“Is there a number?”
“Yes, twenty-seven. But you’ll know it because of the roses.”
MORE THAN AN hour passed, during which I consumed two virgin mai tais and kept consulting my watch, wondering how late I could get away with leaving Honolulu for the Leeward side. But my patience was rewarded as, finally, a ripple went through the yacht club’s bar. Four Guys on the Edge had passed Diamond Head and would be at the dock within a half-hour.
“You must be happy to see your friend,” Georgina said as we left the building and walked along the dock, where most of the slips were filled with yachts, large and small, that belonged to the local crowd. “And it looks like his boat will be finishing first in its class. Has that happened before?”
“He’s never sailed this race, although the man who owns the boat is pretty seasoned. But Michael said something about there being a staggered start, which would put the boat’s finishing rank into question still, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s right. The boats leaving Newport Beach don’t all depart at the same time; there are so many of them, it could cause accidents. Instead, the boats follow a staggered schedule, and we record their total elapsed time, and subtract or add their handicap. The goal is for all the boats to get here around the same time, so we can celebrate together at the awards dinner-you’ll be going, I assume?”
“I’m not sure. Hey, is that the boat coming in?”
“No, dear, that’s just the shuttle taking people back and forth between the yacht clubs. But out on the horizon, I think I see something.”
The speck of something dark in the water became larger, and indeed it was a sailboat-a handsome, sleek hull. Four men were aboard, busily rolling down sails and guiding the boat into place. They all wore navy-blue polo shirts and ball caps obstructing their bearded faces. Michael hadn’t had a beard before, so I was having trouble recognizing him. I bided my time, making guesses. Michael might have been the wiry man pulling down the front sail…or was he the one at the wheel?
Even after Four Guys on the Edge had docked, I couldn’t discern Michael from the others. Then I noticed that one of the men had a bit of silver hair showing from under a Naval Academy cap, and was waving frantically at me. We made eye contact, and my stomach made the funny little skip that it had been doing for the last few months.
“Welcome to Hawaii,” I called out to Michael, whose eyes were bluer than I remembered, set against the deep tan he’d developed. The sea life clearly had agreed with him, I thought as he took off his cap and ran his fingers through his closely cropped, salt-and-pepper hair. He was making no effort to disembark after the boat was tied up and, as if sensing my disappointment, Georgina explained that they couldn’t set foot on Hawaiian soil until the customs agent had thoroughly inspected the boat for contraband.
The crowd around us was growing-after all, these were the first to arrive in the fifty-foot class, which was worthy of a big celebration. Georgina and I handed up the drinks, and each man took one and also bent his head to receive a lei made of yellow and white flowers and kukui nuts, the fruit from Hawaii’s state tree. But when it was Michael’s turn to take the lei, his arms were suddenly around me and, before I realized it, I’d been pulled up the rigging and on to the boat.
“I missed you too much to wait a moment longer,” Michael said as he embraced me in a classic friendly hug, perfect for public observation. This close, I smelled something slightly astringent about him-the seawater, and something else.
“What am I smelling on you-cologne?” I teased as we separated.
“No. It’s joy.”
What a romantic. “I’m happy too, but I smell something-a kind of citrus aroma.”
“No, it’s Joy. You know, the dishwashing soap? We mix it with seawater to clean ourselves.” Michael laughed. “Speaking of cleaning up, I can’t wait to get off this boat and get a real shower, not to mention shave this thing off.” Michael rubbed at his chin.
“Sure,” I said rashly, since the family dinner was still two and a half hours away. “I’d be happy to drive all of you to the hotel.”
That opened the floodgates for me with his three crewmates, all of whom had been quietly watching and smiling. I could understand the interest: their good friend had been without female companionship for years, so the appearance of a real woman was a curiosity. Michael introduced me to the Afghanistan and Iraq returnee, Kurt Schaefer, a deeply tanned, muscular man with white-blond hair cut military-short like Michael’s, and green eyes that looked as if they’d seen too much. It was easier for me to connect with the softer-faced crew captain, Parker Drummond, who was a real-estate investor in Southern California. Finally, I met the fourth man in the group: Eric Levine, an engineer at Goddard Space Center, who had terrible-looking sunburn. He didn’t say more than a quick hello, because he was on his cell phone trying to help his wife, who was lost somewhere in Los Angeles trying to meet Parker’s wife, Karen, for the next flight to Honolulu.
The customs inspector arrived and Michael and Parker followed him as he went below deck looking for contraband. Kurt lounged on the side of the boat, giving interviews to sports reporters. When Michael emerged from the cabin a few minutes later, he steered me around to the side of the boat that wasn’t facing the harbor, so that we could talk.
“Don’t count on taking the guys back to the hotel; they already said they plan to stay around the yacht club for a few hours to get their land legs back,” Michael said. “Frankly, I think they don’t mind being showered with free drinks and adulation.”
“A little adulation is in order for the fastest finishers in your class.”
“We don’t know yet if we’re the fastest-and I don’t really care, to tell the truth.”
“Come on.”
“I’m just glad I did the race, and it got me out here, with you. I have to say, though, that I’m more than ready to be on land and get a full night’s sleep.”
Michael didn’t just need sleep, he needed help walking. After the customs official finally cleared the boat, Michael hopped off, then nearly collapsed on the deck. Two men from the yacht club steadied him until I’d made my own precarious, high-heeled way off the boat and could walk him up to the yacht club, where I left him with his bags while I walked back to the mall for the car. I decided I didn’t want to risk Michael collapsing as he crossed Ala Moana Boulevard.
“Once again, you’re taking care of me,” Michael said as we continued by car from Ala Moana toward the Waikiki district. “Though I can’t say this vehicle has the Rei Shimura style to which I’m accustomed.”
“Yes, I know it. But what can I do? My Hawaiian uncle chose it for us,” I said, more aware than ever of the shiny new vehicles around me, the tour buses, convertibles, and luxury sedans streaming with us toward Waikiki.
“No offense meant, but I’ll see about renting my own car tomorrow. So, tell me about your newfound relatives. You were so nervous before you left.”
“Most of them are pleasant. But there’s a complicated agenda-just like I expected.” I began telling the story in a more or less chronological fashion, with Michael listening quietly. It was complicated enough that by the time we’d parked in the garage around the corner from the Hale Koa hotel, I was only halfway through Uncle Yoshitsune’s story, at the point where he’d been interned.
“I wonder if it’s true about his tampering with military mail,” Michael said as we stepped up a curving stairway and then entered a large, breezy open-air lobby, where ceiling fans whirred and a military population lounged on rattan furniture with crisply striped cushions.
“Apparently he was suspected, but never formally charged, which makes it seem quite unfair.”
Michael paused by the check-in desk, waving a family with four small children to go ahead of him. “We’ll have to pick up on this conversation later, but should I look for corroborating records at the Pearl Harbor archives? You could probably get in yourself with the Freedom of Information act, but it’d take longer.”