Frederick Zackel - Dead Wrong About the Guy

Ivy fell into a black mood again. "I hate it. The only thing to do here is sit around and watch night fall."

I was smiling. "So why not leave?"

Ivy appraised me. "D'you want to take me away from all this?"

I shook my head. Ivy pouted.

She took a chance. "So, are you married?"

"No," I said. "So, are you married?"

"No," Ivy said.

"You still live with your folks?"

"Not since my dad died two years ago. Now I have my own place." She gestured down the highway. "My uncle lives in Lihue. He looks in on me now and then, sees if I'm doing okay."

"Are you doing okay?"

She had a sour pout. No, she wasn't doing okay.

"So what keeps you here?"

"This crummy job, for one thing," Ivy said. "Not enough money yet to leave." She became more upbeat. "Someday I'm gonna leave. First chance I get."

"You might check Vegas out. There's something going on twenty-four hours a day every day. You could get a job there easily."

"I like dancing," Ivy said.

I was smiling. "Topless?"

Ivy blushed. "Not with what I got."

She pissed me off. "It's not what you got, Ivy, but how you carry yourself. Remember that. You parade, everybody notices you, and nobody notices what you got."

She was skeptical. "Not with what I got."

The silence stretched like a lazy cat, and we became uncomfortable with each other. But we didn't stop looking at each other.

I started grinning again. "How about if I drive you home after work?"

Ivy thought it over. "I don't want to go home after work." She slid out of the booth. "I gotta get back to work."

I stayed and watched her work.

She came back to me and said, "I feel like I'm on trial."

"I’ll read my newspaper instead."

"You can look now and then."

The Pier Inn closed at nine. When we left, I helped Ivy into the passenger side. I walked around, got in behind the driver's wheel. I started the car and was ready to drive off, but the skinny young waitress stopped me from turning the ignition key.

"All night, okay?" she said wistfully. "I mean, I don't want to have to get up and leave in the middle of the night."

I was taken aback. "You stay all night with me."

Ivy was relieved. Me, I got to thinking about that.

Man, this town had treated her shabby.

At my Beach Chalet room we made love with a full moon from an open window lighting up our naked sweatiness. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s taking a woman to her limit and beyond. I didn’t come by that talent naturally. A lot of hungry women in Vegas taught me how.

Ivy clutched the mattress with both hands as I brought her to orgasm. Her eyes were closed in rapture. She cried out sharply.

I felt like bragging about it to someone, too.

When she was sated, Ivy still lay on top of me, nearly asleep on me. I caressed her forearms, then nudged her shoulders to move. She didn't respond, so I nudged her again.

"Bathroom--" I murmured.

Ivy roused herself. "Hmmm?"

As we broke apart, her grip on my arm tightened, and she kept me from moving away.

Ivy blurted out: "Oh, god, I love you!"

I caught the passion in her voice. "Oh yeah?"

Ivy was struck silent. She looked self-conscious and embarrassed. I figured she hadn’t been with many men, and all of them had been selfish. Then I started feeling something special for her.

When I came back to bed, I said, "Let me do you again."

Her eyes widened. When I started on her, her eyes slowly closed.

I was feeling good, too. This was Paradise, I realized.

How was I to know she was telling the truth?

A blood-red sunrise came over the Pacific Ocean. Inside my hotel room we lay in bed, my arm around her, her head on my shoulder. We were exhausted, but awake.

"Just a week and then you're gone?"

I nodded. "I gotta work for a living, Ivy."

Ivy had sad eyes. "I don't want to lose you."

"We got no choice, Ivy."

"Do me again," she pleaded.

I teased her. "I don't know if I ought to. I might be ruining you for the next guy who comes along."

She was in no mood for my teasing.

She punched me. "Do me again!"

We cruised along the highway in my Mustang.

I looked around at the Maui landscape, marveling. I was surprised how much I was enjoying Hawaii. I looked out at the view. "It is beautiful!"

Ivy was frowning, annoyed. "If it's beautiful, there's no work. No work means no money. No money and nothing to spend it on is no fun. Maui is no fun." She crossed her arms in protest. "All I want to do is get outa here, go have some fun somewhere."

"The bright lights of Vegas maybe."

"Maybe."

"You willing to dance topless?"

"Maybe."

I took my time speaking. "I could see me living here."

Ivy was amazed.

"I like the idea of an island. A place where I can just get away from it all."

Ivy scoffed at that. "There's no here anywhere here!"

"It's true enough. Maybe I've just seen too much of the real world."

Ivy understood. "You must travel a lot."

"Yeah. Mostly the East Coast, though. I don't get much chance to work Out West. Even then it's only LA or San Francisco."

"Out West," she said, then giggled. She caught my puzzlement. Then she felt uncomfortable and felt she had to explain herself. "Maui people don't think about Hawaii being Out West. Out West is ... " She gestured toward the Mainland. "Back East from here."

I was amused. "I guess Out West is Back East from here."

We parked in front of her apartment building. We sat in the Mustang, both of us unready to make a move.

She was timid. "If I went to Vegas ... ?"

I nodded. "I'd help you out. Help you find a job, a place to live."

"D'you think I'd like it there?"

I wasn’t sure. "Maybe. It's like an escalator. You just step on the escalator and you get whisked along. The floor you stop at is a matter of luck, of course. How long you stay there is up to how good you are at playing the game." I thought of all the years I had been a player. Too many years. Too many games.

Ivy stopped me. "I just want to be free. Really free. I want to have fun. I don't want to end up a slut."

"Nobody with me is a slut," I said, and I meant it.

We made eye contact. I could see she wanted to believe me.

"I'll see you for lunch, Ivy." I kissed her.

"I got the whole day off," she told me.

I shook my head, pained. "I gotta go work for a living."

We kissed again. Then I left.

On Front Street in beautiful Lahaina, the tradewinds were rustling the leaves of the palm trees. Tourists meandered in aloha shirts, shorts and sandals. Most never saw a weather-beaten two-story wooden building at the far end of the commercial strip. "The Shell Shoppe," a commercial business dealing in seashells for the tourists, was the storefront on the ground floor. Upstairs, a placard in a window said: "Income Tax."

I stopped in front of the Shell Shoppe. Flea Nichols came down the outside staircase and climbed inside. Then we drove off.

"You got dinner okay last night?" Flea asked.

I nodded, watched a sheriff's patrol car pass us.

"Where'd you eat at? The Pier Inn? Pretty good food, right?" Flea had a long pause. "D'you see Ivy Lawson there?"

I frowned. "Magenta-haired chick, right?"

"Pretty, isn't she?"

I was curious. "You know her?

Flea was distant. "She's wonderful."

I noticed this. "You getting any of that?"

Flea was wistful. "I wish I could. But she's too good for me."

"Yeah. When you're right, you're right."

Flea was confused. He wondered what he had missed.

Flea and I watched the boats in Lahaina Bay. Behind us, Corky Collins parked his truck and then walked over to us, covertly looking to see if anyone was watching them. Any fool would have recognized what he was doing.