Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink (26 page)

He clicks on immediately. “Shouldn’t you be having sex right now?”

“Can I come see you?”

Jeff’s face falls. “Crap. What happened?”

“Nothing. I am just dating an actual bon vivant from Paris.”

Jeff shakes his head sympathetically. “Oh, honey…”

“No, it’s fine. Really. It was just stupid for me to come out here.”

“It wasn’t stupid.”

“Yes, it was. He was so sweet and said these wonderful things, and…” My sentence loses steam, but I don’t cry. I don’t really feel anything. I throw up my hands to Jeff to signal,
Que sera sera.

“How soon can you get here?” Jeff says in a voice that is at once authoritative and soothing.

“I don’t know,” I stutter, fiddling absentmindedly with a piece of paper on Jay’s desk. “I told him I was leaving Monday. And I know I should probably really go. But fuck if I don’t want to go traipsing around Europe irresponsibly for the next few weeks.”

Jeff smiles. “Well, why
can’t
you do that?”

“I don’t have the money, for one thing. What am I going to do? Blithely run around Europe racking up debt without a thought as to how I’ll pay for everything once I get back?”

“Yes,” Jeff advises, picking up his iPhone and using his thumbs to click out a text of some sort. “Didn’t you say that that cake charm told you that you were going to be rich?”

“I don’t believe in that charm anymore. Do you know there is not one L’Arbre d’Argent of any kind here? No trees, no restaurants, not even a nice dessert.… Can you please stop texting while I’m talking?”

“Hold on. It’s just this guy.”

I shake my head and sigh. Then I let my head fall into my left hand as I change the subject. “How did I get myself in this mess? It’s like I didn’t know what to do with my life, so I hoped some guy would come in and fix it. Haven’t I learned my lesson about that enough times? When the hell did I become such a damsel in distress?”

“You’re not a damsel in distress,” Jeff assures me calmly.

“Am I a damsel?”

“Yes, but—”

“Am I calling you in distress?”

He looks up from his phone. “Go check your e-mail.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it.”

“Okay—hold on, I have to shrink you,” I say, reducing his image on Skype.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we actually could shrink people?” I can hear Jeff say from the shrunken box on the bottom of my screen. “And food. Think of how much we’d save shipping people and food around the world.”

I click on my e-mail and see something from American Airlines. “This is why you should have stayed a physicist.” Then I open the e-mail. “Oh my God! Jeff—what did you do?”

“That, my darling, is an airline ticket from Paris to Maui, which leaves in two weeks. Don’t get too excited. I had to use my miles, so it’s coach, and you have, like, seventeen stops in between.”

I click on his Skype box and bring him back onto the screen. “Jeff, I can’t accept this.”

“Of course you can. Happy birthday! Just promise me you’ll stop being a damsel in distress and take the time to see anything in Europe you’ve ever dreamed of seeing.”

“What? I’m going to go by myself?”

“Yes,” he says firmly. “For the first time in your life, go do something on your own. Don’t think about what anyone else wants to see, think about what you want to see. And wherever you are, stop yourself from worrying about what’s coming next. Stop planning. Just promise me for the next two weeks you will just enjoy the moment while it’s going on.”

I look at the ticket. It is so tempting. “I’d spend my birthday alone.”

“That’s the whole point. So where would you most want to be on your birthday?”

I look up at Jay’s ceiling to consider that. Then I smile wistfully. “Truthfully? Venice.”

“Venice? Perfect! I know the concierge at the Gritti Palace. We’ll get you a room there and have him plan a whole day for you.”

“Okay, I
really
can’t afford the Gritti Palace.”

“You don’t have to. Giovanni will get me some discounts I’m sure, and it’s my birthday gift to you.”

I’m torn between thinking Jeff is being waaaayyyyy too generous, and being tempted to have an experience I’ll never have otherwise. I bite my bottom lip. “I don’t know. Seems like a lot to ask. How well do you know him?”

Jeff gives me a look that I can only describe as coy. “Let’s just say I know him intimately, but not very well. But I let his sister stay in my guest room last year when she came to Maui, so it’ll be nice to allow him to repay the favor. Come on—when are you going to have this opportunity again?”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

“No.”

