Chapter 72: Mele Kalikimaka

Friday, December 27, 1985

We were up early and at the airport in plenty of time for our flight to Honolulu. This flight was crowded. After flipping a coin, we wound up with Paige at the window, then Angie, then me, with Jas on the aisle seat across from us. She had flown over oceans more than the rest of us, and that put the smallest person next to strangers. I volunteered — twice — but she insisted.

For a nearly six-hour flight, this felt like the best option. No one was trapped having to make strangers move in order to get to the restroom, for one thing. Jas would have to move occasionally, but that was easy enough.

Jas did suggest that we might occupy one of those restrooms for ... a while ... but I pointed out that the flight attendants probably pay attention to that sort of thing.

Mostly, we read, listened to music, or napped. Some talking, but mostly not.

The flight was generally uneventful, and we touched down right about two, Honolulu time. We hadn’t even bothered to change our watches for California, but we did here while taxiing to the terminal.

As soon as we landed, Paige nudged Angie and me, and told me to nudge Jas. When she had everyone’s attention, she said, “Mele Kalikimaka!”

We all said it to each other, obviously amusing passengers near us, who started saying it to each other as well. It rippled through the entire aircraft, with even the flight attendants picking it up. They also repeated it to us as we got off the plane.

Once we were off, it was a hike to baggage claim, then another to pick up our rental car. Along the way, we stopped at a bank of payphones to call the parents and check in. As with California, the rental might have been unnecessary, but I had a feeling we would want it, and we could certainly afford it.

We loaded up the bags, piled into the car, and hit the road. Our destination was the Sheraton Waikiki, which had offered the best balance of quality and price for this trip. My guess was that future trips to Hawaii would be made with a different attitude towards quality and price, but that depended on Michael to keep things hopping in Austin. I was confident, but we still had at least a year and a bit to go, I was pretty sure.

Once we were on the road, Jas said, “Okay! Spill!”

“Yeah! Spill!” Angie said.

“Spill! Spill! Spill!” Paige said.

Jas stage-whispered, “Kitten on catnip.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Paige said. “Very cute kitten! Tellllll!”

“So...” I said, to grumbling. “I have it on good authority that two of our housemates will, very likely, be engaged when we return.”

“That, or the end of the world will have occurred,” Jas said. “I mean, if whoever it is doesn’t say ‘yes’...”

“Mel,” I said.

“If she doesn’t say ‘yes,’ the universe is out of order,” Jas finished.

“Makes sense that it’s Cammie proposing, I think,” Angie said.

The rest of us agreed. It did.

“Any reason why you knew this and we didn’t?” Paige said.

“Oh, I don’t know. Tell the guy, who isn’t nearly as involved in girl talk, or any of the girls?”

Nearly in unison, they all said, “True!” then laughed.

“Cupid is way busy!” Angie said.

“It’s about time, really,” Paige said. “Seriously, if I am ready to get married, normal people are probably long since ready.”

“You’re normal that way now, honey,” Angie said.

Paige hissed at her, then said, “Slander! Serious slander!”

Everyone laughed at that, too.

Jas and Paige were impressed with the Sheraton, and even more impressed with our high-floor ocean-view rooms. We had side-by-side rooms, with a connecting door we wouldn’t bother opening. Whichever couple was together deserved their time.

Within seconds of closing the door, Jas was throwing off clothes and digging in her suitcase for her bathing suit.

“Hurry!” she said. “Beach! Waikiki Beach!”

I chuckled and started undressing.

“Faster! Faster!”

“You do know that you’re tempting me to tackle you to the bed and delay us for a while,” I said. She was slightly bent over her suitcase, naked, and her ass was wiggling a bit, so I thought that was fair.

She giggled.

“Time for that later! Beeeeeeach!”

Somehow, I actually had my suit on before she had hers on. Mine was only one piece, of course, but I had still gotten a much later start. It didn’t surprise me at all that she had a new bikini, nor that it was very skimpy. It was an awesome red-and-gold one that suited her to a T, though, and a wolf whistle was the only reasonable response.

She bowed, giggled, then pulled out sunscreen and said, “On! Now!”

“Yes, Ma’am!” I said, proceeding to cover her. Including a few parts of her that weren’t going to get any sun. Any excuse to grope her ass did seem reasonable!

She put sunscreen on me (and returned the favor). After that, we headed out and knocked at Angie and Paige’s door. Angie opened it a crack, then said, “Come in! Paige is almost ready. That looks amazing, Jas!”

‘Almost ready’ meant ‘topless,’ in this case. Paige pulled on her bikini top and got the straps adjusted right, wiggled her ass a few times, then said, “Ready! And, yes, it does look amazing!”

“So do yours!” Jas said.

I said, “It’s my sister and my sister-in-law. I’m not supposed to...”

A few flying objects hit me, along with much laughter.

“Fine. You are all three ridiculously hot and I am the luckiest guy in the world to have you in my life.”

All three said, “Awwwwwww,” then surrounded me in a three-way hug.

“As far as we know, he’s right,” Paige said. “You and Laura might be equally lucky, Ang, but that’s still a tie for luckiest girl in the world.”

