They drove through the built up area between Lihue and Kapaa and parked outside a medical complex. "Five minutes, ten maybe," Mo said. "The client," she explained when she returned. "Rob Wilcox. He's a fan, buys my stuff for his clinic and for his own collection."
"Great," Joe said. "Is there a Mrs. Wilcox?"
"No." She flushed slightly. They parked by the beach in Anahola, ate bananas and an orange, and decided to stretch their legs. Mo walked strangely on the sand, holding her shoes in one hand. Her pelvis tipped back; she shifted her weight stiffly from one leg to the other in an exaggerated prance that said, "You should be so lucky as to even look at me." But no one else was on the beach. She didn't seem conscious of the change. Joe looked away. Three-footers curled peacefully along the beach as far as he could see.
They sat on the soft sand, and Mo took off her sweatshirt. Joe lay back with his head on his shoes and admired her breasts, high and shapely beneath a gray T-shirt. Steady, he said to himself, the woman barely likes you. Who was she, anyway? She took good pictures; he knew that. He fell asleep for a moment.
Mo took over the driving. They were well around the island, past
Kilauea, when Joe asked, "The Tahiti Nui, do you know it? In Hanalei?"
"A restaurant, bar?"
"Yup. With a porch. I want to have a beer on the porch." Mo looked at her watch. "Plenty of time," Joe said. "Which flight are you on?"
"Four-thirty," she said.
"Mine is quarter to six . . . We still have time. Maybe I can get on the early one." They drove over a stream that curved through sparkling green rice paddies. Shortly afterwards, they stopped by the Tahiti Nui.
They sat on a wooden porch and looked across the humpy patched blacktop road to a steep hillside, densely green and silent. "Happiness," Joe said, touching Mo's glass with his. "By some accounts, Hawaii is the most isolated land mass in the world. Kauai is the farthest out of the inhabited islands, and here we are at the end of the road. It stops right over there, can't make it around the Na Pali coast." He drank his beer and waved at the view. "Isn't it great, Mo? End of the road. Can't go any farther. How relaxing can you get? Nowhere to go but back—when we feel like it."