Here Today, Gone to Maui (3 page)

Finally, he shoved a piece of paper at me.

 

 

I read the memo twice. And then I squinted at Bob Wills, who appeared to be on the verge of hyperventilation.

“You think I’m looking for another job?” I asked.

He nodded nervously and began to hum.

“But, why? Just because I’ve left early a few times?” There really wasn’t anything to say about my “studied attire.” I had worn dresses a couple of times, it’s true, but today I was dressed as usual, in a pair of pressed Ann Taylor slacks and a crisp blue blouse.

“You seem—different,” he said. “I can’t explain it.”

I said, “I’m just trying to find a better balance between my job and the rest of my life.”

I glanced back at the memo. “What steps, exactly, would you take to retain me?”

“Salary reviews are in April,” he told me. “You can expect good things.”

Lena, the receptionist, didn’t think I was looking for another job. When I’d been dating Jimmy for just over a week, she looked me up and down and said, “You’re getting laid, aren’t you?”

When I didn’t answer—just turned bright red—she said, “It’s about damn time.”

 

Two hours later, Jimmy and I settled into our (first class!) seats as mournful Hawaiian music played over the speakers. Since Jimmy traveled so much for business, he’d cashed in his frequent-flier miles to cover the plane ride and his American Express miles for the hotel.

A plump, gray-haired couple took the seats behind us. She had elaborately curled hair and parrot earrings. He, like about a third of the men on the flight, wore a Hawaiian shirt.

After fastening my seat belt, I checked my watch, pleased to see that the flight was on time, and did a quick check for cell-phone messages. I was relieved to see there were none, though a little perturbed to realize I was not indispensable.

“Are you going to call your office?” I asked Jimmy. Jimmy owned a designer wetsuit business, “Jimmies.” They specialized in the dive market, though a lot of surfers were starting to wear their suits as well.

“Nah,” he said. “They’re fine without me.”

“You won’t be able to use your phone for the next five hours.”

I sounded like a mom, I realized with dismay. Jimmy was always talking about growing his business, how he wanted to be a major player in the wetsuit market. But while he did travel a lot, he seemed to forget about work the moment he was away from it. Also, the company budget was so tight that he’d been forced to wait tables on the side. If I hadn’t been so eager for this vacation, I would have suggested that he save his frequent-flier miles for business use.

I admired Jimmy’s live-in-the-moment attitude, but I couldn’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Rather, I couldn’t stop thinking about the rest of my life. Jimmy had said several times—oh, so casually—that he couldn’t even consider settling down until his business became more established. He was thirty-four years old, and I was thirty-two; surely he wouldn’t make me wait forever.

Jimmy pulled the airline magazine from the pocket in front of him. “I’ve built an amazing team. They can handle anything that happens. Scott can deal with any customer issues, and Ana’s on top of the logistics.”

At Ana’s name, I felt a pang of jealousy. Ana was the office manager who, according to Jimmy, was incredibly smart and a top-notch diver, a committed environmentalist and adventurer. She was also twenty-five years old and single. I once asked, as casually as I could manage, why Jimmy had never introduced me to her or Scott, the sales manager. Or any of the other employees whose names he dropped into conversation. Jimmy shrugged and said, “When I get together with them outside of the office, it’s to dive. And you don’t dive.”

One day, when Jimmy canceled our plans at the last minute, saying he had an unexpected business trip, I called his office. He’d never given me the number, but it was listed on his Web site (which was perpetually under construction). To be honest, I half expected the number to be no longer in service or nonexistent, the entire business an elaborate hoax.

But a woman answered: “Hey, this is Ana.” Her voice was low and smooth—not sexy, exactly, but cool. This was a woman who could slip fifty feet under the ocean’s surface while looking hot in a wetsuit.

“Is this, um—a business?” I asked, thinking I’d gotten the wrong number.

“Yeah, it’s Jimmies, Inc.,” she said. “We do wetsuits.” In the background, I could hear the kind of rap music that would have sent Mr. Wills running to his computer to compose a memo.

“I’m looking for Mr. James,” I said formally, as if I didn’t know him. His first name was actually Michael, but since his father was Michael, too, he’d gone by Jimmy since he was a little kid.

“Not here,” she said. “You want his cell?”

“That’s okay. I’ll try him some other time.”

I hung up feeling immensely relieved, ashamed of myself for doubting him. I trusted him wholeheartedly . . . until the next time he canceled at the last minute.

I’d Googled him, of course, right at the beginning.

The world was full of men named Michael James. In Wichita, a science teacher named Michael James posted his homework assignments online (his class was studying cell division); in British Columbia, ninth-grade Michael James had an odd fixation on Japanese comic books; and across the pond in England, a Michael James posted a daily blog about gardening, much of which revolved around snail eradication. And those were just some of the live ones. There were loads of dead Michael Jameses, too.

When I checked
Michael James
and
scuba,
though, I got a hit on his company, Jimmies, Incorporated (It should be “Jimmy’s,” I thought immediately). Two clicks got me to their Web site, which had a catchy logo, the
J
shaped like a wave, and an intro blurb:

 

The page had a menu bar (History, People, Job Opportunities, Order) and a phone number, but a line at the bottom of the page announced, “We are currently updating our site to better serve our customers. For more information, please call our customer-service line.”

