8.
Rich
Walking back to the resort, I feel like a total mess inside, conflicting emotions warring for primacy. What was I doing? Here I was fresh out of a relationship with a certifiably crazy person and I was letting myself catch feelings for a girl not one day after my escape. And I barely knew the woman! How did I know she wasn’t crazy too? For all I knew, she might very well have set her last boyfriend’s apartment on fire.
Speaking of, you might want to have Jim check to make sure your apartment is okay.
It’s growing dark now, the coming night sweeping quickly across the island. Every so often, I sneak a glance over at Becca. She’s lost in thought, her eyes unfocused as we amble silently along. God, she’s beautiful.
Ugh. Something was seriously wrong with me. I was such an incorrigible skirt chaser. Why couldn’t I just leave the ladies alone, even for two weeks? After a while, one really had to question one’s sanity. How many times did I have to get burned before I stopped sticking my hand in the fire, at least for a little while?
It’s not women you’re after, Rich. It’s her. Why else do you think you haven’t cared in the slightest about all the other women constantly looking your way?
I was right; this didn’t feel like my normal experience. There was something deeper here, some connection I’d never experienced before, not even when Charlotte and I had first been starting out. It was like a hunger almost. I was drawn to this woman, some part of me convinced that she was meant to fit into my life in some special way.
Oh come on. You’re being cheesy now. How can you feel that way about someone you just met?
And yet I do. The pull was unmistakable.
Then why didn’t you kiss her?
A good question, and another indication of how unique this situation was. I had wanted to kiss her with every fiber of my being. And yet, when we had drawn close, suddenly I had frozen with fear as I’d remembered my earlier faux pas in the limousine. What if I were misreading the situation? After all, she had said she wasn’t looking for anything romantic.
And so, my lips just a few inches from hers, I had panicked, blurting out the first thing that had come to mind, an invitation to dinner.
Then too, for some reason I don’t understand, it felt vitally important not to rush things. If things were going to happen, I wanted them to be as romantic as possible. I wanted our story, if it were to exist, to be one for the ages, one that we could tell family and friends and have them tearing up as I recounted how we had met in Hawaii, how at first she had found me insufferable, how somehow, perhaps through a miracle, I had begun to grow on her, how just when we’d been about to share our first kiss, I had asked her to dinner instead, how at dinner, we had—
Whoa, Rich. Easy there. Getting a bit of head of yourself, don’t you think?
I force myself to breathe. No need to write the last page when the first page was just beginning. Better to take it one step at a time.
And once again, you’ve forgotten that you’re not supposed to be writing any pages at all.
Soon we’re back at the resort. Above the beach, behind a tall row of bushes in the main garden where meals are served, I can see a hundred tiki torches flickering. The air around us is alive with the steady beat of drums. Looking over at Becca, I raise an eyebrow.
“A luau,” she says. “The bellboy told me there’d be one tonight.”
“Do you think they have roasted pig? I’m starving.”
“I dunno. Let’s go find out.”
We head up the beach towards the party. At the entrance to the garden, a pair of women in coconut bras and hula skirts are waiting with leis in their hands.
“Aloha!” they say in unison when we near them.
“Are you here for the luau?” the shorter one asks.
“We are,” Becca says as she bends her head down to allow the woman to slip a lei over her head. “Is there roasted pig?”
“Of course,” the other woman says cheerfully, a lei for me in her hand. I accept it without a word. “There are all sorts of traditional Hawaiian food. Hopefully you two are hungry.”
“Starved,” I say.
“Perfect,” the short one says. The two women step aside, giving us room to pass through a wooden archway spanning a gap in the bushes.
“Have fun!” they call after us.
“Oh wow,” Becca gasps when we come out the other side of the bushes. From here, I can now see that what had sounded from the beach like a party just getting started is actually a party in full swing, almost every table already filled with guests. On a stage opposite the buffet, a group of men with masks and spears are dancing around.
“Wow is right,” I murmur. Taking Becca’s hand, I guide her through the tables, searching for two empty seats. I had been worried that I would need a shirt but am relieved to see that I’m not the only one still in my bathing suit. In fact, only one or two guests are wearing proper dinner attire, everyone else still in bikinis and swim trunks.
“Hello,” a waiter says, appearing at my side from seemingly nowhere. He’s a man not much older than me with dark brown hair and skin turned a rich olive complexion from so many hours spent in the sun. When our eyes meet, his brow furrows as if he’s searching for some answer to a question that his mind has just posited. “And welcome,” he continues, his frown lifting into a smile. “Please follow me. I’ll show you to your table.”
