12 Hours In Paradise (5 page)

“How are we ever going to answer thirty-two more questions before I have to go?”

I swung around using the support of his arm until I was facing him.

He leaned down and whispered so quietly in my ear that I had to strain to hear him above the racket of vacation warriors. “We have to talk fast,” he said, punctuating his sentence with a soft puff of breath.

The hair on the back of my neck went wild with excitement.

“Question number five…‘When-did-you-last-sing-to-yourself? To-someone-else?’”

We both laughed. “Okay, maybe not that fast,” I said. “And I know when we both sang to someone else. About five minutes ago.”

“And to yourself. Quick, no time to think about your answer.”

“Probably last year on my birthday. Every birthday I wake up and sing the happy birthday song to myself before I get out of bed.”

“Really?” He arched his eyebrows. “I would say that’s a sign of a well-adjusted and happy individual with high self-esteem.”

“You really think so?”

“If you think so, then I probably just guessed right. Otherwise…it sounded pretty good, don’t you think?”

“And you? When did you last sing to yourself?”

“I’m sure it must have been today or yesterday. I sing to myself all the time.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I record it here whenever I get an idea for a song.”

“I wanna hear.” I made a grab for his phone, but he held it above my head out of my reach before replacing it in his pocket. I let it go.

“Question six…”

His cell phone chimed, and he retrieved it from his pocket, and then swiped his thumb across the screen. A smile crept over his face.

“What’s so funny? Who was that?”

“That was the Adonis. The boy of your initial dreams before I stole you away from him.”

“The blond guy you were with in the cookie store?”

“The very same one. Should I have put you on with him?”

“Um…no. Why was he calling?”

“We’re sharing a room at the hotel with two other guys. He was just checking on me. Obviously, he knows I’m gone.”

“He won’t say anything to anyone, will he?”

Arash cocked an eyebrow and skeptically lifted one side of his mouth. “Dorothy…please tell me you’ve heard of the bro code.”

“Okay, okay. I just don’t want you to get in trouble because of me.”

“And I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me. Shall we go back to your hotel now? We could text-answer the rest of the questions.”

“And not stare into each other’s eyes for four straight minutes? The whole test would be invalid.”

“It’s true, it would…but I think you should go back.”

“Question six…hurry.”

“Question six. ‘If you live to be ninety, would you rather have the mind or the body of a thirty-year-old for the last sixty years of your life? You can’t have both.’”

“I don’t want either. Can’t I have a younger body and/or mind? How about eighteen? Or even twenty? That’s still a long ways away from now.”

“I suppose thirty is pretty old, so let’s make it a twenty-year-old. Body or mind?”

“Hmmm…so I could be ninety and have a really hot bod?”

“But lose your mind.”

“Mind then. You?”

“Mind, definitely.”

We’d arrived at an ice cream mochi store. “You want one?” I asked.

“First you’d have to explain what ice cream mochi is,” Arash said. “And then I’ll decide if I want one.”

“Mochi is…well, it’s Japanese, I know that much.”

“And?”

“And I think it’s made from rice.”

“And the taste of this Japanese rice creation. How would it differ from…say, the taste of rice?”

“Oh, it’s sweet. And gooey. Well, not really gooey but more chewy.”

“Gooey but chewy. Sweet and Japanese. And something about ice cream?”

“Ice cream in the middle.”

“Dorothy, you’ve managed to sell this well. I think I’d very much like to join you for an ice cream mochi. Is there a particular flavor you’d recommend?”

“I like green tea,” I said warily. I wasn’t sure if I really
had
sold him or if he was just teasing.

“Then green tea it is.”

The line snaked out the door like every other place in Waikiki.

“We could use this time to answer a few more questions.” I was slightly wobbly with fatigue and leaned back into him. He wrapped his arms around me for a minute before pulling away slightly to rest his hands on my shoulders.

“This is a hard one,” he said. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

“‘Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?’”

“It’s funny that you ask that, because just this morning my dad read an article in the local paper that said every year in Japan, people die from eating mochi.”

Arash whipped me around by my shoulders to face him. “And this is what you’ve chosen to feed me tonight? Are you trying to get rid of me so you can finally have access to my roommate?”

I giggled. “It’s usually older people and people who don’t chew the mochi well enough. Because it’s sort of thick and chewy.”

“And gooey and sweet. I’ll be sure to chew it well.”

“Then you’re fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“And are you telling me you have a foreshadowing this is how you’ll die? Choking on a mochi ice cream ball?”

“No, I seriously don’t have any hunches about that. I never think about it. You?”

“A stroke. That’s how I’ll go.”

“Are you serious or are you just being weird?”

“I’m not serious, because of course I have no way of knowing. It’s a fear. A fear more than a hunch. Let’s move on to the next question. Two green-tea-flavored mochi things,” he said to the girl behind the counter. “Please, if you have some that are a little less chewy, we’d prefer those. Is there a paramedic on duty?”

I handed her a ten dollar bill. “He’s just kidding.”

“Please let me pay.” Arash plunged his hand into his jeans pocket.

“I got it. You bought my dress, after all.”

“Your dress selected you. I only facilitated its eventual destination.”

“You know what, Arash?”

“What?”

“I never thought I’d say this, but Chester’s right. You
do
talk funny.”

“Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?”

“Both. Let’s go outside and eat by the pool. It’s this way.”

