Here Today, Gone to Maui (26 page)

“First you make dinner, now breakfast,” he said, sliding the coffeepot back into place.

“Well, it’s the least I could do.”

He shot me a sly grin. “I could get used to having you around.”

I felt myself blushing as I poured my own cup of coffee (which turned out to be just as overcooked as I’d feared). I thought about saying something flirtatious in return, but I couldn’t think of anything sufficiently coy.

Instead, I asked, “Have you seen Tiara today?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said casually. “She’s in my bedroom.”

I just about spit my coffee out. When he saw my expression, he said, “That came out wrong. What I meant is, Tiara is on my laptop, which happens to be in my bedroom. She’s posting an announcement on her MySpace page.” He slid onto a counter stool.

“What kind of announcement?” I took a stool next to him.

“She starts off by thanking people for their support.”

“What people? What support?” The coffee was really pretty stale, but I didn’t want to leave my spot next to Michael.

He rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t clear. Then she goes into some ‘We are the World’ thing about taking pride in your heritage and not labeling people. There was more, but I wasn’t really paying attention, to be completely honest.”

Tiara’s voice came from down the hall and grew louder. “It’s in the ‘My Documents’ folder. Yeah. And the file’s called ‘Cars.’ ” She came into the room with her pink rhinestone phone pressed to her ear. She wore a red Los Angeles Angels T-shirt and baggy pajama pants patterned with hearts. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her face had been scrubbed. She almost looked like a normal person.

“Well, I think the file’s called ‘Cars,’ ” she said into her phone. “Or maybe just ‘Car,’ you know, without the
s
. And if you don’t see that, try ‘Toyota.’ ” She stopped in the middle of the room and looked at the ceiling, as if begging God for technical assistance.

“Can’t you just do a search?” she said, sounding peeved. “But I can’t remember the name of the file, I told you!” At last, her eyes lit up. “Yes! Anaheim Auto Show—that’s it!”

“Oh my gosh, Jane,” Tiara said when she got off the phone. “More cooking? That is so sweet! You’re like a mom or something.”

I really wish people would stop staying that.

Resisting my impulse to pop up and get her breakfast, I remained planted on my kitchen bar stool. “Busy morning?”

“Oh. My. God.” She held her pink phone between both hands as if in prayer. “On MySpace? I had, like, seven hundred friend requests.” She put her hand (and her phone) over her heart. Well, somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, anyway.

After the Geoffrey episode, I had deleted my MySpace profile. Something told me I wouldn’t have had seven hundred friend requests even if it were still active.

“It is, like, so gratifying to get that kind of support,” Tiara continued. “To know that people care. So I spent a whole bunch of time writing a statement because I felt like people needed to hear from me. And just now? I was talking to this kid who lives next door to me and my mother. He’s like thirteen or something, kind of creepy but smart with computers, and he’s going to put a video of me at the Anaheim Auto Show on YouTube.”

“Mm,” I said. And then, to change the subject: “There’s coffee made.”

She poured herself a cup of coffee, added lots of cream and sugar, and took a taste. She grimaced. “Old.” She put the mug in the sink and bent over to peer at the big coffee machine without touching it. “This machine is really, like, complicated . . .” she said, still bent over.

“Yes, it is.”

She tilted her head one way. And then the other. “I don’t think I can figure it out . . .”

I sighed in defeat. “I’ll do it.”

“Anyone mind if I turn on the TV?” Tiara chirped, heading for the big framed picture over the fireplace, leaving me behind to make her coffee. She hit the secret button without waiting for a reply.

Television was the last thing I wanted to see, followed closely by newspapers and Internet blogs. Fortunately, there was nothing on about us, just some children’s programming, a Hawaiian travelogue, some soap operas, and a soccer match.

“Maybe people are losing interest,” I said as fresh coffee gurgled and began to drip.

Michael walked across the kitchen to put his empty mug in the sink. “If they haven’t lost interest yet, they will as soon as the police make their report. There’s really nothing left to say.”

Finally, Tiara gave up channel surfing and turned off the set with a sigh.

There was a buzzing sound over the intercom; someone was at the outside gate. Michael pushed the inside intercom button. “Yeah?”

“Maui police,” came the static-filled response.

The three of us looked at one another. “Maybe the sergeant just wants to review his statements for the press conference,” Michael suggested.

Moments later, Sergeant Hosozawa stood in the doorway, looking grim. But then, that was his usual expression. Detective McGuinn appeared equally drawn.

Sergeant Hosozawa’s voice was strained. “We found the body,” he said.

Tiara began to scream. “But he’s alive! You said so!”

Then she began to sob, an awful choking sound. This was even worse than getting booted from the Hyatt. I, on the other hand, was quiet, too nauseous and dizzy to make a single sound. I clutched the kitchen counter until Michael helped me onto a stool.

They found him this morning, the sergeant told us. The body had washed up farther down the coastline—north of Kihei, just where you’d expect the currents to take him. There was rough surf and jagged rocks. He’d gotten caught in an indentation in the rocks—a cave, almost. He was almost impossible to spot. It took some daredevil on a waverunner riding too close to the rocks to find him. He saw something that looked like an arm, and then he’d gone for help.

The cause of death was inconclusive. The sharks had gotten to him, but he was probably dead first—from natural causes, most likely: heart attack, decompression sickness. Of course his body had been so roughed up that it was hard to tell. We’d have to wait for the coroner’s report. And they’d track down dental records, just for confirmation.

 

 

I spent the next few hours in my beautiful room, curled into a fetal position on the bed. Jimmy was dead. He hadn’t left me on purpose, after all. Maybe he had loved me, if only a little.