“I am luckier,” Angie said. “I have my Miss Right. She does not have her Mister Right.”

“Objection withdrawn!”

We rode down the elevator, carrying bags with water, books, Walkmen, and other beach essentials, and headed out. They had towels waiting at the beach, and there were four loungers together just waiting for us, so we were quickly settled.

Everyone charged into the Pacific and romped around for a bit, then headed back to our loungers. I made sure an umbrella covered me, while the girls all made sure one didn’t.

“You can’t go back pasty white after a trip to Hawaii!” Paige chided me.

I looked at my chest and said, “This is not pasty white.”

She looked, wrinkled her nose, and said, “Seriously, it’s not fair. You have a darker skin tone than anyone but Jas. And hers isn’t exactly dark, just...”

“Colorful,” Jas said, giggling.

“That works!” Paige said.

“Always have,” I said. “I don’t burn much and there’s little difference between ‘tan Steve’ and ‘pasty-white Steve.’ Never has been.”

Angie perked up, looking a bit startled.

“What?” Paige said. “He’s right.”

“It’s not that. It’s...”

She looked around, apparently seeing if anyone was close. No one was.

“Iceberg Steve ... part of that was because he ... kinda looked like an iceberg. Big, solid, and rather white. I seriously hadn’t thought of that in years. Meaning ... well...”

“We get it,” Paige said. “I don’t want to throw sand on you.”

“You seriously don’t!” Angie said. “It gets everywhere, and it’s not tasty.”

“Yuck!” Paige said, giggling. “No throwing sand! Got it! Anyway ... that’s ... really interesting.”

“Fascinating,” Jas said, nodding.

“So we might be different, if also the same,” I said.

“No sand. No sand,” Paige said.

“Hey! Normal people say that!” Jas said.

“Yeah, but it was too good to pass up,” Paige said.

“Anyway, I am fine with your skin tone, so do what you want with the umbrella,” Jas said.

“Me, too,” Angie said.

“Agree,” Paige said.

“And I am fine with your skin tone. Each of you.”

“But we want to be more tan!” Jas said. “Or ... golden? Golden works for me.”

We hung out for a few hours, the girls mostly soaking up the rays and me mostly avoiding them. I just didn’t want to overheat. I wasn’t worried about burning or anything like that.

As the day drifted toward sunset, we headed back in, pausing to use the beach showers before toweling off and then heading up to our rooms to change. We had no big dinner plans tonight, and the hotel’s restaurant came highly recommended, so we agreed to do that.

It felt like Jas was halfway expecting us to head off for a romantic dinner of our own, but she wasn’t at all disappointed when we didn’t. If anything, I suspected she was feeling (perhaps only subconsciously) the same thing Angie and I felt: that a proposal with just the two of us there wouldn’t quite be right. It was very much the expected thing, though, and it had taken Angie and me really thinking it through to make the shift.

The hotel’s restaurant was indeed terrific. We would head out on the other nights. Angie and I had already booked a ‘luau experience’ dinner tomorrow, which would be a surprise after whatever we did during the day. Sunday and Monday were open, and we would see what came up.

After dinner, we hung out in Angie and Paige’s room for a bit. Jas and Paige seemed surprised that we hadn’t made a plan for tomorrow, but we explained that we just wanted to do what seemed best at the time. After a brief discussion, we hit upon a destination that surprised me only because everyone was on the same page, and quickly, too.

We were going to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Museum. There were other things to see there, too, though not nearly as many as I thought there would be later. None of us had family directly affected by Pearl Harbor, but Uncle Ryan had fought in the Pacific and Paige was pretty sure a couple of her uncles had as well. And, for all of the parents, World War II was a huge part of their childhoods. For us, it was at a distance, but it felt appropriate to go there and spend some time honoring history.

Jas and I went back to our room not long after. This time, I did tackle her to the bed when she was down to her underwear. Over giggling (and very unserious) protests, I had my way with her before we actually got ready for bed.

Once we were ready for bed, she ruled that the previous time didn’t count and I would just have to do it all over.

A man’s work is never done...

Saturday, December 28, 1985

No one was in much of a hurry to get up. Once we did, around ten, the hotel’s breakfast was also quite good. We didn’t get on the road until nearly noon. Everyone dressed much more soberly than we would have for other destinations. It felt inappropriate to visit a war memorial wearing casual tourist attire.

On the way, ‘The Final Countdown’ came up. Both because of its depiction of US forces at the time, but also because of the time-traveling elements. Suppose the Nimitz had destroyed the Japanese fleet before being sucked into the vortex to go back to 1985? What then? The Japanese would simply be missing a fleet. No one would know what happened. The US would still have a Pacific Fleet, albeit one not entirely ready for the realities of 1940s combat.

More importantly, in our opinion, the US would have remained as isolationist as it was before. The consequences of that were immeasurable. Would the nascent Manhattan Project have received the funding it did? Might Germany, facing only a group of weakened European powers on its Western front, have consolidated its position in Russia, knocked them out of the war, and seized firm control over Europe? Would the US have been able to effectively mount an attack without Britain? Could Germany have achieved nuclear weapons first?