“Of mine?”
“Yes. A tall gentleman. Famous on our island.”
“Really?”
The young man reached behind the desk, and I noticed for the first time there was a small refrigerator tucked away down there. He pulled up a lovely fresh flower lei, one made out of the most exotic orchids I’d ever seen.
“Wow.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said, and then came around from behind the desk and said, “May I?”
I smiled like a big island goofball as he put the tricolored garland over my head. The creamy white interior of each orchid petal made a line up the center of the lush string of flowers, while the purply-pink edges of the petals and another outer row of deep burgundy orchids made the masterpiece complete.
“You see,” the young man said, smiling, “this lei is the most special kind. Given only by very special friends to ones they care for.” I think his eyes twinkled at me.
I looked closely at the beautiful lei. “How on earth do they make these?”
“Over seven hundred center petals of the orchid are meticulously sewn in the kui lau style, which is a back-and-forth pattern, creating an elegant flat lei like this one.”
“Who is this gift from again?”
“Ah, the gentleman asked that we withhold his name,” said the young man. “But I’m sure you can think of it.”
I looked blank. I’m bad at guessing games. Wes? He was my special friend, but he was not someone the clerk would describe as famous around the resort. Could it have come from Berger, the manager who was trying to soothe us down yesterday? Um…
The young man took pity. “Maybe you should think of a dessert?”
I turned, barely able to keep the smile off my face, and suddenly memories of last night’s luau came rushing back. Cake. And what had Holly just been saying not long ago. Seize the moment. Run free. I turned to leave.
“Oh, Miss Bean,” the young man called. “Did you want to pick up your friend’s package while you are here?”
“For which friend?”
“For Mr. Westcott.”
“Oh, sure.” The business center clerk flipped a page in his log and showed me where to sign. Then he rummaged around in the cooler, coming back up with a small box, which he handed across the desk.
“It’s to be kept refrigerated,” he explained as I felt the cool package, wrapped in white paper.
“No problem,” I said as I signed Wesley’s name. One of the lovely things about staying at the Four Heavens was that every guest room came with a small refrigerator. Now, these were not your average garden-variety minibars, those awkward, overstuffed units where you have to shove the tiny bottles of Michelob aside just to put in your own small carton of cream. No. At check-in, each guest is presented with a menu of delectable snack-type items from which to order. If we wanted Diet Coke, my own personal addiction, we simply ordered it by the six-pack and were charged the regular retail price. It was amazingly civilized. The six-pack or any other item desired (Wes had ordered about a case of guava juice) was delivered immediately and set up in one’s refrigerator.
So I left the lobby and took a quick detour back to our room to leave Wesley’s package and my new orchid lei to cool themselves in the elegant privacy of our room refrigerator. The Four Heavens, where even the snack food reclines in luxury.
It was ten minutes past three by the time I made my way back to the Four Heavens Sports Club and Spa. The atmosphere inside was—no big shock—state-of-the-art serene, but luckily, my own heebie-jeebies about being imprisoned in all that well-maintained serenity had disappeared completely since the morning.
I waited at the reception desk, but the woman who works at that counter was nowhere to be seen. I looked around and noticed a few magazines. I checked out the clock. My foot tapped. I thought for a moment about Cake, my Hawaiian Prince Charming. About how hot he looked on the beach the night before. About how romantic it was to receive flowers from a guy. About how I don’t take the wild path in life enough, and maybe I should do it more often. I checked the clock again.
It is hard for me to wait. Very hard. I need to have something to do. In the serene dimness, I had a new thought. Where were all the Nichols girls right now? Were they having manicures or sugar scrubs or what? The master appointment book was sitting, closed, upon the reception desk. It couldn’t really hurt for me to simply look up the appointment times and discover for myself where everyone was currently at, could it? After all, I had come here to talk to Wesley, and if ever a receptionist finally appeared at the desk, I would just have to bother her to look up this information anyway.
I pulled the green leather-bound book toward me and then, looking back up one more time and peeking around—no one was here, no one was coming—flipped the book open.
