Sunday, September 19
Lou's Birthday
Happy Birthday!
I am so glad we made it to this day.
Don and I slept on Diana's bed while Diana and Jim shared a roll-out
foam pad on the floor by her altar. Jim woke early and went out for a
walk. Diana woke and did a morning meditation. When Don woke, he joined
her.
Then Diana and I put together a late breakfast. I made waffles from
scratch the way my grandmother did, using whipped egg whites instead of
baking powder. We added pecans to them as well, and everyone raved
about them. Diana wanted the recipe. Jim wanted seconds.
Jim drove us all to Honolulu and dropped Diana off at the hotel where
she was to perform the wedding. It was some kind of military hotel,
though it was quite luxurious. We even had to go through a checkpoint,
where they checked Jim's ID. Fortunately, he works for the Navy, so
there was no problem.
After dropping Diana off, Don and I said we wanted to see Queen's Surf
Beach, which was supposedly the gay end of Waikiki. Jim drove us down
there and we walked along the beach, though I did not see much sign of
gay life. At the far end of the beach was the city aquarium, a
crumbling war memorial undergoing restoration, and then a set of
beachfront hotels. Jim took us into the first hotel and into its lanai,
where my fondest birthday wish came true: I had a mai tai on the beach
with my friends. Jim had one and so did Don, which may have been his
first sip of alcohol since the hemorrhage in December.
We looked for more of what Jim called "eye candy" on the way back to the
car (for a straight man, he's remarkably accomodating). We also stopped
by Hula's, a well-known gay bar. It was mid-day and nearly empty. I
was unimpressed. Don said, "It's just a bar."
We returned to pick up Diana. We didn't see her immediately, so after
getting through the checkpoint, Jim parked the car and Don and I went
into the lobby, a truly beautiful open breezeway. While Don went to the
restroom, I sat down on a rattan sofa, enjoying the warm, mild air. Don
joined me and we sat there a while, arms around each other.
Diana and Jim came to join us with big grins on their faces. "You
should've seen the looks on some of those retired admirals' faces when
they saw the two of you on that couch," Jim said.
We headed for the North Shore, where we arrived in time for lunch.
It was enormous. I had another mai tai. It was also enormous.
Jim and Diana helped me drink it.
After lunch, which made us all stuffed to the gills, we went for
a walk along a trail near where Jim and Maha used to live. Don
used to come and visit Maha and go trail biking with Jim. Jim pointed
out some rose apples along the way and picked some for us to eat.
What an amazing flavor! They really do taste the way roses smell.
Later on the trail, we came across strawberry guavas, tiny fruits
with deliciously sweet interiors - provided they're ripe.
We went about a mile down the trail, which was about fifty feet below
the ridge line. We came across a place where it was easy to climb to
the top of the ridge and look out over the Wailua Valley, so we all
scampered up to the top. The views were stunning. I was fretful on the
way down, however. Don was tiring and his footing was unsteady, so we
made a kind of human chain for him to grasp onto on his way down the
loose dirt and tree duff.
The next stop was Sunset Beach, which Don had praised for the beauty of
its surfers. There were indeed several good-looking young men hanging
around, but the surf was too small to entice them. Most of the people
in the water and on the beach seemed to be about junior-high-aged.
Diana decided she wanted some corn for dinner tonight, so she and Jim
headed off for a roadside stand while Don and I headed across the broad
beach hand-in-hand. We were about half-way to the water when I heard
young voices calling out from some distance behind us.
"Ha! Ha! Look at the funny-looking queers! Ha! Look at the queers!"
Jim and Diana and the car where nowhere in sight. There was a group of
middle-aged women on blankets and beach chairs about a hundred feet in
front of us. The cat-calls were from behind us and seemed a fair
distance away.
"Queers! Look at the funny queers!"
