03 - Three Odd Balls (3 page)

“Aloha,” I repeated. I was giving my beau a kiss worthy of Adelé Nightingale when Chris ran by, surfboard in hand.

“Didn’t you guys get a bungalow for that?” he called over his shoulder.

***

If only it were that easy. But checking into our rooms at the Wakilulani Gardens proved far more challenging than booking all our last-minute reservations. The person in charge of this seemingly impossible mission, a big thirty-something Hawaiian guy, tapped at his keyboard, clicked his mouse, and furrowed his brow, while Wilson and I watched and waited. And waited.

“Where’d you get your shirt?” Wilson asked him eventually.

The clerk stopped clicking and tapping to glance down. But his Hawaiian shirt, in a brilliant and downright blinding pattern of yellow and orange Hibiscus flowers, must have startled him. He dropped his mouse, and it dangled forlornly off the edge of the desk while the men discussed the shopping options along Halo Beach.

Wilson Rye discussing clothing stores? I chalked it up to jetlag and leaned on the counter for a short snooze.

“Shynomore Shirt Shop has the best selection,” the clerk was saying as I opened my eyes.

Wilson, apparently in all seriousness, asked if the Shynomore Shirt Shop was close by.

“Yes, sir! It’s just down the beach. You can even walk there if you want. I’ll point you in the right direction. Most anyone can point you in the right direc—”

“Our reservations?” I said loudly and directed everyone’s attention back to the computer screen, which of course, had gone completely blank.

That spurred the clerk back to action. He picked up the mouse and began clicking at a furious and alarming pace.

I swallowed a groan. “Is there a problem, Mr.—” I squinted at his name tag. “Palakapola? Did I say that right?”

“Almost. But I’m Mr. Okolo. Palakapola is my first name.”

He must have seen my alarm. “Everyone just calls me Buster,” he said. “Me and my brother are the new owners here.” He offered a big happy smile, which soon disappeared as he returned to the problem at hand. He banged at the keys and slapped the side of the monitor with the palm of his hand. “Three bungalows?” he asked for the tenth time.

“Is that a problem?” Wilson asked.

“Oh no, no, no.” Buster continued abusing the keyboard. “No problem. No problem whatsoever.”

Reminding myself that patience is a virtue, I stepped away from the counter while Buster Okolo attempted to solve the no problem whatsoever. We were in “The Big House” as the sign out front had informed us. More specifically, we were standing in the expansive lobby with whitewashed, rustic wood walls and a high, bare-beamed ceiling. The restaurant and bar to our right boasted huge windows overlooking the ocean. And to the left, with views of the gardens, were the library and game room.

Wilson must have seen me staring at the pool table. “Shoot me a game?” he asked.

“Maybe later,” I answered. “After we’ve settled in.” I emphasized the after for Buster’s benefit, but he didn’t take the hint.

“I don’t play very well, myself,” he said. “But the pool table was my idea. It’s brand new. What do you think?”

Wilson said he thought Buster should concentrate on checking us in. Buster cleared his throat and returned to his arduous task.

I continued nosing around the lobby. The upstairs, a loft with a wrap-around balcony, seemed interesting. The empty bird cage up there in the corner was especially intriguing, but a chain across the narrow stairway informed me that the upstairs was “Private.”

“Where’s the bird?” I asked and raised my eyes to the rafters overhead. Sure enough, a big green bird was perched up there. Some sort of parrot. I whistled, and to my delight, the bird responded in kind and swooped in for a landing on the counter.

“Darn it, Ki!” Buster exclaimed.

“Darn it, Ki!” the bird repeated.

“Is this Ki?” I smiled and reached out to touch him, but thought better of it when I saw the size of his beak. I pulled back my hand.

“That’s Bee Bee,” Buster said.

“Bee Bee,” Bee Bee repeated and waddled over to me. He seemed to expect a pat on the head.

I again reached out a tentative hand. “Does he bite?”

“No way. He loves attention.”

Thus I patted Bee Bee’s head and told him what a beautiful boy he was.

“You can have him if you want,” Buster said. “Ki hates him.”

Wilson mumbled something about Snowflake as he stroked one of Bee Bee’s wings with the back of his index finger. “Who’s Ki?” he asked.

“My brother—the one with all the computer smarts.” Buster took another swat at the computer. Some paperwork on the desk jumped, but the machine in front of him remained unfazed. He whimpered slightly. “I begged him not to, but Ki installed all these updates when we got the place. Update this, update that. It’s impossible!”