“Maybe if I paid you back in installments…”

“No.”

“It just seems so irresponsible.”

“Says the beta dog.”

My jaw drops at the insult. “Okay, now you’re just trying to get a reaction out of me!”

“Did it work?”

I cross my arms and pout. He smiles and pumps his fists in the air. “It worked! All right, I’ll be in touch. Now go wake your hottie, have sex one more time, and have him take you to the airport Monday. You have an adventure to get to.”

I did just that. Bright and early Monday morning I said good-bye to my playboy and began my new adventure.

And for the next two weeks, I toured Europe by myself, yet I was never alone. I met a nice, elderly British couple while I traipsed through Provence, stayed out way too late with some hipsters from Silver Lake (they live ten minutes from my house in Hollywood) while in Lake Como, and hung out with a family of six while touring Rome (it turns out a five-year-old can find better gelato than I can). In Venice, Giovanni took the day off just to spend my birthday with me—and he didn’t even know me! And no great surprise, it turns out nothing is more romantic in life than spending twenty-four hours in Italy with a gay man. We rode the canals with a real-life gondolier who sang Italian romance songs (and made fun of his gay friend, whom he had known since elementary school, for being with a girl). We feasted on
vermicelli al nero di seppia,
which are fresh superthin noodles smothered in black squid ink, and the best shrimp scampi I’ve ever had, and something called sarde in soar, which is an antipasto of sweet-and-sour sardines with onions, pine nuts, and raisins. Sounds hideous—tastes amazing! Particularly when it is being fed to you by a stunning, giggle-inducingly handsome Italian man. We even went shoe shopping. I indulged in my inner female stereotype and bought knee boots with insanely high heels.

Life for those two weeks was nothing short of perfect.

And, yes, I did look for a money tree in every language of every country I went to, and, no, I didn’t find an
albero di denaro
in Italy, an
árbol de dinero
in Spain, or an
arbre de diners
in Barcelona.

Instead, I found a feeling of empowerment.

And at thirty-three years old, it was about time I found some of that.

T
HIRTY
-
EIGHT

After those glorious two weeks, I spend twenty-eight excruciating hours taking four hundred kazillion planes from Paris, France, through New York and Houston, up to Vancouver, Canada, and back down to the Kahului Airport in Maui. I had a problem with customs, connecting flights were either late or missing completely, I’d barely closed my eyes in the last forty-two hours, hadn’t had a shower in forty-eight, and was running several hours late. I had already texted Jeff not to pick me up, and to just go to work because I would hail a cab, and by hour twenty-six, as I looked through my window at the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean that had been below me for eons, all I could think was
Back to reality
.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

Even before the plane lands, I can see why people call this place paradise. As we are preparing to descend, I look out the window, and the view literally takes my breath away. It was even prettier than I could have imagined—and I have read a
lot
of glossy wedding magazines over the years (and when I say
read
, I mean that in the same way men say they read
Playboy
).

The Pacific Ocean surrounds a towering mountain that I would later find out is called Haleakala. Haleakala is covered in clouds, but below the clouds I can see palm trees that are a shade of green I didn’t know was found in nature—although I think I saw it once on a paint square at Home Depot.

We land, and as we taxi to our gate, I see palm trees swaying in the breeze all around the airport. The colors look different here, as though the reds, greens, and blues are on steroids. While in the past two weeks I’ve seen breathtaking cities, their beauty has come mostly from humans—the architecture of the buildings, the exquisite paintings in the museums, the gold walls and crystal chandeliers in Versailles, the canals and boats in Venice, the castles in Germany. All gorgeous, but all due to the efforts of civilization. Hawaii has an entirely different kind of beauty—it looks effortless, relaxing. Even the vibe on the plane seems more relaxed than when we left.

“Aloha, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Maui,” the captain says to us in a reassuring voice over the loudspeaker. “Right now we’re at seventy-six degrees, and we’re looking at some scattered clouds, with a chance of rain later this evening. For those of you who are staying on in Maui, your bags will be at baggage claim one. For others flying on to other destinations…”

As the captain tells the other passengers which gates to proceed to for their connecting flights to Oahu, Kauai, and the Big Island, I continue to stare outside the window and wonder how anyone can ever summon up the willpower to leave. There are going to be some serious claw marks on the outside of the plane going back to LA from the flight attendants’ having to drag me into the cabin against my will.

