I laugh, and a red splotch blooms on her neck. “One with a motor,” I say.
“Sorry, I don’t know a thing—”
“No, I’m laughing because it was charming, that’s all. You’re charming.”
She touches her palm to her chest. I think this is as close as I’ll ever get to cheating on Joanie, as close as I’ll get to revenge. If Joanie was in love with someone else, why didn’t she tell me? I wonder if she was really waiting for me to sell my shares to file for divorce. I hope she wasn’t that cold. I’m grateful that I probably will never find out. Her silence lets me make her into whomever I want her to be.
Mrs. Speer looks at the ocean. I do the same.
“We saw John Cusack here yesterday,” she says. “And Neve Campbell. They were surfing.”
“Oh,” I say. “And who are they?”
“They’re actors,” she says. “Hollywood. They’re, you know, celebrities.”
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, there’s a lot of them here. What movies are they in?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I can’t think of any.”
“Interesting,” I say.
“Silly,” she says. “Talking about celebrities. Anyway.”
“No,” I say. “It’s fascinating, really.”
I give her a look of encouragement. She bites her thumb and looks down and then looks back up at me and says with a grin, “I think you couldn’t care less.”
I laugh. “You’re right. Actually, you’re wrong. I do care! I can’t stand celebrities. I can’t stand how much we pay them, and those award shows, my God. It’s absolutely ludicrous.”
“I know. I know. I get it, but I can’t help myself.”
“You don’t buy the magazines, do you?”
“I do!”
“Oh, no,” I say. I press my palm to my forehead and then see Scottie running toward us and realize I’ve momentarily forgotten who this woman is. She is Brian’s wife. She isn’t my friend. I’m not supposed to be laughing right now or enjoying life in any way.
“Your hat!” Scottie says. “I found it.” She holds up the hat with the long and floppy brim. It’s wet and resembles a strip of seaweed as Scottie wrings it out.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Speer says, reaching for it.
Scottie stares at her shyly, as though expecting an award. “Do you want your towel?” she asks. “You have goose bumps.”
I look down at Mrs. Speer’s legs, the tiny bumps dotting her skin.
“I guess I could use a towel,” she says.
“I’ll get it.” Scottie runs toward Mrs. Speer’s bag, and I look at her apologetically, but she seems relaxed. She walks up the incline to the warm dry sand and sits. I follow her lead, running my fingers through the sand. I glance over at the bumps on her legs.
Scottie comes back to us and wraps the towel around Mrs. Speer’s shoulders, then sits beside her. “I shave, too,” Scottie says. The woman looks at Scottie’s legs. “Wow,” she says.
“I had to because I got attacked by a herd of minor wars. Man-of-wars, I mean.”
This is the line she wanted to use on her mother. I’m angry at how disloyal Scottie is. She has moved on, adopted a new form of mother so easily. She’d need only a day to fall in love with someone else, but I guess this is what kids do. They won’t mourn us the way we want them to.
“So you had to shave?” Mrs. Speer asks.
“Yeah. Shave off the poison.”
“Are you staying in the cottages?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “My husband had to come here for work. We thought we’d make a little vacation of it. He knows the owner, so…”
“Hugh.”
“That’s right.” She seems relieved that I know someone she knows.
“He’s my cousin,” I say.
“Oh, I see. Oh. Okay. You probably know my husband, then. Brian Speer?”
I look straight ahead. I see Sid and Alex jumping off the raft, which lists back and forth. The woman’s older son has drifted farther out. He could drown, possibly; he’s unsuccessfully fighting the current to get back in. I could tell her everything. I could make her feel as bad as I feel, and we could talk about things more consequential than the ages of our children. We could talk about love and heartbreak, beginnings and ends.
“I don’t know your husband,” I say.
“Oh,” she says. “I just assumed—”
“Scottie, go tell him to swim sideways to get in.”
Scottie, surprisingly obedient, stands and walks to the ocean.
Mrs. Speer shields her eyes to look for her son, then stands. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. Current’s just tricky. Scottie will help him.”
