Chapter 02
“Mom! I just heard you guys kicked out a nasty guest last week. That’s so cool! ...or something...”
Peg came into the main office and put her books down on the desk she used in the corner. It was a big space, full of potted palms, nice big desks, and really fast wifi. Her mom and dad had desks that faced each other like a mahogany island in the middle of the room. If the lamps were palm trees and the monitors were a cliff wall between them.
“Oh, and how did you hear that story?”
“Well, someone was rude to Cami while I was down by the pool. I think I made a new friend. Anyhow, Mrs Hname came down to tell us you said we could stay there and then she and I went to talk to Cami about the rude guy and she was like, ‘well, let me tell you about *actual* problems.’”
Peg’s dad had walked in during this story and he placed a hand on Peg’s shoulder and said, “We were hoping you wouldn’t have to know about that story,” He looked over at Peg’s mom, “But I guess you are growing up even if we don’t want you to. We have to remember you’re not a baby or even a kid. Soon you’ll be driving and dating all that. Do you have any questions about what happened with Cami at the bar?”
Peg didn’t really have questions about the situation in the past, but she sure did have questions about what the next couple of days would bring. But even with this whole “grown up” speech, she wasn’t sure her parents were ready to hear that she wanted to become a Hawai’ian vigilante. At least not til she had something a bit more real than just “some guy named Ruben is lying on his cell phone.” So she asked about the other guy.
“Yeah, I guess so. Cami kinda told me what happened… but what did you tell the guy? What did he say he was doing? Will you get in trouble with the chain for kicking people out?”
“I don’t think we’ll get in trouble.” her mom smiled, “If anything, we would probably look like the good guys in this situation. Maybe we should tell corporate and we can make it into a whole commercial. Not really. I’ll let your father tell you what he told the guy he kicked out.”
Peg’s father cleared his throat and moved some stuff around on his desk. He and his wife had always had a really good relationship with Peg, and they often talked about things either one on one, with all three of them. But this felt different. This was his chance to help his daughter see one of the ways she can stand up for herself and work with others will do so, too.
“Well, Cami told her boss and the news got to me right away that a guest was being inappropriate to the staff. I was able to get outside and I saw the guy actually squeeze her butt as she walked past. I looked at Cami and confirmed that this was the guy she had already mentioned — or if I had two kinds of trouble on my hands. She nodded. Then I tapped him on the shoulder, told him I was the manager and his drink was on the house, and would he please come with me because there was a problem with his registration.”
Everyone in the office was settling in for the story at this point. Peg sat cross-legged in her swivel chair as she watched her dad talk.
“As soon as we were out of public areas, I told him what I had seen and how there had already been earlier reports that our staff didn’t like his behavior. And we don’t tolerate that sort of thing. I told him he’d have to stop it. This guy was pretty over the top. I don’t even think he was all that drunk — not that being drunk is an excuse” he looked at Peg to make sure she was tracking and learning the right lessons from this story. “Anyhow, he outright admitted that he liked to touch women while he drinks. And he planned to continue doing so. He thought it was part of what he paid for when he tipped.”
Peg gasped. “Cami didn’t make it sound that crazy!”
With a sigh and a smile Peg’s mom picked up the story, “That’s one of the things I first loved about your father. He always wants to be fair, but he will staunchly stand up for what’s right. He told that creep-o to pack up and leave. We are not that kind of place. And we won’t have people acting like we are.”
The room was silent for a moment while everyone had their own thoughts about this story. The first person to speak was Peg’s mom, “Mrs. Hname said y’all didn’t eat yet. What sounds good for dinner?”
Peg remembered the massive pile of pretzels she and Lianna had eaten and realized she wasn’t really hungry. “I think I’ll just grab some stuff from the salad bar if that’s ok? Want me to bring pack plates?”
“No, you go ahead. There’s a pile of reviews to confirm and we have to prep for the new assistant manager interviews first thing in the morning.”
But before she could take off, her dad remembered to ask, “But wait! How was the tryout?”
“Oh! I think it went really great! There’s some really good girls in the area, Coach Julie seems to know what she’s doing. That’s where I met Lianna — we rode bikes back together. And we both got asked to come back for the final day on Thursday.”
“Congratulations, Peg. That’s great!”
The less-fancy of the two inside restaurants at the resort was themed like a 1950’s hamburger joint and it was the whole shebang: neon lights, jukeboxes, paper hats. But, you know, on the beach. Instead of muscle cars, it was surfboards and sunsets. It was a weird combination, but it worked. They stopped just short of making the wait staff wear roller skates. The burgers and milkshakes were really good, but this restaurant also had a truly epic salad bar. It had several combinations of leafy greens, jello, almost every kind of vegetable you can think of, cheeses, potato salad, macaroni salads (plural! This is Hawai’i afterall), olives, and many kinds of meats and seafood. And like all good buffets, about ten steps away was a soft-serve ice cream machine.
