Here Today, Gone to Maui Page 15

  “I don’t have any tech people,” he said. “I just have a general computer guy who manages the ordering system and keeps the desktops running.”

  “What?” Now I was confused. “How many people do you have working for you?”

  “Five. Well, that’s including me.”

  “That’s all?” It was so weird, how I could continue to feel jarred. Even though I knew Jimmy didn’t really own Jimmies, I still felt like the information he’d given me was true. That sounds stupid, I know, but I could only process one lie at a time.

  Michael pulled himself up straight. Well, straighter. “Considering that I got my start selling wetsuits out of the back of my van, I think that’s pretty good. Now we’ve got me and Ana—she’s my administrator. There’s Hank the computer guy, Lisa in purchasing—well, she’s only half-time—and Pedro in the warehouse.”

  “But what about Scott?” I asked.

  “Who’s Scott?”

  “In sales?” I prompted.

  He shook his head. “I do all the selling.”

  “I wonder who Scott is, then. He was on Jimmy’s cell phone. I’ll have to check with the police, see if they called him yet. At any rate, you should really get your Web site fixed,” I said. “I mean, honestly—if the Web site had been working, I would have realized Jimmy was a fraud months ago.”

  Michael stroked his chin. “So you’re saying that this whole thing—the disappearance, the other girlfriend, the media storm—it’s all my computer guy’s fault?”

  I took a long drink of my mai tai. “Yup,” I said. “It’s all Hank’s fault.”

  Tables took turns going up to the buffet at the front of the pit. There must have been three hundred hungry people, but the flowered-shirt brigade ushered us through like seasoned marine mess officers. In turn, we loaded thick white plates with ham, chicken, fish, pork, rice, fish, vegetables, salad, bread. All things considered, it wasn’t that different from the spread at the Hometown Buffet, though of course the Hometown Buffet doesn’t have tiki torches. Or poi. Poi is the crushed taro-root paste that everyone says is disgusting but that actually tastes pretty good with kalua pork, which, as it turns out, is not made with Kahlúa liqueur. Who knew?

  The wind picked up. Tiara had so much gel in her hair that her bun remained slick and perfect, if a little shellacked, save for one small strand that slipped out of the front and framed her face. Even her flower stayed behind her ear. What did she use—Super Glue?

  Between bites, I asked Michael to fill in some more details. “So the police said you grew up in . . . Connecticut?”

  He nodded. “Westport. Is that what Jimmy told you?”

  I shook my head. “Lancaster.”

  “Pennsylvania?”

  “California.”

  “He’s probably really from there, then.” He pulled out his phone. “We should tell the police.” He froze and then looked at me, anxious. “Do you think anyone would notice if I kept my voice really low?”

  I scowled in disapproval. He put the phone back in his pocket.

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “New Jersey.”

  “What exit?” he quipped.

  I narrowed my eyes. “You want to know the real reason I moved to California? So I won’t have to hear that stupid joke anymore.”

  He grinned.

  “Jimmy told me he was from Texas,” Tiara interjected, holding up her hand and fluttering her long nails to get the server’s attention. The server, being a woman, ignored her.

  “What about his parents?” I asked.

  “Texas,” she said. He’d told me Arizona. I was even more confused than before.

  After the dessert buffet (I limited myself to three selections) and another mai tai, the show began: basically, a Vegas-meets-Maui extravaganza explaining how the Hawaiian Islands were created (from volcanic eruptions) and how they were populated (from various South Pacific islands). The sky had turned a purplish gray, showing the torches to their best advantage. Onstage, the hula dancers swayed to the raindrop-and-drum music. Next to me, Tiara downed her umpteenth mai tai and said, “That looks like fun!”

  She held her arms out hula fashion—except somehow it made her look like a zombie. A really hot zombie with great hair and enormous boobs.

  So I was jealous. Sue me.

  After some more drums, wiggles, and don’t-try-this-at-home fire tricks, the alpha-male hula dancer padded to the center of the stage, his brown legs thick and masculine beneath his grass skirt, and asked audience members to come onstage.

