The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (19 page)

"Aloha!" Jennifer says. Her voice is pink and
cheery as the inside of a grapefruit.

"Morning," I say.

140

"You've made a friend," she says to me, and Dad
looks up from his paper, his glasses at the end of his nose. "Keiko slept
outside your door all night."

Dad tilts his head back to view her better from
the bottom half of his glasses.

"What?" she says. She knits her eyebrows
together. Her voice has slid to a ledge and stopped. "Nothing," he says. "My
outfit," she says.

"It's fine," he says. But even I can tell it's
not completely fine to him. Maybe it's the spilling boobs that bug him, I don't
know. He can be conservative in ways that aren't Republican.

"What's sa-rong with it," I say.
"Ha-ha."

"You look great," he tries again, and this
time, I'm convinced too. Whatever bothered him is gone now, and he goes back to
his paper, his toes hooked behind him on the rung of the counter
stool.

"I feel bad, just surprising the guy like this.
I wish we could call," I say. I pour another cup of coffee. I'm hoping it'll
work some reality magic on me. My eyes are hot with fatigue and I'm having one
of those out-of-body moments when I see where I am but can't quite grasp it. I'm
in my father's kitchen. I am holding a glazed brown sloped mug decorated with
Polynesian flowers, which has a chip in it. We are discussing the return of more
money than I might see in my lifetime. There should be music playing behind us,
or a laugh track. I should be eating popcorn, watching me, wondering what will
happen next.

"His phone's not hooked up yet," Dad says to
his paper. "Not much else we can do."

"Hopefully he'll be there."

141

"Five minutes away," Dad says. "Well go back
later if not."

He turns the page. Sleepy ease is being shoved
and bullied from the room by Jennifer's ice-cave silence. She walks to the
kitchen, her feet making soft slaps on the tile. She looks in the refrigerator
and brings out the pineapple juice, clanks the can on the counter. You can feel
the pissed-off chords playing in the room, so hey, I'm outta here.

"You guys ready in ten, fifteen?" I say. I'm
hoping to have this done with, quick. I'll give back a check that could change
my life, maybe go to the beach and swim. Maybe I can't fund my dream to stalk
Hunter Eden from concert to concert, but I can make Melanie jealous by bringing
back a good tan.

"Meet you at the car," Dad says.

I brush away my coffee breath, change out of my
sweatshirt to my T-shirt from the guitar exhibit at the Experience Music
Project. It's getting hot already. I find my flip-flops in my backpack. Dad and
Jennifer are back in their room with the door shut, so I head out front and wait
by the car.

Dad's house is in a clump of other,
various-size homes near the beach. His is the closest (and the smallest)--you
can actually walk right out onto the sand through a small gate from his
backyard. I lean against his car and the metal is warm; it zaps straight through
the fabric of my shorts and T-shirt. It smells so good out here--salty and
sweet-flowers both, a pinch of that ocean odor of cold, seaweedy vines washed
up. Trevor would love it here. I wonder if Mom would--I picture her here in this
house instead of Jennifer, but my parents have been divorced long enough that
the thought of them together seems odd and even makes me feel slightly panicked.
Mom would fuss with sun lotion and worry about jellyfish and warn Bex to come in
from the surf, and Dad's

142

dreamy semi-there-ness would drive her nuts. It
would be too hot to cook, too hot for quilts or tea that Mom likes. Then again,
maybe she would like to drag a stick behind her to make a line in the wet sand.
Maybe she'd like to wear a ponytail all the time and eat food that doesn't
require constant supervision.

I watch a muscle-y neighbor strap his surfboard
to his car (you'd have watched too), and then when that fun's done, I realize
I've been standing out here for too long. Keiko sits under a palm tree in the
shade, eyes glued to me. It's funny about dogs, how they have these jobs they
take so seriously--the guarding, the watching, the following. We just go about
our business and don't even notice the singular, focused intent of their world
and of their life's work. They should all get raises.

