This time was going to be a bit different. Harlan and Anna Lee might be living in paradise, but they wouldn’t be living on the beach in paradise. Harlan, despite being an all around great guy and fine fellow, was just another regular payday captain in the army. He had made Captain at about the time I was being discharged. They told us they had a place on base, and Schofield Barracks is pretty much in the center of the island, not on the waterfront. I talked to Taylor about it, and she had actually been out there. She suggested the Royal Hawaiian — why stay at the same place as before!
Flying to Hawaii is one of those forever flights, because that’s how long they take. Taylor’s itinerary had us getting ferried to BWI by Lloyd Jarrett in a turboprop, and then flying nonstop to LAX, where we would catch another flight to Honolulu. No matter what, it takes an entire day to go there and an entire day to get back. I figured in another couple of years, we would be able to charter a plane even for this, and not just to go to the Caribbean. At the moment, unless it was company business, I thought it was a bit extravagant.
I was also worried about what my friend would say. He knew me as just another asshole captain in the Army. He knew I had blown my knee out, and that I was medicalled, although I had yet to tell him about the vacation jaunt in Nicaragua. He didn’t know, though, that I had serious money. He was bound to find out, sooner or later, and I just hoped it didn’t screw things up. Most of my life I had hidden my wealth, although that was becoming more difficult. Originally it had just been my lawyer and accountant; now it included all of the Buckman group, Marilyn and her family, and Tusker and Tessa. Very soon and it would become impossible to hide; I would only be able to disguise the extent, not the existence.
I just hoped it wouldn’t screw up our friendship. Big money can change things between people.
We flew out of Westminster at oh-dark-hundred, before dawn, in order to catch the earliest possible flight to Los Angeles. Marilyn had screamed at the inability to take more than two large suitcases, but I kept reminding her that where we were staying we could get housekeeping to do the laundry. (I didn’t tell her what that would cost; why cause trouble!) Because of the time difference, we made it into LAX around 11:00, and then transferred to a different flight. That left a little after noon, which got us into Honolulu around 5:00 in the afternoon by my watch. Just to make it more confusing, they don’t have Daylight Savings Time in Hawaii, so we were landing at 2:00 PM Hawaii Time. Even with first class seating, and even though Charlie had been an absolute perfect angel, it was still mind-numbingly exhausting!
Anna Lee and Roscoe met us at the gate. Roscoe was sleeping in a stroller. As soon as we came through, she jumped up and down and waved to us. I was too tired to do anything other than wave back, but Marilyn dumped Charlie on me and scampered over and gave our friend a big hug. I trailed behind, burdened by my son and his gargantuan diaper bag. I swear, I could carry him inside it!
“Hi, Carl! Good to see you! Oh my God, that must be Charlie!” gushed Anna Lee excitedly. “Oh, I want to see him!”
I handed him across. “Here you go, then. Feel free to keep him. Send him back in about 17 years or so.” I handed the diaper bag to my wife. “Your son smells. I think he needs a new diaper!”
“Some father you are!” answered Marilyn. She smiled down at Roscoe, who was stirring awake. “Hi there, Roscoe! Remember me? It’s your Aunt Marilyn!”
Roscoe took one look around at the busy terminal and let out a wail. I just rolled my eyes. “You two handle offspring. Let’s get out of everyone’s way. It’s safer.” The women took the babies off to the bathrooms and I dug out the luggage tags and waited for them to return.
They were gone the better part of fifteen minutes. Anna Lee led us down to Baggage Claim, and it’s a good thing she did, since the signs made no sense whatsoever. She pointed me towards the carousel. We had Marilyn’s two suitcases, my B-4 and a hanging bag stuffed to capacity, and a suitcase and rolled up stroller for Charlie. I got most of the stuff and dragged the suitcases out of the throng and dumped them in front of Marilyn. “Hold onto these. We’re still one short.” I dove back into the mass of people and got to the front just in time to see my hanging bag disappear around the other side of the carousel. I had to wait another few minutes for it to circle around before I could grab it.
I bulled my way out again, and got in front of the ladies, who had wisely pulled everything back towards a wall. I dropped the hanging bag on top of the others and bent backwards, stretching. Then I leaned forward and got a hug from Anna Lee. “It’s good to see you.”
“Same here! Oh, Carl, your son is adorable!”
I glanced over at Charlie, now sitting in his stroller. He had slept most of the flight and now was looking around curiously. Next to him was Roscoe, now about a year-and-a-half old, who had stopped fussing and was working on a bottle of formula. “Really? Adorable?” I looked over at Marilyn. “Did we get an adorable child someplace? Was there a mix-up at the airport?”
“You are an awful person,” she replied. “I don’t know why I married you!”
I simply held my hands out, palms towards each other about a foot apart. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
That earned me a squawk of outrage from Marilyn and a loud laugh from Anna Lee. “You sound just like Harlan,” she said.
“Hey, I’ve seen your husband in the shower, back in boot camp. You know what they say about black guys? It’s just not true.” That got another set of laughs and squawks.
“I’m going to tell him you said that. So where are you staying?”
“The Royal Hawaiian.” I dug out my paperwork. “Know where it is?”
“Sure. Do you have a car reserved?”
“Supposed to. Where’s your worse half?”
“He had duty. He’ll see you tomorrow. He’s taking a few days off.”
The rental cars weren’t at the airport, but offsite, so we had to wait around for a shuttle bus over to the rental area. I grabbed as many bags as I could carry, and hobbled and waddled my way over. The ladies each grabbed a bag and started pushing the strollers. At that point Anna Lee and Roscoe took off, Anna Lee promising to meet us over there in her car. Between the shuttle bus and the line at the counter it took us almost twenty minutes to discover my reserved full size Ford was not available. I could, however, rent a full size Lincoln for only a small upcharge. What a racket! I was too tired to care and if I argued I’d probably lose the Lincoln. I signed on the dotted line and got the keys.
We loaded everything up in the car, and then we found Anna Lee as we left the rental area. She was driving a blue Ford Fairmont Futura, probably the world’s ugliest car. She had the window rolled down and was waving at us. She yelled out, “Follow me!” We nodded back and followed her out of the airport. It wasn’t hard to follow her, since the Fairmont was easy to see, with its two tone paint job and weird vinyl roof.
The Royal Hawaiian was not just one more of the big towering behemoths lining the beach west of Diamond Head. It was an older style hotel that was startlingly pink in an age of concrete and glass. I would have preferred a bungalow of some sort, but they simply didn’t exist in an area convenient to us. We had a suite reserved. Who knew — maybe we could have a luau and get Gidget and Moon Doggie to sing. Still, after an entire day on airplanes, it looked like heaven.
Our two car caravan pulled up to the front, and Marilyn and I got out. Anna Lee stayed in her car. We walked over to her, and she said, “I can’t stay. I need to get back to the base and start dinner. You’ve got our number?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what ours is, but if you call the main desk, I’m sure they’ll put you through,” I replied.