The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (20 page)

The beach is already filling. People from the
hotels sit under grass-roofed umbrellas and shade tents; they lean against
chairs with adjustable backs and foam cushions and fluffy, white hotel towels.
Everyone else (including the poor suckers from across the street) lugs armfuls
of stuff, bringing as many of the comforts of home as possible--red-and-white
coolers of food and striped canvas bags of sun lotion and beach toys and
magazines and sunglasses and cameras to record it all. I hear a radio--
You
make a grown man cryyy-iiii
--owned by someone who either assumes we all
share his love for Mick Jagger or else doesn't care if we do or not.

"Any of this look familiar?" Dad says. We're
trekking across the sand and toward a block of beach layered with
windsurf

148

boards and sails and even a paddleboat or two.
A little building behind us houses surfboards and boogie boards and life jackets
and scuba gear. Two guys are out by the equipment, and one shouts, "Hey, Keiko!
Hey, girl," and slaps his hands on his knees, and Keiko's rear starts swiveling
like mad and then she's off, running toward her glorious, thrilled, dog-human
reunion. Dad waves, and Neal takes one hand from the thick fur around Keiko's
collar and waves back.

"You missed me, huh, boss? Can't stay away for
two days. Or else you think I boarded up the place and ran off with the till?
Right? Like that'd maybe get me to the other side of the island, if that," Neal
says. "Maybe buy me a Coke. No, no, don't tell me. This can't be little Indigo.
No way. No friggin' way. You picked up some hot chick at the Sunset Grill. You
finally came to your senses and are gonna dump Miss High Maintenance. You're all
grown up." He holds out his hand to me.

"Neal, you look exactly the same. Probably the
same shirt, even," I say.

"I only got the one," he says, and gives up the
handshake and puts one big paw around my shoulders in a hug. Neal was Dad's
first employee, and we had lunch with him when we visited before. You can tell
he and Dad are close, but in the teasing, punching-arm way a lot of grown men
are close. Verbal jabs mean love, and that plus many years means they'll be
there for each other's hospital visits and family funerals. Neal is a native
Hawaiian, and I mean it when I say he hasn't changed. He's got the age-defying
genes of Polynesian men, and he's brown and bulky-muscled in his tank top,
wide-smiled, kindly-eyed. He could be twenty-five as easily as forty-five. I
think he's got something like five kids, which makes me wonder if Mrs. Neal
shows her age for both of them.

149

One of the guys from the shack calls out to
Neal "Windsurfer!" And a paunchy tourist in his midforties with dark hair dyed
blond and a mean-looking goatee approaches Neal while tucking his wallet into
his back pocket.

"What's your name?" Neal says.

"Dean," the guy says.

"Okay, Dean, you done this before? Big guy like
you knows what he's doing before he takes this baby out, right?"

"Of course," the guy says. His
of course
is an insulted one, a shove to the front of some competition. I can tell which
one is his wife on the beach. She's sitting on a towel and looking nervously our
way. "I know what I'm doing."

"We got a lesson today," Neal says. He checks
his watch. "Thirty minutes."

"I don't need lessons," Dean says. "I'm a
soccer player."

Neal shrugs. He hauls the Windsurfer to the
edge of the water. He's so strong, he looks like he's carrying an envelope. He
trots back to us, leaves Dean to struggle with the Windsurfer as if he's
suddenly been handed a squirming sumo wrestler. I can see his arm muscles
quivering from the beach. He gets the sail upright at just the moment a wind
gust comes, and he shoots out to sea. His wife has her hand up to her eyes,
shading out the sun, watching Dean get smaller in the distance.

"Chump," Neal says. "He'll need the rescue
boat, I guarantee it. Friggin' mainland athletes. Friggin'
jocks."

Dad chuckles. We follow Neal to the shack.
Keiko's already there, getting a drink from her work bowl.

"That guy signed all the waivers, right?" Neal
says.

"Yesiree," one of the guys behind the counter
says. He taps the clipboard with his knuckles. "Hey, boss."

