A Nice Place to Retire

It was hot when they finally arrived in Jakarta. It was the furthest they’d been from home together since their honeymoon thirty years ago. This time, Ellen and Joe were here to stay. Retire in paradise on Java’s pristine shores! Ellen had the brochure tucked into her purse; she’d carried it for the past nine months like a talisman. Their few belongings had been shipped ahead of time. Their grown son, Rock, the only thing left behind.

The welcome packets had arrived at their two-story colonial brick house in the suburbs of New Jersey. The house at 29 Riverwood Drive was no longer theirs; Joe’s position as Vice President of Communications at Wiley Technologies now belonged to a kid half his age; Ellen’s work at West Roger School’s library would be divided among parent volunteers. Rock was twenty-nine years old and had joined a new program, sober for eight months. Life would go on.

~

Ellen stepped into the airport bathroom as Joe headed through the sliding doors. Outside, the air was thick with fog. Joe felt younger already, as though they’d traveled thirty years into the past. He tried to put Rock’s struggles out of his mind. An entire ocean separated them now. This was a new start.

An Indonesian boy wearing dark-colored shorts took hold of Joe’s suitcase, and Joe followed him toward the line of taxis crowded at the curb.

“Any of these are fine,” Joe said, thanking him and pulling out his guidebook with a list of common phrases.

In the bathroom, Ellen held her hands under the sink then clapped water to her cheeks. It’d been a long flight, that’s all. A second honeymoon, the realtor had called it. Easier to think of this as an extended trip. It was hard to comprehend the one-way. She tried to think of the floor plans of the condominium and the sandy beaches from the association’s brochure. But of course, it was Rock who pressed into her mind instead.

He’d been Rock for most of his life, short for Richard. There was something strong and solid in him despite his thin frame, despite his drinking. Rock’s new mentor had gotten him the job at Paris Blue on 43^rd Street in Hell’s Kitchen. It was good money. When Ellen mentioned her concern about the atmosphere, Rock brushed it aside. Joe didn’t seem to have the same trouble letting go. She trusted in her husband’s assuredness. The move was good for him, Joe promised. Their son needed to be on his own. He’d be fine.

The meditation app she’d been listening to on the plane resounded in her mind: change is the only constant. She shook off a wave of light-headedness as she stepped out through the sliding doors. The heat and fog enveloped her.

“Nice hat,” Joe said, smiling as he opened the taxi’s door.

“Hello, Mrs.,” the driver said, motioning her inside with an open sweep of his arm. “Please.”

“It’s all worked out,” Joe reassured her. They slid onto the cracked vinyl of the backseat, the material hot against Ellen’s legs.

“Welcome,” the driver said. “This is your first time here?”

“We had our honeymoon here—thirty years ago. A few days in Java and then to Bali,” Joe replied.

“Very different now,” the driver said. “I think you will love our country very much.”

The car was suffocating. It smelled like cloves. Ellen rolled the window down and waved out an enormous silvery blue fly. Nothing looked familiar.

Joe held his Indonesian phrasebook. “It’s a nice day,” he attempted.

The driver replied fluently.

“Can you repeat that?” Joe said.

“Very good, sir. You wish to learn.”

They sped down a busy highway, bypassing the city, and eventually the land opened up. Terraced hills spread out forever. Beneath the clouds, volcanoes rose in the distance. It seemed the entire island was surrounded in steam.

“Borobudur,” Joe read from a flagged page.

“Of course,” the driver said, keeping his eyes on the road. “Very beautiful. Very popular.”

Ellen stared at the rice paddies stretching across the hills. Small villages appeared as suddenly as they disappeared.

“It says here that Jakarta was once renamed to mean Glorious Victory. Isn’t that interesting?” The engine’s rumble drowned out Joe’s words as they bumped over dips in the road.

Ellen fanned herself as they drove deeper into the land. “Do you think our things arrived yet?”

“They said by Wednesday, so I assume everything’s there.”

Everything but Rock.

Two nights before they left for Java, Ellen and Joe met Rock for dinner at an Italian restaurant near his apartment in Chelsea. Joe ordered a glass of wine, and Rock, a club soda with lime.

