"Not just Queenie. I also breed Labs," he explained. "Can I have your business card?" He winked at me. There was something unnatural in the way he did it, contorting his face. "I might want to mention you in my piece."
I wondered what he would make of my card.
"Your name rings a bell," Palfrey said.
"I can't imagine why," I said, defying him to produce more evidence.
My certainty made him waver. "I think there's a fairly wellknown writer by that name."
"But you see I'm the manager of this hotel," I said. "What did this namesake of mine write?"
Palfrey admitted he had read nothing. Mine was just a hard- topronounce name on the cover of a book he had once seen somewhere. Unfortified, he caved in and smiled wanly, sorry he had raised the matter.
That was the beginning, but days before his free week was out, Palfrey had packed his bags and signaled to me that he was leaving.
"I don't have enough to write about."
He was booked on a midnight flight to the mainland, and so between his checking out and the arrival of his taxi I heard his story.
A woman in Paradise Lost had sat on a stool next to him and said, "Boxers or briefs?" Then another one, at a bar on Kalakaua, had sidled up to him and asked if he wanted a date. He said no. She repeated it, seeming to corner him, but he finally got away.
That had been his first night. I wondered whether I should tell him this was nothing unusual. The next day, at Irma's Diner, having eaten a plate lunch, and killing time over his coffee, Paifrey looked up and a woman said, "Hi." When he smiled and returned her greeting, she sat down across from him and began talking about herself. A radiologist, she
had come here from a suburb of Pittsburgh. The money was good, but housing and food were expensive and it was really hard to meet new people, and she said, "What are you doing tonight?"
"I'm pretty busy," Palfrey said, startled into a transparent lie by the sudden question. He was not busy at all. ("The funny thing was that I was lonely," he told me. "Ever had a crying jag?") But the woman radiologist was panting, sucking lemonade through a straw, wearing green scrubs.
She was bigger than he was, and distinctly mustached and chubby. When she finished her drink, she sat with her mouth open, looking hungry, as though he were a piece of meat. Palfrey left Irma's in a hurry.
"You felt like a piece of meat?" I asked.
"Just listen," he said.
He had wanted to use Irma's men's room, but the radiologist was so intrusive he hurried out. On his way into the one at the International Marketplace, he felt a hard, hot pinch on his bottom, a sharp pain that made him squawk. He turned to see a woman laughing at him, holding her mouth wide open, showing the shiny gray fillings in her teeth, like metallic dentures. She had big beefy arms and broken nails. She mocked him with the fingers she had used to pinch him, holding them like a pair of pliers.
He was fearful inside the men's room. He was fearful leaving it. But even when he was free of the place, he noticed that nearly all the women prowling the Waikiki sidewalks were staring at him.
Nestled behind its signature monkeypod tree just two blocks from the beach, Palfrey wrote in his room at the Hotel Honolulu, one of the last family-owned hotels, where brunch is a Honolulu tradition, the Hotel Honolulu is one of Waikiki's best kept secrets.
A secret kept from Palfrey himself, perhaps, for he could go no further. Oppressed by his hotel room, he walked to Ala Moana Beach and felt calm again. His folding chair seemed jammed — sand in the joints of the legs — and as he jerked at it, a woman came over, snatched it, and said, "Let me do that," and popped it open.
"Mahalo," Palfrey said.
The woman said, "Now, how about you do something for me." She touched herself on a lower panel of her bathing suit and licked her lips.
This was down near the orange lifeguard chair at the Magic Island end of the beach. The woman was lined and leathery, purplish from the sun, with salt-stiff hair and salt rime on her too loose bathing suit. Patches of coarse sand clung to her calves and elbows.
When Palfrey said no, the woman swore at him ("It was gross") and swaggered away. At this point, out of desperation, but also thinking it might be a good story idea, Palfrey went to the Hawaii Humane Society at the south end of King Street and announced himself as a member of the American Kennel Association. The lobby reeked of the burning hum of cat shit and the eye- stinging tang of cat piss. Taking a shallow breath, Palfrey asked whether any of their dogs needed walking.
"You know about our Canine Caregivers Outreach Program?" the woman at the counter asked. She had the patient, long-suffering look of a foster mother, and Palfrey was encouraged.
Shortly afterward, a man in overalls brought out a large jittery dog that began barking pointlessly and stumbling with excitement.
"This is Soldier," the man said.
"He's definitely got some Lab in him!" Palfrey cried. He made faces at the excited dog and was thankful for the dog's attention. Palfrey was happy, he felt purposeful. This was something real he could write about: the Canine Outreach Program and also the theme that when he was with a dog, he felt content. He left the building with Soldier, a big black creature with the snout and some of the contours of a Lab's solid head, the big soft nose, the grateful eyes and busy tail. Soldier had a slack tongue and thirstylooking jaws. The dog shook himself on the sidewalk and strained at his leash, glad to be outside and wanting more. Paifrey talked to the dog in the sort of continual flow of affectionate banter that other people might use on a mildly backward and muchloved child who had not yet learned to talk.
Comforted by Soldier, feeling protected, Palfrey returned to Ala Moana. After the dog had had a good run near the tennis courts, Paifrey sat on the sea wall, the dog's snout resting against his knee. He took out his notebook and looked at his opening: Nestled behind its signature monkeypod tree just two blocks from the beach, one of the last family- owned hotels, where brunch is a Honolulu tradition, the Hotel Honolulu is
one of Waikiki's best kept secrets. He doodled and tried to resume, attempting to marry factuality with gaiety. Hearing a burst of human squawking, he looked down the beach and saw some local youths, two boys and a girl, spitting water and yelling "Fuck you, Buddha-head!" at a Japanese man and his small daughter — tourists, probably. Palfrey scratched the dog's belly, watching its eyes grow contented. He was safe with this animal.
Four women passed by that morning, each asking Palfrey the name of the dog and had he taken it through quarantine here? Three of them he ignored. The fourth was prettier than the rest, very pretty in fact. She, too, had a dog in tow, a yellow Lab. Soldier raised his head, and his tongue, which was thick and purple, tumbled out, trailing a string of elongated drool. The woman's dog gave a low growl and got to its feet.
"Miranda," the woman said, cautioning the yellow Lab.
Palfrey smiled at Miranda. The woman reached down to stroke Soldier, though Soldier, too, had his eye on Miranda. His muscly tongue lifted and curled, as though a sign he was taking an interest in the woman.
"Doing some writing?" the woman said.
Palfrey saw the line Nestled behind its signature monkey pod tree just two blocks from the beach and covered the page. "I'm a travel writer," he said, and casually mentioned his name and the title of his monthly column, "A Little Latitude."
"That rings a bell," the woman said. She didn't specify whether she meant his name or the column title. "I'm Dahlia."
Her hand was hard and damp, and white streaks stood out on her forearm. She was fattish, with big soft cheeks and kindly eyes. Her shoulders were freckled from the sun, and her hair was sunstreaked. She wore a loose flower-print dress, open-toed sandals, rings on some of her toes, a tattoo on one knuckle. Free spirit, Palfrey thought.