***

We retraced our steps to the hub of the open-air lobby. A clear Plexiglas divider protected a sand sculpture from its admirers. People took turns posing in front of the sculpture, but that didn’t interest me. It wasn’t like I built it or anything.

“I can’t believe someone actually made that,” I said. “I mean…I’ve made a lot of pathetic sand sculptures in my life but nothing that looked better than a pretty basic castle.”

“Do you believe someone really made it?”

An ancient Polynesian sailor raised his sand hand to his forehead, blocking the rays of the sand sun that shone brilliantly above him. Brilliantly, I say, because sand sunbeams radiated toward him, sand seabirds in full flight caught in their warmth. The sailor was looking for something. Land? Bad weather ahead?

“What do you mean? Obviously someone made it.”

“I’m only thinking that perhaps there’s metal underneath the surface. Maybe this is actually a metal sculpture with sand fixed to it to give the illusion of a sand sculpture.”

“Why would you say that?” I realized this was the first time I felt irritated with Arash and I wondered why I was having such a strong reaction. “Why ruin such a beautiful thing?”

“I was simply wondering…” Arash seemed caught off guard by my reaction. He lowered his voice. “Things are not always what they seem.”

And maybe that’s what bothered me. I wanted things to always be what they seemed. I never liked surprises, even the good kind. But Arash was far from being who I thought he was in the cookie store—one of the snickering backup boys to the blond Harrison. Someone without a mind of his own, enjoying himself at my expense.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said somewhat sadly. I’d always admired these sculptures. There were others nearby. I had imagined the artist sitting in the middle of a pile of wet sand like a talented adult version of a kid on the beach, trowel in hand shaping noses, delicate eyebrows, lips, fingertips. “I’ll bet we can find out from her.” I pointed to the information desk, staffed by a woman in a navy-blue skirt and blazer. “Let’s ask.”

“Let’s not.” Arash put his hand on my forearm. “Let’s leave it as a question in our minds. An ideal in yours, and in mine, the possibility of something beautiful that I instinctively doubted.”

Then it was my turn to feel guilty.

“Although it would still be beautiful even if it was just a metal statue with sand stuck onto it,” I said.

“Ah! The key word…
just
a metal statue.
Just
.” He pulled out the newspaper clipping. “‘Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.’”

“Question eight?”

“Question eight.”

“All right, I’ll start. Three things.” I looked him up and down as though I would find those three things written somewhere on his person. “First thing. We appear to be wearing the same clothes, or at least the same material.”

“Okay. That was a little unfair, but I’ll let it pass.” He smiled. “I guess one of us was bound to use it.”

“Second thing. We both like to live a little dangerously, since we both sneaked out at night.”

“You’re taking all the easy answers. No wonder you volunteered to go first.”

“Third thing. We both enjoy mochi green-tea ice cream. Your turn.”

We were walking by the information desk, and the woman in the business suit looked up at us and smiled. I had to restrain myself from asking about the sand sculptures, but Arash didn’t give her a second look. He was deep in thought.

“Neither of us like to be yelled at,” he said finally.

“I thought you said you preferred it to the whole disappointment thing.”

“I prefer it, but I don’t enjoy it. Hey, allow me some slack. You took the easy answers, and it’s not exactly like we know each other well.”

“Okay. Second thing.”

“Second thing. I sense a fighting spirit in you that I think we share. I think you stand up for yourself, or at least that’s my impression. Third thing,” he went on without waiting for me to agree or disagree. I happened to agree, though. “Well, we’re both extraordinarily good-looking, but that one’s too easy.” He laughed, and I thought nothing of it except that it was a joke. But I did think he was gorgeous. The more I was around him, the hotter he became, so different from the guy I first saw in the cookie store. So different from the stranger flagging me down on the street.

Or was he?

Or was it me?

“I meant that as a joke, Dorothy.” He looked over at me shyly. “I know I’m not extraordinarily good-looking, but you are…lovely.”

I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound either conceited or pathetic. I blushed wildly and flung my hair over my right shoulder, instantly cooling my left ear and the back of my neck.

I wasn’t lovely. Not in the way
I
thought of as lovely. There were girls in my school who looked amazing.

I wasn’t one of those girls.

“Ha-ha,” I said lamely, and fortunately he let it go without further comment.

“Third thing,” he went on, kindly allowing me to regain the natural color of my face. “We both have a taste for adventure. Again, I’m not sure about this, but it’s what I sense in you.”

“But isn’t that what I said? Living dangerously?”

“Living dangerously isn’t the same as having a taste for adventure.”

“It’s not?”

“Not at all.”

“How is it different?”

“In so many ways I couldn’t even list them all in the limited time we have together.”

“You’re in luck, because I’ll accept your answer. Look, here’s the pool. It’s my favorite pool in Waikiki.”

“Yes, I know this pool,” Arash said. “From the other side. My friends and I walked that passageway along the beach yesterday. We walked right by here.”

“I know, me too. I always walk past here during the day, on the beach side. Then I look up at all these people floating around in the pool with their drinks in their hands, and they look like they’re having such a great time and I’m jealous I’m not in this pool.”

“You’re here now,” Arash said.

“Yeah, but it’s closed.”

“Maybe they’re not having as great a time as you think,” he said. “Holding a drink in your hand and floating in an infinity pool is not a guarantee of happiness.”

“I know that.” I sat down on one of the lounge chairs that would be denied to me, a non-guest, during the daytime. “It just looks like fun.”