05-O'ahu Lonesome Tonight? Page 3

  Seven days of nothing but rambling around a vast pulsing city without a care in the world. No wonder I couldn’t sleep.

  CHAPTER 5

  On Saturday morning I drove to the Kahului Airport ticking off the things I wanted to do in Honolulu. I hoped Jeff was up for playing tourist at least some of the time. I was looking forward to getting lost in the cheesy hustle of Waikiki’s International Market. I wanted to hike to the top of Diamond Head and also pay my respects at Pearl Harbor. I wanted to take a tour of ‘Iolani Palace, the home of the last Hawaiian king and queen. No doubt during the coming week I’d eat too much and probably end most days with a few too many adult beverages, but I wanted to spend at least a portion of every day reacquainting myself with my ‘made in Hawaii’ heritage.

  I parked the Mini and took my suitcase out of the back seat. I would’ve used the trunk, but have you seen a Mini trunk, or as the Brits who made it would say, ‘boot’? It’s about the size of a microwave oven. Getting anything in through that narrow hatch is like threading a needle. But I love my new car. For years I drove an ancient phlegm-green Geo. I’d racked up more mileage on that sorry vehicle than most mainland truckers. It was the butt of nonstop ridicule so I’d gotten used to parking out of sight and slinking in through back doors. Now, with my new car, I was slowly getting used to having complete strangers compliment me on my cool ride.

  I looked back at the Mini and smiled. Its perky grill smiled back. “See you in a week,” I said. Then I looked over one aisle and saw a guy shoot me a weird look. I attempted to salvage my dignity by waving ‘bye-bye’ to a complete stranger in a passing car.

  I landed at Honolulu International Airport at nine-thirty in the morning. In most big cities that would be long past rush hour. But Honolulu isn’t just famous for its sky-high real estate prices. It also ranks as one of the top five most traffic-congested cities in the world. Forget what you see on Hawaii-Five-O. All those neck-snapping car chases and squealing tires are just wishful thinking. It takes hours to get from one end of O’ahu to the other. And if there’s an accident it will take mere minutes for the highway through Honolulu to become a parking lot.

  While I waited for Jeff’s plane—or the worst news possible, whichever came first—I called Hatch.

  “Hey, how’s it going? I made it to Honolulu but I’m still waiting on Jeff’s plane.” I didn’t let on about my worst fears. Hatch would tell me I was over-reacting, and I didn’t want to quarrel. Especially when he was probably right.

  “Everything’s going great,” he said. “I can’t talk long. I’m packing for tomorrow. Looks like I don’t have much stuff here in Maui that will work in Montana. I’ll need to buy some new things when I get there.”

  “Don’t they wear the same kind of gear you wear over here?”

  “Gear, yeah. But I’m talking off-duty clothes. I’ll probably need a cowboy hat.”

  The image of Hatch in a cowboy hat came to mind. “If you do, bring it home with you. I can think of some fun times we could have with me, you, and the hat.”

  “Hey, cut me some slack here. I miss you enough already.”

  We said our ‘love you’s’ and ‘miss you’s’ and then we hung up. A few minutes later the arrivals board clicked over to show Jeff’s flight was finally on approach. I got up and had my little ‘moment’ with the gate agent and then they opened the jetway door.

  I watched the passengers disembark and it seemed as if the entire capacity of Aloha Stadium was streaming through the door. How had so many people fit inside one plane? Finally, I saw Jeff’s grin. He waved and I had to restrain myself from trampling a few weary travelers in my haste to get to him.

  “You’re late,” I said.

  “Believe me, I know. It was like a clown car in there it was so tight. Everybody moaning and groaning over the delay and me stuck in a middle seat. I may want to think about hopping a freighter to go back.”

  We hugged.

  “So, look at you,” he said. “You did something to your hair.”

  “I washed it.”

  “No, it’s different. More blond.”

  My light coloring is a sore subject. I was born and raised in the islands but I always get mistaken for a haole, a stranger. Hazel green eyes and brown-to-blond hair are not what comes to mind when a person talks about a kama’aina, the Hawaiian word for a local person.