Joe talked about the history of Indonesia. Ellen reminded Rock of their plans to fly back at least once a year, maybe more. She reminded Rock they’d pay for his ticket to visit at Christmas. Of course, they would be together for Christmas.

Joe was eating a large twist of pasta from his fork. “Flight’s not bad when you have an overnight,” he said. “Just one stop. You go to sleep, wake up, and you’re there.”

“Nothing’s forever,” Ellen said. “We can always come back.” She reached for her son’s hand and then fixed the napkin on her lap.

Rock tilted his glass back, drained the soda. “What’re you gonna worry about without me, mom?”

Joe blotted his mouth. “Tell us you’re going to be alright and everyone’s happy.”

“Send me a postcard,” Rock said, leaning onto both elbows like he used to do as a kid. He shook the ice into his mouth as though unable to quench his thirst.

Ellen picked up her oversized fork and prodded her meal—a glazed chicken breast that she could not get herself to cut into, her stomach in a twist. “You’ll come at Christmas. It’ll be nice for you to get away at that time, I’m sure.”

The waiter came with the billfold, and Ellen’s heart sank. She held her hand over the check. “Wait,” she said, drawing a triangle in the air between the three of them, “Shouldn’t we order some dessert?” her tone more pleading than she’d intended.

~

She tried to focus now—the way the taxi jostled over each dip in the road, the mountains, the thick clouds streaming in. Two women wearing brightly patterned sarongs and dome shaped hats carried baskets of oranges alongside the road; a group of children—the girls in dark skirts, the boys in white shirts and red ties—carried notebooks beneath their arms. A man in the distance herded goats. A dog barked wildly. A village of thatched huts, multicolored fabrics hanging out to dry, a sculpted mosque, its metal roof shining. Ellen couldn’t breathe.

“Llamas,” Joe pointed.

“These are sheep,” the driver said.

“Oh, Javanese sheep. They look like llamas.”

Everything made her queasy as they forged deeper into the land.

Three years ago, Joe first mentioned the idea. They stood in the dark kitchen, the light above the sink cast a soft glow across the countertop which held a framed photo of Rock on his high school graduation day. Ellen thought it sounded crazy. Joe booked a ticket to look at property. Soon after, Rock relapsed again.

The taxi slowed along a narrow ridge. A woman wearing a sarong of blue and orange swirls stuck her palm into the window. Ellen pulled her purse from the floor. The driver glanced back and shouted, flapping his hand at the window.

“I’m sorry, Miss. You do not pay.”

“Oh, no. That’s OK.”

But the driver picked up speed.

They continued past a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean. They rounded another wide curve, descending through the fog towards the coast.

Joe read from his book. “Did I tell you this…shortly after World War II…”

It was getting hotter without air conditioning. Ellen used the association’s brochure to fan herself. She knew this brochure by heart. The new construction beach homes with large glass windows faced the ocean. It was this brochure that Joe had brought home from his trip when he told her he’d found the perfect place. The brochure implied a dream come true—cerulean skies, endless beaches, views streaked with perpetual golden sunsets, and smiling children playing with a carefree abandon that children ought to have—something she never saw in Rock. It was like muscle memory, the part of her that kept reaching out for him. Her watch was still on U.S. Eastern time.

A lazy blue fly buzzed into the backseat and finally the taxi stopped. The condominiums stood scattered along the beach, awaiting their arrival.

~

“Selam datang!” A Javanese man wearing a floral-patterned shirt tucked into tan shorts waved from the complex’s entrance. “Welcome!” he called, “Mr. and Mrs. Peterson.”

“My name is Mr. Don,” he said, pointing to the nametag on his shirt. “I believe most of your belongings arrived this morning. Please let me know if I can assist you in getting settled. You will find information inside.”

“It’s very exciting. Thank you so much,” said Joe.

“I’m sure you will enjoy your new home.”

It smelled like sawdust, free from history. The labeled boxes were set in their assigned rooms of their new two-bedroom condo. It was easier than Ellen imagined to undo an entire life. Things were not as fixed as they appeared—they could leave their jobs, sell their home, their son could live his life on his own.