  Tiara got up to dance. Of course she did. She jumped out of her chair so fast her napkin stuck to her dress for an instant before slipping to the ground.

  “She’s something,” Michael said as Tiara fought her way to center stage front.

  “Mm,” I said.

  “I’m astonished that Jimmy—or, whatever his name really is—would be attracted to both of you,” Michael said.

  I straightened in my chair, suddenly sober. (Well, soberer, anyway.) “That seems to be the general consensus.” My voice was tight.

  Michael looked at me sideways. “I meant it as a compliment.”

  “Oh!” I tried not to look delighted. I failed. “Thank you.”

  Michael returned his gaze to the stage. “She’s not a bad hula dancer, though,” he said, completely ruining the moment.

  “If you like zombies,” I grunted. “It’s like Night of the Living Dancer.” My sobriety had been short-lived.

  Michael raised an eyebrow just long enough for me to remember that pettiness is never attractive.

  I don’t know what possessed me to join Tiara on the stage. Competitiveness? Jealousy? Rum? But when the alpha fire dog asked for more volunteers, I was the first one out of my seat, pausing just long enough to grab Michael’s hand and say, “You’re coming with me.”

  Give us pear-shaped girls a bit of credit: we can really shake our hips when the occasion arises. Following instructions, I held my arms out and took two steps in each direction. Then I made circles with my hips: two slow rotations followed by two fast ones. “You go, girl!” Tiara hooted. At that, I raised my arms higher and shook my, yes, boo-tay.

  Up on the luau stage, front and center with Tiara and Michael, I forgot for a moment why I’d come to Hawaii. I forgot about standing on the beach, peering at the choppy water until my eyes hurt, just hoping, hoping, Jimmy would appear. I forgot about the police station. About the ring. About my lonely future.

  Shaking my hips on a stage in Maui, rum coursing through my veins, I was, for a brief time, just another giddy tourist in a flowered rayon dress.

  “Are you okay to drive?” Michael asked, grabbing my elbow as I stumbled up the red flagstone steps toward the open-air lobby. He had wisely switched from mai tais to water before dessert.

  “I figured I’d just take a cab back to the condo—get my car in the morning.” My balance reestablished, I continued up the wide steps, walking next to Michael.

  “I’m going in the same direction,” he said. “I’ll drop you.”

  “You guys!” Tiara shoved herself between us, hooking arms. “You’re not going home! It’s only eight o’clock. Let’s check out some of the other hotels, maybe find a place to go dancing.”

  “Not tonight,” I said, meaning, of course, not any night.

  “I’m pretty beat,” Michael said.

  He likes me better, I thought.

  Michael waited by a parrot while I went upstairs with Tiara to get my groceries and clothes.

  “You guys are party poopers!” Tiara said, bouncing down the hall and pulling out her hair clip. She shook her head, and her dark locks cascaded around her shoulders. “I might have to go out and find something fun to do without you!” She was really pretty drunk.

  At her door, she reached into her yellow handbag and pulled out a credit-card-size key. She slid it into the slot and . . . nothing.

  “Huh.” She looked at the key, flipped it around, and tried again. Nothing. She
held it out to me. “You try.”

  I slipped it this way and that, but the door wouldn’t open.

  “These stupid keys never work right,” she muttered.

  Back in the lobby, I waited with Michael (and the parrot) while Tiara sashayed across the red flagstones to the front desk.

  “How long are you staying in Maui?” I asked him.

  “Just till Saturday. You?”

  “Thursday. I’m taking a red-eye out. I mean, that’s what I’m booked on, anyway. And don’t worry—I’m going to call them tomorrow, have them switch it to my credit card.”

  He waved his hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “But what about Australia?”

  “I’ll get there somehow.”

  I was about to protest some more, when I heard a woman’s shrill voice. Tiara, at the front desk, was making a scene.

  “But the credit-card companies said they would cover it!” she shrieked. “But I have no place else to stay!”

  “Uh-oh,” Michael said.

  Tiara was in tears, much to the fascination of the mob of Japanese tourists waiting in line behind her.