They weren't getting any louder or coming any closer. I listened as if
my ears were on backwards, straining for the sound of feet running on
sand, but I heard nothing. Don didn't seem to hear the shouts, focusing
on his footing and the sand just a few feet ahead of him. We would be
next to the women soon. I decided we could make it.
My hyper-attuned ears started picking up other sounds: people laughing,
the low surf crashing, some distant music. Out over the ocean a rain
storm was coming ashore, thickening and darkening the sky.
We made it to a shelf on the beach where the dry sand meets the wet sand
shaped by the surf. We sat down beside a woman with a book and rested.
We had walked across the entire beach hand-in-hand. Now, sitting at the
sea's edge, I put my arm around Don and he rested his head on my
shoulder. There were no more cat-calls from behind us.
A short time later, a light rain began to fall, scarcely more than a
mist. I thought it might actually be sea spray, but the water was fresh,
not salt. Soon after that, Jim and Diana came down the beach to find
us. They told us that where they had bought the corn, just a half a
mile away, it was pouring. We decided to head back to the car.
All four of us were chatting when, over our conversation, I heard the
voice again.
"Queers!" it yelled. "Fucking fruitcakes! Stupid queers!"
It was more piercing than before and now seemed to be coming from the
water's edge, off to our right, but no one else in our group
acknowledged hearing it. The "ha-has" were gone, too. Perhaps our
mocker wasn't being very successful in getting others to join in. As we
passed a sun-bathing woman, the mocker let out another "Fucking
fruitcakes!" and I saw the woman rise up and look over her shoulder in
annoyance. She wasn't looking at us, but back in the direction of the
slurs. Her afternoon in paradise was being spoiled - not by two guys,
walking calmly and quietly hand in hand, but by an stream of insistent
vulgarities.
That look on her face made me think. Perhaps this is not merely an ugly
incident. Perhaps this is the day someone achieves consciousness.
We seemed to receive some sign that this was the case. As we were
enjoying snacks and drinks at a local cafe, the sun set in glorious
color. The storm also swept past, east of us. The combined effect
was a beautiful rainbow superimposed on the flaming pick and orange
clouds. A blessing from Pele.
|
The Day in Pictures
|
Monday, September 20
This morning, while sitting at the dinning table, Don says to Diana, "I
used to strive to look straight. Being small and slight, I was always
afraid of being attacked. I tried to make my walk a manly walk, so I
wouldn't attract attention. But it never happened. I've never even
been yelled at, except for once on Castro Street. Some high school kids
drove by and yelled, 'Fucking faggot!' But even then, I don't know if
it was me or if it was just because I was on the Castro."
So, he didn't hear the children yesterday. Good.
Diana said she'd done a reading of her Tarot on Don while he slept. I
had wondered what she was doing last night. She was lighting candles
and sitting in front of her low alter a long time after Don and I had
gone to bed. I had even fallen asleep once and had awakened at the
sound of a struck match and the smell of sulfer. It's a small room.
Diana said two things came up in the reading she didn't understand. The
first came up as an obstacle to Don's healing. It was the card Silence.
"I couldn't interpret that," she said. "Can you?"
Don said he couldn't either.
"Could it have to do with your meditation practice?" she asked.
Don said he didn't know.
I felt like waving my arm in the air and yelling "Teacher! Teacher! I
know the answer!" Don is silent about his symptoms until they reach
crisis proportions. The odd sunburn-neuropathy feeling is and example.
But I didn't interrupt.
The other card that came up was Wise Fool. Don said he hopes to use his
experience to help others, but he doesn't consider himself wise. "I
often feel foolish, though," he said. "I'm thinking of writing a book:
Brain Damage for Dummies."
We spent the rest of the day on Waikiki, strolling, stopping for snacks
(and another mai tai) at the Sheraton, watching a glorious sunset from
the beach. We ended the day with dessert at the Royal Hawaiian.
As we crawled into bed that night, Don leaned over and kissed me.