Peg scooped her plate and waved at the cashier to add her dinner to the family tally. She sat at the table and opened her book to the right page. She was just settling in to Anne and Gilbert’s most recent fight when her attention was piqued by a conversation she could just barely make out from the table next to hers. She was pretty sure it was her new friend Ruben, back at it with the phone calls again.
“Okay man. I think we’re ready to go on this. Barry is totally fooled [word] and we have plenty of time before he gets suspicious. And even if he did care, he doesn’t know where to start looking.” Peg quietly put her silverware down and leaned into her book more intently. If anyone looked over, she wanted to look like she wasn’t listening.
“There’s so much money just waiting for someone to go pick it up.”
“Right. And we will be those people.” The next pause was so long Peg was afraid he must have hung up.
“Ok. I’ll see you at the beach at 3:00pm tomorrow and we can get coordinated.”
“Sounds good. Bye.”
Peg almost ran out of the restaurant...but she still didn’t really have anything. Just weirdness. And when you just found out your parents are super-cool, but super-fair, you don’t want to come to them with a problem until you’ve really got something that won’t just waste their time. She was slowly eating and considering her next move when it was made fabulously clear for her what her next step should be.
“Oh hey there,” Ruben called out to a passing waiter. Peg could see his hand over the low fern wall separating them as he raised his hand. She had no reason to be afraid. Right?
“Yes sir?”
“Can you help me reserve a motorboat for tomorrow? Or is that all handled through the front desk?”
“I can’t do it. But I can have someone stop by your table.”
“That would be great, thanks.”
A few minutes later Peg was listening as she heard Ruben and the rentals concierge planning out his entire day tomorrow. He wanted to pick up a motorboat at 12:30 after eating lunch in that very restaurant. They discussed distances and quantity of fuel and the possibility of carrying additional tanks of gasoline. Ruben mentioned a beach or a cove. The concierge seemed to know the name, but it was unfamiliar to Peg and three seconds later she discovered that she had forgotten the name of it. She made a mental note to check a map and see if anything nearby sounded familiar.
He was planning on going out and back pretty much at full speed and that’s why he was asking about the refueling. He’d probably be back about 5 hours later, and wanted to know if the boats came with depth charts or tide tables. Peg wasn’t totally tracking the distances and all those details, but she bet Jason, the marina rental manager, would help her figure out what was happening. If only she could get a look at which concierge he was talking to, she could ask about the name of that cove or beach.
She got up and left while they were still firming up some of the more technical details. Now that she knew where he would be, she left so she would look like she wasn’t listening. She actually plugged in her earbuds before she stood up so she would look really unsuspicious. Sometimes it was really convenient that most adults just thought she was a kid and they could ignore her.
The next morning Peg did her classwork faster than almost ever before. Her parents were pretty busy, but they did sometimes ask her if she was actually done for the day… She wanted to get down to the marina before Ruben got there. She had looked at a map the night before but none of the place names sounded familiar. Maybe she could hear him say it again as he got into the rental. Or she could kinda prep Jason and ask him to ask about this mysterious destination.
Peg finished her school work in a flurry, picked a time when her parents were both off taking care of things somewhere else in on the grounds and and she grabbed her bag and took off on a light jog over to the marina. It only took her a couple of minutes to make her way out of the hotel lobby, through the pool area and over to the marina.
She had decided to arrive in time to confide in Jason. He worked in the rentals office for everything that goes on the water. Jason was on the older end for a job with as much heavy lifting as he regularly did tying up boat and keeping things cleaned. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. He was always wearing those sandals with mesh straps that are supposed to be good for both hiking or boats. He always had a clipboard and shorts with lots of pockets. He had grown up around the water and it showed in his easy manner around dock, sand, or surf. Jason had also spent a decent amount of time studying, so he was ready when the chance came for a promotion where he could still get outside pretty often, he was all over it, “like sand on the beach” as he would say.
The Grand Luau has a fleet of sailboats, powerboats, scuba gear and tanks, kayaks, surfboards, and the accessories and training classes to go with all of them. Jason didn’t do it all, but he was the source of it all. The Marina had been one of the main places Peg has been hanging around so far — she had qualified and taken the training for sailboats up to a certain size at her hotel back in Seattle, and everything else at The Grand Luau was listed as “yes, please” as far as she is concerned.
She and Jason had been building up a friendship -- she found him funny, and he knew all the good stories about the hotel, Hawai’ian history, and legends. But he also has the keys to all the boats.
“Hey Jason, can you help me with a project today?”
“Sure, Peg, what’s up?”