“It’s just like the pictures,” she said.

“Same as the model,” Joe nodded. “This one was being built when I came.”

A vase of orchids along with a welcome note signed by Mr. Don and a copy of The Jakarta Post—the English language newspaper sat on the counter. A folder containing the association’s policies, information on local restaurants, and a list of residents, many of whom were European and Australian as noted in parenthesis.

“I met them when I looked at the complex,” Joe said, pointing at one of the names. “They’ve been here two years. Nice couple.”

“I can’t believe we’re actually here.” She exhaled. “Joe, I’m a wreck.”

He looked up, his mouth slightly open.

“Is there something on how to make calls?” she said. “We’ll need to get cell service.”

“Right here.” He pulled out a yellow sheet from the folder with directions on how to dial from the international calling booth.

“I’ll leave Rock a message and let him know we arrived.”

“Looks like it’s right across the way. Behind the main building.”

She hurried out, and Joe surveyed the room. He tore off a strip of tape from one of the boxes. Ellen’s favorite ceramic blue mugs. He unwrapped the newspaper from one of the mugs and set it down. Maybe they shouldn’t have brought anything from home. It seemed to taunt him. He shut the box and went to take a shower.

~

From the shower, Joe heard his wife scream. He ran, dripping, into the kitchen.

“Oh my god, look at that thing!” Ellen shouted, hands over her mouth.

He tried to wrap the condominium’s bath towel around his waist.

A giant thick brown centipede stretching almost a foot long curled around the kitchen sink’s basin. It looked like a small fur-covered snake with a thousand fuzzy tentacles. It appeared suctioned across the bottom of the sink.

“Damn,” he said. “That’s big.”

“What is that thing?”

“I don’t know. Look at all those tentacles…”

Ellen started opening boxes, hoping to find something they could use to get rid of it.

Joe stood over the sink.

Ellen looked up from where she knelt, holding the blue mug in her hand. “We need a pot.”

Joe looked for a paper towel. Actually, he would need more like a shoe, but he was barefoot. He removed the small bath towel from his waist, but wasn’t sure what he could do with it, how he would wrap the entire thing. What if it stung?

Various cups and bowls sat scattered around Ellen on the kitchen floor. Joe tried to refasten the towel around his waist, but the damn thing was too small. He dropped it and stood naked instead, still dripping, and considered the colander.

The centipede was too big to crush. He turned the pot upside down and carefully trapped the creature beneath. Hopefully, it would go back down the drain. But he couldn’t imagine that thing could have come from there.

“We’re gonna need something,” he said, watching the pot. Joe picked up the towel, pulled in his gut and wrapped as tightly as he could. “It’s one of the association’s,” he explained.

Joe thought he saw another creature slithering quickly across the floorboards, but when he looked again, it was gone. A shadow.

“Let’s take a walk. Get some dinner?” he suggested. “I’ll do something with this, and we’ll head out.”

Ellen agreed. A small flicker on the ceiling, and Ellen yelped, ducking beneath her hands. A mass of giant centipedes was crawling around the light fixture.

“I’ll find Mr. Don,” he said. “I’m sure he has…spray or something.”

Ellen grabbed her shawl and slipped outside.

Joe found the welcome note and read Mr. Don’s available hours—it was too late. They’d have to wait until morning. He found some clothes and took a careful walk through the condo. In the corner of the living room ceiling, he saw another cluster of centipedes, another in the hallway, and then another. They were nested throughout the entire condo. It was infested.

~

At the edge of the association’s property, an outdoor restaurant overlooked the beach. The patio was filled with small tables. Large-leafed plants surrounded the borders, and colorful lit lanterns were strung above. Pop music played softly. A calling station was situated on the upper ledge of a grassy terrace.

It was Ellen’s idea to call again. Back home, it was 8 a.m., and she wanted to get Rock on the phone. Joe waited at the table. He could see her through the door of the red calling station. He watched her gripping the receiver with both hands.