"Happy birthday," he said.
|
|
Tuesday, September 21
Diana spent the morning doing chores in Honolulu, taking her car with
her. However, Jim had lent us his car, so Don and I planned a long loop
around the eastern end of the island: Pearl Harbor, the Punchbowl,
the beach again, Diamond Head, Hunama Bay, and back to Kailua.
But we started the day in bed, where Don and I finally had some time
alone with each other. Afterwards, Don leaned over and kissed me.
"Happy birthday," he said again. "There's no reason it should last just
one day."
Don had never been to the Arizona memorial before. I had and found it
quite moving. The Punchbowl also brought home the scope and power of
the war. For me, these stops were part of my attempt to understand my
parents' generation. I don't know how Don thought of them, but he
did say they were "impressive."
The trip took longer than we thought, though Don was an excellent
navigator, especially threading us through the tricky streets on our
way from the Punchbowl to the beach. As we rounded Diamond Head heading
for Kailua, I put my hand on his arm. It felt cold to me. We had the
air conditioning on and I wondered if it was too high.
"Are you wam enough?" I asked, then, in rapid succession to hide my
embarrassment at being so motherly, "are you cool enough? wet enough?
dry enough?" A satire of my concerns.
He patted my hand for reassurance. "I have everything enough. Always
enough."
Hunama Bay was closed as it is every Tuesday, so we couldn't go in. This
was unexpected, but we had already decided that today would be a
scouting expedition only; the actual snorkling we had planned for
tomorrow. Don said the fact that the bay was closed and we couldn't have
gone snorkling today anyway just proved we had "excellent planning
skills."
On the way back to Kailua, don sarted asking questions about our flight
back to California on the 26th.
"I'm not even going to think about it until the 25th," I told him.
"It's just my executive reasoning functions demonstrating their
recovery," he said.
"Tell your executive reasoning functions that you'r on vacation."
"Right. I'll have them leave a message on my machine."
When we got back to Kailua, Diana was on the phone to Maha. I believe
she was smoking a joint. In the small confines of her apartment, there
was little escaping the smell. I worried a bit about contact highs.
Formerly a fairly frequent user, Don had smoked only once since his
hemorrhage. I knew he had since decided to forgo the use of pot for a
while.
Diana lit up three more times that evening. I found myself resenting
this. I wondered if I would feel the same way if she drank three beers
in a row and decided I would not. Beer would have conveyed to me a lack
of imagination and wit. At least marijuana has the cache of
intellectualism about it. As someone - an Indian writer, I think - once
put it, drugs are what Western people use to make their minds
interesting to themselves without doing any real work. Judging from
Diana's behavior that evening, however, she was using it to calm her
fears, not excite her mind.
She was agitated. When we told her of our plans to go shopping and
snorkling tomorrow, she cried out, "But when do I get to spend some time
with you?"
Since the three of us had spent all day yesterday together, I assumed
she meant time alone with Don. She continued, "Jim is taking Thursday
and Friday off, so he has you then."
Don was oddly silent in the face of this complaint.
I began thinking perhaps Diana and Don could have Thursday together if
Jim took us on only one hike, instead of the two planned for Thursday
and Friday.
"I think I have only one hike in me," I said. "What are the paths
like?"
Don described the path to the bamboo forest and I became more uneasy.
He mentioned razor-thin paths with steep drop-offs on either side.
I remembered the him precariously stepping and sliding down from the
ridge line above Wailua Valley two days earlier. What if he should
stumble?
"Maybe we should just do the hike out to the Point," I said, meaning
the westernmost point of Oahu, near Jim's house.
"That's were I encountered that volcanic mud that was like cement,"
Don said. I would hate to see his $200 shoes ruined by that stuff
only a month after he'd gotten them.
If Don did not see the potential drawbacks and dangers of these hikes,
I wondered if Diana did. If they spent a day alone together, would
she be vigilant enough? Would she walk on the street side? Present
things to him from the right, not the left? Hold his hand in parking
lots and be his extra eyes?