She looks at me, her face full of worry. I can read it clearly. She wants me to help her. Brian’s wife needs me to rescue her son. I can’t see the boy’s face, but I know what he’s feeling. He’s frustrated and embarrassed, he’s both incredulous and mindful of the predicament he’s in. He’s alive. He has a simple desire: Get back in, get back in, just get back to shore.
Get Brian, get Brian, just bring him to shore.
I don’t want to get wet. “I’ll get him,” I say.
“Thank you,” Brian’s wife says. “That’s so good of you.”
31
I TAKE THE kids to dinner at Tiki’s. The restaurant has a dark interior and woven mats hanging on the wall. It always looks closed, and there are no consistent hours or days of operation. The bar and the tables are stapled with a skirt of raffia that traps pieces of battered coconut. The service is slow, and the waitstaff always acts persecuted. Their food is made carelessly and greasily, and the way you order (baked, grilled, sautéed) is an unnecessary choice because it doesn’t matter how you want your fish: You are getting it battered. Tiki’s is my favorite restaurant on Kauai. My father would take me here. Sometimes after dinner he’d sit at the worn bar and I would stay at our table, listening to the ukulele club and coloring on the paper tablecloth. Now there’s no tablecloth, just wood, and kids whose fathers sit at the bar carve into the tables with their steak knives.
The ukulele club still meets here to practice. They’re here tonight, old Hawaiians who smoke cigarettes and snack on boiled peanuts in between their jam sessions. It’s nice taking my kids to an old haunt, but I’ve also brought them here because I know Hugh comes in every night for pre-dinner cocktails. I want to ask him about his houseguests. I see him at the bar and tell the girls and Sid to get settled. Sid pulls out a chair for Scottie, and she sits down, then looks up at him as he pushes her in.
“Where you off to?” Alex asks.
“I’m going to say hello to our cousin.”
Alex looks over at the bar. “Cousin Hugh!”
I check her face to see if she’s being sarcastic. “Are you joking?”
“No,” she says. “I love Cousin Hugh.”
“Why?”
Sid looks at the bar and squints.
“He’s just old and funny,” Alex says.
I look at the back of Hugh, his wild white tufts of hair, his broad upper body and skinny legs. For most of my life, he seemed a bit scary because of his big frame and sharp mind, but I guess people reach an age where scary becomes “cute,” and I feel sort of bad about this.
“Okay, well. Order me something. It doesn’t matter what. And be nice to the waitress. Talk pidgin. Don’t talk, you know, English.”
They nod. They get it. Sid straightens up in his chair and peruses the menu as if he’s the man of the house.
I walk to the bar. “Hey, cousin,” I say, sliding up beside him.
“Eh!” he says, standing halfway up before collapsing back onto the stool. I sit down and make eye contact with the bartender. He stays where he is and purposefully looks at the other end of the bar. Hugh calls the bartender over and, in his raspy smoker’s voice, orders me an old-fashioned, which sounds good. He pats my back and the bartender nods almost reverently. Hugh looks back over his shoulder to see who I’m here with.
“Scottie and Alex,” I say.
“Big girls already,” he says and turns back around.
Sometimes I love that no one really cares about anyone else. If Hugh did, he’d say hello to the girls, ask questions about them and me, remember that my wife is in a coma. None of these things happen, and I’m grateful.
“I see you have some houseguests,” I say.
“What?”
“Some people staying in the cottage.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Determined son of a bitch. He’s, ah, Lou’s sister’s—No, wait. Lou has a sister, and the sister’s husband—Lou’s brother-in-law—is cousins with that guy’s wife.”
“Huh,” I say, not really getting it.
“No, wait. What cottage you talking about?”
Hugh is drunk. There are balls of sweat along his hairline: sweat balls. I remember them from childhood. Whenever he’d get drunk, he’d sprout them and try to put on the most serious expression, masking all the confusion skulking around in his head. He wears that expression now. “You mean da cottage on the bay or da one back by da trail?”
