Hiding Out In Hawaii

Aloha! I am hiding out this week on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai with my friend Jeanne, whom I’ve known since the eighth grade. We are belatedly celebrating our December birthdays. We are not sharing which birthday – but it was a biggie, and we decided it merited something special. We are staying in Jeanne’s oceanfront condo and wake every morning to the sound of the waves.

This is a most astonishing place, wild and ferocious. It is an island mostly undeveloped, with ragged mountain tops and deep valleys, verdant rain forests and wide swaths of pasture where cattle graze under a cerulean sun. Feral chickens wander about and sometimes peck at our patio door.

My mother Bonnie has come along to chaperone. Now it might seem that women our age would not require looking after, and I suppose that’s true. We’ve spent the first few days on this luscious island swimming and hiking, shopping and snorkeling. We’ve been drinking Dom Perignon at night because there is a Costco on this island and Jeanne has a credit card. 

But there was a time when Jeanne and I had a rather, um, extensive criminal history. It is our past that keeps us close these days. We know each other's secrets.

Jeanne and I were what my grandmother used to call “late bloomers.” As teenagers, we were skinny and knock kneed. We wore glasses and got good grades. We had wild, wavy hair that would greatly expand in the humidity of Southern California summers. On some days, we looked liked human Q tips.

We couldn’t get dates. Homecoming dances came and went. The popular girls went steady and we stayed home. We wrapped our frizzy hair around empty orange juice cans each night, slathered Noxema on our faces and prayed. The phone never rang.

In an effort to fend off Geekyness, we aspired to be Bad Girls.  In high school, we were often Minors In Possession, pooling our baby sitting money for bottles of screw top wine. We smoked like fiends. We never met a speed limit we wouldn’t break, a stop sign we wouldn’t run.

Eventually, we stole a car.

This major felony began with a boy, of course. It was our senior year. With prom looming over us, our GET A BOYFRIEND campaign was in full swing, and by Christmas we’d both landed a couple of misfits, just like ourselves.

Eric was mine, a sweet boy, with Irish skin so porcelain that after a few minutes in the sun he would turn a rosy shade, prompting the meaner kids in the school to nickname him “Pinky.”

Jeanne had snagged a tall lanky kid named Anthony, who was all nose and ears. This kid’s nose was so large that he would be just as tall if he were lying on his back.

The prom came and went, a blur of rented tuxedos and Chicken Kiev. We drove out to Santa Monica afterward and made out by the pier. A few months later, we all graduated. Then the question for Jeanne and me became this – what to do with these two? We no longer needed prom dates. We weren’t particularly attached to these goombas. But we also didn’t want to be back in that dreaded no man’s land of No Man.

Anthony solved the question for Jeanne. We got wind that he was seeing another girl.

Jeanne and I began spying on him. It seemed the only thing to do. I was driving a 1966 Dodge Dart. One afternoon, we watched Anthony pull his car to the curb in front of this girl’s house. She came running out, and embraced him.

Jeanne and I turned to look at each other, horrified. Here’s the thing about Bad Girls. We don’t like to be punked. We like to think we’re the ones calling the shots.  It wasn’t just the fact the Anthony was cheating on Jeanne, it was the notion that she never got the chance to tell him so long, see you later. When you’re young and awkward and geeky, these things count.

Jeanne had a key to his car because she sometimes took it to wash while he worked as a box boy at the local grocery store. After the girl and Anthony went inside, Jeanne and I hopped into Anthony’s Cougar and drove off. Grand Theft Auto proved to be exhilarating. We drove around the block, our hearts pounding.

But how to top this? We drove to my house and I rummaged in my mother’s closet for a blouse. Something large. Jeanne was morose. “How could he,” she moaned. The only thing more exciting about having a boyfriend is having one who cheats on you.

“Here,” I said, handing her a blouse. “Try this on.” It was extra large. I grabbed pillows off my mother’s bed. “Tuck these under your shirt. You’re about to become an expectant mother.”

I look back now, over the decades, and wonder about us, how reckless we were, how willing we were to rampage about, wreaking havoc. How darn much fun we had.

We drove back to the girl’s house. We parked Anthony's car in a different spot. Jeanne, looking ten months pregnant, waddled up to the door and pounded on it. Anthony answered the door. So did the girl. And so, eventually did her parents.


"Jeanne, please," Anthony moaned. Her parents were gape mouthed. The girls eye's were wide with astonishment, then horror.

"Are you going to come home and take care of this baby," Jeanne demanded with just the right hint of hysteria in her voice. "Are you abandoning your family?"


Anthony turned to the parents. "I barely know this girl," he said, jerking his head in Jeanne's direction.

"Not so!" Jeanne shrieked. She waved his car keys at him. "I've been out driving your car! Look, now it's parked across the street. If you're not the father of this baby, why do I have your keys?"

The girl and her parents all turned to look at Anthony in an apprasing way.

"Give me those damn keys," he scowled. Jeanne tossed them to me, and I threw them over the roof of the garage. Then we stomped off, leaving them all in the doorway.

When we got back into the Dodge Dart, we laughed until our faces hurt. Anthony never called again, and we didn't much care.

That summer marked the end of our crime spree though. Soon we were too busy in college and our careers. Then we married men we love and raised families. No time to steal or terrorize.

So now I sit on this lovely island with my good friend and we look back over the years, and toast to the fine lives we've had.  We are comfortable in our own skins, we can laugh at our mistakes and rejoice at our successes.

We don't have to stake our our men. They come home to us every night.

Not too bad for a couple of skinny girls with orange juice cans in their hair.

 l