  “If it’s lighter than last time, it must’ve gotten sun-bleached,” I said. “You know me. I’m not big on personal services.” It’s kind of funny. I’m known by most of the stylists at the first-class hair and nail salons on Maui because month after month I book dozens of brides and bridesmaids to get glammed up for their wedding. But when my own hair gets to dragging in my eyes I stop in at the ten-dollar chop shop in the mall. And my nails? Well, let’s just say I’ve got a bad habit that keeps them plenty short.

  “It’s great to be back home,” Jeff said, looking around at all the people wearing lei and aloha shirts.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get you a lei,” I said. “I remembered it when I was on the plane. But then I realized if I went outside to the lei stands I wouldn’t be able to get back in through security. And, although I adore you beyond words, I’m not willing to pay tourist prices at these airport shops.”

  “Mahalo, but we don’t need no stinkin’ lei,” he said.

  We both laughed. It was an inside joke with us. When Jeff graduated from high school, everyone brought armfuls of lei (the plural is the same as the singular) to drape over the graduates. One kid, a beefed-up wrestler from a hard-scrabble family on Moloka’i, didn’t have family members attending so he wasn’t wearing any lei. Jeff saw him hunched in a corner and went over to offer him a couple of his lei. The wrestler uttered the now-famous line, followed by a toothy grin and a fist-bump. The line became Jeff’s and my ‘go-to’ mantra when something was no big deal.

  “Do we need to stop at baggage claim?” I said looking down at his tiny carry-on.

  “Any baggage I’ve got is purely psychological,” he said. “No, seriously, this is all I brought.”

  I marveled at his ability to cram a week’s worth of everything into a bag that would fit under an airline seat.

  “Then let’s roll,” I said.

  “So I hear you bought a new car,” he said, starting off with an easy subject.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s funny though. I had the Geo since college. It was the bane of my existence, but every now and then I sort of miss it. You know, like you’d miss a rheumy old dog who peed on the floor all the time but now it’s gone to dog heaven.”

  “Don’t talk to me about dogs,” Jeff said. “Jack totally freaked when I took him to the kennel last night.”

  “He doesn’t like the kennel?”

  “It’s right next to the vet’s. To Jack, anything within five miles of the place where he lost his manhood is suspect.”

  “I hope he’s okay.”

  “He’s fine. Get this.” Jeff pulled out his cell phone and pointed to an app with an icon of a grinning cartoon dog. “I can tap in to Doggie Cam anytime I want and see what Jack’s up to.”

  “Why?”

  “To make me feel better.”

  “But what if he’s howling in distress? Or cowering in a corner?”

  “Then he’ll have to learn to man up.”

  “But you said you had his manhood snipped. And anyway, are you planning to spend your vacation looking at your dog?” I said.

  “Not a chance. But I couldn’t let the people at the kennel think I was a bad pet parent, so I went ahead and downloaded it. They were real proud of the technology.”

  We walked out of the terminal into the din of six lanes of traffic. It was dark and hot since the lower level is covered by a concrete canopy that leads to the parking structure.

  “What kind of rental car did you get?” Jeff said.

  “I’m not sure. Something cheap.”

  “Good.”

  “I thought you were big on cars,” I said. �
�Isn’t your new car a Beemer or a Lexus or something?”

  “Yeah, it’s a Lexus. But that’s Livermore. I gotta make the lab guys wonder if I’ve skipped a few pay grades. Keeps ‘em guessing.” He smiled, then turned on his serious face. “But in the city you should drive a plain car. You don’t want to draw attention.”

  “This isn’t exactly Mogadishu,” I said.

  “I know. But those yellow Mustang convertibles just scream tourist onboard and who needs the hassle?”

  The car turned out to be exactly what Jeff had hoped for: a white Ford Focus with four doors, gray cloth interior and an automatic transmission. I let him drive. Not because he was the guy, but because I’m used to a manual. It’d take me a week to stop slamming my left foot to the floorboard looking for a clutch.

  We didn’t get a GPS. Something about claiming kama’aina status wouldn’t allow me to admit I didn’t know my way around. Which I didn’t, but that was for me to know and the rest of O’ahu to figure out.

