A Star is Born (9 page)

Since I didn’t have a clue, I stood with the warm water of the ocean lapping up around my knees with a whole fresh new batch of tears welling up in my eyes. My world was such a mess. I had so much going for me, and at the same time it was all a twisted mess. I don’t know why it seemed that every time I had things worked out, ironed out, and everything seemed to be going reasonably well, something like this had to happen.

The first time when I thought Bill had cheated on me, I had learned of his “indiscretion” from a series of newspaper stories and photos. It turned out those had been faked, and what I thought he had done actually hadn’t happened. This time, however, there was no mistaking what had happened. I had sat right there and watched it happen. There was no mistaking what I had witnessed, right down to the toes curling and the primal scream when orgasm hit. This time it was crystal clear—and unfortunately burned into my mind forever.

I have no idea how long I stood in the ocean contemplating my life, but the next time I focused, the sun was fully up and the day felt much warmer than I remembered. Since the skin on my feet was withering up, I decided that it was time to dry off my feet and figure out what I wanted to do with myself for the next few days. A big part of me wanted to just get the hell off this island and go home. Another part of me was cosmically weary and wanted to rest and be responsible to nobody for anything ever again. In the end I decided to go for something between those two extremes and stay where I was until I was scheduled to fly home.

As a compromise, I went to the pool and settled in under an umbrella and tried very hard to forget everything. For the next couple of days I somehow managed to relax.

On the third day of my poolside existence, I was lying in my usual chaise lounge with my eyes closed. I was about to rouse myself enough to ask my waiter to bring me another pineapple juice when I felt someone block my sunlight. Assuming it was my waiter—I had been tipping him very well, so he damned well better take good care of me—I said, “Play it again, Sam.” (My waiter was named Sam, so the first couple of dozen times I had thought that sounded cute so I simply stuck with it. If he didn’t like it, well, I didn’t care—I was tipping him very well to not care.)

When I didn’t hear a response, I opened my eyes and looked up, but what I saw wasn’t Sam, my waiter—no, it was Bill, my ex-boyfriend, and he looked like crap. Good. It seemed only fitting that he should feel as miserable as I had been feeling for the last few days.

I didn’t have anything in particular I wanted to say to Bill at the moment, so I simply closed my eyes and lay back down, hoping that he would go away.

He was edgy, apparently. When I didn’t pay him any attention, he said, “Is that it? You’re not going to say anything to me?”

Without opening my eyes, I simply said, “You look like crap.”

“Matches how I feel, then. We need to talk.”

“Why?” I asked. “It all looked pretty crystal clear from my vantage point.”

“How long were you there?” he asked quietly.

“It felt like forever, but was probably only five minutes, maybe ten.”

“And you didn’t
say
anything?”

“Bill, what did you want me to say? ‘Break it up!’ Something like that?”

“I’m thirsty,” he said, looking around for my waiter.

“Get me a pineapple juice while you’re up,” I said.

He wandered off in search of the waiter. When I saw him walk away, I jumped up and returned to my room. I didn’t want to talk to him. I had nothing polite or pleasant to say to him and didn’t want to have the inevitable conversation in a public place. Retreating to my room, I decided that Bill had broken the mood and that I should just pack my bag, get the hell out of there, and go home. With Bill’s magic little card, I could at least change my ticket and fly home early.

Persistent Bill and Angry Mark

I
DIDN
’
T
have much with me so I didn’t have much of anything to pack. I showered, changed into my traveling clothes (jeans and sneakers), and was just making a final check around the room when there was a knock at the door. Assuming it was the maid on one of her many daily visits to the room, I opened the door without hesitation—and found Bill.

“You stalking me now?” I asked.

“No. I want to talk to you.”

“And how did you find me? Go from door to door until I answered?”

“No. Your waiter told me.”

And it was like I was a bull, and a red flag had just been waved in front of my eyes. I pushed past Bill, catching him by surprise, and marched straight out to the pool where for two days I had been overtipping the waiter. By the time I found the man, I was super pissed. With anger increasing with every footstep, I marched right up to the waiter and, in his face, demanded, “What the hell, dude? You tell the man who’s stalking me how to find me? Is that it?”

I had clearly caught him off-guard. “He said he knew you,” he tried, but I cut him off.

“Do you believe everything everyone tells you?” I screamed at him, continuing to advance on him.

“He’s famous,” the poor man tried again.

“And famous people always tell the truth?” I demanded, yelling merely inches from his face.

Hotel security appeared on the scene almost immediately.

“Is there a problem, sir?” a guard asked me.

“Yeah, we’ve got a problem. A huge problem. Your employee just gave my room number to a man who’s been stalking me. Sounds like a big problem to me,” I screamed at the new man.

“But, but, but,” the waiter tried again, “he said he was your partner. And he’s that famous actor.”

