WHEN I WOKE up, Michael was curled around my back, kissing my spine.
“What time is it?” I murmured, reaching behind me to stroke him.
“Time to rise and shine.” He folded himself around me, and I opened my eyes to the bright sky and ocean outside the bedroom window. We’d forgotten to draw the curtains last night. And there was something else troubling me that I couldn’t remember. The problem lay in the back of my mind, just as Michael lay against my back now, warming me in the chilly, air-conditioned room.
I grabbed the bathroom first, cleaning my teeth vigorously with the brush and toothpaste that I’d kept in my purse as a precaution ever since my illness began. Then I stepped into the shower, and let the warm water rain down on me. Slowly, I began to relax. I lathered up my calves with shaving cream and was just starting in on them when Michael slid into the room.
“Share a toothbrush with me?” he held up my brush.
“I’ve shared everything else, so you might as well.” I waved him toward the sink.
“Absolutely not.” Michael was stark naked, but looked utterly comfortable as he lounged against the wall, brushing his teeth.
“I thought I should be prepared,” I said, as I turned from him and bent over my left calf again. “In case we have a half-hour for the pool this morning. I could look for a swimsuit in the gift shops downstairs.”
“Shopping is not a priority right now.”
When I looked again, I saw this was true. I smiled and said, “Good morning to both of you.”
Michael didn’t answer, just opened the shower door, and gently lifted me against him. Before I could react, he’d carried me back to the bed, suds and all.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” Michael said as he began kissing his way down my body. “I should get dressed, take you down to breakfast and then to your home, where I’ll declare my intentions to your father.”
“Mmm,” I said, savoring his tongue, until the words he’d spoken with it had connected with my brain. I sat straight up. “What are you talking about?”
“Last night, I asked you to marry me. Surely you haven’t blacked out?”
“I remember you interrupting me, and my not being able to answer.”
“What? You said yes. Several times, in fact…”
“If I said yes, it’s because I was in the throes of passion. It’s not actually fair to ask someone a thing like that, when she’s halfway out of her mind.”
“Come on, Rei. Your guard was down, and you said yes to marrying me.”
“Michael, have you forgotten our original intention?” I stared at him. “We would try dating. Last night was our first official date, and I’d say it went extremely well. We could have another date, tonight.”
“But I’ve decided I don’t want to date you.” Michael had risen from the bed and was pulling on a bathrobe. “If we keep dating, you’ll walk away. I’m afraid that’s your modus operandi. Look at what happened with Hugh and Takeo.”
“That’s not true. It was only after Hugh and I became engaged that things went to hell, and Takeo never asked.”
“But you’d lived with him, just as you’d lived with Hugh. You don’t do well with live-in boyfriends. I refuse to join the chain.”
Was Michael laughing at me? Rather huffily, I answered, ‘I’m not asking you to live with me.”
“Of course you aren’t. Living together is playing, and so is dating, at our ages. Come on, Rei. Agree to the deal and when I return to work, I’ll immediately ask Len about my getting shifted off the Japan desk.”
“But you live and breathe for that job. You can’t leave it.” I would rather remind him of work than tell him that I was overcome by his proposal, but fearful of what it might bring. Michael had lost his first wife in an airplane bombing, and I knew how long his mourning had lasted. I was afraid of him dying in his work for the government, leaving me behind.
“You’re wrong about that, Rei. I live and breathe for you. Even if you just want me for one thing.” And with that, Michael went out to the balcony and stared intently at the sea-so intently that I got the message, got dressed, and went downstairs, where I did happen to go to the gift shop, and bought an overpriced pair of yoga pants and a Hawaii-themed T-shirt, because I couldn’t bear to go home in the clothes I’d worn the night before.
I was relieved that he joined me for breakfast. We didn’t share many words, but we did share a basket of warm popovers and massive amounts of tropical fruit. There was a hole in the popover the waiter served me, and as I bit into it metal clinked against my teeth. I extracted a square-cut diamond solitaire ring.
“Sorry. I arranged for this to happen yesterday evening, when I booked the room. But I can probably take the ring back.” He sounded glum.
“Is it the ring from the Exchange?” I asked as the waiter who’d served us hovered on the periphery, beaming.
“I returned there when you were sick and swapped it for a real one.”
I held the diamond ring in my palm and looked at it, thinking of the beautiful vintage emerald I’d flung back at Hugh, and the ring that had never come from Takeo. Was I about to throw away the best thing I ever had, just because I was afraid of loss?
“Michael, I feel all choked up. I want to cry.” I laid the ring on the table, still studying it. I imagined all the happiness the ring could bring me, if I were brave enough to take it.
“Please don’t. We’ve already attracted enough attention.”
“Marriage is a lifetime, Michael. Won’t you give me time to think about this?”
“Of course I will. But I’m telling you now, when I drop you back at the resort today, I’m going to investigate whether it’s possible to book one of the wedding chapels. Half your relatives are here already, and it won’t be hard to get mine to turn out on short notice. They’ll be ecstatic.”
“You’re leaving in one day, Michael.” As I spoke, I remembered that I’d almost gotten married in Hawaii once, to Hugh. Perhaps this meant that I was actually fated to marry here, just like my ancestor Harue.
“Yes, and it’s unfortunate. So we won’t get married today or tomorrow, but I think within ten to fourteen days is reasonable. I can get things done quickly.”
“Not everything quickly,” I reminded him, and was rewarded with a look so fond and knowing that I threw caution to the wind. “Michael, we still have our room until noon, and I don’t have to be home until around two.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Rei,” Michael said. “This morning, I will bow to your wishes. But the next time will have to be within this hotel’s wedding suite. Do you read me?”
“Roger that.”
30
WE MADE THE most of every last moment to love each other, then drove back to the Leeward Side, holding hands most of the way. When I arrived home, my father greeted us cordially, and did not say a word about the missing night. I was grateful for Japanese discretion-the art of ignoring the obvious, and for letting water wash everything away.
I swung into dutiful-daughter mode, preparing a luncheon salad of local cucumbers, tomatoes, and lettuce. As I started chopping, my father invited Michael to stay to eat with us, but he begged off because of a lunch appointment at Pearl Harbor. It was probably just as well because right after he left, my father dropped the information that Uncle Hiroshi and Tom would meet Hugh for a round of golf at Turtle Bay on the North Shore.
“Otoosan, I guess you’re the only one who’ll be able to come with me to see Harue’s cottage,” I said ruefully. “That is, if we can still go. Won’t Hiroshi and Tom need the minivan?”
“We can drop them off, and then use the car ourselves. And thank you for including me, Rei. After all the research we’ve done, I’d very much like to see the house.”
As we washed dishes, I relayed what Josiah Pierce had told me about Harue’s brave and painful family history, and how he’d found confirmation of the sale of the house-a sale that could never have been legally made because of the military maps that included the house.