“You sure?”
Well. The board was heavy. The path was steep. The man was attractive. On the other hand, while he had that kind of face that stuck in your mind, it was also the kind of face that said he might be trouble. Irene couldn’t say why. He seemed straightforward enough. Kittens adored him. His chin was sturdy and all, his smile was sincere. His voice made an easy California rumble. Behind him, the waves roared in from across the Pacific, keeping time to the beat of the universe. The kitten rubbed its cheek on the round bone of her ankle.
“I guess I’m all right,” Irene said. She pulled her leg free from the kitten, swung forward again, overbalanced the eighty-pound surfboard on her shoulder and toppled back into the sand at Trouble’s feet.
Trouble had a name, it turned out. “Mallory,” he said, sticking out his hand, when Irene’s surfboard was safely secured to the roof of the Model T and they had both visited the huts to change into dry, respectable clothes. The kitten now nestled in the crook of Mr. Mallory’s arm, purring like a motorboat. Irene stuck out a finger and rubbed its forehead.
“Irene Foster,” she said.
“You know, you’re the only girl who comes out here mornings.”
“I’m no girl. Twenty years old last month.”
“Still and all. Who taught you to surf like that?”
“My father.”
“You don’t say. Surfs out here too?”
“No,” she said. “Just me.”
Mr. Mallory squinted his eyes a little, like he was trying to figure out what she meant by that. He wore a newsboy’s cap over his damp hair, and he grabbed the brim and pulled it lower on his forehead, while his face turned away to observe the western horizon, the grand Pacific. He tickled the kitten’s chin, and it stretched out obligingly, eyes closed.
Mallory, she thought. He had a name, Mr. Mallory, and as she repeated the words in her head, some bell dinged. Some ring of familiarity.
She nodded to the kitten. “What’re you going to name him?”
“I don’t know. Sandy?”
“I guess that makes sense. My father used to say you should never forget where you came from.” She reached out again and smoothed the fur between its ears. “Besides, it’s practical, isn’t it?”
“Practical? How so?”
“Why, if he turns out to be a she, you can keep the name.”
Mr. Mallory looked a little shocked. He held up the kitten and peered underneath. “I’ll be damned. You might be right.”
“Just a hunch.” She glanced to the car, because her cheeks had turned a little warm. “I’d better be off.”
Mr. Mallory tucked the kitten back into his left elbow and touched the brim of his cap with his other hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Foster.”
“Likewise, Mr. Mallory.”
“Suppose I’ll be seeing you around, some morning.”
“I’m here most mornings. When I can get the car started, anyway.”
Mr. Mallory stroked the kitten with his large, bony fingers. He squinted at some point over her shoulder, toward the ocean. Irene shifted her feet.
“Look, Miss Foster. I . . .”
“Yes?”
“Nothing. Glad to meet you at last, that’s all.”
Irene opened her mouth to say Likewise and realized she was only repeating herself, the same bland word. Instead she said, “I suppose we were bound to meet sometime, both of us surfing here like this,” which wasn’t exactly true.
But Mr. Mallory nodded, just as if their meeting were indeed inevitable, and said, “I guess you’re right.” He turned to his car, a handsome Nash Six, canary yellow, four or five years old in Irene’s estimation. Took a step or two. Stopped and turned and touched his cap again, and for some reason this image of Mr. Mallory stamped itself on her brain, tanned and sober, touching his cap while the rising sun tinted everything gold, so that ever after, when she thought of him, or when she sat in the dawn, he made this picture in her mind.
She waved and got inside her own car, her father’s old Tin Lizzie held together with baling wire, and set the choke. Went around to turn the crank but though the engine turned and turned it wouldn’t start. Mr. Mallory noticed her trouble in the nick of time and came over from his Nash, which had started impeccably from its automatic ignition. He opened the hood and they peered inside together.
“Spark plug’s blown out,” she said.
“Got a spare?”
“No. You?”
“’Fraid not. But they’ll have plenty at the airfield. I’m headed out there now.”
“Airfield?”
“Where I work.” Mr. Mallory straightened from the innards of the Model T and smiled at her confusion, for maybe the first time since hauling her surfboard up the dunes, and Irene thought it was worth the sacrifice of a mere commonplace spark plug to experience a smile like that. He yanked down the hood and dusted off his hands.
“I’m a pilot,” he said.
And that was when Irene put one and one together, Mallory and flying.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re Sam Mallory. The Sam Mallory.”
He scratched his head and peered at the sun. “Does it make a difference?”
Irene bent down to pick up Sandy, who had escaped from the Nash and wandered across the grit to curl around Irene’s ankles. “Of course not,” she lied.
Hanalei, Hawai’i
October 1947
The boy sprawled beside me is the kind who sleeps deep, apparently. I like that in a fellow. You can slither out of bed, dress and brush your teeth, even write him a tender good-bye note if you’re so inclined, and he won’t so much as flutter an eyelid.
Dear Boy [I can’t remember his name],
That was too lovely for words and just what a girl needs. A thousand thanks for the ride out there [he captained the boat from Oahu yesterday afternoon] and the ride in here. I enclose a five dollar bill. As I tried to explain last night, I might allow my escorts to pay for dinner, but I always buy my own drinks. You can keep the change for good luck.
Yours always,
Janey
I lay the note on the nightstand and pull the camera from my pocketbook. My companion’s all tangled up in the sheets like a Bernini god, except tanned. I find an angle that preserves his modesty. The light’s not terrific, but I open the aperture as far as it will go and hold myself steady.
Click.
Then I steal out the door before he starts to miss me.
Among the many gifts I received from that nice young man last night, he told me where to find Irene Lindquist. I don’t believe he meant to do that, but when a fellow’s plied with enough drink and female companionship, his lips will loosen in more ways than one.
A good thing, too, because the rest of the locals in this two-bit Hawaiian village weren’t inclined to admit she exists, let alone lives among them, even though I know for a fact that Lindquist, together with her husband, Olle, runs an island-hopping operation called Kauai Sky Tours out of an airfield five miles away. By the time the good captain sauntered through the door of the town watering hole last night at a quarter past nine—acting as if he owned the joint, and it turned out he did—I had just about given up and prepared myself to walk those five miles through the darkness to wait for Lindquist at her place of business, since I wasn’t getting anywhere else fast. Tenacity, that’s what separates success from defeat. Also a willingness to do what’s necessary, though I admit that going to bed with this particular informant wasn’t exactly a noble sacrifice, except of sleep.