“The bay,” I say. “The guy with the wife and two boys.” The raffia brushes my thighs, and I look for ensnared pieces of old fish.
“Oh, sure, sure. Determined son of a bitch.” Hugh leans a bit toward me and talks to my chin. “I’m doing some business with a guy, and this guy—in the cottage on the bay—is that guy’s friend.”
“That’s nice of you,” I say. “To let them stay there.”
Hugh shrugs and suddenly grasps his bar stool, thinking he was falling, I suppose.
“So what’s he like?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Never mind,” I say.
“Hana hou!” Hugh shouts at the musicians, who have just finished a song. They begin another fast song, and I look over at the old men singing, the small wooden instruments held close to their chests, their fingers strumming madly. One stands and lunges as he plays, as though his fingers need the extra push from his body. Their hands are all dark and gristly-looking. I look at my girls, watching them. Scottie’s mouth is around a straw that’s submerged in a fruity white drink.
The bartender keeps looking over at me, making sure I’m okay, as if to compensate for his initial rudeness. I nod and he looks toward the door at a couple entering. The man wears an aloha shirt and the woman wears a purple orchid lei around her neck, the kind that the hotel gives to guests on arrival. Sid threw his off the balcony and Scottie copied him. Alex tore hers into bits as she watched the movie. Mine is haloed around the bedside lamp. The man and woman look as though they want to leave but are afraid it may seem rude. They stand near the entrance, waiting to be seated, and then the husband finally walks over to the nearest table. I see his wife calling for him to come back, but she looks around and eventually follows. The bartender looks away from them. He punches his fist into his palm in time to the music.
“What’s the guy like who’s staying in the cottage?” I take a long sip of my drink.
“He’s lucky,” Hugh says. “The bugga’s lucky. His sister is married to the guy.”
“What guy?” This conversation is impossible. Hugh would be a good man to torture. He’d never tell because he couldn’t.
“The guy I’m doing business with.”
“Who is…”
“Don Holitzer.”
“Don Holitzer? Well, shit, Hugh. I’m kind of doing business with him, too, remember?”
“That’s what I said.”
A panic makes its way through my body. I feel like someone’s playing a trick on me.
“That’s what I said,” Hugh says again. “Don’s friend is staying in the cottage.”
“Right,” I say. There’s no use fighting it. I try to take a few deep breaths without looking like I’m taking a few deep breaths. The same thought keeps repeating itself: Don is Brian’s brother-in-law. Don is Brian’s brother-in-law?
“Interesting,” I say. “I guess he lucked out, having a brother-in-law like Don.” I feel I’ve had an epiphany and yet I don’t know what the epiphany really is. I don’t comprehend the luckiness or see how his family status would benefit Brian or Joanie. You don’t become rich just because your sister’s husband is rich. I suppose you get perks, but are perks the motivation behind Joanie’s determination? I see only the bad sides: Brian’s kids will play with Don’s kids and will constantly compare inventory. Why don’t we have an Xbox iPod robot? Why don’t we have a rock waterfall in the pool? Why don’t we have new cars and a staff of childhood consultants? Sounds like hell. Is this what Joanie was aiming for? Giving her lover’s brother-in-law another business opportunity? Was she so far past her own family that she was moving on to her potential in-laws? I look back at my children, frantic, as though they might have been kidnapped. I see my dinner waiting for me, which almost brings me to tears. They ordered for me. They took a guess on what I would like. They remembered me.
“He’s a Realtor,” Hugh says.
I don’t answer. Hugh looks at me like I’ve done something wrong.
“Great,” I say. “I hope his business is booming.”
“It will be.” Hugh holds up his glass and looks at the liquid, trying to gauge something, though I’m not sure what. He shakes the glass and takes a sip. I hear the ice crash onto his face. He wipes his face with his sleeve.
“If we sell to Don, and that’s what it’s looking like right now—that’s what you want, right?—then Don’s going to redevelop and sell…”
“I know.” Come on, get it out.
Hugh waves his hand, indicating all of the dealings. “And,” he says. “And he’s letting his brother-in-law be in charge of all the real estate transactions.”
