Page 18 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

attractive. She was mistress of the dining room, chatting with
guests, putting finishing touches on dishes coming out of the
kitchen, directing the all dark-skinned staff, while Russ, forever
reinventing himself and the resort, was always on the move,
filling dive tanks, fixing pumps, or rerouting water from the
500 gallon tanks that littered the hillside through a maze of
underground pipes.
The four of them hit it off right away and by the time Harry
and his wife were ready to leave, barely twenty-four hours after
they arrived, Dawn and Russ had invited them back to house
sit for a month while they went to the States on a shopping
trip. The resort would be closed and all Harry and his wife had
to do was take care of the dogs, pay the wages of the staff and
make sure there were no disasters. When they returned, Russ
said, if they liked the situation, the four of them would talk
about the future.
Harry couldn’t believe their good fortune. For one glorious
month, they swam, they dived, they cooked elaborate meals
for themselves and the staff, with nary a care in the world. The
house, only recently completed, jutted out from the hillside a
hundred feet above the restaurant from where they could see
the entire bay. It was completely open to the sea on one side so
that every night the sun appeared to set just for them. There
was a bathtub and shower outdoors. They had access to a skiff,
which they quickly learned to maneuver, and on the calmest
days they motored down the leeward side of the island to coves
where there was not a soul in sight. They cared for the proper-
ty as if it was their own.

When Dawn and Russ returned, they invited Harry and his
wife to come back in the summer and try their hand at co-man-

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