I chose a spot we knew well. It was a picnic table just off the beach, in the Fort DeRussy park area between the Waikiki Shore Condo building and the Hale Koa military hotel. I told him I'd be there at seven p.m. sharp, long after the sunset watchers would have headed back inland for dinner. That way I knew we'd have some privacy.
At five-thirty p.m, as Alex's plane landed, I was headed for the Daiei grocery store on Kaheka Street
. I wanted to pick up a few supplies for our picnic, including some of his favourite marinated, fresh, raw fish poke.
With my nose pressed against the fish man's glass display case, focused on deciding between the shoyu, kimchee or just plain ahi, I heard a loud crash behind me. I straightened myself and turned around to find that another shopper's cart had collided into mine.
"Sorry," the man said, a big grin on his face.
"No problem," I said distractedly. I was about to turn back to my selection process when I recognized the guy. "Hey, you did that on purpose."
Kimo's smile widened. His teeth were big and strong and daz-zlingly white. "Maybe. Who's gonna prove it?"
"I'm a private detective," I told him. "Sounds like a job right up my alley."
"I'm a cop," he shot back. "I could take you in for illegal parking of a shopping cart in the middle of a grocery store aisle."
"Are you kidding me?" I complained in mock outrage. "I'm parked well to the side. There's plenty of room for others to pass by. I think it's you who should be charged for pushing a cart like it's his first day behind the wheel."
We stared at one another, each kind of dumbfounded at seeing one another again, and how happy we were that it happened.
"I'm surprised to see you back on the island so soon," Kimo said. "Don't tell me it's your honeymoon already."
"Nah, nothing like that." I made a show of peeking into his cart. All beer. No food. "You know they sell beer at the ABC store. No need to pretend you're shopping for bread and milk when all you're doing is picking up party supplies."
He laughed. "Visiting a buddy who lives near here. I don't shop here usually."
"Boyfriend kind of buddy?"
Kimo made a noise that sounded kind of animalistic. And sexy. Then he asked, "Do you wanna get a drink or something?”
“I thought you were going visiting.”
“Oh, yeah, that's right. How long you in Honolulu for?”
“I leave tomorrow, Mr. Kapachakalakawei.”
“Back to Saskachakalakawei?"
"You got it. Everything turn out okay with Huei?" That was the guy I'd helped Kimo and his partner take down at the airport.
"He's taken up residence in a nice cell with a view."
"You know what they say, no use staying in Hawaii without a view."
"You're different this time," he said out of the blue, studying my face like he was seeing something there he hadn't seen before. "How do you mean?"
"You know, last time, when we met at the airport, and you told me you were getting married and all that? I doubted you, brah. But now, I got ya, I can see it."
"See what?"
"You're bad in love, brah. Baaaaad.”
“Yeah," I told him. "I really am."
Kimo gave me a wink and began to move away. "Too bad for me then. I'll see you around, Russell. Aloha, my friend.”
“Aloha."
I poured the last of the POG and vodka from the Thermos into my plastic cup at about ten o'clock. At first the passion-orange-guava concoction tasted fresh and tangy now it was warm and sickly sweet. The outside temperature had settled into a comfortable mid-seventies.
I sipped my drink and gazed at the water, even though with the sky so dark I could barely make out where sand met ocean. The beach and sidewalk had grown busy again with diners returning to their beachside hotels and lovers taking romantic strolls along the crashing surf. Everybody had somebody.
Except me.
I was alone. My sad little picnic sat uneaten. I'd been stood up.
Alex Canyon never showed up. Somehow he'd figured it out. Somehow he'd known this impromptu get-together I'd arranged was for me to give him back his engagement ring. To end our relationship. Maybe he'd called Sereena, or Anthony, and they'd said something by mistake. Or on purpose? It didn't matter now.
I fought back tears and wondered if I'd made the right decision, asking him to come all this way, only to tell him it was over? Now here I was, sitting on my own, looking like a loser, feeling like stink. Feeling.. .heartbroken. Did I even have the right to feel heartbroken? I'd come to Hawaii to break up with him, yet I was feeling like he broke my heart? Alberta might say this was karma taking a nice big bite out of my ass.
Despite it all, I knew I'd done the right thing. I'd done the best I could in a bad situation. This wasn't something to be done over the telephone or with a pithy email. I owed Alex that much. I owed telling him face to face that I loved him. Just not enough.
In planning this, I never thought beyond saying those words to him. I thought about it now. Would we sit and have a good cry together? Probably not. Would he yell and scream at me for being such an asshole? Not his style. Would he take the ring and toss it into the ocean, a dramatic gesture symbolizing how I was throwing away our relationship? Nah. He would have simply gotten up, kissed me once on the cheek, wished me well, and walked off into the sunset. I'd never see him again. And I would cry.
But none of that had happened. Instead, there I sat. All alone on my picnic bench. A bit unsteady from too much vodka and POG. A tropical breeze played with my hair and filled my nose with smells of the sea. I watched people passing by, hand in hand, arm in arm, in love. People who weren't me.
And suddenly I realized something surprising. I was happy. I was unafraid.
Sure, I was alone. And maybe I'd stay that way. But it felt good to have my head out of the sand. It felt good to feel my heart hurt. It felt good to ask myself the tough questions about love and have an answer that I wholeheartedly believed in, no matter the consequences.
Weaving only slightly, I took my drink and crossed the sidewalk to the beach, and headed for the ocean. The closer I got, the lights of the public walkway faded away, and dark enveloped me like a soothing hug. The sand felt gritty and wonderfully abrasive against the skin of my bare feet. When the first tendril of tingly cold water rushed across my toes, I stopped. I threw back my head and pulled in a deep breath of sea air.
Nothing had ever felt better than that moment.
Until the next one.
My phone vibrated against my thigh. I pulled it from my shorts pocket and saw that a text message had just arrived. It was from Ethan Ash. After many ellipses, it read: ".......................................................................I WILL."
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