150

"Zach," Dad says. He uses the guy's name
instead of a hello. "This is my daughter Indigo. And Eric, over
there."

"Hey," Eric says. He's drinking from a bottle
of Koala, a mixed-continent metaphor, and is peeling the label with his
fingernails. New guy.

"Hi," I say.

"Great name," Zach says. "Indigo, not Eric." He
chuckles at himself.

"Credit her brilliant father," Dad says.
"Thoreau. 'The night is a different season.... Sweet-fern and indigo weed in
overgrown wood-paths...."'

"Etcetera, etcetera," Neal says.

"I was named after a weed? That explains a
lot," I say.

"A beautiful weed," Dad says. "I never told
you?"

I shake my head. "I just thought you had a
thing for different names. Maybe you liked blue."

He throws his hands up in a
What're-you-going-to-do-with-
a-father-like-me
gesture. "Now you know
it was Thoreau's fault. So, we're going to go eat. Onion rings."

"Yesss!" Zach pumps one arm, giving us a fluffy
view of a swath of armpit hair.

"Looks like everything's under control here,"
Dad says.

"The minute he's gone, bring the dancing girls
back out," Neal says.

Keiko's a bit confused at the short workday.
Dad has to call her three times, and Neal has to urge her on before she heads
out with us. Keiko's obviously very responsible on the job. We head down the
beach. Dean's just a dot on the horizon now.

"What's going to happen to Dean with the mean
goatee?" I

ask.

151

"Lost at sea, eaten by sharks. But he sure
could play soccer," Dad says. "Nah, his wife there is going to have to pay
sixty-five bucks for the barge to go and fetch him. We make more profit on guys
like that."

We trudge over to Crabby Bill's, a beach bar
with outdoor seating. We sit at the counter, on high stools with woven seats.
They obviously know Dad; the bartender puts in his order between pushing blender
buttons. "Two," Dad says. The bartender nods. He's quick--he's facing us and
then there are the apron strings tied behind his back and then he's with us
again. "Wade here," Dad says, "is a real talented singer. If you were staying
longer, I'd take you out to the Kingfisher, where he performs. This is my
daughter, visiting from the mainland," Dad says.

"Aloha," he says. "I'm a better singer than a
bartender, that's for damn sure." But I wonder. He's off again, zipped to the
other side of the counter. Wade is fun to watch. He's shooting colorful liquid
into cups and flipping down soda handles and pouring icy deliciousness from
blenders and chatting with the customers and joking and making people smile.
It's just before noon, so the place is starting to fill, but Wade's got it
handled. I know what this feels like. He's swinging in the rhythm of his work
and loving it, and it makes me miss Leroy and Jane and everyone back at
Carrera's.

Wade sets down two tall icy glasses of piña
colada. "No booze. Sorry, kiddo, it's the way he likes it, what can I say. We're
not all sane, rational people, are we?" He smiles and then he's off again, wipes
down the counter and sets two coasters down in front of a new couple at the bar.
"Hot enough for you folks," he says. "What can I getcha?"

We're actually having piña coladas in Hawaii,
which seems

152

pretty hysterical, but as I sip through my
straw, I find it cool and frothy, a coconutty heaven. And, well now, the onion
rings arrive, and they're beautiful oniony art. Large and piled high, the
Leaning Tower of Pisa in fried brown crisp. They're so hot, I can barely touch
them, but Dad plucks one right off and bites. Keiko sits up straight, hoping
Dad'll notice her best behavior and fine posture and reward her with a dropped
nibble.

"I like Wade," I tell Dad. "All your friends."
And I do. I'm feeling bighearted. I like the entire world right then. I like
every single soul, with those onion rings in front of me. I even have a pang of
fond goodwill for poor windsurfer Dean, who is probably about now coming
face-to-face with his own mortality.

"It's a fine life, it really is," Dad says,
though he too is under the spell of grease and salt. "But I miss you kids.
Sometimes I wonder--"

"Oh, shit!" I say. You may think I just spilled
ranch dipping sauce right down my front just then, but that's not what happened.
No, not at all. "Oh my God." I grab Dad's elbow.