Rather than take us to one of the large, round tables where most of the other guests are seated, he leads us instead to a small table for two right next of the stage. Pulling out Becca’s chair, he waves her into it.
“Can I start you two off with something to drink?” he asks, bending down so we can hear him over the singer who has just come onto the stage and is introducing himself to the crowd.
“I’d love some wine,” Becca answers. She looks at me.
“Wine would be great,” I confirm. “Though a fruity cocktail sounds nice, too. Can you bring me a piña colada?”
“Of course. I’ll be right back. In the meantime, feel free to help yourselves to the buffet.”
“Food?” Becca asks when the waiter has disappeared.
“Food,” I say.
We get up and walk over to the buffet, the two of us gasping as we approach the long table of victuals. It’s one of the most sumptuous repasts I’ve ever seen. In the center of the table, a full-size pig is laid out on a giant silver platter. Scattered around him are more dishes than I can count. Behind the table, several chefs in white hats are poised and ready, large knives and serving forks in their hands.
“There are so many different types of meat,” Becca whispers out of the corner of her mouth, “that I don’t know where to start.”
“Easy. Just start with everything.”
As Becca grabs a plate and begins to fill it, I grab one for myself and start in on the smaller dishes on either side of the pig. There are all sorts of things I don’t recognize. I was going to have to do some research later. Soon, my first plate is full and I have to get a second. By the time I return to my seat, my two heaping plates balanced carefully in my hands, Becca has been returned and eating for some time. Seeing my bounty, she shakes her head in disbelief.
“Geez,” she says as I drop down into the chair opposite her. “And I thought I was eating a lot of food.”
“It takes a lot of fuel to keep this body going.” On the table before us are two glasses of wine, a half-filled bottle and my piña colada. Taking hold the piña colada, I raise it. “To The Sandy!” I declare.
“To The Sandy,” Becca echoes. “And to new friends!” she quickly adds.
“To new friends!”
I take a sip of my drink and then dig in, basically swallowing my food without chewing so hungry I am. Neither of us talk as we eat, instead our attention turned to the singer onstage. He’s strumming a ukulele and crooning songs about living in Hawaii, the kind of songs that when heard made one seriously consider throwing it all away and moving straight to this paradise. Maybe the people here really were on to something. What was I doing with myself?
By the time the singer finishes, Becca and I are just about done eating, her plate and my two practically spotless. The bottle of wine, too, is all but gone. Thanking the crowd, the singer bows and exits the stage, the vacationers cheering, their faces all smiles, each one looking as happily buzzed as I feel.
“Give it up for Johnny Ocean,” a large Hawaiian man, the emcee, says as he climbs onto the stage. Giving a minute to let the applause die down, he continues. “Of course there will be more entertainment shortly, but for now, my friends, refill your drinks, take a few minutes to relax, and enjoy some lovely conversation amongst yourselves. I’ll be back soon to introduce our next act, an act I know you are all going to love.”
Climbing down off the stage, the emcee shakes the hand of some drunk man in a Hawaiian print shirt and cowboy hat who has stumbled up to him, grabs a half-finished drink from a table near the sound booth, and stalks off towards the buffet.
“Boy,” Becca says. Sitting back in her chair, she stretches her legs out and rubs a hand over her belly. “I’m stuffed.”
“Me too.” Forcing down a final bite of roasted pig, I take a sip of piña colada (my third) and sigh contentedly. “If I could eat like this every day for the rest of my life, I’d die a happy man.”
“It probably wouldn’t take long, either,” Becca chuckles. “Too much of this food could kill a person. How do the women stay so skinny?”
“It’s all that hip swinging.”
“You like that, huh?”
“Well…”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Boys will be boys.”
“And you? You’re not fond of the big Hawaiian men?”
“Some of them. The brawny, muscular ones. Not the fat ones. Though I like how jolly they are.”
“Wow, what a stereotype! Not all fat guys are jolly, you know.”
“Yes we are,” the big Hawaiian emcee interjects as he passes by on his way back to the stage, a plate of food in his hand. Becca and I laugh.
“See?” Becca says, taking another sip of her wine.
“Alright, alright. I’ll give you that one.”
The next performance doesn’t start for another twenty minutes, which is just fine by me. If I could, I’d stay right here forever in this little bubble of butterfly bliss with Becca. The more I talked to this gorgeous woman, the stronger these strange feeling of mine were becoming. Of course, the alcohol was helping it along, though these delicious tropical drinks were merely serving to polish the feeling rather than create it.