Joe was pouring his second glass of wine when he saw Ellen staring at him from the phone station with a strange expression. He waved her back to the table, gesturing to end the call with Rock. But she turned her back and kept talking. The waiter arrived, and Joe ordered an appetizer.

Ellen waved Joe to come take his turn on the phone. He hesitated, holding up a hand, but then, of course, hurried to the terrace.

Ellen passed him the receiver without a word.

“You there, son?” he said, watching his wife return to their table.

An overseas pause in the connection made Rock’s hesitation seem too long. Joe said again, “Hello?”

“Hey, Mom says there’s some nasty centipedes there.”

“Well, we weren’t expecting it.”

Rock’s laugh overlapped with Joe’s voice.

When Joe had heard Ellen scream, he felt he was at home, running towards some bad news about Rock again. They could handle centipedes.

“It’s actually wonderful here. We’re sitting outside to eat now, looking at the ocean. Did your mother mention anything else, or just the centipedes?”

There was a screech of static. Rock’s voice was mangled.

Joe said, “Everything ok?”

“What? I heard you say ‘the fish’ and that was it.”

“I said, how are you? That’s all I said.”

“I’m fine. Cool as a cucumber. They have those over there?”

“Have what?”

“Cucumbers.” Rock’s laugh interrupted Joe’s words.

“Do they have cucumbers? Is that what you are asking?”

“This is weird, right? It’s like echoing. Hello, hello!”

Rock’s words were sliding into one another with that familiar slant. It was only eight in the morning over there.

“I got one for you. Wait till you hear this one, Dad.”

Joe waited out the pause.

“I was serving the other night, right? And guess who comes in. Brenna Roberts. Or wait, Rogers? Anyway, Brenna—from your office? Big hair, big jewelry. She was with a dude. Big dude—looked like a wrestler.”

Joe felt the blood rush from his face. He looked through the glass door at Ellen talking to the waiter. He wanted to hang up. How could his mistakes follow him to the other side of the world?

“Listen, we should wrap it up,” Joe tried to interrupt. But the connection was already breaking it up for them.

“But they tipped real good, or I guess the big dude did. And anyway, Dad, you might think I’m a jerk-off, but I know some things. About Ms. Brenna. You and Brenna…what five, six years ago?”

“What the hell are you doing, Richard?”

“But who am I to judge, right?”

A burst of static. He didn’t want to remember the three-month affair with the administrative assistant from his office.

“You guys are happy now though, right? All the way over there in Shangri-La?”

“Listen now…”

Rock laughed.

“You probably blame it on me. Right, Dad? All the shit I put you guys through?”

“It’s time to hang up now, son. We’ll try to talk tomorrow. This is not the time…I can hear from your voice.”

“Hey, that’s all bullshit anyway. I wanted to tell you I won’t make it for Christmas. Holiday season is good business, and they want me for head waiter. I know mom really wanted me to come, but if you could tell her.”

It was a lie. For all Joe knew, Rock had lost his job. “Your mother will call you tomorrow. It’s been a long day. We’re pretty hungry.”

“That you are.”

“We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

“I’m pretty hungry myself.”

“Goodbye, son.”

~

Ellen lifted her wine glass for a toast when Joe returned to the table.

“He sounded good, don’t you think? Did he tell you about his promotion?”

Joe lifted his glass to hers. “Let’s enjoy our first evening.” He tried to keep from sliding into regret.

Joe navigated the conversation away from Rock or the centipedes. They enjoyed their fish, fed each other a taste of this and that from their forks, hints of curry and coconut oil, spicy chili peppers, mango and pineapple. As the sun went down, the lanterns shone above the patio.

Ellen’s sandals dangled from her fingers, and Joe rolled up the bottom of his slacks as they walked back along the beach. Joe reached for Ellen’s waist.

“It’s been so long,” Ellen said, resting her cheek against Joe’s shoulder.

