"Aloha," she said, "good luck, huh."
"Aloha," Oliver said, for the first time without irony. The word felt good in his mouth.
He stepped through the door into a perfume of flowers and burnt jet fuel. White clouds ballooned over green mountain ridges. Heat waves eddied on the tarmac. The passengers moved quickly into the terminal and dispersed.
A young woman with brown skin and black hair, dressed in shorts and halter top, held a sign that read: Polynesian Paradise Adventures. She put a lei around Oliver's neck and directed him to a bus where he waited half an hour while other vacationers collected their luggage and boarded in small groups. The flowers in his lei were white with yellow centers. They had the same sweet smell that had greeted him at the airplane door. "Plumeria," the hostess told him.
The bus passed through an industrial area and then along the shore by several blocks of downtown business buildings, a marina, a park, and a large shopping mall. They entered an avenue congested with high-rise hotels and condominiums. "Waikiki," the hostess announced. The bus stopped in front of a nondescript hotel, and the hostess wished them a good vacation. "You have your discount coupons," she said.
"Where's the beach?" someone called.
"Over there." She pointed across an avenue choked with cars, taxis, and buses. "Two blocks."
Oliver's room was spare. The walls were made of concrete blocks painted a light aqua color. Sliding glass doors opened on a tiny porch. He went out and sat in a white plastic lawn chair for a moment. He was on the tenth floor, overlooking a side street. There was a building directly in front of him and more buildings in the direction of the beach. In the other direction, he could see a strip of mountain and what appeared to be a canal a few blocks away. It wasn't Paradise, and it wasn't particularly Polynesian, though there were palm trees by the canal.
The map that he had been given showed tourist attractions and how to get to them. He bought a decent map in the lobby and walked over to Kalakaua Avenue and down to the beach. It was a pretty beach, a gentle crescent that curved along a green park. In the other direction, back the way he had come, the sand fronted a strip of hotels. The waves were quiet, though larger than they had been in Atlantic City. Diamond Head guarded the far end of the beach. He felt differently about the postcard view now that he knew its secret. There's a crater in there.
He took off his shoes and socks and walked to the Diamond Head end of the beach, turning back at a small cluster of expensive houses and condominiums. The sand underfoot made him feel like a little kid. He retraced his steps and stopped by the first hotel that he reached on the beach side of Kalakaua. It was older than the others. A huge tree shaded a polygonal bar and a courtyard paved with stone. He ordered a Glenlivet.