Just as on the beach, our talk is light and easy, the conversation skipping along like water over stones in a brook. Only now, sitting in this garden on this fine Hawaiian night, tiki torches flickering overhead and the gentle murmur of a hundred happy people flowing around us, there is no mention from either of us of our lives back on the mainland. It’s as if we’ve agreed that, for the moment at least, those lives don’t exist. All that we needed was right here in front of us. But maybe that was just the piña coladas speaking again. Alcohol had a tendency to make me wax a bit sentimental, to put it mildly.
At one point though, when the waiter has refilled our wine glasses with the first sips of a fresh bottle (I’ve been switching drinks back and forth all through the evening), my other life decides not to let me be and forces its way into my mind. On the way back from the bathroom, I overhear two men talking about football. More specifically, they are discussing me, pondering my fate and weighing my possible guilt. While it’s a relief to hear that neither man believes the rumors, their wives are another matter, both assured that the claims against me are true. For this reason, when I get back to the table, I’m somewhat shaken. Becca, discerning person that she is, immediately sets down her glass.
“What is it?” she asks quietly, concern in her eyes. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve just heard some bad news.”
“No, no, I’m okay.” I say, smiling weakly. It’s not until I do this that I realize just how deeply I’d been frowning. “Just thinking is all.”
“About what?”
“Oh, nothing important. I, just overheard some guys talking about that football player, the one who’s been in the news lately.” Rich, what are you doing?!
“The quarterback, you mean. What’s his name? Andrews? Addams?”
“Anderson, I think.”
“What about him?”
“They’d just been talking about whether or not they thought the rumors his ex-girlfriend is spreading are true.”
“I haven’t heard the rumors, only his name. What’s she saying?”
“Just throwing out some crazy accusations about him, telling anyone who will listen that he’s an abuser and that he did some pretty terrible things to her.”
“Oh,” Becca says, her face impassive. Though I’m doing my best not to seem overeager, I’m scanning every little nuance of her expression, searching for a clue as to what she could be thinking. Had she made the connection? But how could she? If she didn’t know my name, did I really think she would know what I looked like?
“Do you think he did it?” she asks.
“No,” I answer, just a little too quickly, or so it seems to me. “Honestly, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you know how it can be with famous athletes and rock stars. Everyone wants a piece of their fame and fortune. Probably she became a little crazy when he tried to end it. Hell, she was probably crazy before.”
“You think?”
“I do. Else why didn’t she say anything before he dumped her? At the very least, the timing of her accusations are suspicious.”
“Mmm,” Becca says, her attention wandering back over to the stage where a group of women in hula skirts and coconut bras are busy setting up for their performance. “Well,” she continues absentmindedly, “I’m sure it won’t even matter in the end. A story like that only last a short while before some other piece of breaking news comes up to replace it. If I were him, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I say, turning to face the stage where the women are all set up now. The woman in front, the leader by the looks of it, raises her hand, the crowd immediately silencing. “It’s best not to worry about these things…”
The hula performance starts, the emcee introducing the dancers and giving a bit of the history of hula before stepping down off the stage and leaving the women to it. All during the show, I’m so deep in thought that I’m not even really paying attention to the swaying women up on the stage. Every so often, I glance casually over at Becca. Maybe she was right. Maybe something else would come along soon enough and replace the media’s current interest in me, just as Jim had said. The public was always searching for the next big scandal, that next juicy story. In all likelihood, in a week or two some other famous athlete would be caught snorting cocaine off of a hooker in Miami and everyone would forget about me. Hmm, now wouldn’t that be nice?
What bothered me though wasn’t that I was still in the news, it was that I had been in the news at all. I had heard stories of the crazy women the famous tended to date and had, in fact, met more than a few, but never before had I experienced the full force of that craziness turned upon me. Until this had happened, I had never actually believed it could happen to me. I was too normal, too nice. There was no way I would find myself in such a situation, right?
Until, of course, I had. Well, at least Becca didn’t seem to believe it.
I must have some sort of strained expression on my face because when next I glance over at Becca, she’s staring at me, concern once more etched clearly onto her face. With a questioning tilt of her head, she reaches out, grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. Forcing a smile, I point at my belly. “Too full,” I mouth. Giggling, Becca nods and pulls her hand out of mine. We grab our wine glasses, clink them together as quietly as possible, and each take a sip.
“And now,” one of the women on stage is saying. She’s standing at the front of the stage with her hands on her hips, the line of hula dancers behind her all silently gyrating with their hands held over their heads. “I need two volunteers.”
The crowd is silent, everyone looking away. The hula dancer, not perturbed in the slightest, only smiles wider. Descending the steps at the front of the stage, she looks around, eyeing the various vacationers seated around her.
“Anyone?” she asks, slowly working her way through the crowd. “There’s no reason to be afraid. We’re all friends here.”
