huck’s when Russ came. But she still wasn’t allowed to talk about him or the villa, or the location of the villa.
I deserve privacy in one area of my life, Rosie would say. I don’t need every damn person all up in my business. And you know that is what would happen.
Maia did know. If the citizens of St. John found out about the huge villa overlooking Little Cinnamon, they would treat Rosie differently; they would ask for favors and loans—especially Rosie’s Small relatives.
Love is messy and complicated and unfair, Rosie would say—but only on the days that Russ left.
The last time Maia saw her mother was midday, New Year’s Eve. Rosie had come home from Russ’s villa, where she had been staying for the past few days, solely to give Maia “the last kiss of the year.” Rosie looked supremely gorgeous, like a goddess, in a new cream-colored sundress (Christmas present from Russ) and a new leather and black pearl choker (ditto). Seeing these gifts made Maia check out her mother’s left hand, but it was still unadorned, which Maia knew meant that, deep down inside, her mother was disappointed. What Rosie wanted from Russ, more than anything, was an engagement ring.
Maia and Joanie hunkered down in Maia’s room, making a list of tropical scents for their nascent bath bomb business. They were also talking about a boy in their class, Colton Seeley, because Joanie was obsessed with him. Joanie had been snapchatting with Colton, using Maia’s phone. Joanie’s parents were strict and protective; they treated Joanie like she was six years old instead of twelve. Joanie had a flip phone, for phone calls only. It didn’t even text.
When Rosie knocked and then entered Maia’s room without waiting for a response, Maia made a noise of protest.
“What?” Rosie said. “You hiding something?”
“No,” Maia said defensively. She had never hidden anything from her mother. There was no reason to: her mother was a very lenient and permissive parent. But Maia didn’t want to give away Joanie’s secret. Joanie only pursued her crush on Colton while she was in the free world that was Maia’s house.
But Joanie seemed eager to tell the truth. “I’m snapchatting with Colton Seeley,” she said. “He’s so hot.”
“Colton Seeley?” Rosie said. “I’ve known that child since he was in his mama’s belly. Let me see what’s so hot.”
Rosie sat on the bed between them and inspected picture after picture of Colton while both Maia and Joanie snuggled up against her. Maia was happy that Joanie felt comfortable admitting her crush to Rosie and proud of Rosie for being the kind of cool mom that her friends could confide in. For those few moments on the bed, Maia’s world was golden.
Then Rosie stood up. She told the girls she was going to “the villa,” shorthand for Russ’s house, and that she was headed to Anegada the next day. So she was there to give Maia the last kiss of the year.
“What if we want to come to Anegada?” Maia asked. She knew she was pressing at a boundary by asking, because Russ didn’t socialize with anyone, not even Joanie. But Maia thought maybe this year would be different.
“Sorry, Nut,” Rosie said. “We’re taking a helicopter.” Rosie had caressed Maia’s cheeks and kissed her flush on the lips. “I love you and I’ll be back late tomorrow night. Happy New Year.” Then she turned to Joanie. “You’re right, Joan, Colton Seeley is a hottie in the making. Bye, girls. Be good.”
Joanie had fallen back on the bed, returning to her rapture over Colton. She didn’t see Rosie peek her head back in the room to mouth to Maia, I love you, Nut.
Love you, mama, Maia mouthed back.
Rosie blew a kiss and was gone.
When Huck tells Maia, as they’re bobbing out on the water that claimed Rosie, that Russ had another wife and other children, sons, Maia is stunned breathless, but on the other hand it feels like Huck is telling Maia something she had already guessed. All Rosie had wanted was an engagement ring. But Russ was already married.
“They want to meet you,” Huck says.
Maia has an adult moment: she wants to meet them because she’s curious. At the same time, she doesn’t want to meet them because she’s scared.