Under three o’clock, I saw the following listing:
Ladies’ Treatments:
√ Jet Lag Rejuvenating Massage D. Nichols Room2 Staff: David
Reiki Therapy H. Nichols Room 5 Staff: Liki
√ Shiatsu Therapy M. Nichols Room 8 Satff: Haulili
√ Coca-Cola Wrap D.A. Norris Room 3 Staff: Pualani
Macadamia Nut Paka Facial M. Bean Room 12 Staff: Nella
√ Spirulina Body Mask 6. Nichols Room 1 Staff: Tod
√ Ayurvedic Foot Treatment A. Nichols Room 10 Staff: Mimi
Chakra Healing Stone L. Mooney Room 4 Staff: Mimi
There was no check mark next to Holly’s name. Where was she? And Liz hadn’t shown up either. She wasn’t back from the hospital yet, I supposed. Or perhaps she’d gone straight to her room, skipping the rest of her spa appointments.
I looked down the list and felt a sudden pang to see no check mark next to my own name. I had missed my Macadamia Nut Paka Facial? Aw. How cool did that sound? But now was definitely not the time. When I get to working on a problem, I find it hard to slow down. And, truth to tell, I would rather make headway on solving a problem than take time off to get nuts rubbed into my pores.
And this problem I was trying to solve just kept getting tougher. I noticed that Keniki’s sister, Cynthia Hicks, had originally been assigned to give an exotic foot treatment to Azalea. But of course Cynthia was home and wasn’t coming to work today. Her name had been crossed off and replaced with Mimi’s name, which was written in in pencil. Seemed to me the spa management was still playing musical chairs with the staff to keep all their appointments covered.
Since some time had gone by, and still no receptionist had shown up to reprimand me for snooping, I turned the page. The list of men’s appointments under three o’clock contained fewer names. But before I could read even one, I heard the sound of my privacy evaporating.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” said the woman, a neat beauty with clear skin and hazel eyes. “Our receptionist is filling in as a facialist. Four of our aestheticians are gone. They just called me in on my day off! This is an impossible day to provide serenity to our guests, but we must try.”
I turned.
“You like men?” she asked me briskly.
I blinked. “Of course.”
“Good. Very good. We have Mr. Westcott patiently waiting in treatment room thirteen.”
Lucky Wes.
“You go change immediately. The staff room is in the back down this hall. And you know Lomi Lomi, correct?”
She thought I was a substitute masseuse. What damn fun. I nodded. Heck, the receptionist had just told me all about Lomi Lomi, hadn’t she? Elbows and forearms.
“Fine. The service told me your name but I’ve forgotten it. Barbie, is it?”
Barbie? Good grief. I just smiled, trying to look tranquil.
“I’m Paloma. Nice to meet you. Okay, scoot. Get into the sarong. You’ll find one hanging in the closet in the staff lounge. And hurry. Mr. Westcott has been in his Hibiscus Herbal Wrap for seven minutes already, and I’m afraid the poor man may be beginning to shrivel.”
I stifled a smile. Indeed.
“And I still haven’t anyone
to tend to room six and room seven. Not all our girls are comfortable working on men. I don’t know why. They are always perfectly respectful here at the Four Heavens. We have simply never had an incident of any kind.”
I hurried along the corridor to the staff room and found the proper Four Heavens sarong, the one with the pale pink and yellow hibiscus print that I’d seen all their spa staff wearing. I stripped out of my shorts and T-shirt and slipped the sarong over my head, figuring out how to tie it behind my neck. I looked in the mirror.
There was simply no way to wear a bra with one of these backless sarongs with halter-type ties. Off mine came, and I put my clothes into a spare locker. Wasn’t Wesley just going to die laughing? There he was, shriveling up in some herbal wrap, and here I was about to waltz in. I hoped he’d have his eyes closed, the better for me to sneak in, serenely of course, and surprise the heck out of him.
I twisted my hair and pulled it neatly back, fixing the end with a flower from a fresh arrangement on the table. Good. Done. I left the staff room and spotted myself in one of the dozens of full-length mirrors in the spa, pleased at how even an L.A. girl could blend into the spirit of aloha when dressed appropriately. I turned and checked myself out. The thin sarong fabric seemed to cling in all the right places. Island women can teach us all a lesson.