  “Explain it to them, Michael!” she wailed, grabbing his arm, her fingers splayed out so her long nails wouldn’t scratch him.

  “I, um, uh—”

  “Is this about the credit-card fraud?” I asked the young Hawaiian woman at the front desk, smiling pleasantly so she’d know I wasn’t crazy like Tiara. She nodded nervously. Just like at the Maui Hi, the female staff wore muumuus, though the beige print was subtle, and the garments actually fit.

  “Because Ms. Cardenas was in no way responsible for the fraud,” I assured the woman. “And she is fully prepared to pay for her room here.”

  “What?” Tiara yelped. “I can’t afford this place!”

  Off to our left, a plump blond couple in competing tropical prints bent their heads together, whispering. Finally, the woman took a few steps toward me. “Aren’t you the women I read about in the paper?”

  I shuddered, remembering the unflattering shot and disappointed that someone could recognize me from it. “Yes,” I said.

  She looked at Michael. “So, is this . . . the guy?”

  “No,” I said. “Well, yes. It’s the guy people thought was missing, but not the guy who was actually missing.”

  She blinked furiously, as if I’d said something confusing.

  A bellman brought out a rolling brass cart stacked with Tiara’s two mismatched suitcases (one red, one leopard print) and my plastic Safeway bags.

  “Do you know how long the milk has been out of the refrigerator?” I asked the bellman, who was unable to provide me with a satisfactory answer.

  Michael popped out front and gave his ticket to the valet while Tiara continued to cry and say, “But it’s not my fault!” She hadn’t been nearly this hysterical when Jimmy went missing, but she hadn’t been drunk then, either.

  When Michael’s car arrived (a convertible!) the bellman silently (and quickly) pushed the cart out the front door and loaded everything into the trunk. I took Tiara’s arm and pulled her to the curb. She was practically limp, worn out from the hysteria. “But I have no place to go,” she whimpered.

  “There’s plenty of room where I’m staying,” Michael said, handing the valet a tip. “You can come home with me.”

  “NO!” I said. Everyone (including the valets) looked at me in surprise. I cleared my throat. “What I mean is . . .” What did I mean, exactly?

  “I understand what Tiara is going through,” I said. “And I think it’s important that she and I support each other. You know—talk things out. I’d like her to stay with me.”

  Shoot me now.

  Michael shrugged and slid into the driver’s seat. “Okay.”

  Tiara enfolded me in a hug—not easy since her enormous rack didn’t exactly compress. “Thanks, Jan. That means a lot to me.”

  “It’s Jane,” I said.

  Chapter 19

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to withstand a touchy-feely discussion with Tiara because when I came out of the bathroom after changing into my nightgown, she was passed out on my bed. In her underwear. The matching bra and panties were satin and lace, the same shade of teal as her dress.

  There was no way I was getting into that bed with her. I pulled the stinky cushions off the chairs and lined them up on the floor. There were no spare sheets, of course, so I spread a couple of scratchy white towels on top of the cushions as a kind of barrier between me and the mold that inevitably lay within. I retrieved the scary bedspread from the closet and pulled one of the dust-mite-infested pillows off the bed.

  Astonishingly enough, I slept. Okay, maybe it’s not so astonishing when you factor in all of the mai tais.

  Shortly after daybreak, the phone woke me. I lunged for the receiver as a primitive, really stupid part of my brain thought, Jimmy. Maybe Jimmy had been found. Maybe Jimmy was alive. Maybe Jimmy had an explanation for the credit-card mix-up and the affair with Tiara. Maybe cats could swim and whales could fly.

  It was Mary.

  “I’m glad you called,” I said, even though it was seven o’clock in the morning and I didn’t want to hear from anyone unless it was Jimmy calling to beg my forgiveness.

  “Don’t leave your room,” Mary commanded.

  “I wasn’t planning to at the moment,” I said, bleary-eyed. “But I wanted to ask you—are there any more units available right now? Because there’s this woman—”

  “A luau,” Mary was saying.