The realization I’m supposed to have presents itself and settles in me like a strange sustenance. I get it. I finally get it. Brian is basically a Realtor with about three hundred thousand acres of commercial and industrial land, my land, as his client. Joanie wouldn’t divorce me for a Realtor who lives in an average home, but she’d divorce me for a business partner of Don Holitzer, potential largest landowner in Hawaii. She’d divorce me for someone she could mold.
Hugh whistles, a cartoonish sound indicating someone falling off a cliff.
The men play a slow song on their ukuleles and it sounds like an anthem, an ode to my loss. It’s hard to love my wife right now. If she were perfectly healthy and I found this out, I’d wish upon her the fate she is currently enduring, at least momentarily. But I could ruin everything for Brian. I could choose someone else.
“There are still other bidders,” I say to Hugh. “He may not get a thing.” I can still win, Joanie. I imagine her on the bed, her body still and gathering sores from lack of movement, the makeup on her skin settling into her pores because no one’s there to wash it away. No one can care for her because she’s refused it. No, I can’t win. No one can win. Even Brian doesn’t win because he won’t have her.
I finish my drink. It has generated an angry heat in my chest that surges throughout the rest of my body.
“He’ll get it,” Hugh says. “We all want Don. You do, too.” He brings his glass down hard on the bar, then looks at me and smiles. His steely eyes are determined; I notice they haven’t aged with the rest of him. They’re not cute. They’re young and smart, and I know he’s telling me what to do. He’s telling me my relations with my family will be damaged if I don’t do what he wants me to do. I think of Racer breaking off his marriage to please his family, and I know I’m trapped.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say. Tomorrow’s the day my cousins and I are meeting. Tomorrow I will need to please people I hardly know, yet people I’m undeniably and inexplicably bound and dedicated to.
“Next time stay longer,” Hugh says, his habitual farewell.
He edges off his seat, nods to the bartender, and raises his hand in farewell to the restaurant, keeping his gaze focused on his footing as though he’s on precarious t
errain. “Hana hou,” he yells toward the musicians, then puts on his cowboy hat and walks out.
I go to my table, to the food on my plate.
“This rocks,” Sid says.
“Totally,” Scottie says, coming up from her straw and then going back down again.
I could cry if I looked too closely at my daughters, so I don’t look at them. I look ahead at the old men and wonder if I’ll be an old man one day or if I’ll die early. I take a bite of my meal, but it’s hard to swallow—something anxious and sad is coursing through my body like a drug, and my throat feels swollen.
Scottie shuffles her food around. “I ordered mahimahi, but I think this is just fried bread,” she says. “They forgot the fish part.”
“That happens sometimes,” I say.
“Mine was so good,” Sid says. “I love anything fried. Cheese, vegetables, fruit.”
Alex’s plate is empty. She is relaxed in her chair, gazing at the musicians with a look of love. I bet she’s not thinking about anything right now, and I’m glad for her.
The musicians strike the last chord with great fanfare, letting their strumming hands follow through to the sky. A few jump out of their chairs and hunch forward as though completing a race. The girls and Sid clap and cheer. Scottie stomps her feet on the floor. I look down and shovel food into my mouth, trying to pat down the emotion that’s threatening to spill over. I look at the tourist couple. I focus on them. My view of the man’s hand is blocked by the raffia on the table, but I can tell it’s resting on her thigh. She has taken off her lei. It hangs on the back of an empty chair. There are beer bottles on their table and glasses of ice with paper umbrellas. The woman has put one of these cocktail umbrellas into her hair. He tries to feed her a bite of his dessert—fried banana and ice cream—but she takes the fork and feeds herself, then cuts off another bite.
When our table’s cheers wane, Alex gives me what seems to be a guilty look. I interpret it to mean that she knows her happiness is out of character, or that her happiness is out of place—we aren’t supposed to be happy right now. I think we all know we should go home soon but don’t want to. The musicians pack up their instruments.
The Descendants Page 18
