Here Today, Gone to Maui (20 page)

He froze in the doorway, completely baffled. He was wearing soft blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and flip-flops. It was drizzling outside, so he was a little damp, his hair curling at odd angles. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.

“You thought I forgot,” I said.

He shook his head in confusion.
I overdid it,
I thought
. He thinks I’m getting too serious.

“At work, I’m known as the birthday queen,” I babbled. “I always make the cake and buy the card and get everyone to sing. I just think it’s nice to feel special for a day.”

He peered around the room, and his face finally softened. “You did this for my birthday.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement—an oddly obvious thing to say, in retrospect. It never occurred to me that he’d lie about his birthday. But then, it never occurred to me that he’d lie about a lot of things.

He stood there for what felt like a really long time, his mouth slightly open, just looking at the room. Finally, he took me in his arms. “This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” he whispered.

 

 

Now, at the luau, Michael asked, “Did Jimmy say or do anything else that seemed weird?”

I thought back over the past few months. “I kept trying to talk to him about his business and offer suggestions, but he didn’t want to hear it. I thought it was because he didn’t value my opinion.”

“Like—what kind of suggestions?” Michael asked.

“Well, to start with, there’s the name. Nothing wrong with it, really, just . . .”

I hate correcting grammar and punctuation, I really do. It makes me sound so schoolmarmish. But—he asked. So, I sat up straight and continued. “There should be an apostrophe.
J-I-M-M-Y
-apostrophe-
S
.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t name the company after myself. I named it after the sprinkles you put on ice cream. I thought it sounded colorful and, you know, just fun.”

I hadn’t heard anyone call sprinkles “jimmies” since I’d gone to college in Boston. “Let me guess,” I said. “Your prep school was in Massachusetts. Or—you summered at the Cape.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Which one?”

He shot me a side glance, fighting a smile. “Both.”

“Ha!” I said triumphantly.

“Okay.” He laughed. “Now that we’ve got that cleared up, what were your other suggestions?”

“Your Web site has been down for at least five months,” I said.

He blinked at me, and then shook his head (quickly, anxiously). “It hasn’t been that long. A month and a half, maybe. Two months, tops.”

“Five months,” I said. “I met Jimmy in September,” I said. “It is now February. Your Web site has never worked in all that time.” He didn’t need to know that I’d checked it at least once a week.

“Really?” He looked stricken. “Yikes.”

“You should put one of your tech people on it,” I said. “Or all of your tech people. Have them make it the top priority.” The waitress put another mai tai in front of me.

“I don’t have any tech people,” he said. “I just have a general computer guy who manages the ordering system and keeps the desktops running.”

“What?” Now I was confused. “How many people do you have working for you?”

“Five. Well, that’s including me.”

“That’s all?” It was so weird, how I could continue to feel jarred. Even though I knew Jimmy didn’t really own Jimmies, I still felt like the information he’d given me was true. That sounds stupid, I know, but I could only process one lie at a time.

Michael pulled himself up straight. Well, straighter. “Considering that I got my start selling wetsuits out of the back of my van, I think that’s pretty good. Now we’ve got me and Ana—she’s my administrator. There’s Hank the computer guy, Lisa in purchasing—well, she’s only half-time—and Pedro in the warehouse.”

“But what about Scott?” I asked.

“Who’s Scott?”

“In sales?” I prompted.

He shook his head. “I do all the selling.”

“I wonder who Scott is, then. He was on Jimmy’s cell phone. I’ll have to check with the police, see if they called him yet. At any rate, you should really get your Web site fixed,” I said. “I mean, honestly—if the Web site had been working, I would have realized Jimmy was a fraud months ago.”

Michael stroked his chin. “So you’re saying that this whole thing—the disappearance, the other girlfriend, the media storm—it’s all my computer guy’s fault?”

I took a long drink of my mai tai. “Yup,” I said. “It’s all Hank’s fault.”