“Impossible!” Bee Bee hopped onto the desk and started shuffling around the disarray of papers. He knocked a whole stack on the floor, but the hapless Buster took no notice.

I gently suggested that perhaps Ki might check us in and glanced around in search of the computer whiz. “Perhaps he’s upstairs,” I said, eyeing the “Private” sign. “Do you guys live up there?”

Buster kept his eyes trained on the computer screen. “We have an apartment upstairs. But Ki’s never here, no matter how much I beg him.” He bent down and yanked the computer plug from the outlet. “I give up,” he concluded and folded his arms across the sea of hibiscus flowers.

“Give up,” Bee Bee agreed. He stuck out a claw and deftly opened the top drawer of the desk. Wilson and I watched in fascination as the bird ducked his head in and came out with a large old-fashioned key ring hanging from its beak.

Buster took the keys and handed them to Wilson. “Your friend—the lady who got here earlier—took Blue Waters bungalow. Other than that, they’re all free.” He turned to me. “Walk around, take a look, and take whichever ones you want. How’s that?”

Wilson and I shrugged at each other. Fine with us.

“Welcome to The Wakilulani Garden Resort!” Buster said, rather belatedly. “I hope you like it here! I’ve been sprucing up the place. New curtains, new linens, new beds, even. I built them myself. The wood’s from koa trees. Hawaiians used to make canoes out of koa trees. You’ll see koas everywhere around here—”

Wilson interrupted by jiggling the key ring.

Buster stopped and blinked at the keys. Then he pointed us to the doorway. “Make yourselves at home and enjoy!”

The parrot looked up from where he was more or less eating some of the papers that had not yet landed on the floor. “Enjoy!” he told us.

Chapter 3

“So much for security,” my beau the cop mumbled as we walked back outside. My mother and Louise were nowhere in sight, and presumably Chris was hanging ten out in the waves. But the huge pile of luggage awaiting us on the patio was not so easy to avoid.

“Let’s settle Mother first.” I pointed to the bungalow closest to us. “Right there. She’ll be close to the restaurant, the office, and the parking lot—less walking over all these bumpy footpaths.”

Wilson grabbed her two larger suitcases, I took her carry-on, and we managed the short walk to Seagull’s Roost bungalow. We climbed the steps to the porch and turned to admire the beach. Chris was still surfing out there. And unlike dry land, the waves seemed populated with human life.

“What did I tell you?” Wilson said. “Chasing bikinis already.”

I took a closer look, and sure enough all of the surfers surrounding Chris were female. “Maybe watching your son surf will satisfy my mother,” I suggested. “Maybe she won’t insist on trying it herself.”

Wilson told me to keep dreaming and unlocked the door. He arranged Tessie’s luggage at the foot of her bed while I surveyed the accommodations. Altogether charming. The bungalow was small, but had the same whitewashed wooden walls, high-beamed ceiling, and white tile floors as The Big House. A Buster-made four-poster bed built from tree trunks took center stage, and the quilt on the bed and the curtains on the windows were indeed a fresh, crisp chintz, just as promised.

“She’ll love it here,” I concluded and followed Wilson outside to find a room for Chris, who, he was sure, would also want a beachfront bungalow.

We wandered past the Misty Breezes and Sandy Feet bungalows, and Wilson chose Surf’s Up for his son. “This is good,” he said. “He’s got the ocean, but won’t be too close to Tessie to bother her.”

“Chris won’t bother my mother. They like each other.” I was going to mention Chris didn’t seem all that crazy about me, but Wilson was already scooting across the patio to collect more luggage.

He came back with a carry-on and small duffle bag and tossed me the key ring. I opened the door, and he unceremoniously dumped the luggage inside.

“He didn’t pack very much,” I said.

“Bathing trunks, hiking boots, and a surfboard. What else does he need?”

Ah, to be young. And male.

We walked back to the patio and faced our own substantial pile of junk. “Let’s decide on our bungalow and come back for it,” I suggested. “It’s not like it’s in anyone’s way.”

We agreed we wanted a garden-view bungalow and set out to explore. Garden views would be easy. But choosing which garden view would be the difficult task. The Wakilulani was veritably drenched in foliage and flowers.

“It’s like the Garden of Eden,” I said as I stopped to admire a particularly lovely thicket of flowering somethings near the swimming pool.

“And you, Jessica Hewitt, are the epitome of Eve!” Louise called out. “A big, blond, beautiful, slightly menopausal Eve!”