Only one problem. I forgot Wesley’s room number.
Quickly I skipped out to the reception area, but Paloma was by then nowhere to be found. Never mind. I went back to my trusty appointment log and opened the green leather volume to the appropriate time and turned the page to look at the men’s appointment list.
There were three names, all with Xs marking they had arrived. W. Westcott was in room 13—right! now I remembered—but wait. There was also another name that caught my eye. In treatment room 6, scheduled for a massage, was Ekeka. Cake? Oh, my. And in room 7, a Mr. M. Smith was also waiting for a treatment.
I was suddenly overcome with impish spirit. Standing there, in that resort-issue sexy sarong, to all the world nothing more than a temporary resort spa staffer, I felt it wouldn’t be polite if I didn’t go into room 6 and thank Mr. Cake for his flowery gift, that lovely string of orchids that was at that minute reviving itself in my hotel fridge.
I padded down the hallway in my flip-flops and found the door to room 6 unlocked. Heh.
I entered the treatment room to the sound of a flute duet piping lightly in the background. Several candles flickered softly, filling the small room with the scent of sandalwood.
“Ah,” said Cake from the treatment table, responding to the slight whoosh as the door closed behind me, and the expectation of a delayed masseuse. “You’re here? Lovely.” He lay there completely relaxed, his eyes covered with slices of cucumber.
Still unseen, I walked up to the high treatment table. He was covered in only a large white sheet, and if all massage treatments were created equal, he had no clothes on at all underneath. No shorts. No nothing. It was a most erotic thought. I remembered Cake’s tanned and well-muscled chest from the night before. My eyes had by this time adjusted to the dancing candlelight, and I confess, they wandered to check his entire, um, form.
“Sorry for the delay, sir,” I said, acting the part a little longer, wondering if my voice would be easily recognized. Would he suddenly swipe off those cucumber slices and check out who was actually here with him?
“No trouble,” he said lazily. “I’ve been having the best fantasy, just lying here dreaming.”
“Of a young woman?” I asked, moving right up to the table, my body brushing up against one of his arms.
“How did you know?” he asked, his voice dusky and low.
“I had…” Oh, man. I couldn’t stop myself. I was only barely able to resist a giggle. “…hoped.” And before he could express any surprise at the forward nature of the conversation, I pushed a small stool up next to the table. With a quick gymnastic hop, I was on the table too.
That did it, of course. No matter how long you study the ten-page list of exotic treatments provided by the best luxury spa on the planet, you won’t find one that includes the friendly aesthetician straddling you on the table. Not at the Four Heavens, anyway.
I had to hand it to Cake. He wasn’t an easy guy to shock.
In an instant his eyes were open and he was laughing. “Can this be?” he asked, laughing even louder. “Madeline?”
“You like?” I asked, gesturing to the sarong.
“What the hell happened? No, don’t tell me. You couldn’t pay your room charge and they put you to work.”
I was overwhelmed with my own craziness. What was in this island air? I couldn’t stop laughing.
Cake pulled me down gently until my face was inches from his. “It’s like my fantasy has come true.”
“Lucky you.” I couldn’t help myself. He was such a good sport about it all. And so completely handsome, his thick long hair down around his shoulders, his dark eyes now on me. He smelled clean, and there was the scent of herbs and musk there too. I slowly lowered my face closer until my lips were not more than a quarter of an inch above his.
“What are you up to? Some new kind of resistance therapy?” he asked, breathing up at me. “Like spa…torture?”
I stretched myself slowly over the sheet across his body. From my on-top position, I had reassuring evidence of how exciting my improvised “treatment” actually was. “Are you comfortable, sir?” My lips were still only a fraction from his.
“Call me Cake,” he said, his voice very low.
“Ah,” I said, mimicking my best version of a concerned masseuse, “I think I feel a little tension and, um, stiffness…Cake.”
