Here Today, Gone to Maui (10 page)

Blood rushing in my ears, I reached for the phone, the number for the Maui Police Department filed in my memory, perhaps forever. The woman at the switchboard put me through to a detective.

Search crews had resumed their search this morning, but they’d found no traces of Jimmy, Detective McGuinn said gently. But in the next several days I could probably expect some things to—(he paused to find the least hurtful phrase)—appear.

“Appear?” I croaked (I hadn’t even had my coffee yet).

“Wash up.”

I didn’t say anything in response. My voice had stopped working.

“You might want to make some calls,” he said. “We can do it for you if that would make things easier. Family members, close friends . . . we should give them a heads-up before this hits the wires.”

“Can’t we wait before we make some kind of announcement?” I pleaded. “I’d hate to upset people if it’s for nothing. Maybe he’s lying on a beach, unconscious. Or he could have amnesia. I mean, it happens, right? And not just in movies?”

The detective paused, trying to find the right words. “We’ve already alerted the press. Last night. It’s best in these kinds of situations—so people keep their eyes open. Miss Shea, you’ve got to understand . . . I know this is hard to accept, but the chances of Mr. James turning up alive—they’re not good.”

“But not impossible.”

“Miss Shea.” The detective’s voice hinted at exhaustion. “Had you noticed any . . . changes in Mr. James recently?”

“What kind of changes?” I asked, confused.

“Had he seemed troubled at all? Depressed? Was he dealing with any personal problems or financial difficulties?”

Jimmy had been acting strangely in the last few weeks: distant, preoccupied. I’d feared he was pulling away from me, but maybe there was something else going on. And then there was that incident with the credit card . . .

“Jimmy owns his own business,” I said. “Finances had been tight lately, but I think that goes with the territory.” I didn’t tell him how preoccupied Jimmy had been. He didn’t need to know.

Suddenly I realized what he meant. My hands began to shake. “You don’t think that Jimmy killed himself?”

“We don’t know what to think. But we can’t rule out the possibility. For an experienced diver to go off alone in such rough conditions—it doesn’t quite make sense. Especially since he didn’t even take a marker out with him. Also, Slaughterhouse Bay isn’t a great dive spot. It’s right next to Honolua Bay, true, but he’d have to swim against the current to get there. Why not just go in at Honolua instead?”

“It was because of me,” I said, eager to talk him—and myself—out of the suicide scenario. “He knew I wanted a nice beach to sit on. And as for the float—I picked up the air tank for him, and I didn’t think to get him one.”
But,
a little voice nagged,
he never told you to.

“It was probably just an accident,” the detective said gently. “I’ll call you if we hear anything.”

How could Jimmy be gone when his duffel bag was sitting in the middle of the room, just where he’d left it? When his toothbrush was still in the bathroom? After I got off the phone, I started to go through the bag, to look for an address book with his family’s phone numbers, but as soon as I pulled something out—the pale blue polo shirt he’d worn on the plane—I smelled him, and the sadness hit me so hard that I couldn’t do any more.

A few minutes before eight o’clock, Mary, in her oversize muumuu, knocked softly at the door, the local newspaper in her hands. On the front page was a photo of Slaughterhouse Beach. The headline: MAN DISAPPEARS WHILE DIVING OFF WEST MAUI COAST.

I grabbed the door frame to steady myself. Somehow, the newspaper report made it all real.

“Oh no, it
is
your man,” Mary said. “I recognized the name from when he checked in. But I’m thinking, Michael James is a common name. Maybe it’s a different one.”

“It’s him,” I said. “It happened yesterday. He went under and just—never came back.” My voice cracked.

Without a thought, Mary took me in her arms. I wheezed in despair but felt too numb to cry.

“Can I do anything for you?” she asked. “Anything at all?”

I started to say no but then remembered the duffel bag. “I’m supposed to get phone numbers,” I said. “For the police. I never even met Jimmy’s parents. They live in Arizona. He’s said in the spring—maybe in the spring we’d go visit.”