"Where are you thinking of going?" I asked Diana.
"I discuss that with you, now?" she asked back.
I was stunned. No, I thought, I don't run Don's life. I'm not his
mother or his social secretary. And I shouldn't be guarding him.
But the truth was, I was. I was guarding him from her. I was jealous.
"Never mind," I said. The topic was dropped.
Neither Don nor I wanted anything to eat, but Don took some crackers
and cheese to have with his Dilantin and Decadron and to wash down his
supplement pills. Diana offered to do a reading for me, too, and I
told her I would like that very much. Don lay down on the bed and
closed his eyes, getting ready to sleep. I lay beside him. Diana
came and put one hand on his head. I was touching Don's left hand.
Suddenly, Diana grasped my left hand in hers. She was trying to form
some sort of protective circle around down, using our hands and arms.
I understood the impulse, but felt the emotional tone was all wrong.
She was desparate, which is not a good stance for a healer.
Then it hit me: she thinks he's going to die. This is not a
prayer for healing; this is a rehearsal for mourning.
After a few moments, she got up and went outside for a while. I think
she was crying. Still later, while Diana was on the phone making a
massage appointment for Don (the forbidden use of the "a" word!), Don
woke up. In a quiet voice so Diana wouldn't overhear us, he said he
was put off by her insisting she have time alone with her. "It
reminds me of my mother," he said, "of her insisting that only I
could redeem her."
|
The Day in Pictures
|
Wednesday, September 22
Don and I went snorkling in Hunama Bay today. We arrived near high
tide, so there was more surf washing over the reefs than usual. This
proved to be an obstacle for Don. He found he was constantly getting
water in his snorkle tube, and when he got near the shore, the waves
would batter him. He was exhausted after only twenty minutes. I was
able to stay in for nearly an hour.
We returned to Waikiki and this time we were on time for high tea on the
Banyan Veranda at the Sheraton Manoa Surfrider Hotel. We had stopped by
there two days earlier with Diana, but had just missed tea. Don had
never been to a high tea, so I decided it was high time he had one.
"I think the English have contributed only two great art forms to world
civilization," I intoned as we settled into our wicker chairs on the
veranda. "The first is the murder mystery. The second is high tea."
Don soon saw what I meant. There were scones with muscat raisins, lemon
curd, and Devonshire cream; finger sandwiches of ham, smoked turkey, and
cucumber and watercress; petite desserts of cream puffs (which Don
pronounced delicious), tiny spice cakes, fruit tartlets, and a
chocolate-and-almond petit-four topped with flakes of gold leaf.
"Now I see how the murder mystery and high tea are related," I said.
"It's not hard imagining the Baron dropping dead after a meal like
this."
We actually couldn't finish all the desserts and took an assortment
home to share with Diana.
Don helped me navigate the streets of Honolulu once again and got us
back on the H3, doing the reverse of our route yesterday. The H3
really is an engineering masterpiece, floating above the forest and
providing magnificent views of the windward side of the island.
Once back in Kailua, Diana began making dinner plans. I thought I
should stay behind so she and Don could have some time alone. When
Diana went into the shower to get ready, I told Don, "I feel I owe
her some quality time alone with you."
He strongly objected. "I don't want people to think they can only have
quality time with me if you're not around."
He convinced me he would be very upset if I stayed home while they went
out, so when Diana came out of the shower I asked her where they
were going. She said she was planning on taking them to the Hare
Krishna temple, which had an all-vegetarian buffet. Since this was
something I had wanted to do anyway, I told her I had changed my mind
and would like to go along after all. So the three of us went out
together.
The food was awful. Diana was very disappointed since the last time she
had gone it was very good. On our way out of the restaurant, we stopped
by the temple, which features a life-sized (and rather life-like) statue
of the sect's founder. At the other end of the room is a
sanctuary-like area, but it was gated and curtained off at this hour.
