Elizabeth's Daughter (19 page)

  Sullen, Tony didn’t further the conversation. Elizabeth read until she felt scorched.”I’ve gotta get out of the sun,” she said to Tony an hour later. “I can’t put enough sunscreen on to block it, and the sun is making me feel light-headed.”

  Tony nodded, lethargic and half-asleep.

  Elizabeth was delighted to be alone in the cool, shaded, room. She dialed home, not able to wait to hear Amy’s little voice.

  “It’s about time you called,” Gail launched in. “Amy and I have been worried sick. Why didn’t you call when you got there?”

  “Tony wouldn’t let me. He said I should let you and Amy adjust to my not being there. So... are you adjusted?”

  “Of course not! Are you having a good time?”

  “Oh, Gail, I’m so bored! The only thing that’s saving me is reading Peter’s book, which, by the way, I love. I just wish I had the rest of his books with me. I could read them all this week. I want to be home. How can I stay here another whole six days?”

  Gail was quiet for a few moments. “Hang in there. Take in some cultural experiences. Go to museums. You’ll be mad at yourself if you don’t. Hawaii’s history is rich and interesting. Go exploring and see the water falls, the plants and the birds. Don’t stay in that westernized city the whole time.”

  “Okay, boss, I will.” Elizabeth sighed a huge sigh. As always, Gail was one-hundred percent correct, and made her feel much better. “What’s Amy doing?”

  “Taking her nap.”

  “Oh. I guess it’s about that time. Well, give her my love when she wakes up.”

  “I will, Lizzy.”

  “I don’t know when I’ll get to call again. Maybe Tony is right, maybe I shouldn’t call. I mean, I feel so lonely and depressed now.”

  “Dear, dear... it’s not that bad,” Gail said. “Remember, you’re in paradise, get the best out of it. We’ll see you soon. I’ll call you if there’s anything you need to know about, so don’t worry about the home front. Relax. Take care of yourself.”

  “Okay. Love you guys. By-bye.” Elizabeth hung up and looked around the room. She
was
in paradise, and she should be clever enough to enjoy it.

  She went downstairs to the front desk where they had row upon row of flyers on the sights and events that the Big Island had to offer. She took one of each, went back to the room and studied them.

  Two hours later she was almost finished going over them when Tony came back to the room, brown as a nut. Elizabeth wondered how much darker he could possibly get.

  “You’ll never get a tan hanging out in the room,” he said.

  “I’d rather keep my smooth complexion and remain white.”

  “Why bother to come to Hawaii then?” he asked.

  “My question, exactly. It wasn’t my idea to come here.”

  “I see,” Tony said.

  “But,” she said cheerily, shuffling through her brochures, “as long as I’m here, I might as well get everything out of the experience I can get.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “I’d like to book us for a Luau tonight. There’s a nice one at the hotel next door. How does that sound?”

  “Fine. That sounds fine.”

  “Then I thought tomorrow we could rent a car and drive around the island. Do you know it only takes a couple hours to drive around the entire periphery of the island?”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. There’s a botanical garden on the opposite side of the island.” She held the flyer in front of him. “I thought it’d be interesting to see that. Then the next day I thought we might go to a museum.” She held up another brochure. “Then I thought we could look into visiting one of the other islands. Maybe even stay over a night.”

  “You’ve been doing a lot of... thinking, it sounds like.”

  “Sure,” Elizabeth said. “I’m trying to make this trip interesting.”

  “I’m not very interested in ‘interesting.’ I run around enough when I’m working. This is a break. Besides, with all that running around, when will I get my tan?”

 
“It looks to me like you’ve already gotten it,” she answered. “How much darker do you intend to get?”

  “This? This is nothing!” Tony posed in front of the mirror, one way, then another, studying his tan. “You wait and see, you won’t believe how dark I can get. I’ll tell you what, I don’t mind if you plan things in the evening, but I really don’t want to run around during the day.”

  “Okay.” Elizabeth stacked the brochures together, feeling the spirit draining out of the fun she had worked to build up. But then a shift happened inside her, and she cheered up. “Then you won’t mind if I check these things out on my own.”

  Tony shrugged, clearly in love with the mirror. “I suppose not. But I can’t imagine how you could face going back home without a Hawaiian tan.”

  “The same way I live every day of my life without any bit of tan. I’m fair, I cannot take too much sun, as I’ve said repeatedly. I’m more inclined to wonder how we’ll get closer to one another if we don’t spend time together.”

  “It’s not my idea to be apart, running around all day,” Tony said defensively.

  “On some other hand,” Elizabeth pointed out, “You don’t seem to care that too much sun makes me ill. And that lying around all day doing nothing bores me to tears.”

  “I care. But I can’t do anything to change you, now can I?”

  Elizabeth was so amazed by his candid logic that she was the only one who should change that she closed her mouth. Was he truly that oblivious to her as a person?

  “I’m going to take a shower,” he said, going into the bathroom. “And then I want to take a nap.”

  “What about lunch?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I had lunch downstairs.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “Alone? You didn’t invite me?” He said nothing, and she heard the shower running. “That’s just odd.”

  Elizabeth went out on the lanai with her handful of brochures. She
would
enjoy herself no matter how much Tony crossed her at every turn. And, by the way, she reminded herself,
she
was paying for this trip. She bent over the roses on the table to drink their fragrance. Including even these roses he got for me.

  “Thank you, Elizabeth,” she said a bit sarcastically, “Thank you for the lovely roses. Oh, You’re welcome!” she answered.

  But, again, unpredictably, that night at the luau Tony was sweet and attentive and fun and Elizabeth reprimanded herself for expecting Tony to want to do exactly what she wanted to do. After all, they were two different people. If he wanted to relax and tan himself, why shouldn’t he?

