I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up around my face, bunched up my jacket and put my head down on the tray table. I was so tired I managed to fall asleep that way, even with the baby giving me little kicks to the head. We bounced our approach. The kid fired up and blurped, and the baby screamed with unpopped ears. I was never so glad to get off a plane.
Hawaii feels like home, the dense air wrapped like a hundred warm arms. I drove through a Waimea stuck in the 1960s, and followed the directions to a small cottage down a dirt residential road. It was remote, not good if you planned to slosh back mai tais, then drive. It was on the beach, but set back in a shady grove. It was a Hawaiian version of my place in L.A. A big bed was covered in a Hawaiian quilt with a romantic mosquito net on a ring overhead. Two rattan chairs with thick cushions shared an ottoman, table, and good light. An old bookcase held a worn copy of Hawaii and a tired checkers set with a red replacement piece made from a pizza box. Someone had carefully cut around a picture of a slice of pepperoni; it worked great. I love it when people leave a hit of their personality behind. There were two hurricane lamps and a big box of wooden matches.
The tiny lean-to bathroom light was a bare bulb in a socket with a metal bead chain. A hand-lettered sign with little lightning bolts warned me to be sure my feet were dry before pulling the chain. I realized I was alone. I could be electro-dead for a week next to the toilet and no one would know.
The kitchenette was a strip along the wall. A small drop-leaf table and two rattan chairs rounded things out. They sat in front of a window overlooking the back porch and beach beyond. I tried out the view from the porch; it was shallow enough to sit in a chair and use the railing for my feet. There was a classic round wooden hot tub for two. Steve would hate it. It was perfect.
I dumped my bag and drove back to Kapa’a for groceries. Then I opened shutters and doors and took pictures to send to Karin. I included a picture of the pepperoni checkers piece.
I called her. “Aloha. I just sent you pictures.”
“Got them. Wish I were there, it’s a zoo around here.”
“How are your parents?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t sound so fine.”
“At the moment I suspect the perky thing doing the chick stunts on Oscar’s film is doing Oscar too.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Only sorta.”
“You can’t do that. You guys are my touchstone.”
“If he is, we won’t break up unless he gets stupid. I’m not raising these kids alone. I can’t do a thing until after my parents leave.”
“I’m sorry. Here I’ve been whining around. You always said you’d kick him out.”
“I say all kinds of things, you know that. If we do break up, it would spare me growing old with a philandering and farting old man with shaggy eyebrows who misses the toilet.”
“Whoa, where’d that come from?”
“My father. We’re all dodging his drips.”
“Has he been philandering?”
“I don’t know, don’t they all?”
“I was hoping not.”
I told her about the last night with Steve.
“What a putz,” she said. “I never liked him. And now that I’ve told you that, you can never get back together with him.”
“Or I have to dump you.”
“Don’t even joke about it, Hannah. It’s outrageous that he’d say that to you.”
“My family is going to be so disappointed. He only has one name.”
“I like hearing you again. I better run. I can’t afford to get more than a half hour behind here.”
“Okay. Hey, if you don’t hear from me in a week, I’m electrocuted in the bathroom.”
“We talking tenement?”
“Yeah, but on a nice beach.”
“K. Keep calling. Love you,” she said. “And hey back, we need to remember that pizza piece. That’s a good one.” She hung up.
I couldn’t believe Oscar would do that. He seemed so dedicated to their whole thing. I hoped she was imagining things.
I put on my bathing suit and walked out past the grove to the sunny sand. The tree line ran away in both directions concealing the houses tucked behind. It was deserted except for a single paddleboard fifty yards to the left. I was tired and lonely. I decided to skip the swim and take a nap. I could barely make out my cottage; it was hidden so deep in the dark green bush. Two guys and a woman came out of an opening by the paddleboard.
I had just about made it to my tunnel when one of the guys called out. “Hey hi, you the new neighbor?”
They walked over.
