“Surf,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”
“I don’t know how to surf,” I said.
“You’re still coming with me,” he announced, coming around the bar.
“You mean right now?”
“No time like the present,” he said.
“Can you just leave? Aren’t you working?”
“Hawai’i is the freest state in the US; you can do whatever you want here,” he said, laughing.
Shit. Okay, if he said so. I was down. I hadn’t spent much time at the resort’s beach, but I looked at it from my suite every day. I had seen people surfing. I had never done it a day in my life, but why not? Keno was cool.
After giving me a Surf 101 lesson on the beach on our rented boards, we went out on the water. It was a lot harder than he made it look. I watched him more than actually managing to do it myself, but it wasn’t a bad way to spend a morning. He sat on his board and paddled over to me.
“I don’t know if this is my sport, man,” I said.
“You should learn. Girls love it,” he said, laughing. Since he had brought up girls…
"I talked to Abby the other day," I told him.
"That's great. How'd it go?"
"Not good," I admitted.
"She refused to talk to you?"
"No, it wasn't that. I went to talk to her at her desk. I asked her to go out with me. She gave this bum excuse about not being able to see guests personally. That isn't true, is it?"
"Whether it's true or not, that was a really convenient time for her to bring it up," Keno remarked.
"I fucked up. I want to see her, and she won't even give me the time of day."
"You miss her."
"I just want to see her again. It wasn't fair, what I did to her. And it didn't even do anything. I still feel like shit."
"I don't know what you're waiting for, brother," Keno said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you don't have to do this to yourself."
"I already tried to talk to her. I have to try something else. I don't know. I'll think of something."
"How long will that take?" he asked. "You said it yourself: you’re leaving, she’s staying here. You only have so many days till you have to get on that plane."
"You want me to go to her house and refuse to leave until she agrees to talk to me?" I asked, getting frustrated.
"You remind me of a story I heard once about a man. He was like you, a good guy. He had a good life and he was happy, but he was missing something. He was alone. He wanted a woman, a wife he could spend the rest of his life with. He knew his life was good the way it was, but he couldn't help thinking and dreaming about the life he could have when he finally found her.
“So he started planning for it. He started planning the life he was going to have when he finally found the woman of his dreams. He planned everything: the home they would build together, the family they would raise, even the conversations they would have together, every day for the rest of their lives. He wanted everything to be perfect when he finally found her, but there was one problem.
“He planned for so long, it was all he could think about. He never did all the things he planned to do. He never took time away from his planning to go out and actually find the woman he wanted in the first place. He died with nothing but his big book of plans."
I looked at Keno, pausing because I was sure he was about to keep going. The hell kind of story was that? He died alone in the end anyway?