“Does he have a computer?” she asked. “Cell phone?”

“He didn’t bring a computer. His cell-phone battery is dead, but maybe he has an address book or papers or, I don’t know—something in his bag. It’s just—earlier I tried to look . . .” My voice trailed off.

“You want me to see if I can find anything?” she asked.

I nodded.

Mary knelt down on the brown carpet, next to the duffel bag. Just a few days ago, I’d been stationed at the baggage carousel, waiting for this bag to appear, convinced that losing our luggage was the worst thing that could happen.

Perched on the edge of a chair, I watched Mary go through Jimmy’s things. It seemed wrong somehow, as though Jimmy were going to come back and complain about the invasion of privacy.

On the floor, Mary neatly stacked Jimmy’s possessions: a baseball cap, a pair of sunglasses, some tired-looking sneakers. Swim trunks, T-shirts, shorts, a belt. A cell-phone charger for the car. A box of condoms. (I was so numb that I didn’t even feel embarrassed.) And then . . .

“What’s this?” It was tiny. Square. She handed it to me.

I stared at the black velvet box in the palm of my hand. Surely it was just a pair of cuff links or a tie clip. Had I ever even seen Jimmy wear a tie?

But, no. It was a ring, an emerald-cut diamond flanked by sapphires, set in platinum. Jimmy had taken me to Hawaii to propose. The man I thought would never commit wanted to marry me. He didn’t just love things
about
me—he loved me. And now he was gone.

Now I knew why Jimmy’s card had been turned down at the restaurant. He hadn’t exceeded his limit on new office chairs. He had exceeded it on my engagement ring.

My tears broke loose, sliding down my cheeks like a hot waterfall.

“Are you going to put it on?” Mary asked.

“I don’t think I should,” I whispered. “He never actually proposed.”

“He’d want you to wear it,” she said.

It was a little tight, but I managed to shove it on my left ring finger. It made me feel better, somehow, connected to Jimmy for one last time. Plus, there was relief: if Jimmy had been prepared to embark on a new life with me, there was no way he would have killed himself.

Mary let me use the computer at the registration desk to look up Jimmy’s office number. Scott and Ana would need to be told. Maybe Ana would have contact numbers for Jimmy’s parents. I would never again be jealous of Ana, I thought, fingering my ring.

Ana answered on the fourth ring: “Hey, this is Ana—hold a sec.” And then she cut me off. Next time she picked up after only three rings, having shortened her spiel to a simple, “Hold on.” This time she put me on hold.

“Are you okay?” Mary whispered. I nodded, clutching my cell phone. Today’s hold music was rap. I was treated to two “mother-fuckers,” a “bitch,” and several “hos” before Ana picked up.

“Hey, this is Ana—what’s up?” she said.

“I—this is Jane,” I croaked.

“Sorry—what? I think we have a bad connection.”

“This is, this is—” I paused to collect myself.

She hung up. I burst into tears.

“You want me to do it?” Mary asked. All I could do was nod. “Speakerphone?” she asked. I nodded again.

Ana picked up without putting Mary on hold: “ ’Sup?”

“Aloha?” Mary said.

“Yeah, this is Ana. Whassup?”

“Aloha,” Mary said. “I am calling about Mr. Michael James.”

“Not here,” Ana said. “He’s in Maui this week.”

“Yes, I know,” Mary said. “I’m in Maui, too.”

“Oh, you want his cell? Or the number where he’s staying?”

She meant the Hyatt. Would things have been different without the reservation mix-up? We could have spent yesterday on the beach or around the pool. Jimmy could have walked down to the Sheraton and gone diving at Black Rock.

“That won’t be necessary,” Mary said. “You see, the reason I’m calling is—I’m calling for Miss Jane Shea.”

“Who?”

“Mr. James’s fiancée.”

“He has a fiancée?”
Her voice sounded hollow over the speakerphone.