“You should get your Web site running,” I told Jimmy.

He shrugged. “People call us. It’s no big deal.”

“You spelled
Jimmies
wrong,” I blurted, another day.

He shook his head, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Your company name. There should be an apostrophe.”

He rolled his eyes at the absurdity. “Nobody likes apostrophes,” he said.

 

Now, on the jumbo airliner, he flipped open his in-flight magazine. “Check it out—kayaking!” He flipped the page. “Or—wait. We could ride mountain bikes down a volcano. Some of my customers on the island have told me about that—they say it’s a real rush.”

I pulled out my planner and flipped to the itinerary. “We could do that . . . Sunday. After watching the sunrise. There’s a company that drives you up with the bikes, then you ride down the volcano. I saw it in my guidebook.” I made a note in my planner. “I can’t wait to see the Hyatt.”

“You’re going to love it.” He gazed out at the tarmac. “It’s my favorite place to stay.”

Every guidebook I’d read (and believe me, I’d read a lot) said the Hyatt was one of the nicest resorts on Maui. I’d spent hours perusing their Web site, blinking in wonder at their list of amenities: enormous rock pool, white sand beach, full-service spa, tennis courts, shopping arcade. There were penguins, parrots, flamingos, and swans. Best of all, Jimmy had cashed in extra Amex points to reserve an ocean-view room. Perhaps I should amend my itinerary. Would we even want to leave the grounds?

I put away the planner and got myself into vacation mode by pulling out a trashy magazine. The cover showed a beautiful, smiling celebrity couple with the headline OUR SECRETS TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE.

I held the cover up to Jimmy. “Look at this. You can pretty much guarantee that a year from now they’ll be back on the cover, only this time it will say, ‘What Went Wrong.’ ” I don’t read these kinds of magazines much, just at the hairdresser and on airplanes, but I secretly love them because they make me feel superior.

The plane pulled away from the gate and taxied down the runway. When it finally accelerated with stomach-dropping speed, I looked out the window and saw the gray tarmac fall away below me. We soared over the Pacific Ocean, a thick layer of brown air hugging the horizon.

The plane hit an air pocket and dipped suddenly. I sucked in my breath. Throughout the cabin, passengers yelped in alarm. Soon, though, we eased into smoother air.

The older woman behind us sighed. “If we’re gonna die in a plane crash, I sure hope it’s on the way
home
from Hawaii.”

I smiled in agreement. Whether or not Jimmy and I wound up together, this was a week I didn’t want to miss.

I’m a big believer in the power of worrying, but even though I forgot to worry about losing my bag, it slid down onto the carousel without a hitch, the yellow ribbon still tied to the handle. Jimmy’s blue duffel followed shortly after, as did his beat-up black diving bag.

“I think I’m getting a hangover,” I moaned, pulling my wheeled bag to the curb. The first-class flight attendants had plied us with wine during the flight. “And it’s only . . .” I checked my watch. “Ten o’clock?”

The evening sky was pink around the edges: it couldn’t possibly be that late. “Oh—I forgot about the time change.” I giggled. In my whole life, I had never once forgotten to change my watch when crossing time zones—but then, I had never drunk wine for three thousand miles, either.

“How’s this?” Jimmy said. “You wait here with the bags, and I’ll go get the rental car. That way we don’t have to haul everything on the shuttle.”

“Great idea.” I sat down on a concrete block and inhaled the scent of tropical flowers.

He leaned over and kissed me. “Back before you know it.”

But he wasn’t. After half an hour, the concrete block felt really hard under my butt. Near me, a man sucked on a cigarette next to a “No Smoking” sign. I pulled a sweater out of my tote bag. The winter in California had been unusually warm; here it felt chilly.

A white sedan pulled up to the curb. I popped off my block, squinting at the man inside. He opened the door: not Jimmy. An SUV glided to a stop. Two more white sedans. People and luggage piled inside. These were the smart travelers, the ones who’d thought to send someone on to the car-rental agencies the instant the plane landed.

When Jimmy had been gone forty minutes, I dug out my cell phone. The call went straight through to voice mail; he mustn’t have turned his phone on yet.

A silver minivan stopped, and a mother and her four children (three of whom were crying) jammed inside. It suddenly seemed too quiet around me, with the sounds of cars and planes but no people.

A crazy idea flashed through my head: what if Jimmy had forgotten about me? He wouldn’t, of course. And yet: what if?

The rental car was red and sporty. I sighed with relief and exhaustion when the driver’s-side door opened and Jimmy got out. “I was afraid you’d forgotten me,” I joked. But when I realized how needy that sounded, I said, “I thought I’d have to find another sugar daddy to put me up for the week.”

As he grabbed the bags and started hoisting them in the trunk, he smiled, but something in his face made me nervous. He didn’t hold my eyes long enough.

I got in the car and buckled my seat belt. The seats were so low to the ground it felt like I was sitting in a hole. Jimmy put his hand on my leg. “Long line at the car rental,” he said.

“No worries,” I said, just glad to be on our way.

He took his hand off of my leg and shifted into gear. “I have to tell you something,” he said, his eyes straight ahead, his jaw tense.

Oh. My. God. He is going to dump me. He has taken me three thousand miles just to set me loose.

“What?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.