 

 

Tables took turns going up to the buffet at the front of the pit. There must have been three hundred hungry people, but the flowered-shirt brigade ushered us through like seasoned marine mess officers. In turn, we loaded thick white plates with ham, chicken, fish, pork, rice, fish, vegetables, salad, bread. All things considered, it wasn’t that different from the spread at the Hometown Buffet, though of course the Hometown Buffet doesn’t have tiki torches. Or poi. Poi is the crushed taro-root paste that everyone says is disgusting but that actually tastes pretty good with kalua pork, which, as it turns out, is not made with Kahlúa liqueur. Who knew?

The wind picked up. Tiara had so much gel in her hair that her bun remained slick and perfect, if a little shellacked, save for one small strand that slipped out of the front and framed her face. Even her flower stayed behind her ear. What did she use—Super Glue?

Between bites, I asked Michael to fill in some more details. “So the police said you grew up in . . . Connecticut?”

He nodded. “Westport. Is that what Jimmy told you?”

I shook my head. “Lancaster.”

“Pennsylvania?”

“California.”

“He’s probably really from there, then.” He pulled out his phone. “We should tell the police.” He froze and then looked at me, anxious. “Do you think anyone would notice if I kept my voice really low?”

I scowled in disapproval. He put the phone back in his pocket.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“New Jersey.”

“What exit?” he quipped.

I narrowed my eyes. “You want to know the real reason I moved to California? So I won’t have to hear that stupid joke anymore.”

He grinned.

“Jimmy told me he was from Texas,” Tiara interjected, holding up her hand and fluttering her long nails to get the server’s attention. The server, being a woman, ignored her.

“What about his parents?” I asked.

“Texas,” she said. He’d told me Arizona. I was even more confused than before.

After the dessert buffet (I limited myself to three selections) and another mai tai, the show began: basically, a Vegas-meets-Maui extravaganza explaining how the Hawaiian Islands were created (from volcanic eruptions) and how they were populated (from various South Pacific islands). The sky had turned a purplish gray, showing the torches to their best advantage. Onstage, the hula dancers swayed to the raindrop-and-drum music. Next to me, Tiara downed her umpteenth mai tai and said, “That looks like fun!”

She held her arms out hula fashion—except somehow it made her look like a zombie. A really hot zombie with great hair and enormous boobs.

So I was jealous. Sue me.

After some more drums, wiggles, and don’t-try-this-at-home fire tricks, the alpha-male hula dancer padded to the center of the stage, his brown legs thick and masculine beneath his grass skirt, and asked audience members to come onstage.

Tiara got up to dance. Of course she did. She jumped out of her chair so fast her napkin stuck to her dress for an instant before slipping to the ground.

“She’s something,” Michael said as Tiara fought her way to center stage front.

“Mm,” I said.

“I’m astonished that Jimmy—or, whatever his name really is—would be attracted to both of you,” Michael said.

I straightened in my chair, suddenly sober. (Well, soberer, anyway.) “That seems to be the general consensus.” My voice was tight.

Michael looked at me sideways. “I meant it as a compliment.”

“Oh!” I tried not to look delighted. I failed. “Thank you.”

Michael returned his gaze to the stage. “She’s not a bad hula dancer, though,” he said, completely ruining the moment.

“If you like zombies,” I grunted. “It’s like Night of the Living Dancer.” My sobriety had been short-lived.

Michael raised an eyebrow just long enough for me to remember that pettiness is never attractive.

I don’t know what possessed me to join Tiara on the stage. Competitiveness? Jealousy? Rum? But when the alpha fire dog asked for more volunteers, I was the first one out of my seat, pausing just long enough to grab Michael’s hand and say, “You’re coming with me.”

Give us pear-shaped girls a bit of credit: we can really shake our hips when the occasion arises. Following instructions, I held my arms out and took two steps in each direction. Then I made circles with my hips: two slow rotations followed by two fast ones. “You go, girl!” Tiara hooted. At that, I raised my arms higher and shook my, yes, boo-tay.

Up on the luau stage, front and center with Tiara and Michael, I forgot for a moment why I’d come to Hawaii. I forgot about standing on the beach, peering at the choppy water until my eyes hurt, just hoping, hoping, Jimmy would appear. I forgot about the police station. About the ring. About my lonely future.