“I’m sure you do,” he said, slowly reaching his hands up to my hair, pulling me down just that quarter inch until our lips touched. It was a long, soft, most un-spalike kiss.
“This treatment promotes relaxation,” I whispered, pulling back just a bit.
“Says you,” Cake said, shifting me a little, brushing his hands all the way down my back and up again, and pulling my hair out of its neat pins.
I kissed him again. And again. Each time very slowly and very gently. As a good spa client, he let me take the lead and simply waited for the next kiss and the next. His lips were surprisingly soft, and they retained a hint of a smile. He tasted like a blend of smoke and herbs.
“Do you smoke?” I asked.
Cake reached up for the ties of the sarong. I knew I had to stop this impromptu spa treatment soon, or we would be at the point of asking personal questions about contraception. I smiled, wondering how it would feel to have a vacation fling, if I was free enough to allow the flirtation to go too far.
He must have been reading my thoughts. “Wouldn’t it be fun?” he asked. “Wouldn’t we have a memory?”
And how often does a young woman get to Hawaii? How often does she stumble across a man who sends her a flower necklace made out of seven hundred orchid petals? How many times would she have the chance to get impressively naughty on top of a massage table? It appealed to all my free-spirit desires.
Cake kissed me one more time, patiently offering one last persuasion.
But I never got a chance to decide how truly naughty I could be. There came a soft tap on the door to the treatment room. Then another.
“You locked it,” Cake asked. “Right?”
The knob began to turn.
“Um.” The door opened silently. Oops. “No.”
“Barbie!” Paloma’s voice rang out, more than shocked. “Barbie, no!”
Busted. Busted big-time. And I was pretty sure the pitch of Paloma’s voice was at this point a few million decibels shriller than the staff handbook must recommend for optimum serenity.
“Keep calm thoughts, Paloma,” I suggested.
Paloma caught herself, lowered her voice, but continued, just as exasperated as before. “We don’t do this sort of massage here at the Four Heavens, Barbie! Get down off our guest at once!”
Nui Lumi Kuke
The magic incantation that saved my butt from getting shipped straight to some aesthetician penal colony for spa-technicians of fallen virtue, or worse, enduring the outrage of a totally flipped-out supervisor was a word more powerful than abracadabra or hocus-pocus. It was that glorious five-letter word: guest. After only a few more “No, Barbie! No!”s, I quickly and loudly asserted that I was in fact really a (cue heavenly choir) guest of the Four Heavens. As soon as spa dominatrix Paloma realized she was not dealing with a freelancing employee, but instead, a couple of consensual, if overly hormonal, spa patrons, she calmed right down. After all, the guest is always to be indulged at the Four Heavens. Isn’t that nice?
An hour after the spa fiasco, I filled Wesley in and tried not to leave out too many juicy details so he could get the chuckle. “Cake, of course, just kept smiling. I think he wanted to be banned from the spa for life.”
Wes thought that one over. “Because of the mythic quality it would add to his romantic reputation on the island?”
Wes understood the competitive male thing. “You are a student of human nature, Mr. Westcott.”
“Just figures,” Wes said modestly. “That guy is pretty full of himself.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, on the defensive.
“Here we go…” Wes gave me an affectionate look that I instantly detested. It was always this way. Wes always disapproved of the men to whom I was most attracted, although he never came right out and said so. The fact that his opinion so often turned out to be justified only made it worse. And it still did not make me particularly eager to follow his advice the next time. That I would keep ignoring his good sense was what drove him insane, which in turn was what I loved.
I decided to further goad him. “Cake said—”
“Cake. That name.” Wes shuddered. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”
I smiled and shook my head. “You ask that question of a woman who is known as ‘Mad’?”
“Yes. I do,” Wes said, refusing to be shut down. At present, he and I were in the kitchen of the Four Heavens’ Presidential Bungalow, pulling out bowls and surveying the stockpots. “Mad is simply short for Maddie, which in turn, is short for Madeline. Perfectly proper name derivation. Cake, however, is the self-conscious nickname of a preening, ego-inflated, shifty, untrustworthy—”
The Flaming Luau of Death Page 13