At least there’d be no more surprises after this. No expectation of seeing him around every corner. No fear that he and Tiara would run off together.

In the early afternoon, I found her down by the water, bare-foot on the lava rocks. She was wearing a white eyelet dress that made her look oddly virginal. The wind whipped the dress around her legs and her hair around her face. She squinted into the wind, her mouth grim, and hugged herself.

“I keep picturing him,” she said, her eyes still on the bright water. “Down there. Drowning. Scared. You know?”

“I know.” I swallowed, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t go away.

“I got a call from an agent,” she said quietly. I could barely hear her above the wind. “A real agent, not someone you pay, this guy I’ve been begging to take me on for two years. He wants to represent me.”

“Congratulations.” I checked her face. She didn’t look happy.

“Is it wrong, though?” she asked, finally looking at me. “To get something out of Jimmy’s death?”

I thought about it. “Maybe if he were a different person. A better person. But he used us, remember. Maybe this makes it even.” I touched her shoulder. “You should tell the agent yes.”

“Oh, I already did,” she said. “And I’ve got my first interview, on the local news tonight. I just—I thought it would make me happier. I mean, all of my dreams are finally coming true. Right?”

 

 

Three months earlier, on an ashy-hot Sunday in November, while the Santa Ana winds blew dry desert air and wildfires burned in three directions, Jimmy had told me the truth about his surfing accident.

He’d come up to my condo late the night before, following a dinner shift at the restaurant. We’d spent the morning in bed and then headed to a local park to feed the ducks (because that’s the kind of thing you do in the early stages of courtship).

But after five minutes in the throat-scratching heat, we were ready to pack it in. Even the duck pond, rimmed by towering trees, looked soupy warm.

“We could go back to the condo and jump in the pool,” I suggested, slumped on a bench. My complex had a small rectangular pool that was rarely used, even in the summer. The water was always cold, but maybe the recent string of scorching days had nudged it into the bearable range.

“Don’t have a swimsuit,” Jimmy said abruptly, chucking a piece of stale bread at an apathetic mallard.

“We can swing by Wal-Mart,” I said. “They might have some cheap ones left over from summer. If not, you can buy a pair of athletic shorts. No one will care.”

“I don’t like pools,” he said, fishing in the plastic bread bag for another crumb.

“It’s not the ocean,” I conceded. “But it’s better than nothing.”

He shook his head quickly and shot me a side glance. In his eyes I saw something like fear. I put my arm around his shoulders. He leaned against me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Something happened,” he said finally. “When I was fifteen.” He touched the scar on his chin.

“You said you got that in a surfing accident,” I said.

“I did. Sort of. But remember—I grew up in the desert. We didn’t have an ocean.”

If not the ocean—then where? “You surfed in a pool?” I guessed.

He nodded. And then he told me his story.

“There was this kid on my street, Ricky Ruiz. His family had a pool. I practically lived there in the summer—it was too hot to do anything but swim. We’d do flips off the diving board, have chicken fights, race underwater—pretty much anything we could think of. The house was low and pretty close to the pool, so sometimes we’d climb on the roof and take turns jumping off.”

“His parents let you?” I asked, alarmed.

He shrugged. “They both worked. Ricky’s older brother, Frankie, was in charge, but he was just as crazy as we were, maybe worse. And my parents didn’t care what I did. Anyway, that summer Frankie got a surfboard. We’d take turns running from the edge and jumping onto the board, see how long we could stay on, how far we could go. You know—surfing. Only problem was, after a couple of weeks it was too easy. So I had the brilliant idea—”

He stopped abruptly, a stricken look on his face, like he was watching a movie that he’d seen before, still hoping for a different ending.

He took a deep breath. “I thought it would be fun if we jumped onto the board . . . from the roof. Ricky said he’d do it if I went first.”

“Oh my God.” I touched his chin. “This?”

He nodded. “Five stitches. And a broken leg.”

“Which one?”

“Left.”

I touched the leg carefully, as if it still needed healing.

He sat up straighter, facing the pond, seeing something else. “Frankie—Ricky’s brother—drove me to the emergency room. We were there for three hours. I was really bummed because I’d have the cast on my leg all summer, which meant I couldn’t swim.

“When we got back it was late afternoon. Ricky’s parents were still at work. It took me a while to get out of the car, to hobble into the house on my crutches. When I did, I called out: ‘Ricky—yo, dude!’ But he didn’t answer. So I yelled louder: ‘Hey, asshole, don’t make me come and find you! I can barely walk!’ ”

He started to shake. I rubbed his arm.

“I’d just made it into the living room when I heard Frankie scream.” A sob escaped from his lips.

“Ricky?” I whispered.

“He said he’d do it.” His voice cracked. “He said he’d do it if I did.” The tears were coursing down his face now, his blue eyes rimmed with red.

“His body was under the surfboard, just stuck there. He hadn’t even been hurt that bad—but the board knocked him unconscious, so he drowned, just sucked up all that water till it filled his lungs.”

He rubbed his tears away with his palms, only to have his eyes fill again. “So now—I don’t swim in pools. Ever. I don’t even like to go in the ocean without a tank of oxygen. As long as I have my air, I’ll be okay.”

I put my arms around him and he held on tight. It was the only time I ever saw him cry. When he started breathing normally and pulled away, I pulled a travel-size package of Kleenex out of my bag and held it to him.

He laughed through his tears. “You’re always prepared, aren’t you?”

“I know. I’m kind of a geek.”

He shook his head and gazed at me with an expression that looked an awful lot like love. “There’s something about you, Jane. You make me feel . . . safe. It’s like, as long as I’m with you, nothing bad can happen.”