“I have to observe someone for practice with a writing assignment. Details, descriptions, all that. And the guy I picked is coming for a 12:30 rental pick up.”
“How do you know someone’s coming then?”
“Well, I overheard him last night at dinner.”
“How much observing do you need for this project… this seems a little sketch to me. Can we talk to your teachers about this?” Jason was almost laughing. But not really. Like most surfer dudes, even the ones with day jobs, he was fiercely independent and didn’t like to see anyone else’s privacy be taken advantage of.
“OK, ok, I was listening on purpose. And it’s not for school.” For someone who liked adventure and who overthought stuff as much as she did, Peg always found it ridiculously hard to lie to someone’s face. Especially when a straight telling of the facts would be easier, even if it was awkward.
“This guy is staying in room 227 and he was rude to Cami — over at the Tropical Bar — and then I overheard him lying to someone on his cell phone. And then last night at dinner I sat at the table next to him but he didn’t see me. I promise it was an accident. I was just reading and then I heard him planning his rental and it seemed weird, too. So here I am.”
“OK.” Peg could not tell if Jason was on board or not. He asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“Well, I just need you to act normal. I guess I didn’t need to tell you anything at all.”
“I’m glad you told me. I’ll be normal, but I’ll be looking out for weirdos, too.” Jason smiled and made a big-eye face. “Hopefully, he’s the really fun kind and we’ll get a good story out of this.”
“Great. I’m going to stand somewhere over to the side so I can hear, too. But you just do your normal stuff.”
Her only concern now was to decide if she should hang around inside or outside the shop. The only seats were in the cafe end of the convenience store. It had a few people loading fresh ice into coolers and packing the day’s drinks and snacks into canvas boat bags. She wouldn’t really be in the way, but she wouldn’t really be able to see what was happening at the rentals checkout counter.
The whole point was to see, or at least hear, what was happening at the check out counter. She decided on the slightly more obvious option of standing at the display of scuba gear and maps near the counter. She wasn’t hiding. But she had plenty to stand there and pretend to read — maybe she’d even learn more bout the place Ruben had been talking about. She slung her backpack over a shoulder and began reading about the many different kinds of snorkel masks available for rent at The Grand Luau’s Marina Shop.
She was on her second read through of the list of local mega-fauna and other attractions one might expect to find in one’s underwater explorations (This part of Hawai’i was home to: Mackerel, giant tortoise, dolphin, fish name, fish name, and some smaller stuff and also coral. If one was lucky, one might get close — but not too close — to Hammerhead or Tiger sharks.) when her patience was rewarded.
Ruben walked into the Marina Shop at about 12:40. She checked her watch and wondered to herself if he was the kind of guy to get annoyed if he was a little bit late and if he would be short with the staff because of it. But no, apparently he had built enough time into his meticulous plans. Because he was casual, almost aggressively casual if that is a thing. Ruben walked in and hovered in the middle space, not quite to the desk, but not really looking at anything else.
Finally Jason called out from behind the counter, “Good afternoon, sir! How can we help you today? Are you my 12:30 reservation?”
“I reckon I am.” Ruben answered using an accent that Peg had never heard heard him use before. She’d only heard him speak a couple of times, but his voice was nothing like it was now. More weirdness.
“Great. We have you down for one of the [boat model name 4500] from now til about 6pm. With four 2-gallon cans of extra boat fuel. For a total of extra 8 gallons. It’s all pre-loaded onto the boat. I’ll walk you down to the right dock in just a second. But first, I wanted to go over the charts you wanted to carry. I have a wide selection and it should cover all the questions you asked the concierge last night. But do you just want to go the easy route and let me fire up the GPS system for you? I can give a quick lesson if you’d like.”
“Now there’s an idea…” Ruben scratched his chin. “Let’s stick with the old fashioned methods for today. Maybe next time you can set me up with your fancy bells and whistles. You have the depths and currents locally? I will also need to have a pretty accurate prediction of low tide over on [cove name].”
“Yep, this packet right here has all that. Do you have [boater license] and your method of payment? We do this a little differently than the rest of the amenities at The Grand Luau. Because we let non-guests participate in our rentals…” Jason kind of trailed off, hoping this customer knew this already.
“Yeah, that’s great. Here’s my card for the deposit. Now, can you show me that chart. I’d like to see [cove name] on the map. I’m not in a particular hurry” another weird lie? wondered Peg, “but I would like to be getting on my way if we’re ready with the money end of it?”
“Absolutely sir, here’s [cove name] on this map.” Jason pointed and also unfolded another laminated chart, “And here it is on this one, with a bit more detail, too.”
“Great.” Ruben said and tucked the maps under his arm.
Jason quickly read the room and replied, “Cool, Let me walk you down to your boat right now. We’ve got you in The Jolly Roger it’s one of the favorite boats of that size. Most people request it.”