“Not really, I’m only here a few weeks.”
“Mike,” he said holding out his hand. “I’m just visiting too. This is Jon and Kaia.”
Mike was about 6’2”. Jon was probably 5’5”, 5’6” something like that; it’s hard for me to say. But I’m only 5’3” and I didn’t have to tilt my head all the way back to look at him like I did Mike. Jon was lanky and sun-bleached blonde, and looked like dozens of guys I’d known growing up on the beach. All sunburn, chapped lips, and a dusting of salt. His hair looked like mine, like he’d just rolled out of bed. He probably had. His girlfriend was a spectacularly exotic woman, with shining black hair to her waist.
Mike was dark with that kinda crazy handsomeness few guys have. He was hard to take in. He was made even more handsome by the fact that he didn’t seem to know it. I wondered if I still had Cheerio goop in my hair. They headed off with the paddleboard.
I scratched the nap and dove in. I worked my way out past the breakers and then commenced one of my favorite activities in life, floating on my back supported by warm salt water. Swells passed benignly under me. The sky was clear with an occasional bird.
Two young boys were old school bodysurfing, no boogie boards. I played with them a while; then dragged out a chair and read. The boys came knocking around. They wanted to know if I’d worked on any of the pirate movies. They were on vacation with their grandmother next door for a few more days before heading back to California. They scampered off.
The grandmother came over a while later to invite me for a cookout on the beach. She said the boys couldn’t stop talking about what a good body surfer I was. Her name was Candace. She didn’t look like someone’s grandmother.
“That’s nice of you. Can I bring anything?”
“No. Just come down the tree line to the right, the boys will have the entrance lit.”
I packed up and put on warmer clothes. Tiki torches lined the tunnel into the belly of a bonfire at the center of their camp. The boys’ voices were off in the trees.
Candace was lit up in the kitchen window where I joined her, “This looks great. Very mysterious approach with the torches.”
“They’re into the pirate movies. I’m sure they grilled you. They’ve named you Calypso. It’s all very magical when the sun goes down. They’re sleeping in a hut they built.”
She’d brought the boys over for a week to give their parents a break. We dished up plates of salad and fish and sat by the fire to eat. She wanted to know all about the movie business. She was in the house getting a plate of mango slices for dessert when Mike and Jon walked down the torch lit trail. The boys bounded out of the bushes and swarmed them.
“Hey guys,” said Jon.
Candace came out. She gave Jon a look that was more than a casual welcome. Aunt Judith would approve. I couldn’t have pulled off that look if my life depended on it.
“This is Calypso,” said Candace. “Your new neighbor.”
“We met Hannah,” said Mike.
Jon sat down with a slice of mango and nodded at me.
“How was the restaurant tonight?” asked Candace.
“Packed,” said Jon. “It’s a good week for us.”
“Jon owns Luna’s in town,” said Candace. “There’s one on Maui and one in Honolulu too. Great food. Mike owns a micro-brewery in Portland.”
“Luna’s is where the
action is,” said Mike.
“A brewery sounds like action,” I said.
“He makes great beer,” said Jon. “I haul it over here for the restaurants. They’re trying to work up a label for us.”
“We’re using liliko’i,” said Mike. “We haven’t quite hit it yet.”
“And you never will,” said Jon.
“Oh we’ll make it work, even if we just stick the flower on the label,” said Mike. “We like the name too much. Liliko’i Luna, something like that. The beer crew plans to come for the launch.”
“Liliko’i?” I asked.
“It’s passion fruit,” said Jon. “We make a margarita with it, and a pie. So far the beer is undrinkable.”
“We’ll get there,” said Mike.
“And I’ll buy it when you do,” said Jon.
Jon had been teaching the boys to surf.
“Fun,” I said. “I never learned, but I spent a lot of time watching boys surf. I decided I would never waste time watching boys surf again. I needed to live my own life.”
Jon looked amused by that. “Watching other people live their life is overrated. Where’d you watch boys surf?”
