"I'll wait," Oliver said.
"O.K. . . . Maybe we get together sometime."
"I'd like that," Oliver said.
When Ken hung up, Oliver felt truly disconnected. Ken had sounded like a decent guy. Made sense, with a wife like that. My coaches . . . He must be a principal or a superintendent in the school system. Having finally made contact, Oliver wanted more.
But no one called the next day. Or the next. Oliver thought about visiting another island, but he didn't want to be away from the hotel that long. He couldn't sit by the phone for four days, so he explored the city, checking back for messages at least once during the day.
Honolulu was interesting. With the exception of Waikiki and the downtown district, it was a residential city. There were distinctly different neighborhoods in each of the narrow valleys that stretched two and three miles back into the mountains. Other areas, like Alewa Heights, were built on the faces of the ridges; at night their lights reached with sparkling fingers high into the dark. He found formal gardens, temples, and a red light district with hustlers of every race and description. He found a dirt alley with mud puddles, wandering chickens, barefoot children, and a grandmother with two gold teeth. He discovered small factories and, incredibly, in the middle of the city, a watercress farm.
He read The Advertiser every morning in Tops. He got to know the city as well as he could in a few days. But no one called.
At the end of the week, he took a city bus to the airport, preferring not to travel with the vacation group. He was sad when he boarded the plane. He sat next to the small oval window and buckled his seat belt. The buckle clicked together with a finality that seemed to say: that's it; you did what you could.
The tour package had originated in Eugene. Oliver had chosen to return there instead of Portland. The cost was the same, and he could see another part of Oregon. He slept most of the way to the mainland. As he rode to his hotel in a light rain, shivering a bit, he thought, Hawaii made me soft. Good place, though. "Aloha," he said, thinking of Ken and Michiko.
10.