Kai introduces me around. A few faces are familiar, fellow surf instructors from Waikiki, while others are friends from the north shore. There’s Marco, a professional surfer from Brazil; Michael, an artist and surfer from New York who supplements his income with his painting and personalizing surfboards; then Cole, the surfer from Florida who has his own video production company, filming tourists on vacation as they take their first surf lessons; and someone named Patrick, a blond helicopter pilot with a little dog for a co-pilot.

Later a Jeep pulls up with more people, two guys and a girl. Kai tells me the guys are brothers and the younger one, John, just returned from the pro surf circuit.

“Is he good?” I ask, watching John go around and shake hands surfer style, which is somewhere between a high five and arm wrestling.

“Yeah, considering he’s only just turned twenty-one.”

Twenty-one. Wow. It’s an odd realization that I’m socializing with twenty-year-olds now. At home, women wouldn’t do this. At home, women socialize with women who are just like them.

I didn’t know this rule existed, but after eleven years of marriage and living where I do, I can pretty much sum up friendship this way: If you’re married, your friends are married. If you have kids, your married friends have kids. If you and your husband make a certain amount of money, your friends have the same level of affluence. If they belong to the country club, you do. If they vacation in Jackson Hole or Santa Barbara, you should. If they attend fund-raisers and ask you to join them, even if the tickets are five hundred a plate, you do.

Keeping up with the Joneses.

Letting the Joneses run your life….

“Do you want to leave? Go back to town?” Kai asks, correctly reading my ambivalence.

“I don’t know.”

“Something’s bothering you. Ever since John arrived you’ve looked miserable.”

I am uncomfortable. I feel like I did that first day I walked past Duke’s in Waikiki and saw all the young, beautiful people drinking together on the patio. The girls in their bikinis had tan, flat tummies, and the guys were shirtless, muscular, and comfortable in their skin.

“I just don’t think I belong here,” I whisper, taking his hand. “I feel so… old… again.”

“You’re not old.”

“Kai, I could be John’s mother.”

“Actually, you’re older than his mother. His mother is only thirty-nine.”

He laughs as I groan. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“Nope, but Jackie, you don’t look like his mother, so you can relax.”

Oh, my God. I’m on a beach, partying with a guy who has a mother younger than me? I might as well be arrested and sent to jail.

“You’re sure you don’t want to go?” Kai persists. “We can now, before they throw our burgers on.”