I straightened Danny's lei, which had caught up on his collar, and kissed him on the cheek, and I said, “I'm sorry, too,” not able to give voice to what I was sorry for any more than he was. I was sorry that I'd told Bob I was writing before I told Danny? If I said that, Danny would have to swear he wasn't jealous of Bob, that he hadn't felt betrayed, and that would leave him feeling the pettiness of carrying that thorn in his paw all this time, and it would leave me feeling that pettiness too, feeling Danny would throw my dream out with the dirty dishwater of his pride.
“It looks like the bags are coming in,” I said, relieved for the excuse to turn away.
Our room at the Surf Hotel was ultramodern and stark, its only inviting feature a rope chair that hung from the ceiling. Not at all what I'd expected, none of this was going as I'd expected, as I'd hoped, and we were only just there. And I suppose it's worse to live life without expectation than to live through the pain of expectations crushed, but it never feels that way in the moment, it always feels as though life would be so much easier if only you could stop hoping for things that would never come.
The room did have a glass door opening to a balcony, it did look out over thatch-topped sun umbrellas and sand and waves and an outcropping of land beyond, a view we took in standing side by side, without touching. Standing there with the warm breeze flowing over me, I imagined that if I looked out rather than in all weekend, I would like what I saw, what I was doing. I imagined it would all be okay.
We ate chateaubriand for dinner that evening, and drank umbrella drinks—coconutty pineapply rummy piña coladas I sipped like lemonade while we listened to a jazz band. Around us, everyone was relaxing, unwinding. It was the first time most of these guys had really relaxed since the back-and-forth to Canada had begun. The first time Danny and I had had to really relax, too, though we weren't. We were drinking the same umbrella drinks everyone else was, but we weren't drinking to relax, we were drinking to anesthetize.
You'd think I'd be smart enough to know to avoid those umbrella drinks in that situation.
Everyone else was keeping pace with us, even Bob, who'd arrived just in time for cocktails. After dinner, he made his way around to the tables, thanking the men for all their hard work and their wives for all their patience. As he approached our table, I slipped off my glasses. He sat next to me, took my hand, kissed my cheek.
“Frankie,” he said. “I do hope you got some writing done while Danny was in Canada.” His voice was so warm and encouraging and enthusiastic that it made me want to spill my guts again, it made me want to tell him I couldn't write a word anymore, my novel was dead, it was never going to sell.
We talked and talked, Bob and I did, while Danny sat back with his arms crossed over his chest, only moving to drain his fourth drink. I was just being the good corporate wife, I'd have claimed, but I knew even as I was laughing with Bob that it was more complicated than that.
Danny and I had sex that night. Not made love. Had sex. Sex that started the moment we closed the door to our hotel room after a silent walk down the long corridor back to our room. “My diaphragm,” I said, but he only wrapped his fingers in my hair and held it tight, pulled it tight, and he yanked my lei off and my blouse open, and he squeezed my breast till it hurt. I bit his lip, and he lifted my skirt and took me like that, standing up against the wall of the sterile hotel room, with the sliding door to the balcony closed, the drapes drawn, even the ocean waves crushed into an awful silence that was still with us the next morning when we awoke, hung over and embarrassed and sad.
There's nothing to do but go on pretending in those situations. You can't have a knock-down-drag-out on vacation in Hawaii with all your work cohorts, with your boss. You can't sulk or pout or do anything but pretend to be having as great a time as everyone else is clearly having, to hide the hurt and smile politely and say yes, the pineapple does taste better here, and no, you've never seen an ocean so blue, felt air so soft.
Well into a second night of umbrella drinks, we found ourselves out on the beach—not just Danny and me but the whole expedition, the men stripping off their white shirts, shoes, socks, belts, and pants, stripping down to their undershorts to go for a swim. Never mind that their swimsuits were just a minute away, in their rooms. Never mind that Danny was wearing a pair of embarrassingly frayed-at-the-edges boxers, an orange, monkey-adorned pair I'd tossed into the trash months ago only to have him indignantly fish them out. They were so soft, so comfortable. His favorite undershorts.
“O'Mara, you're sacrificing everything to buy more stock, aren't you?” someone joked. “Even your underwear!”