“Jolly Roger… isn’t that a Caribbean reference?”
“Oh, well played. I guess it is. But tropical is tropical around here. Most tourists just want a tiki drink and some fun music. You are a bit more researched than most I guess. haha. Anyhow, we’re just this way, down the dock.”
Jason led Mr. Ruben away down the dock towards The Luau’s fleet and his boat, The Jolly Roger.
Peg didn’t follow because she didn’t want to push her luck. She started looking for a book to learn about tide tables. She had spent most of her life on the mainland and, in fact, most of it quite far inland. But as far as she understood how water worked… shouldn’t a tide be a tide even if you drive a boat for an hour or two? Or was he somehow going even farther?
She went over to the small collection of books about local attractions on display and got distracted with a book about reefs and tide pools instead. Hawai’i was so different from Seattle, but a few things were the same at least. She had always liked tide pools and the wonderful creatures that managed to live in that special environment.
By the time Jason came back inside she was up to about three reasons that she would be using to talk her parents into letting her learn to Scuba dive this year.
“Ok, that was… a little weird.” Jason said as he came back into the shop and realized no one else could hear he talking to Peg.
“Right?” she agreed.
“I mean, he was playing off like he knew a ton of stuff, but he was also asking really dumb questions. It’s like he was trying to show off, but there was no one here to see it.”
“Is that how tides work?” Peg wanted to confirm her guess.
“Well, you might get a bit of difference from one side of the island to the other, but not all that much. And now anywhere he has time to get to in an afternoon. Even with the extra fuel, he’s not going to be gone long enough to get all the way to the far side, let alone back.”
“That’s what I thought. What if he steals the boat? Just, like, takes off with it and doesn’t bring it back?”
“Maybe. But that would be really dumb. Even though he declined, we run background GPS on all the rentals we send out. In case of late returns or distress signals. Or just to know what’s popular so we can recommend it.”
“That’s useful I guess. The thing that really doesn’t make sense though is the way he talked. Both times I heard his talk before, he did not have a Southern drawl.”
“Well, if he gets back early while I’m still on shift I’ll try to talk to him and see how he talks then. Otherwise, I don’t know what to tell you. From the little bit I’ve seen, he’s not really even all that weird. Sorry.”
After a few moments where neither one of them really knew what to do next, Peg decided she had done all she could.
“Ok, well, thanks for letting me stand around in here.”
“No problem! You’re welcome anytime.”
Lianna shows up with another friend after school that day.
“That’s so cool that you live at The Luau! I thought Lu meant, like, you lived in a staff bungalow somewhere, like, way in the back or something. But no, you live here live here. Like, you’re just hanging out at The Luau. That’s so cool!”
“Haha, yeah, it definitely has it’s perks. I’ll have to let you try the golf cart later.” Peg laughed and turned to the bar to call out, “Hey Cami, can we have three Cherry Coke Fancys?” she explained to [name], “It’s pretty cool, she’ll mix up sodas with real liquor flavors and garnishes. But it’s totally just a Coke so it’s legal. But you can have a little umbrella if you want.”
“Heck yes. Of course I want. I’ve always wanted to hang out here. But I’ve never been inside.”
“Well, Welcome to The Grand Luau. [slogan about adventure will find you]”
The three fall into easy conversation and lk and study and kind of forget about Ruben. Peg managed to ask Lianna how old her brother, Rob, is without turning too deep of a shade of red.
Jason comes up to the group and waves Peg over. “Hey, so that guy, Ruben something or other… he just got back. Kinda early. He was pretty mad about something. But — here’s the kicker — he had absolutely no accent. You were right.”
“Yep, weird.”
“And even as angry as he was, he made a reservation to go out again tomorrow. Same boat. Less gasoline. But also Scuba gear. What do you think he’s doing?”
“I have no idea. What time? Can I come listen again?”
“He said 12:30 again. Of course you can if you want to.”
“Hey Peg,” Lianna called out. “Go ask your mom if you can come out to dinner with us? As good luck for the softball tryout tomorrow.”
“You go and have fun, I’ll see you tomorrow in the boat house.” Jason tapped the side of his nose and turned away.
“Oh, where? That sounds fun!” Peg turned back to her friends.
“There’s a place called [cool, dive bar name] where my brother hangs out and he said he’ll drive if your mom will come pick you up after.”
“Probably let me ask. Now? Or what?”
“Yeah, he’s in the lot now.”
“Ok, I’ll meet you over there. Let me go ask.”
Peg hunted her mom down and after setting a time to be picked up, she ran off to the employee parking lot. After a bit of throwing out trash and digging under the seats for seatbelts, they all headed into town in the Sonic Green pickup truck.