"Indigo, what?"

"It's him."

"Who?" Dad's lips are shiny. He wipes them with
a napkin.

"Vespa guy. Shit! Right there! Stage
right."

He's sitting at a table in the covered outdoor
section of the restaurant in front of us, a grass-roofed place with ceiling fans
and fishing nets and glass balls decorating the walls. He's wearing blue swim
trunks and his shirt is a bright, thirst-quenching green. The waitress moves
away from his table after placing down a hefty plate of a hamburger and fries in
front of him. He's progressed beyond just coffee, I see.

I slap my hand to my heart. "Oh, man. This is
so weird. It's

153

him. He was there, in Nine Mile Falls. Now he's
here in Hawaii and I'm in Hawaii."

Dad knows what I mean. "That guy gave you two
and a half million dollars," he says.

Seeing him, the real him, makes this suddenly
more unbelievable. I can almost wrap my mind around the fact when it's just me
and the fact, alone in my own mind. You can talk yourself into making sense of
almost anything. We still have wars and capital punishment and guns in people's
houses and we all go, uh-huh, yeah. Women talk themselves into writing to
convicted murderers. So, you know, the mind is fairly flexible. Still, I can't
grasp the idea that the man there--who is now lifting the bun from his hamburger
and placing the lettuce and pickle inside, leaving behind the onion, reaching
for the ketchup bottle--has given me a fortune as a tip for a cup of
coffee.

"That's him?" Dad says. "I pictured him
different."

"Like how? Dashing jet-black hair?" I think of
the disappointing Mr. Moore.

"Top hat and tails? Uberhuman?" Dad says. The
Vespa guy is thwopping the bottom of the ketchup bottle. "Look at that shirt,
though. That's not Jack's Shirt Shack."

"Elegance followed him here," I say.

"Want me to go and talk to him?"

My eyes don't leave Vespa guy. He's leaning
over a hamburger, his blond head tilted slightly to the side for the
bite.

"No. I've got an idea. Hang here a
sec."

I scootch back my stool; take an on-the-way sip
of my drink. Dad calls Keiko to stay. My heart is whumping away, but it's not a
dread whump, more an excited one. Funny thing is, I'm really glad to see him. I
feel like I would if I turned a corner on this

154

island of Maui and there was Leroy crossing the
street, or Funny, emerging from a store with a shopping bag under one arm. I
came to see this man, but the actual him is a happy surprise.

My grand entrance sucks, because I can't figure
out how to get to that part of the restaurant, and on first try, I end up near
the restrooms. Chick in triangle skirt, boy in boxy suit. Back up and try again,
and I see Dad gesturing like a madman from his seat, arm flinging and pointing
the other direction, thanks Dad. There's a little gate to walk through and then
I'm in the restaurant, passing tables, and I swear Vespa guy looks up and right
at me, but he doesn't know it's me-me. He probably thinks I'm familiar but can't
think of from where.

I approach his table. "Can I get you some extra
napkins," I say. "Or a refill? They're free." I don't know if they're free or
not.

"No, thanks," he says. He looks down. I don't
move. He looks up again. "No. Wait. Wait a minute." And then he breaks into a
big toothpaste-ad smile. "My God, wait a minute. Indigo Skye? My God. What are
you doing here? I didn't even recognize you."

"Mr. Howards. I'm here to see you."

"You're kidding. How did you find me? How did
you know where I was?"

"You said ... I said--I told you about my dad.
Maui. It was the first place we checked. You could have been anywhere
..."

"Note to self: Work on
predictability."

I laugh. "It's a good thing your imagination
wasn't more wild."

"In my defense, I also considered Bali. All
right? Give me a few points for that. But, passports ... What are you
doing
here?" He seems genuinely baffled. "Because of the
money?"

"It's not exactly what people ... People don't
just do that."

155

"Well, I highly recommend it. It feels great. I
wanted you to have it. That's why I gave it to you."