“La Jolla,” I said. “That’s my home town.”
“I went to college in La Jolla, worked at Scripps,” said Jon.
“Jon comes for dessert every night he doesn’t have to close the restaurant,” said Candace. “I’d be eating their liliko’i pie every night if it was up to me.”
“You really wouldn’t,” said Jon.
“Yeah she would,” said Mike. He smiled at me. “It is passion fruit.”
I felt tired and like there was some subtext that I wasn’t getting, and didn’t care about. I thanked Candace for dinner and said my good-byes. I told the boys I’d be out first thing if they wanted to go another round, but she was taking them on a zip line adventure. I had a vision of my grandmother in a helmet, zipping across the jungle, hanging upside down on the line in her white leather shoes, dentures clacking with delight. I almost started laughing.
“Sounds great.” I’m sure I was grinning way beyond a zip line trip. “Have fun.”
It was a curious feeling to leave the intense heat of the fire and separate from the others. I felt lighter as my body cooled, like the heat had added to gravity. The sand was cool and squished underfoot. Small twigs and pebbles, unseen in the dark, gave my feet little stabs and pokes. I was almost to the opening in the tunnel when Mike caught up with me.
“I’ll walk you home,” he said.
“I’m okay.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “What are your plans while you’re here?”
“Read, sleep, float. I’m resting between projects. I’m headed to India.”
“Sounds interesting.”
The moon was losing its grip on the night, but I had left a light on at my place to guide me home. Mike said good night at the porch and headed off through the jungle toward what I assumed was Jon’s house.
I got in the hot tub. I had a flash of pith-helmeted white men boiling in a black pot surrounded by natives with bleached bones in their hair. A vivid imagination never goes on vacation. The walls of the hot tub were slick. I could smell the spongy wood melting cell-by-cellulose-cell into the hot water. Smoke from the bonfire drifted in slim threads through the grove. Jon’s voice rumbled low through the undergrowth followed by Candace’s laugh. Candace knew what she was doing. Jon did too apparently. I soaked for half an hour; it grew quiet across the way.
I got up early and headed out. It was warm and cloudless. The water was a sheet of glass between gurgling lines of baby bubbles. I went slowly, I hated to disturb the surface. I began my float. I tried it all different ways, arms and legs spread, just legs, just arms, then just like I was lying on a therapist’s couch with my hands crossed on my belly. For some reason it’s totally effortless. Half my body is usually out of the water. I don’t know if it’s body make-up, why some people float and some sink. I suspect the sinkers are fighting giving up control to Mother Nature. A shadow cast across my face. I looked up to the sight of a man standing on the water next to me. It took me a second to realize that it was Jon standing on a paddleboard.
“That’s a weird visual,” I said.
“You want to try it?”
“No thanks.”
He sat down on his board and floated next to me. I floated on, breasts, belly, hipbones, kneecaps and toes out of the water. I asked him about the restaurant. He said it was right on the beach so caught a lot of bar hopping, which they liked. He’d grown up in Santa Barbara but had gone to UCSD; we knew the same beaches. He’d majored in math and had done an internship at Scripps Oceanography before moving to Hawaii to work at one of the marine labs. He asked if I knew anyone on the island.
“Not a soul. Why?”
“Women come here, get lonely and end up hooking up with one of the bar rats. You seem too nice for that.”
“Good to know my disguise still works. I doubt I’m too nice for anything. But thanks for the heads up. My hooking up days are over.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
“What was so funny about the zip line last night?” he asked.
“The zip line?”
“Yeah. You looked like you were going to burst out laughing.”
“Oh. It was Grandma. I had an image of her zip lining.”
“You don’t think Candace can zip line?”
I turned my head as far as I could to look at him.
“Candace? Not Candace. I’m sure she can do it all.”
I turned my head back and looked at the sky.