Shaking my hips on a stage in Maui, rum coursing through my veins, I was, for a brief time, just another giddy tourist in a flowered rayon dress.

 

 

“Are you okay to drive?” Michael asked, grabbing my elbow as I stumbled up the red flagstone steps toward the open-air lobby. He had wisely switched from mai tais to water before dessert.

“I figured I’d just take a cab back to the condo—get my car in the morning.” My balance reestablished, I continued up the wide steps, walking next to Michael.

“I’m going in the same direction,” he said. “I’ll drop you.”

“You guys!” Tiara shoved herself between us, hooking arms. “You’re not going home! It’s only eight o’clock. Let’s check out some of the other hotels, maybe find a place to go dancing.”

“Not tonight,” I said, meaning, of course, not any night.

“I’m pretty beat,” Michael said.

He likes me better,
I thought.

Michael waited by a parrot while I went upstairs with Tiara to get my groceries and clothes.

“You guys are party poopers!” Tiara said, bouncing down the hall and pulling out her hair clip. She shook her head, and her dark locks cascaded around her shoulders. “I might have to go out and find something fun to do without you!” She was really pretty drunk.

At her door, she reached into her yellow handbag and pulled out a credit-card-size key. She slid it into the slot and . . . nothing.

“Huh.” She looked at the key, flipped it around, and tried again. Nothing. She held it out to me. “You try.”

I slipped it this way and that, but the door wouldn’t open.

“These stupid keys never work right,” she muttered.

Back in the lobby, I waited with Michael (and the parrot) while Tiara sashayed across the red flagstones to the front desk.

“How long are you staying in Maui?” I asked him.

“Just till Saturday. You?”

“Thursday. I’m taking a red-eye out. I mean, that’s what I’m booked on, anyway. And don’t worry—I’m going to call them tomorrow, have them switch it to my credit card.”

He waved his hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But what about Australia?”

“I’ll get there somehow.”

I was about to protest some more, when I heard a woman’s shrill voice. Tiara, at the front desk, was making a scene.

“But the credit-card companies said they would cover it!” she shrieked. “But I have no place else to stay!”

“Uh-oh,” Michael said.

Tiara was in tears, much to the fascination of the mob of Japanese tourists waiting in line behind her.

“Explain it to them, Michael!” she wailed, grabbing his arm, her fingers splayed out so her long nails wouldn’t scratch him.

“I, um, uh—”

“Is this about the credit-card fraud?” I asked the young Hawaiian woman at the front desk, smiling pleasantly so she’d know I wasn’t crazy like Tiara. She nodded nervously. Just like at the Maui Hi, the female staff wore muumuus, though the beige print was subtle, and the garments actually fit.

“Because Ms. Cardenas was in no way responsible for the fraud,” I assured the woman. “And she is fully prepared to pay for her room here.”

“What?” Tiara yelped. “I can’t afford this place!”

Off to our left, a plump blond couple in competing tropical prints bent their heads together, whispering. Finally, the woman took a few steps toward me. “Aren’t you the women I read about in the paper?”

I shuddered, remembering the unflattering shot and disappointed that someone could recognize me from it. “Yes,” I said.

She looked at Michael. “So, is this . . . the guy?”

“No,” I said. “Well, yes. It’s the guy people
thought
was missing, but not the guy who was
actually
missing.”

She blinked furiously, as if I’d said something confusing.

A bellman brought out a rolling brass cart stacked with Tiara’s two mismatched suitcases (one red, one leopard print) and my plastic Safeway bags.

“Do you know how long the milk has been out of the refrigerator?” I asked the bellman, who was unable to provide me with a satisfactory answer.

Michael popped out front and gave his ticket to the valet while Tiara continued to cry and say, “But it’s not my fault!” She hadn’t been nearly this hysterical when Jimmy went missing, but she hadn’t been drunk then, either.

When Michael’s car arrived (a convertible!) the bellman silently (and quickly) pushed the cart out the front door and loaded everything into the trunk. I took Tiara’s arm and pulled her to the curb. She was practically limp, worn out from the hysteria. “But I have no place to go,” she whimpered.