I looked up the hill and saw my agent and my mother sitting on the porch of Blue Waters bungalow, admiring the blue waters of the swimming pool below them, and sipping some sort of pink drink decorated with tiny gold umbrellas.

“Eve?” I said skeptically as we took a few more steps in their direction. “Exactly what’s in that drink, Louise?”

“Who knows? But they’re fantastical!”

Mother giggled. “They are delicious, Honeybunch. Y’all should join us.” She took a rather large drag from her straw to demonstrate and waved down toward the tiki bar located next to the swimming pool. “Davy will be happy to mix up another batch, won’t you, Davy?” Mother fluttered a few fingers at the bartender.

“Davy’s a genius!” Louise added. “Genius, genius, genius!”

We approached the bartender. “I take it you’re the genius?” Wilson asked.

“Davy Atwell,” he answered, and they shook hands. “Can I get you guys something?” He turned to me and winked. “Everyone likes my punch. I call it Pele’s Melee.”

“Pele, as in the Hawaiian volcano goddess?” I asked.

He winked. “Hot and feisty—like all women should be.”

“Feisty.” Mother giggled from above us and considered her beverage. “These Pele’s Melees do have a certain zing to them, don’t they?”

“Zing, zing, zing!” Lousie agreed.

“Zing-zing!” Bee Bee screeched from overhead and flew in for a landing on Louise’s porch railing.

Mother and Louise took it in their stride, but Wilson seemed as startled as I. “He’s allowed outdoors?” he asked the bartender. “Won’t he run—I mean fly—away?”

“Why would he do that?” Davy said. “The Wakilulani has been Bee Bee’s home for decades.”

“Decades?” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Bee Bee’s an Amazon. He’s about thirty now. But he’ll live at least as long as you and m—”

“Jessica and Wilson!” Louise had moved to her porch railing to give bird the attention he deserved, and to scold us with a bit more vigor. “Get yourselves some pink drinks and come join us!”

“Later,” Wilson said.

“Soon,” I promised. And as everyone, including the bird, reminded us how fantastical the Pele’s Melees were, we continued onward and upward in search of our bungalow.

“Privacy,” Wilson reminded me as we got out of earshot of the others.

“Garden of Eden,” I reminded him.

And thus we found Paradise, the most remote of the bungalows, tucked away in the farthest corner of Eden.

“Perfect!” I said and raced Wilson down to where our luggage awaited.

“We’ll have a view down to the ocean from the bed,” he called out just as we jogged past Blue Waters.

I heard my mother giggle from behind us. “If he weren’t so darling, I’d be scandalized,” she told Louise.

***

Okay, so the pink drinks really were fantastical.

Our entourage, plus Bee Bee and minus Chris, had reconvened at the poolside tiki bar before dinner. My mother, Louise, and I had lined up our lounge chairs with views out to sea, and Bee Bee was perched on one of Louise’s ankles. Wilson was perched on a barstool close by and was interrogating Davy the genius bartender about hiking trails on the Kekipi Crater, our very own friendly neighborhood volcano.

I studied my beau. “If all his deep dark secrets are as scary as that shirt he’s wearing, maybe I don’t want to know about his past,” I mused.

Louise tore her gaze from the Pacific to assess Wilson’s attire. “It’s not every man who can wear fuchsia butterflies and get away with it, Jessica.”

“Who knew he even owned a Hawaiian shirt? Or flip flops for that matter.”

“That goes for you, too.” Mother pointed to my own flip flops. “I haven’t seen you in sandals since you were ten. Have you been saving those all these years?”

They were brand new, but Tessie did have a point. Adorned with ridiculous fake daisies, my sandals might well have been exact replicas of a pair I had worn in grade school. And considering my general aversion to open-toed footwear, on myself or anyone else, my new flip flops were indeed the first pair of sandals I had owned in decades.

I mumbled something about when in Rome.

“Trust me, Babe,” Louise said. “No Italian woman in her right mind would be caught dead in those.”

“But they’re perfect for Adelé Nightingale,” my mother insisted as Bee Bee leaned over to take a gentle poke at the daisy petals. “Just her style. Speaking of which, Louise and I have been discussing
My South Pacific Paramour
.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t you remember, Jessica? Tessie and I are here to help you.” Louise waved her glass on front of her eyes as if conjuring up a plot. “Delta Touchette and Skylar Staggs are in for some fantastical adventures! Beyond fantastical!”