“I meant my own grandmother. I had a vision of her zip lining in her white leather shoes and clacking dentures,” I said. “She died a few weeks ago.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. She was ninety-eight. She had a long wonderful life. My grandfather was fun; he loved the expression close, but no cigar. I can see her trying it at ninety.”
He invited me to the restaurant for Christmas Eve. They had a tradition of family style eating with a group of people who came every year. He said it was a friendly bunch. I thanked him, but said I doubted I’d be there. We floated for a few minutes without talking and then he hopped up on his board and landed in perfect balance.
“Let me know if you want to try this,” he said. He took a few strokes and glided away.
“I don’t think I have the abs for it,” I called.
“I think you do. Won’t hurt to try.”
I could see it hurting. Sore muscles and banged up legs to start. I’d entered a kayak from the water once. I had a pretty good idea of how a person looks when they try to hoist their ass onto a moving object that doesn’t want company. He slid off down the coastline and I swam in and got dressed. I was starved so drove to town for a batch of poke.
I spent days like that, floating, reading, sleeping. The boys and I fell into a regular bodysurfing routine. Jon wandered over once a day to see if I’d changed my mind about paddling; I hadn’t. He spent some time in the water with us. But he seemed to spend more time over at Candace’s; I suspected I was babysitting when I was bodysurfing. I doubted she was lonely, at least not this week.
I wasn’t lonely either. Mike came by every day and joined in the bodysurfing. He was a widower and easy company. We went to town for lunch a few times. He had rented a condo in one of the big resorts out the road so we hung out by the pool with monogrammed towels, personal cabanas, and iced tea with flower petals. He wasn’t Steve; he didn’t like the fancy place. He said he was going to grab my place next year. I told him he’d have to wrestle me for it.
I wondered how Steve was getting on in Mexico; his mother must be happy. I didn’t know if he’d ever even mentioned me to his family. I called Eric and Anna to break the news that Steve was gone. They were disappointed, as in heavy sigh, when will it all end, disappointed. And they’re my biggest boosters. I called my mother and told her too.
“I’m sorry,
Hannie. We really liked him, we thought he would work out.”
“I did too. But he couldn’t get past Stroud.”
“Are you talking about Alan?”
“Yes. We might have survived it if he’d been a doctor, lawyer or Indian chief. Steve really hated the whole truck driver thing.”
“I can see that.”
“You can? What if Daddy had been a truck driver?”
“I wouldn’t have married him.”
“I’m not talking about marriage, Mom.”
“I don’t know. Aren’t you lonely there all by yourself?”
“Not yet,” I lied.
I woke up on Christmas Eve and decided to go to Jon’s place for dinner. Mike had been encouraging me to go. He said I’d know at least two people. The only thing I had to wear was a crazy black sarong dress with big red flowers and hair sticking out all over the place. I had to pull it together. I opted for hyper-crazy hair like I meant it, and then threw on my pearls to confuse the message.
It was an interesting mix of people from the all over the country, ex-pats from city living, a few locals. There was a couple from Seattle with an asset eating coffee plantation, and two women physicists from Cal-Tech. One wore a baseball cap that said, “Blah Blah Blah.” Jon hosted in a wildly colorful shirt. He was with a beautiful young woman who turned out to be his daughter Chana. She was completely at ease in the group. She’d obviously known most of the people for years.
Live slack key music came from the corner. Everyone talked and laughed and swapped chairs through a dinner of platter after platter of Hawaiian morsels. Mike introduced me to everyone. It was a fun and lively group. He mentioned to one of the physicists that I was going to India. She said they’d been, that it’s a wild place for a Western mind. He kept introducing me as someone who worked in the movie business. He was twinkling. He knew I thought it was silly. But people who didn’t know better were enthralled with the business, even some in the business.
Everyone was sent home with a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts painted with red flowers. It was a tradition, and a great touch. I tore open the box of candy as soon as my car headed back to the cottage.
Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 01 - Wild Nights Page 13