Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [64]
At breakfast they sat outside, facing the ocean. Alice chose the buffet: pancakes rolled into long cigars and soaked in syrup; a ham, cheese, and chive omelet made fresh at the omelet bar; another plate piled with fruit, bacon, and prosciutto, even a few pieces of sushi. David, his stomach weak from the night before, had oatmeal and coffee.
“Let’s sit out here for a while,” she said, turning to face the water.
The waiter came and she ordered another mimosa and then sat rubbing her belly.
“My God,” she whispered, looking out at the Pacific.
He didn’t ask.
Nor did he ask what the dolphin trainer had told her as they waded out to the middle of the lagoon, whatever it was that made Alice laugh so hard. He was simply glad to see her seem happy. Along with four other guests, the trainer led them through a series of close encounters and tricks—the dolphin spinning like a top, more than half its body out of water; skimming backward in similar gravity-defying fashion; fetching three rings flung in three directions, collecting all of them, it seemed, the instant they hit the surface—and then took Alice alone out into the middle of the pool. On a small island there was kiosk where people checked in for these adventures and were given life vests and masks labeled SEA QUEST, and David walked halfway up a narrow staircase overlooking the pool to take pictures. The morning sunlight bejeweled the surface of the lagoon, softening every shot, making the images too beatific, too postcard-perfect, but the joy on his wife’s face redeemed them, made them more personal and completely uncontrived. Watching her applaud every trick, and listen to the trainer as they treaded water, and talk with this stranger, he had that precious glimpse of Alice in the world without him, encountering an unabashed joy that seldom if ever presented itself to her—this, moreover, an emotion she didn’t really trust. He thought of her childhood stories, of her acute loneliness, of feeling unwanted, of the belief built into the very core of her character that she was somehow undeserving of love. She guarded herself against joy. Their child had brought these defenses down, of course, sent them tumbling like the walls of Jericho. And he admired how, so soon after what had happened, she’d found the strength to give herself over to joyousness here and now. “You seemed to enjoy that,” he said when he met her outside the gate.
She squeezed the water from her hair, took off the life jacket. “What’s not to enjoy?” she said.
Later, they took a cab into Waikiki, though the moment they got there David realized he’d made a terrible mistake. Nothing was beautiful here, nothing took your mind away. It was like a shopping district in any American city, and if you looked straight down Kalakaua Avenue you might as well be in Atlanta or St. Louis. David and Alice walked the streets aimlessly, passing Tiffany’s, Banana Republic, the Gap, Niketown, Brooks Brothers, and Gucci, Bebe, and Abercrombie & Fitch interspersed with one T-shirt store after another, some of them gigantic hybrids, multipurpose shops for all tourists that sold cheap surfer shirts, macadamia nuts, coconut syrup (David bought some), sunscreen and sun hats and sunglasses, wine and beer and liquor, followed by an open-air market whose kiosks—made of fake palm leaves and real bamboo—were full of snow globes, leis, grass skirts, bathing suits, tribal kitsch and faux Hawaiian sculpture ranging from totem poles to dolphins and killer whales, signs that read Hang Ten! photo booths and food stands, square after black-velvet square of turquoise and silver rings, shark tooth and sea turtle necklaces, puka beads stacked one strand atop another on a peg as long as an African’s neck, regionalized knickknacks worn only by the tasteless or infirm, produced in some factory hidden away on the mainland or by children in India or China.
It was wearing on Alice too. “I don’t need any of this,” she said.
“I know.”
“I have zero