I stayed inside a little longer than Diana or Don. Once they were out
of the room, I turned to the figure and said, "If you can do anything -
well, you know what to do." Then I turned to the alter. "And you, oh
screened and guarded one, you do your bit, too."
Then I left and we all walked out of the compound. As we headed for the
car, a gecko laughed at us.
|
|
Thursday, September 23
Despite our efforts to have a complete week without appointments, Diana
arranged for Don to have one anyway. At least it's not a doctor. She
and Don are off to a masseur. I'm to join them later this afternoon for
a walk in an arboretum.
I think Diana's been busy in other ways, too. Before they left for the
appointment, Don asked if he should call Jim to see if he could meet up
with us later today. This was supposed to be one of the days Jim takes
off to lead us us on a hike. Diana said that Jim had decided not to take
today off after all. She said she didn't know why he did this.
I doubt this story. Two days ago, Diana was complaining that Jim would
have two days with Don and she wouldn't have "any." Then, she arranged
for this massage today, taking up the time between 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM.
Now, this very morning, we find out Jim won't be taking us for a hike
after all; he's "decided" to do the hikes on Friday and Saturday. All
this rearranging must have taken place over the phone, but none of it
involved talking to Don.
It smacks of manipulation to me, but then, most things do. Oh well, at
least Diana gets her "quality time" alone with Don.
Prior to joining them, I looked up potential queer events for Don and I
go to. I thought they might put a little "gay"ity back into our
vacation. I noticed in a local gay newspaper that there's a Honolulu
FrontRunners group, and they have a fun run this evening. There's also
a charity dinner and dance on Saturday. Maybe we'll be able to do one
of these things.
It's a shame I feel we have to inject gay activities into our vacation,
but I'm beginning to feel we're in the middle of some straight couple's
vacation, not our own. When Diana and I spoke about housing over the
phone, she offered to stay at a friend's house at least part of the
time while we were here. She said she knew it was a small space. But
she has not made the offer since, and it's scarcely something a guest
can bring up. I'm frustrated. Don and I have managed to have sex only
once since our arrival. There's just not enough privacy.
I met Don and Diana at a local shopping mall for lunch, where I brought
up the FrontRunner's fun run. Don was not enthusiastic, which
disappointed me. He seemed to think it was a real run, not a run-walk
like the ones we do on Saturday mornings back home. I thought perhaps I
should present it to him again later this afternoon, after we'd had our
walk in the arboretum.
The walk through Lyon Arboretum was lovely, but we never did find the
promised waterfall. Near the end of the trail, I noticed Don's left
foot was not taking as firm a step as his right, a sure sign of his
tiring. My hip was also beginning to hurt. As soon as I mentioned it,
Don insisted we turn around. When we got back to the car, Don said he
wanted to go back to Diana's and rest. I let the FrontRunner idea drop.
When we got back to the apartment, Don flopped down on the bed and Diana
and I started planning dinner. Diana said she had a wonderful Caesar
Salad recipe and it would go well with grilled mahi-mahi. I said that
sounded like a terrific menu. She said she needed a few things for the
salad and had to buy the mahi-mahi steaks. She picked up her car keys
and left, saying she would be back soon.
I joined Don on the bed and listened for the sound of her car leaving
the drive. Then, knowing she would be gone for at least two hours, we
seized the moment and fell upon each other like crazed minks.
Dinner that night was truly delicious.
|
The Day in Pictures
|
Friday, September 24
While Don and I were asleep, Diana changed the Balinese figurine hanging
over the foot of our bed. It had been a vividly decorated pig with
wings, a wonderful symbol of improbability. Earlier, I had joked that
it was an appropriate decoration for Don and I. "Every man should get
in touch with his inner pig," I'd said. Now it was replaced by a
bare-chested woman in a sarong. Her eye makeup was like the pig's and
she also had wings.
"Look at the pig, Vivekan," Diana said when Don woke up. We were both
still in bed.