Keiko's tongue is lolling out, so I check her
water bowl and refill it with the garden hose and take a drink myself and spill
water down my front and then start to get the restless pissed-offness of waiting
in the heat. Especially now that I realize I am completely wrong about nerves
and the islands. My stomach is starting to tap-dance at the thought of seeing
the Vespa guy.
Richard Howards,
I remind myself. I see his name in my
mind, signed on that line of the check. "Dad!" I yell childishly.

No answer and I wait a few more minutes until
can't-wait
surges with sudden urgency. I'm fine one minute, but now I'm
not fine, and filled with Now. I lean through the open window of the car and
beep the horn. I'm done being the polite guest because I'm just me after all,
and that's my annoying father.

Dad emerges, running his hand over his hair.
His Hawaiian shirt is flapping as he trots to the car. "Longer than ten
minutes," he admits.

"I'm getting gray as you," I say. "How long
will Jennifer be?"

143

"She's staying."

"Oh," I say.

"Keiko can come," he says.

I clap my hands and she runs over in full-out
dog joy. Keiko climbs into the car, her beard dripping water from her bowl, and
I climb in the front. The seat is hot on my legs and I lift them up, set my feet
on the dashboard with intention to ride like that. "Trade one bitch for
another," I say, and it's out of my mouth before I realize it. I don't even mean
it how it sounds. It's just one of those jokes that slip past the guards of
Tightness. Look, I don't see the guy very often and I want things to go well,
and insulting his wife is not exactly the way to make that happen. I don't even
really think she's a bitch. Just slightly grating the way fluorescent lights are
grating. Maybe slightly greedy, too; the kind of people whose self-focus seems a
small and daily thing.

I sit upright and look over at Dad in marginal
horror, grasping around for apology, when he opens his mouth wide and lets out
this huge laugh. My God, it's just this big
Ha!
and I relax and smile and
apologize anyway.

"I didn't mean that how it sounded," I
say.

"It's okay," he says, and I see that it is.
Maybe more than okay. I think he likes having someone on his side. He seems to
be a man who's been on a deserted island, and I'm the one who appears with
sympathy for his situation and some food and a phone made out of a
coconut.

We drive, and Keiko's lips are blown open in a
windy dog smile. We are curving our way along the ocean, and bits of clouds are
peeking open and showing blue, and when this happens the ocean gets sparkly and
the waves tipped with white. It's funny, but Hawaii looks just like Hawaii. Like
it should, from the pictures.

144

"So pretty," I shout, and Dad just nods. He
turns on the radio and there's some seventies song and he lurches his head to
the beat, which is something I'd advise him against, as he looks a bit like
those dashboard figures with the bobbing heads. The song is from the time when
guys called their woman "Pretty Mama" and people were doing it in Chevy vans.
It's okay, though, as he looks really happy. It's like I'm just getting to watch
him be himself when no one's around. And then I look down, at the yellow
envelope at my feet. When I see it, the lightness I feel is shoved aside and a
gnarl of nerves wind in my stomach.

"How far?" I say.

"Five miles?" Dad shrugs. "Dan Shugman's old
place," he says, though this means nothing to me.

"Weird. So close to you. Do you think if I'd
have mentioned Costa Rica he would have gone to Costa Rica?"

"When I was in college? I once took a trip to
Jamaica because I overheard some guy talking about it on the bus," Dad says.
"Then again, Hawaii's sort of all-purpose, user-friendly for disappearing,
right? You can drink the water."

We drive past an outdoor shopping mall, with
dresses and shirts in Hawaiian fabrics hung in doorways of stores to attract
tourists. There's a grocery store, the clang of shopping carts, and then we are
back by the ocean again, driving against the backdrop of a lush mountain painted
in a hundred shades of green. We pass a string of big hotels and then a busy
stretch of road, with cars parked along both sides. Here, the ocean is dotted
with reds and yellows and greens, colors of surfboards, people riding waves and
crashing; long, smooth rides, and short, ditched ones, ending in arcs of white
splashes.