  We drove down Nimitz Highway toward Waikiki. Any fool can find Waikiki; you just follow the shuttle buses. We turned off Kalakaua Avenue at Lewers. The Trump Tower loomed one block over on our right. There was nowhere to park the car, but a smiling valet popped out of the main entrance as soon as we pulled up.

  “Are you staying with us?” he said.

  Jeff and I both nodded.

  “Would you like me to park your car?”

  “Ask him how much it costs,” I said under my breath.

  Jeff turned to me. “Who cares how much? We’re on vacation.”

  I pinched his arm. The last thing I was willing to cop to was being a Waikiki tourist.

  “We’re visiting from Maui,” I said leaning over Jeff to flash a smile at the valet. The guy gave me a shaka, the thumb and pinkie salute we use instead of a wave. “Aloha. Ho’okipa to Waikiki.”

  “Mahalo nui loa,” I replied. Tossing around the Hawaiian was like a couple of dogs sniffing each other’s credentials.

  “I’m s’posed to charge twenty bucks a day, but I’ll give you a kama’aina rate of ten,” he said. “That fair?”

  “Very fair. Mahalo, man,” said Jeff.

  “No worries.”

  We got out and the guy handed Jeff a receipt. Then he whisked the Focus away to parts unknown.

  We went inside, hoping the frat brother had done okay for himself and his apartment reflected it.

  CHAPTER 6

  The hotel lobby was plain, with a wide expanse of dark blue carpet and plain white walls. They’d tacked up a smattering of now-faded prints of beach scenes and muscled guys paddling outrigger canoes but it still didn’t have the ‘Aloha, Welcome to Hawaii’ look that tourists would probably like to see. The registration desk was along the right side wall. The two clerks working there were chatting. One was a small-statured Asian guy with glasses; the other an ali’i-size local gal with an enormous halo of fuzzy black hair. I thought about the horror stories we used to tell when we were kids about spiders building nests in people’s hair, but then I told myself to knock it off.

  Jeff stepped up to the desk and the gal came over to talk to him.

  “Aloha. Welcome to the Waikiki Majestic,” she said. “Is this your first trip to the islands?”

  Jeff looked a bit peeved. Since we both have our mom’s light coloring we’re used to being mistaken for visitors, but it’s still annoying.

  “No, I grew up here.”

  “In Honolulu?”

  “No, Maui.”

  “Ah. Everybody loves Maui.” She smiled. “You here on business?”

  Did the employee manual direct them to pry into their guests personal affairs? I think not.

  “No, I’m here on a visit with my sister.” Jeff pointed to me. “For a little ohana time together.”

  The clerk widened her smile. “That’s good. And you’re checking in?”

  I wanted to step up and say something snotty, like, No, my brother and I have a bet you could win in a smack-down with your co-worker here and we’re wondering if you’d like to give it a shot. But I didn’t.

  Jeff nodded. She asked his name and then pecked on her computer for a few seconds.

  “Oh, you’re staying in the penthouse. That’s Mr. Stanton’s place. Do you know Mr. Stanton personally?”

  I stepped out of earshot to avoid saying something that would embarrass my brother. Instead, I looked in at a tiny shop in the lobby that sold cheap aloha-wear and kukui nut lei. The clerk was rolling out racks of shirts and tube dresses as if she’d just opened up for the day.

  “You looking for something special?” she said, zooming over to me and hovering so close I had the urge to take a step back. Her eyes were wide.

  “Mahalo, but I’m just browsing.”

  Her eyebrows knitted together as if she wasn’t sure if ‘browsing’ was another word for ‘shop-lifting.’ I don’t think English was her first language—or even Hawaiian, for that matter.

  “Just seeing what you have,” I added.

  She seemed to relax a bit. “You want to see matchy-matchy?”

  Now it was my turn to look confused.

  “You know, for you and your husband.” She nodded toward Jeff, still dealing with the check-in process. “I got mu’u mu’u and aloha shirt, matchy-matchy. Everybody like.”

  “Oh, no thank you. And, that guy over there is my brother. Not my husband.” Now who was spilling personal information?

  “All the betta. Family matchy. Very nice.”

  Jeff had turned from the counter and was waving a folder at me. “I’ve got to run,” I said. “But we’re staying here. I’ll be back if I need anything.”