"Huh?" he said. He was till sleepy and I don't think he knew what she
meant by "the pig."
"Look at the pig," she said again without explanation. When he still
didn't get it, she said, "It's been transformed in the night." She
went over to the foot of our bed and gave the figure a push so it
twisted slowly, arms outstretched in flight or benediction.
I think she hoped Don would be delighted or at least surprised by the
change, but all he said was, "Oh."
I leaned into him and whispered in his ear, "I liked the pig better."
The remaining two nights of our stay in Hawaii, she hovered over our
bed, wings and arms outstretched, tits to the wind. I decided to call
her "Titty Wanda." Diana didn't much care for that.
Jim arrived and led all four of us on a hike along the Manoa Cliffs
trail in the afternoon. He led, followed by Don, then me, with Diana
bringing up the rear. Diana started out right behind Jim, but fell into
last place due to frequent stops to light a joint.
Jim recalled that he and Don had biked the trail in a drenching downpour
once. Don recalled this and other rides whose safety factors were
somewhat dubious, back when his love of risky behavior was simply a
character trait, not evidence of a "brain deficit."
The trail dropped off steeply on the left and rose nearly as steeply on
the right. I couldn't imagine riding it at the break-neck speeds Jim
and Don described, let alone in a pouring rain. But it was sunny and
dry this day and the cliffside was covered with wild ginger and other
plants. Even if Don lost his footing, he wouldn't fall far.
Nevertheless, I guarded him most of the way. Where the trail would
allow two abreast, I walked on the cliff side. When we had to go
single-file, I was always an arm's reach away, ready to grab onto his
backpack if he should slip. I also occasionally looked back to make
sure Diana was still with us.
This vigilance did not detract from the beauty of our surroundings. The
air was pungent with wild ginger and the smell of over-ripe mangoes,
which littered the trail in places. There was one spot where a dozen
different kinds of ferns grew in the wet shade, delicate and fractile,
dividing up the air and light. Around another bend in the trail,
impatiens had overgrown the cliffside. Around another, little niches in
the cliff face had been filled with offerings wrapped in ti leaves left
by natives.
At one point, we passed through a waist-high cut in the rock. Diana had
Don stop there while she let out a series of loud moans, part of a
healing ritual she knew.
About two miles down the trail I noticed slight difference in Don's
stride: his left leg was taking shorted steps than his right, a sure
precursor to fatigue. Taking a clue from yesterday, I told him I was
beginning to feel tiredness in my hip. I wanted him to be strong
enough to negotiate the parts of the trail where the jungle cliff
dropped steeply from the trail. I also noted that the first half
mile of the trail had been downhill, which meant the last half mile
on the way back would be uphill.
So we all stopped and had some water and rested a bit. Before turning
back, Jim sang us a Hawaiian chant. Though he is not an eloquent man,
his love for Don and the sincerety of his concern came through.
Don thanked him, and we turned around and headed back. Diana lit up
another reefer. Jim told us that back in December, after he had heard
about Don's hemorrhage, he had come up on this trail on a rainy
afternoon and put an offering of his own in one of the rock niches.
In the evening, we went for a walk on the moonlit beach at Kailua. It
started out with all four of us in a group. We walked for a bit, then
sat on the sand a while and watched the moon come out from under the
last of the evening rainclouds. The water looked like silver when it
washed up on the sand, and for a while the sand, too, was silver. Then
the water would twinkle and seep away, and the next wave would lap
ashore.
We proceeded down the beach. Don was rehashing ashram stories with
Diana and Jim and catching up on the private lives of their mutual
friends. I broke off from the three of them and went to the water's
edge. The nearly-full moon had just broken out from behind a sheet of
clouds. "Lou <heart> Don"
I wrote in the sand. I raced back to the
group and started tugging Don away. Finally, he let go of the
conversation and came with me to take a look. He smiled down at the
message then turned and kissed me.