We’re still just on the tarmac, and already I wonder how things can get any prettier.

Soon, I deplane and walk past the gates. Unlike in Paris or Houston or Detroit, the interior of this airport is like nothing I’ve ever been in. Hawaiian music lilts over the speaker system, flowers and plants abound, and instead of a bland, faceless airport bar, there’s a tropical-drink bar sporting thatched leaves, a surfboard hanging from the wall, and a sign promising me
THE BEST LAVA FLOW ON MAUI
.

I take an escalator down to baggage claim, located outside, preparing to grab my suitcase and duffel and grab a cab out to Kihei, where Jeff lives and works. But I emerge from the terminal to see Jeff, holding up a white cardboard sign like a chauffeur. Only instead of my last name written in black Sharpie, his sign reads
HE’S AN ASSHOLE
.

I giggle and walk into Jeff’s arms. “I told you not to come.”

He shrugs. “You tell me a lot of silly things that I ignore.” He holds up his sign. “Besides, how else would I have discovered this great new way to meet people? Do you know how many people read this and said, ‘My ride’s here’?”

I laugh. “I’m so sorry I’m so late.”

“You should be since you were the one flying the plane and all. Come on, let’s get your luggage.” He looks over at carousel number one. “What are you carrying these days?”

“What am I
carrying
?” I laugh. “Man, why can’t we live in 1961? Then I could just marry you and never have to date again.”

“Honey, if you were married to me in 1961, you’d be waiting in breathless anticipation for the key parties to begin in 1968.” Jeff looks horrified as my beat-up, old black suitcase (circa 1996) flies down the ramp and onto the conveyor belt. “Please tell me that’s not still your bag,” Jeff says, pointing at it and sighing.

“I’m a poor teacher with crushing student loans. Louis Vuitton’s not exactly in my budget.”

Jeff shakes his head. “Colostomy bags have more style.” Jeff grabs the handle and tugs the bag off the carousel. “Okay, I have to be at work in an hour. One of my bartenders quit, so I have a little extra work before we open. Let me drop you off at home so you can grab a shower and get some sleep.”

I sniff my armpits. “Do I smell that bad?”

“No, but you’ve been on the road forever, and you can’t sleep on planes, so I’m guessing you’d like to wash off the road dust and maybe get in a nap.”

“I’m fine. Really. Hey, what’s a Lava Flow?”

“Basically it’s a piña colada with strawberry purée ‘erupting’ out of the middle of the glass.”

“Do you know how to make Lava Flows at Male ‘Ana?”

“I know how to make everything flow at Male ‘Ana.”

Male ‘ana,
which is the Hawaiian word for “wedding,” is also the name of Jeff’s bar. Located near his home in Kihei, he opened the bar to cater specifically to newlywed couples who were staying in the ritzy hotels in nearby Wailea on their honeymoons, places like the Four Seasons, the Fairmont, and the Grand Wailea. Within a few months, he got a bunch of five-star reviews on Yelp, then got mentioned in a few bridal magazines, and now honeymooners come from all over the island, everywhere from Ka’anapali to Hana, to spend the evening listening to romantic wedding music, meet other newleyweds and swap wedding stories, and get hammered on specialty drinks with names like Kipona Aloha and Ho’omaika’i’ana.

“Perfect! Then I’ll be your first customer for the night,” I chirp happily. “But instead of a Lava Flow, can you make me a money-tree cocktail?”

Jeff narrows his eyes and smirks at me.

I look back at him innocently. “What?”

“Nice try. There is no such thing as a money-tree cocktail.”

“Why not?” I ask him without missing a beat.

Jeff bursts out laughing.

“What? I’m serious!”

Jeff puts his arm around me and gives me a big squeeze. “I missed you, geek. Now tell me about Europe. How was Giovanni?”

“Oh … my …
God
is that man good-looking?!” I practically yell.

Jeff faces lights up. “Isn’t he though?
So
good-looking! His lips…”

“Gorgeous. I would find myself staring at his lips.”

“Fortunately, I found myself doing more than staring at his lips.”