"Wow, look," I say, though of course he's seen
this a million

145

times. Dad only nods, flips his turn signal on.
We curve our way up a hillside; climb a small cliff until the ocean is below us,
looking suddenly both smaller and larger. The houses here are newer, not the
small shaky haphazard ones of Dad's neighborhood. Some are huge, with walls of
glass and peeks of swimming pools. Dad turns into a driveway of a creamy house
that's notched into the cliff side. There's a small patch of lawn and two palm
trees, and while the house is smaller than its neighbors, it's new and clean and
the view is wide and stretches along the coast.

"We're here," Dad says. He cuts the engine, and
Keiko is already trying to shove to get out.

"Dan Shugman's old place? I was expecting
something with a grass roof and a Folger's can to pee in," I say.

"Dan Shugman's a classy guy. He moved out to
the golf course," Dad says. "How about I'll check and see if Mr. Howards is
here." Dad pops out of the car, but hey, forget it. I pop out after him. It's
bad enough that
I'm
surprising the Vespa guy, let alone my dad. I close
the door on Keiko, who looks shocked and affronted. I trot to the front door.
Dad rings the doorbell. I hear its hollow sound echo in the house.

We wait for the sound of footsteps. Nothing.
Dad cups his hands around his eyes, leans up against the glass next to the front
door. "Lots of boxes," he says.

"Move over," I say. I cup my hands too, and
look inside. Boxes, all right. Stretches of wood floor empty of furniture.
Wadded-up paper, a couple of glasses unwrapped and set on the countertop bar
that separates living room from kitchen. A large, ugly black and brown clay vase
is lying on its side on some bubble wrap. Glass doors lead to a pool hanging
over the cliff. Not a bad way to run away from home.

146

"He's not here," Dad announces. "Brilliant
deduction, Sherlock," I say. "Let's go and come back."

It's disappointing, because now I'm ready.
Ready is like that. Ready is the reluctant guy on the dance floor. You ask him
and he says no; you ask again, drag him by his wrists, and when he's finally
there, after a few steps, the music fills him and he's cutting loose like
there's no tomorrow.

"Lunch?" Dad says.

"Didn't we just eat?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" he says,
pretty sensibly, if you ask me. "Onion rings? Let's go by and see Neal first.
We've got two new guys and your old Pop can't stay away from work one day,
right? If you tell Jennifer we stopped, she'll say she was right."

"It's our secret," I say. We're pals now, and
this and the idea of onion rings fills me with a singular gladness. I feel a
lift of hope, new things coming. Dad taps his thumbs on the steering wheel to
the music that's not playing anymore. Keiko sticks her head between the seats so
she can be part of things up front.

"I'm going to whack you with my elbow when I
shift," Dad tells her, gives her head a soft push back. Keiko has a flexible
personality, though. She changes her plan enthusiastically, shifts around in a
needless circle and watches for other dogs out my side of the car. I hear her
breathing just behind my ear.

We're back down the hill again, out where the
hotels are, huge places with filled parking lots and open-air lobbies and
layered, identical balconies. There are older hotels too, across the street,
with names like Sea View written in blue script on their white-cement sides,
little kids in partial bathing suits running up

147

and down outside corridors, pissing off their
neighbors, though what can you expect at this price, honey? It's a place where
wives wear their hair up in huge butterfly hair clips, and husbands look for the
water wings in the suitcases and wish they'd stayed single. The buildings look
past tense, the pools a bit murky, though maybe it's only by comparison that
they suffer. Comparison is like that--we'd all be more satisfied without it,
because across the road are bellboys in Hawaiian shirts and crisp tan shorts,
greeting airport shuttle vans with luggage carts made from leggy curved
brass.

Dad parks at a public beach entrance. The
asphalt of the lot is covered with a coat of sand and my footsteps are gritty.
Keiko knows this place, starts ahead without us. I take my shoes off when we
reach the beach, and the sand is warm, but cool when I dig down my toes. The sky
is only patchy clouds now, wisps on their way elsewhere, though a poofy train of
looming white is on the horizon.