Still no one says a word, the tension palpable in the air. Don’t pick me, don’t pick me, you can hear everyone thinking.
The hula dancer nears our table. Instinctively, Becca and I lower our gazes.
“Ahh, here we go,” the woman says, stopping before our table and peering down at Becca and me. “My two volunteers. Come on, everyone! Let’s thank this lovely couple for volunteering!”
The crowd begins to hoot and holler, relieved to have escaped the guillotine. Becca glances at me, alarm in her eyes. Not at all oblivious to our discomfort, the hula dancer laughs and takes our hands. Reluctantly, we allow her to pull us to our feet. As one, we sigh in resignation. Looked like there was no escaping this. As the woman tugs us towards the stage, I reach back for my wine glass and down it in one quick gulp.
The hula dancer leads us up onto the stage, the crowd still cheering as she guides us behind the back curtain. Once we’re on the other side, she turns to us with a big, encouraging smile. Beside her is another dancer, two grass skirts held in her hands.
“Are we…?” I start, eyeing the skirts.
“Yep,” the woman holding the skirts giggles. “You are. But don’t worry, this is going to be fun.”
The women help us into the skirts, fastening them tight around our waists. My skirt is much too tiny and it takes several minutes to get it closed.
“How do I look?” I say when the women finally succeed, turning to Becca with my hands on my hips, my hips cocked to one side.
Becca laughs. “Fantastic. Though I think you’d look better if you had one of those coconut bras.”
As if on cue, another dancer appears with one.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?” Becca teases. “Self-conscious?”
“Don’t worry,” the dancer holding the bra says cheerfully. “It’ll look great on you.”
Becca and the three women laugh. With a sigh of resignation, I let the woman pull the bra over my head and fasten it around my back.
“Cute,” the woman says, stepping back to admire her handiwork. “It fits you well.”
Before I can utter a word of protest, the hula dancers take our hands and pull us back out onto the stage. When we appear from behind the curtain, the hundred or so drunk vacationers seated around the garden begin to clap and whistle and howl with laughter.
“Okay, ladies and gentleman, give it up for our two honorary dancers!”
I look over at Becca. She no longer looks perturbed to be up here. And why should she be? I was the one wearing the coconut bra. My face is hot with embarrassment; no doubt, I was as red as a tomato.
The big Hawaiian emcee, seeing my discomfort, hands me a full glass of wine. I down it in two swigs and hand it back. Okay, well, that was a little better.
While Becca and I stand there, the leader of the dancers explains to the crowd that tonight they would be showcasing a traditional dance. Of course, she continues, our two volunteers tonight weren’t the only ones who would find themselves up on this stage. If all went according to plan, most everyone could expect to have learned the basic moves by the end of their vacations.
Her spiel finished, the lead dancer hands the mic back to the emcee. The performance starts and the women lead Becca and me through a few basic hip swings. With the new glass of wine running through me, I feel a little less ridiculous, though still I’m not entirely comfortable. A few times throughout the performance, Becca looks over at me. Each time our eyes meet, the two of us can’t help but giggle. Soon, several other vacationers have joined us at the foot of the stage and are practicing the moves along with us.
The dance lasts about fifteen minutes. By the time it ends, I’ve had my eyes locked on Becca for quite some time. I can’t seem to look away. She’s so stunningly beautiful it was practically taking my breath away. How did I not know that this person existed before today, especially when it was beginning to feel so necessary to be near her?
“Alright, let’s thank our volunteers one more time!” the emcee shouts. As the audience applauds, the hula dancers untie the grass skirts from around our waists and the coconut bra from around my chest. Giving a slight bow to the crowd, Becca and I descend from the stage and return to our table.
“Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?” Becca says, giggling as she drops down into her seat and I settle into mine. For a while, neither one of us moves or says a word. We’re looking deep into one another’s eyes. All around us, dinner now officially over, vacationers are gathering their things and streaming out of the garden towards their respective rooms. Several waitresses have already begun to clear the tables, the chefs packing up what’s left of the roasted pig.
It’s not long before the garden has all but emptied. Still, not a word passes between us.
“Well…“ Becca finally begins when the last two people, an elderly couple in matching hats, have disappeared, “I guess I should probably be heading—“
“Do you want to go for a walk?” I interrupt, desperate suddenly for the night not to end.
A smile creeps over Becca’s face. Taking a sip of her wine, she nods.
I push myself up and hold out a hand for her. She slips her hand into mine and I pull her to her feet. My fingers entwined in hers, I lead her out of the garden. I have no particular destination in mind, though I know that wherever we’re headed, it’s straight towards trouble.
Are you sure about this, Rich? Are you sure your heart is ready?