"I thought the best place to put something that big was in the ocean," I
said. A wave came up then and did it for me. Don leaned over and began
to write, "DON <heart> L" - but
he got no further before an even larger
wave washed over it and wet our feet. "Well," he said, "at
least the intention is in the ocean."
Jim and Diana had had the good taste to turn around and were about half
a mile away, headed for home. It was almost as if we were alone on the
beach with the moon and the sea and Jupiter's bright beacon rising above
the horizon.
I think this was the night I lost my fear of the future.
As soon as we got back, Don and I went to bed. Don fell asleep almost
at once. It was later than he had ever stayed up before.
I, too, soon fell asleep even though Jim and Diana were
still up and a few lights were still on. Eventually, Jim bedded down
and Diana brought the light level down to just a few candles.
Unfortunately, I woke up every time she lit another
one or lit some incense. The sulfer from the match would make me
think the house was on fire.
Don got up during the night to go to the bathroom. As he did most
nights, he slept in the nude. He didn't realize that Diana, lying on
the foam pad past the head of the bed and across the room, was still
awake. I saw her roll over as he got out. Knowing he would be
embarrassed about walking past her in the altogether, I offered him
a pillow for cover, which he accepted. Kind of like the chield of
Achilles.
|
|
Saturday, September 25
I was bound and determined to have at least one day in which nothing was
scheduled: no hikes, no sight-seeing, no massages. This was the day.
We would lay about Diana's apartment all morning, go to the beach, and
maybe see a movie or a video in the evening.
The day started with a reprise of the fabulous waffles of last
Sunday, this time with Diana at the helm. I offered only occasional
tips. She did them beautifully.
Over breakfast, Diana and Jim (he had stayed the night and would
stay again tonight) discussed tomorrow's logistics. Diana said she had
another wedding to perform tomorrow, so she would have to go into
Honolulu. She wanted to use her car. However, Jim had loaned us
his car for the week and had driven his motorcycle to Kailua to
join us, so he now had two "cars" here in Kailua. How could we all
manage to get to Honolulu tomorrow, get Don and me on the plane,
and then get Diana back to Kailua and Jim back to Waiewa without
multiple trips over the Pali?
It was one of those "fox, goose, and grain" puzzles I used to love as
a boy, but this one involved actual people with real opinions about
who should do what for whom. That made it way too complicated for me.
Jim and Diana went through several iterations and every conceivable
combination. I couldn't have kept up if I wanted to. Finally, they
devised a plan that seemed to satisfy them both.
By this time, it was time to hit the beach, which Jim, Don, and I
did with enthusiasm. Diana stayed behind, though I don't remember
why.
It was windier and slightly cooler this day than it had been on Sunday
or even last night. Nevertheless, I eventually braved the waves and,
once in, I enjoyed it. Don much preferred sunning himself on the
sand, though the wind occassionally sandblasted his face.
When we got back, Diana was embarrassed to tell us that the wedding
she was supposed to perform tomorrow had in fact been today. It
was only her third wedding assignment, and she felt very badly that
she had disappointed the couple. Fortunately, they had found another
minister and the wedding had been delayed only an hour.
We watched Mrs. Brown on video that night, though Don was
nearly asleep for most of the last half. It was surprising how quickly I fell
asleep, too, soon after. I guess doing nothing really has a relaxing
effect on a person.
Don woke in the middle of the night again and headed for the bathroom
in the nude. This time, he checked Diana's sleeping area first and,
seeing no movement, headed for the loo. I woke up and checked, too.
The coast seemed clear until Don passed through the kitchen area. Then
I saw movement at the foot of the bed. Diana was sitting at the kitchen
table and she stirred as Don went past. I wasn't sure if Don had seen her
since she was on his left. When I heard the toilet
flush, I got up and took the bed sheet with me. I wrapped Don in it
as he came out of the bathroom, and the two of us bundled ourselves
back into bed. "Thank you," he whispered to me.
|
|