They leaned together for a kiss, slowly exploring the forgotten territory of one another. The sand under their feet rose in uneven mounds, they were light from alcohol, a hint of fish and curry leftover in their mouths. It was like their honeymoon, Ellen thought as she kissed her husband, remembering how excited they were when they found out she was pregnant. She remembered the surprising colic, the way her son seemed to struggle even as an infant, the way sometimes she’d be frightened by the intensity with which he nursed in the middle of the night, his little hands gripping onto her for dear life. She felt her husband moving his fingers under the back of her hair. She thought of Rock, the man he’d grown into, finding him slouched against their front steps two years ago. Their last dinner, chewing his ice, bouncing his knee, scanning the room for the nearest exit. He was not OK.

Joe couldn’t remember kissing his wife like this for years. But the image of Brenna Richards haunted him and filled him with sickening dread.

Ellen felt Joe’s hands pause on her shoulders. She stepped back. “You don’t believe him, do you?” she said. “About the promotion?”

The evening air was cooling. Ellen wrapped the shawl around herself.

Joe shook his head sadly.

She took a deep breath. “There was something else.”

He felt the weight of Brenna Rogers wrapping a heavy leg around him, smothering him with guilt, with his own failures.

“Rock said something,” Ellen said, looking out at the wide expanse of ocean. “It didn’t make sense. But I have to ask.”

Joe covered his face.

“Oh god,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Wait.” She tightened her shawl. “I thought I did, but I don’t want to know.”

Joe crouched down.

“I wasn’t perfect either,” Ellen said.

“What?”

Ellen squatted beside him. “It’s all so far away now.”

“What happened?”

“Can’t we just leave it behind? Over there—across this ocean?”

She cupped a handful of sand.

He didn’t recognize the assurance in her voice. He had no idea she ever cheated. There was a brief time when she was working with a new consultant for the school, around the same time as his affair with Brenna, that he had a slight suspicion. But in a strange way it now made him think that they’d been more connected in their isolation than either of them had realized.

A jellyfish washed up on the shore, its translucent tentacles barely visible on the wet sand. Green slashes of seaweed wrapped around its body.

“We’re here now. That’s for sure,” Joe said. He took her hand. It was too dark to see the water. A cool breeze came off the shore.

At the stone path leading up toward the condominiums, they stopped. For so many years, Joe had tried to protect Ellen from the truth—about his affair, about Rock stealing, about how he knew Ellen gave Rock money. He needed to be honest now. “I know about the savings,” he said.

“Oh, Joe.” Ellen shook her head.

“I get it,” he said. “You were trying to help him.”

“It didn’t work,” she said.

“That’s why I pulled the rest out. We were going to have nothing.”

Ellen covered her mouth. He could see her understanding turning to tears.

“It’s a good investment,” Joe said, pointing at their new home.

Ellen nodded.

“He not coming for Christmas,” Joe told her.

“It’s still a ways off. He might.”

Joe shook his head. “Let’s not do this.”

She knew it was true, Rock wouldn’t come.

The narrow section of beach in front of the condominiums was populated with couples. It had the feel of a private cove, undiscoverable to the rest of the world, where people came to escape, to recreate themselves. They faced their new home. Ellen imagined they were observing a window display at Christmastime, some idealistic scene which, if one could just move through the glass, would become real.

Joe had left on the lights inside their condo, hoping the centipedes might find their way back outside.

“There were more,” Joe said, “throughout the place.”

“What do you mean?”

“A lot of those…creatures.”

“What?” Ellen cried. “How many?”

“I’ll find Mr. Don first thing in the morning. Don’t worry.”

The sky was bursting with stars.

“It’s infested?”

“It’s solvable.”

He wanted to assure Ellen that everything would be fine—Rock, their lost savings, their marriage. He wanted to say something about the bugs, their son, the chronic disappointment—how all of that made this real. But he couldn’t find the words. Instead he said, “It might come with the territory. We’ll just have to deal with it.”

Something frantic unleashed in Ellen’s expression. The light reflected off her eyes, shrinking her pupils. “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all this time?”

He felt the ground tilt in the way it did when things began to slide out of control. An overwhelming desire fell over him to go home, back to their real home on Riverside Drive, back to their life, no matter how messy. He tried to think of something to say to make it better, something about the centipedes, about their dream coming true.