“I don’t care who he said he was. Are you really so stupid that you believe everything that everyone tells you? Huh? I’ve been lying here for two solid days tipping you, and this is how you repay me? This is what you do when someone takes good care of you?” On a roll now, I said, “How much have I tipped you over the course of the last two days? Huh? Well over two hundred dollars, I’m sure, minimum. Well, tell you what, I want it back.” When he didn’t move, I said, “Come on! Get it out! Start counting…
now
!”

A new cadre of people was arriving, while simultaneously people who had been reclining by the pool were fleeing to get away from whatever the disturbance was.

“Sir, I have to ask you to refrain….”

“I want him fired,” I said, pointing at the waiter that I had treated so well.

“Mark, you’re making a scene,” Bill said.

“You’re damned right I’m making a scene.”

“Sir, please,” the manager tried. “You’re disturbing the other guests. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave our property.”

“I already have to leave your property, since your employee—and he damned well better be your
ex-employee
—just gave my room number to someone who’s been stalking me. Now my safety has been jeopardized, thanks to your ex-employee, so I have to leave your precious property and try to find a new place where I might be safe.” Looking back at the waiter, who was completely freaked out, I asked, “You gonna follow me there too, and tell him how to find me again? Huh?” I wasn’t a violent person, but I very nearly took a swing at the guy. I don’t know how I suppressed the urge, but somehow it happened.

Turning to address those few people who were left around the pool, I shouted, “You better all pay with cash unless you want this man to give out your room number to people. Who knows who’ll be knocking on
your
door at three in the morning!”

“Sir, I’m terribly sorry for what has happened. I assure you that the safety of our guests is of paramount concern.”

“Too little, too late,” was my simple answer. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pack and try to find another place to stay. May I have your card, please?” I asked the one who appeared to be the senior-most manager.

“Of course, sir. And I insist that we help you relocate to another property. Edgar, my chief of security, will accompany you to your room and remain with you until we have you safely relocated to a new location.” Instantly a mild-mannered but heavily muscled man was by my side. Without waiting for instructions or anything else, I simply turned and started walking away, ignoring Bill who fortunately had the good sense to not try to take part in the conversation.

In my room, I grabbed my bag and left the suite. Walking to the lobby, I ignored the manager as he tried to apologize yet again. I was calming down a little, so I tossed the man a bone. “I’m sorry, but I’m scared. You would be too if your whole world was falling apart. Please do us both a favor and teach your employees that guest information absolutely
must
remain confidential, even from celebrities, even from people claiming to be family. They are messing with way more than they know when they give out information like that. Don’t fire the guy, but please drill that simple fact into everyone, no matter what the cost.” I turned and walked out of the lobby with my loyal watchdog by my side.

I was intending to grab a cab, but the manager walked out with me and directed me to a black SUV. “We have a ride for you, sir.”

“Thank you. And please tell the driver to keep his mouth shut. I’d like to… just tell him to keep his mouth shut.”

“I have, and I will again, I promise. No one else will ever go through what you’ve gone through. I’m so sorry for the problems you’ve experienced. You have my card. Please call me if there is anything you need or if there is anything I can do for you during the remainder of your stay here in the islands.”

Another Island

W
ITHOUT
another word, I climbed into the waiting SUV and was followed by my personal security guy. I had no idea where we were headed. I knew I had just created a huge scene, and I felt bad about that, but once it started it just wouldn’t stop.

I leaned against the car door with my head against the window and watched the tropical scenery pass by. I was as surprised as my guard when I started to cry. It was an unmanly thing to do, so I fought hard to suppress it. Without looking at my guard, I wiped the tears from my face and muttered, “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve earned the right.” Those were the first words I had heard from the guy.

I was surprised that our driver took us to the airport. We stopped at the departures area when my guard gave me some additional words. “You have several options. We have other properties here on Maui. We could go to one of those, but I recommend against it since it would be too easy to figure that out. We have some properties on Oahu, Kauai, and the Big Island. We could take you to one of those. Better option, but still not perfect. The third option is that we have another piece of property over on Oahu. It is not officially recorded as corporate property. No one could easily track you to that location. My personal recommendation is that we go there.”

Without much commentary, I simply said, “You know more about this than I do. Sounds reasonable to me. I accept your advice with gratitude.”

We exited the vehicle and made our way inside the terminal. The guard bought two tickets (I guess that meant he was going with me to Oahu) and then guided us through security. At our gate, we almost immediately boarded our flight and were on our way very quickly. As we took off, I looked out the window with such terribly mixed feelings I thought I was at risk of disintegrating into a million bits, scraps, odds, and ends.

Even though I had been to Hawaii twice before—this was my third trip to the islands—I had only visited Maui. This was to be my first trip to another of the Hawaiian Islands. Even though I had read that the islands were close together, I still sort of expected the flight to take a couple of hours. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard the pilot say that our flight would only cover a hundred miles and that, gate to gate, our expected travel time was only thirty-six minutes! How could that be possible?

But it was true. I watched out the window as Maui disappeared, and very soon another island appeared to take its place. We circled around and came in to the airport so that I had a great view of parts of the island. I remained glued to the window, wanting to watch everything, not wanting to miss a single thing.