“It wasn’t official yet,” Mary conceded. “Miss Ana, the reason I’m calling is to give you some very sad news. Mr. Michael James went scuba diving yesterday morning, and he never came back.”

There was a pause. “He never came back to his room?”

“No,” Mary said. “He never came back to the beach. He went under and . . . now he’s gone.”

“But who was he with?” Ana demanded.

“He was with Miss Shea. But she stayed near the beach, snorkeling.”

“
He went diving alone?
Why the hell didn’t she dive with him?” Her voice cracked.

“I don’t dive,” I whimpered. “I tried a few years ago and it . . . it scared me.”

There was a pause as Ana digested the fact that she was on speakerphone. Or that Jimmy had gone diving alone. Or that I’d let him. Or that Jimmy was missing. Jimmy was dead.

“It might be in the newspaper,” Mary said quietly. “We didn’t want you to find out that way. Also, we hoped you might have a phone number for his parents.” Ana didn’t say anything. “Do you think you might have that? A phone number?”

“I don’t—I don’t know,” Ana said, sounding dazed. “I can look in his office. But he doesn’t like people going through his things.” She gasped. “Though I guess he’s not going to care if . . . if . . . Is he dead?”

“They haven’t found his . . . They haven’t found him,” Mary said.

This was the second time I’d worn an engagement ring without a proposal. The first time, I was twenty-eight, and I’d been “in a relationship” for two and a half years. That’s what I used to say: “I’m in a relationship,” as if the relationship mattered more than the man—which, I suppose, it did.

Steve was an ophthalmologist. (“I’m in a relationship with a doctor.”) We’d met in the frozen-food section at the Brea Trader Joe’s. Steve was buying a handcrafted Thai chicken pizza. I was on the other side of the aisle, buying orange chicken. We backed into each other. We apologized. We talked about frozen halibut and chickenless chicken nuggets. About hormone-free milk and health supplements. About restaurants in Brea. About what we were doing on Saturday night.

Two and a half years later, on a Saturday just after Thanksgiving, we were talking about cell-phone chargers. Steve needed one for his car. I suggested we go to the RadioShack at the mall. Afterward, we could have dinner at California Pizza Kitchen—you know, really make a night of it.

Parking was awful; even the lot by the Red Lobster was full. Steve circled several times while I said, “We could go somewhere else. You want to go somewhere else?” Finally, we snagged a spot, and I said, “Whew! I’m glad we didn’t go somewhere else.”

The mall was done up for Christmas: carols blasting from the speakers, big metallic balls, elaborate wreaths. Santa sat in his big chair while young women dressed as elves kept children of every conceivable ethnicity in line. Outside, it was seventy degrees; earlier in the day, it had reached ninety.

We had to wait an hour for a table at CPK. When we finally sat down, it was too loud to hold a conversation. We finished our meal forty-five minutes before the mall was due to close—plenty of time to pick up a cell-phone charger. Plenty of time to window-shop.

The jewelry-store window was packed with diamond rings: simple stones set in platinum, elaborate designs surrounded by gold. Diamond solitaires, diamond bands, diamonds flanked by other jewels. A hand-lettered sign read THE GIFT OF A LIFETIME. I slowed and then stopped. Steve walked a few paces before realizing I wasn’t with him. He retraced his steps and stood next to me, silent.

We had never discussed marriage. It was the elephant in the room, in the car, and now, in the mall. Plenty of people had urged me to give him an ultimatum, but I wanted him to propose because he wanted to, not because he felt he had to.

“RadioShack is going to close,” he said finally.

“Not for forty-five minutes.” I was sick of that elephant. “The rings are making you nervous, aren’t they?” I tried to keep my tone playful.

“Only an idiot would buy a ring at a mall. They double the price.” He was trying to keep his voice casual. Or maybe he didn’t have to try.

“Would someone who’s
not
an idiot buy a ring somewhere else?” I asked awkwardly.

“I don’t know—I guess.” He looked at his watch.

“That would be a no.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” A ridiculous statement: he knew exactly what I was talking about.