Sometimes I join her and sometimes I don’t. It’s been three weeks now, and I can more or less manage a surfboard and enjoy the thrill of a good wave, but it’s not in my blood like it’s in hers. On Sundays, when Leo isn’t piloting the ferry to and from Oahu, he’ll join us, and let me tell you, that man is a natural. A sight to see on the ocean blue. When I’m done, I’ll just sit in the sand for the pleasure of watching him poised on his board, riding some giant wave as it curls elegantly over and he skims in to shore and jumps off and shakes his wet hair.

That’s when I gather up my things and return up the path to Coolibah. I’ve been doing my writing in the gazebo, which shelters me nicely both from the sun and from the occasional tropical downpour. I can spread out my clippings and my notes and sit on the floor with the typewriter I’ve borrowed from Olle, tap tapping away like I used to do back at the law firm where I worked one summer.

Today, however, is a Tuesday, and the picturesque Leo floats somewhere in the channel between Oahu and Kauai, and I’m not in the mood for surfing or gazebo. I’ve got that restless twitch that takes over my spirit from time to time, the one that’s bedeviled me most of my life. I pack my notes and clippings into my knapsack and ride my bicycle to Kilauea, where I ask the postmistress if there’s any mail for me, any telegrams. She makes a show of checking, as if she wouldn’t know otherwise, and returns to shake her head and tell me no. So I climb on my bicycle and head for the airfield cafeteria, which is another place I like to work, and has the additional benefit of coffee, grilled cheese, and feline companionship.

That cat. I don’t know why, but it’s taken a liking to me. Senility, no doubt. As soon as I settle on my stool at the counter and light a cigarette, it jumps laboriously from the floor to the trash can, and from the trash can to the lunch counter, and then marches on over to my coffee cup, sniffs inside, and eases itself down to my lap, from which no amount of jostling or dishes of promised cream will dislodge it.