  Besides, there was a real advantage in going to places like museums and botanical gardens alone. She could indulge in her love of loitering as much as she wanted.

  So, for the next couple days Tony went out to the beach in the morning while Elizabeth explored the island and its culture. Then they got together for one luau or another in the evening. Elizabeth found the arrangement perfectly enjoyable. She chatted about all the things she’d learned during the day, and he half-listened, asking an occasional question, but mostly just content, it seemed, to see and be seen.

  Elizabeth reasoned that she’d been alone with her own company for most of her life. She’d never expected her grandfather to share her fun, what little she had been able to come up with. He hadn’t believed in ‘fun’ in the first place.

  On the fourth morning, Elizabeth woke at five a.m., unable to return to sleep. She looked around for Peter’s book. She hadn’t finished it yet, with the busy schedule she’d kept for herself, taking in all the sights. But she couldn’t find it.

  That’s strange, she thought, I had it on my bedside table yesterday afternoon. It must be around here somewhere.

  She didn’t want to wake Tony looking for it, so she quietly slipped into her jeans and sweatshirt, jotted a note for Tony, then walked down to Diamond Head park in a brisk morning breeze, the ocean inhaling and exhaling off to her right. The morning light was glorious and she felt herself breathing with the ocean, right down to her toes.

  It was beautiful and peaceful and at that moment, Elizabeth was really, truly happy to be in Hawaii. Finally. The smell of the air was new to her
–
fresh, salt sea, brisk and seeming to go right into her body, welcoming her to the islands, in this moment before the city geared up and exhaust contaminated the environment.

  Suddenly that animate energy she’d heard people mention when they talked about Hawaii, entered her. A strong, feminine, demanding-yet-compassionate energy.

  If she had come here for no reason other than this moment, it was enough for her. She could tell she’d always have this energy, to tap into. She also had a troubled sense that she would need it.

  She passed a homeless person here and there
–
as if anyone living is paradise could be considered homeless
–
stirring awake from a bench, or shuffling about, getting ready for the day’s panhandling. They gave her long glances. She had the impression they were veterans at their chosen profession, knowing that early morning joggers and walkers rarely had any money on them.

  Today she would take a bus tour of Waikiki and the Pearl Harbor war memorial. As always, she’d invited Tony, thinking it might be of interest. But just shrugged and said, “enjoy yourself.”

  The tour would pick her up at eight a.m. in front of the hotel. By the time she got back from her long walk to Diamond Head, she only had a moment to run up to the room and grab her purse. Tony was gone. Out baking already, no doubt. She grabbed a sweet roll, an apple and a carton of milk from the restaurant and hurried out to the street.

  Four-and-a-half hours later, when the tour bus dropped her off at the hotel again, she went directly to find Tony. She wanted to share tidbits she’d learned about the interesting mix of cultures, and how curious and ironic it seemed to stand at the Pearl Harbor war memorial, thinking sadly about the young American men who had lost their lives to prevent the Japanese from taking Hawaii, while the balance of the tour had been about how the Japanese were buying up Hawaii.

  Well, Elizabeth philosophized, money is a more civilized means of acquisition than weapons.

  But as she scurried through the lobby of the hotel on her way to the beach, she saw Tony with his back to her, standing in the doorway of the restaurant, talking with a girl with a mane of tawny, honey-colored hair, his fingers entwined in a couple of her tawny locks. The girl looked up at him with spellbound admiration. Elizabeth had no desire to see the look he gave her in return.

  She backed around the corner, then hurried up to their room.

  She paced up and down. Was what she just saw really incriminating? Women found Tony irresistible, she knew. She knew that just from watching the waitresses when she and Tony went out to dinner. But that fact didn’t justify his returning the adulation by standing around with his fingers stuck in a stranger’s hair in broad daylight. She felt humiliated.

  She stormed inwardly. And why, she wondered about herself, didn’t she just approach him when she saw him, instead of running away as if
she
were guilty?

  Because, she answered, she was afraid. Her instincts told her to approach him about the girl. But she was so furious that she didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of the girl. She would wait until he came to the room. Whenever he remembered that he had his new wife waiting for him in the honeymoon suite.

  It’s best that I just become cool and collected for a while. Apparently Tony was not able to enjoy himself with his own company the way she was, she thought sarcastically. Apparently he had to be with someone all of the time.

  Well, this line of reasoning is not making me calm, she thought. 

  She decided to take a hot bath. A long, hot bubble bath always helped melt problems. She gratefully remembered Peter’s book. A hot bath and a good book would let her mind relax. But she tore the room apart looking for the book and it simply wasn’t there. Not under the bed or in the bed or on the bed or in the end tables or in the dresser. Not in the closet or bathroom, not on the lanai or on the table or on the floor or in the luggage. It was not there. She hated to think where it was, but then, she knew where it was. Tony had thrown it away.

  When Tony came to the room two hours later, she was outwardly calm, dressed for dinner.

  “Let’s stay in the hotel for dinner,” she said.

  “Okay by me,” Tony answered cheerfully, starting his shower.

  At dinner Elizabeth was civil, if quiet. She remembered ordering a cobb salad, but she had no idea if it came, if she ate it, if it was good.

  After the waiter poured their after dinner coffee, Elizabeth asked quietly, “Where is my book, that is, Gail’s book.”

  Tony gave her one of his why-do-you-bother-me-with-your-silly-little-problems looks. “I don’t know where your book is.”

  “I believe you do,” Elizabeth said. “Just give it back, Tony. It’s not my book. Gail loaned it to me in good faith, trusting that I wouldn’t harm it.”