“I just need a few minutes alone out here,” Ellen said.

“Please, we can face it together.”

“Go. I’ll be right in.”

Joe hesitated. “Don’t be too long.”

Ellen sat on the beach. The ocean crashed loudly. That Rock’s illness was her fault, that she’d failed him, that they’d never find their way back, these were the fears that wedged themselves into the ventricles of her heart, causing constrictions with every inhale. She tried to think of something from her meditation app, but everything felt like the sand sifting through her fingers.

Ellen could discern a couple laying on the sand; the shape of their embrace made them blend into one figure. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been with her husband, just the two of them without the worry of Rock between them. Maybe Joe was right, they’d flown across the world to get away, to start over. She dusted the sand off her palms.

~

When Joe entered the condo, the centipedes were everywhere. “Get,” he hissed. He picked up the towel he’d dropped earlier and swiped at a cluster of them. But they clung to the corners and the walls, their tentacles undulating. He doubted for a moment if this was actually solvable. Maybe it was something they would have to accept as part of their new environment. He turned off the lights. Maybe in the dark, the creatures would hide. He tiptoed down the hall. In the bedroom, he opened a cardboard box and pulled out a blanket—the lime green one they’d had on their bed for years. He crawled onto the bare mattress, draping the familiar blanket over him. The floor lamp cast a circle of light on the ceiling.

Ellen felt her way inside. In the kitchen, she saw multiple overturned pots. Those things were not going to make them run away. They were here to stay, with or without them. She picked up a tennis racket from an opened box and pushed at a cluster of centipedes on the countertop. They were heavier than she imagined. They didn’t budge. She used both hands and stretched the racket, giving them another shove. “Ugh,” she said, “what are you?” The cluster uncurled itself and slithered over the edge of the counter. She left the racket and hurried down the hall.

Joe looked at Ellen in the lamp light. She looked limp and worn, as though she’d been washed in from the ocean. She came toward the bed.

“Just like home,” she said, crawling onto the mattress beneath the lime blanket.

And even though it wasn’t anything like home, something about their unsteadiness, the unexpectedness of what was to come, the infiltration of these unwanted arthropods, felt familiar to Joe. He thought if he opened his mouth, a tsunami might come pouring out.

Ellen brought her head to rest on his chest.

“I’m so sorry,” his voice cracked.

Ellen sat up. “Joe?”

But it was too much. He couldn’t bear to tell her that he was wrong, that he couldn’t help their son, or that no matter how far they went, it would never be enough, that the distance wouldn’t change a thing. An ocean couldn’t separate them from the worry they’d always feel. He was sorry he’d brought them across the world to these centipedes. It was proof—the trouble will always follow. He couldn’t protect them from it.

The waves whipped violently through him. Yet his wife of thirty years held him now, strong enough for both. He felt her arms across his back, anchoring him.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” she said, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, she believed it. Something about those centipedes made her certain. It felt good to say. She said it again.

They lay together beneath the lime green blanket. Joe held onto her like a buoy.

The room was empty aside from their unpacked boxes. Ellen listened to Joe’s breathing settle into the low steady rhythm of sleep. She rolled onto her back and saw another centipede, the biggest one yet, creeping into the circle of light on the ceiling. Its long thick body stretched above her, waving its furry tentacles. She considered turning off the lamp, but she wanted to see where it was going.

The centipede stopped at the edge of the light. Ellen waited for the creature to keep moving. It slowly slithered across the ceiling, all the way to the edge where the ceiling met the wall and stretched its body along the seam.

Joe snored softly, and she moved closer beside him, comforted by his familiar scent. Tomorrow, they would unpack. They would get some furniture—a desk, nightstands, something for the walls. Yes, tomorrow they would settle in. They would start to make it a real home. A dresser over there. A mirror over here. Linens, maybe even a canopy for the bed. She’d always wanted a canopy. Something with islets or lace.

The centipede inched along the crevice of the wall, making its silent stitch around the room. She watched its smooth, precise movements, mending their walls, securing them safely inside.

Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow she and Joe would go to the markets.