  “We got nice kukui nut. You buy one for your brother?”

  What the heck? I hadn’t gotten Jeff a lei at the airport. I could kill two birds by presenting him with a kukui nut lei and giving this nice lady her first sale of the day. It’s good luck to get a sale soon after opening.

  “Yes. I’ll get a lei.”

  “Five dolla. Or three for ten.”

  Why not? I was on vacation. I picked out three kukui nut lei. One black, one brown, and one a mixture of white and brown nuts.

  “You can get lannard for one dolla,” she said.

  “A what?”

  “A lannard. For the pool.” She held up a pink rhinestone-crusted lanyard. “You put the card on the lannard. Then you don’t forgot.”

  “Oh. No, thank you. I won’t need a lanyard.”

  I bought the lei and joined Jeff. “Aloha kaikunane,” I said as I slipped the black kukui lei over my brother’s head. “Ho’okipa o Waikiki.”

  “Tossing around the Hawaiian, are we? Well, I love you too, sister,” he said. “And I also welcome you to Waikiki.”

  We got in the elevator and I punched the button for the top floor, number thirty. It seemed to take forever to get there even though the elevator didn’t stop on any other floors to get there.

  “I’m not big on elevators, you know,” I said as the number twenty-six flashed by on the digital display.

  “Wait ‘til you see the view,” said Jeff.

  We got out at a small vestibule with a large carved mahogany door on the opposite side from the elevator. There was a small brass plaque with ‘Penthouse’ engraved in script to the left of the door. Jeff took a key card from the folder and slipped it into the lock. A light flashed green and then the lock beeped.

  “Moment of truth,” Jeff said as he pushed the door open.

  The penthouse opened before us like a cave of buried treasure. The first thing my eyes landed on was the view. A sweeping horizon of sapphire blue ocean lay dead ahead. We were up so high it seemed we were seeing it from the vantage point of a bird in flight.

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow,” Jeff said. “I knew Tom had hit it big with that app he created, but I had no idea how big.”

  “Well, I’d say a full-on ocean view Waikiki penthouse means it was big with a capital “B” big.”

  We looked aro
und the spacious penthouse. The floors were some kind of ebony-colored hardwood and every flat surface was either granite or marble. The bathrooms had those sinks that look like big glass bowls sitting on the counter. The kitchen was stainless steel everything with an enormous Sub-Zero refrigerator that was paneled in the same expensive-looking wood as the cabinets. There were two bedrooms. One looked down on the ocean and the other looked over the rooftops of the city.

  “I’ll flip you for the water view,” Jeff said.

  “No, you take it. I’ve got vertigo enough just being up this high. I’ll feel a little more grounded seeing other buildings around.” It wasn’t true, but I wanted Jeff to get to see the ocean as much as possible while he was here. After all, I can go to the beach any day of the week.

  The lanai off my bedroom looked out across the entire skyline of Waikiki and ended with the green folds of the the Ko Olau Range mountains beyond Manoa. I was glad I’d offered Jeff the other bedroom. I’d spent four years at UH and Manoa would always have a special place in my heart.

  That night we went out to find a restaurant we could both agree on. It turned out to be sushi. Actually, I’m not a big fan of sushi. It seems to come out of the kitchen missing a key ingredient—cooking. But Jeff said he rarely has time at home to savor a true sushi bar experience so I conceded. Even though I’d probably just stick to ‘training wheels’ sushi like California roll, the sushi bar vibe is usually a lot of fun.

  The restaurant was on the second floor of an open-air shopping area a few blocks mauka, or inland, from the beach. The entrance was window-less, with only a simple sign displaying the name, ‘Miyake Sushi’ in both Japanese and English. When we got inside, it was quickly apparent it was an authentic Japanese place, not a wanna-be place catering to American tourists. The front entrance was feng shui’d to the max—very dimly lit, with a small koi pool, bamboo plants, and pale yellow walls. Farrah would’ve loved the décor, but she probably wouldn’t have appreciated seeing the fish swimming in the huge aquarium. No doubt those very fish were the ones referred to in the menu as ‘freshest fish in town’ and those guys blithely doing their last laps were only an order away from being cleaved into tiny morsels.