  “Yes,” I said. “I went to one last night.”

  Mary’s words continued to seep through as I thought, Jimmy’s gone. Really gone. “Pictures,” I heard her say. “Video.”

  “What?” I needed coffee. And aspirin. And five more hours of sleep.

  “Turn on the TV,” she said.

  I did. And there I was—again. Only this time I didn’t look like the shocked and grieving fiancée. This time I was standing front and center of the hula line, leaning a little too close to Michael, and I looked like, I looked like—

  “Tramp,” Mary said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “There’s this headline on the Internet,” she said. “It says, ‘Two Tramps. Where’s the Lady?’ ”

  “That’s not even very clever,” I said weakly.

  “There are at least four reporters in the parking lot,” Mary told me. “Plus a couple of camera crews. Stay in your room.”

  Mary was right: there were a couple of news vans in the parking lot, along with a woman in a pink suit and a man in shades of blue and beige. Stuck in the room, I settled back on my cushions and watched my life on television. Some of the shots I’d seen before: the search crews at Slaughterhouse Beach, Michael’s DMV photo. Others were new: the hula line on the luau stage. Me loading my plate at the dessert buffet. Jimmy in mid-orgasm.

  I screamed. Tiara made a couple of sleepy-snorting noises and repositioned herself on the bed. She’d love these pictures. She looked great at the luau, and the porno picture of Jimmy’s was hers, of course. As for the next quick video—Tiara throwing a tantrum in the Hyatt lobby (Hey! Who was hiding the camera?)—she might not be so thrilled.

  When my cell phone rang, I checked the display (it was my sister, Beth) and muted the television.

  “Aloha,” I said weakly.

  “What. The. Fuck.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that word before,” I said.

  “Jane! What’s going on?”

  “I guess you heard about Jimmy’s disappearance,” I mumbled. “And about the other woman.” She didn’t need to know that the other woman was in the room with me.

  I was embarrassed, I realized with surprise. Surely I should be feeling something darker, stronger? But my level of embarrassment was so profound it was crossing over into humiliation, which in turn crowded out a whole host of more noble emotions.

  I’d last seen Beth over the holidays. After Christmas Eve dinner (a
seafood-and-pasta extravaganza, all of which Beth prepared and served while her mother-in-law sat on her ass and said that an Irish girl can never cook like an Italian), Beth had advised me to give Jimmy an ultimatum: not for marriage, not yet, but for a steady, committed relationship (whatever that meant). She had asked why I didn’t see him more regularly. She’d wanted to know what he was doing at Christmas, why he hadn’t flown east with me.

  “It’s early,” I’d said, scrubbing an especially noxious pot. “We haven’t been going out that long.”

  “Early in the relationship, maybe.” China clinked as she maneuvered yet another plate into the dishwasher. “But not early in your life.”

  She said stuff like this not as my protective big sister but as Mrs. Sal Piccolo, mother of five, devoted scrapbooker, coupon clipper, and CCD instructor at Our Lady of the Turnpike parish. (It’s not really called that; I just say it to annoy her. Also, CCD isn’t called CCD anymore, either—presumably because nobody ever knew what CCD stood for.)

  She was just being defensive, I decided. Nobody could really believe that Sal (“We’ll keep pumping ’em out till we get a boy”) was better than my golden god Jimmy.

  “Jimmy will come for Christmas next year,” I had told Beth, putting the pot aside to soak. He’d promised no such thing, of course. He seemed incapable of planning more than a few hours ahead. But at that moment, I believed it.

  “Is it on TV back there?” I asked her now, peeking through the venetian blinds. The reporters were still there.

  On the muted television, a close-up of my face flashed on the screen. “Oh my God!” I shrieked. “I’ve got something stuck between my teeth!”

  “What? So take it out,” Beth said.

  “Not now! Last night. We went to a luau, and someone took videos and—”

  “I know,” she said. “It was in our paper.”

  “You read the newspaper?” That came out wrong.

  “When I get the time.” That meant never. “My friend Renée called me. You remember Renée? From the PTA?”