Makela? Now, that shocked her. Why him?
Because he was kind to me, she reasoned almost immediately. Because he was her doctor, and people got attached to their doctors. Because he was the first person she’d really gotten to know, if only a little, here in Hawaii. She had her list of reasons, as anything else imitated interest, and if there was one thing Susan was not, it was truly interested in a man. From a distance, fine, but not up close, and absolutely not personal. Once was enough, a lesson she’d learnt sufficiently with that brief and, oh, so boring marriage.
At the time she’d gotten involved it had seemed like the right thing to do. She had been approaching thirty, the clutch of not being married and a ticking biological clock getting to her, so she’d said I do to a nice man in a not too well thought-out decision. He was reasonably handsome, very successful with a fair amount of wealth in his own right. But bland… Good lord, the man’s personality was like lumpy oatmeal, and the lumps were the only interesting part.
So she’d ho-hummed herself through six long months of bland with Ronald Cantwell before they’d come to a mutual understanding that they didn’t work for each other. It had been one of those things that had seemed like a good idea at the time because there had been nothing at all offensive about him, although nothing about him had totally bowled her over either. Which, in retrospect, had been her first mistake, not being head over heels in love with the man with whom she’d intended spending the rest of her life.
One of life’s little foibles was what she called it now. She and Ronald had gone their separate ways on reasonably good terms for a divorcing couple, and as a souvenir of her brief folly, she kept a name that wasn’t her father’s. That was actually a brilliant idea, keeping the Cantwell name, as working under her father’s name did have certain disadvantages as in everyone’s assumption, like father like daughter. Susan definitely wasn’t like her father. Not in any aspect. So she’d hung on to her married name, promising herself that next time she married… Actually, there would be no next time, so the promise to choose herself a man who made her pulse race and her nerves tingle didn’t mean anything. She wanted goose bumps, too. But there would be no man, so no racing pulse, no tingling.
And no goose bumps. That had such a sorry feeling to it.
Stretching, and finally giving in to the sunlight tempting her to take a look outside, Susan opened her eyes and glanced out the window, studying the people out there hurrying around. All of them had a sense of purpose, the way they were coming and going, it seemed. Or maybe that’s just what she wanted to see since her own sense of purpose felt like it was slipping these days. “What to do with my life…” she whispered, turning away from the window.
Ridgeway Medical was her father’s corporation, handed down to him by his father, and he’d spent years raising her up to take control of it. This is all for you, Susan, he’d always said. It had been just the two of them most of her life—her mother had died when Susan had been but a toddler—and her life had become, by default, an extension of her father’s. She shared his interests, lived his life. Stood right behind him to do his job, and had been glad to do it.
But since her divorce she’d been…restless. Discontented. No particular reason why, especially given the life and all the opportunities she had. Hence the reason for her holiday. To get the old feeling back. To re-dedicate herself to what she did best. Except she was enjoying languishing here in bed—something she never did in her other life. And she liked sleeping late. Again, that was something that never happened in her real life.
Damn, she hated the mushy thoughts. They’d been creeping in so much lately, breaking up the normal way she thought. Usually, she was such a decisive person, yet recently…
“Aloha kakahiaka!” a cheery voice called from the doorway, breaking up the gloom already coming over her. “Good morning. My name is Laka.”
Susan smiled at the bright-faced young woman coming through the door. Hawaiian obviously, with long flowing black hair and a smile that nearly lit up the room, the woman glided over to the bed with the smooth flow of an ocean wave, and stopped short of it. “Doc Etana thought you might like some breakfast before you leave this morning, so I’m here to take your order.”
“My breakfast order?” Like in room service? As nice as Ridgeway hospitals and clinics were, they didn’t offer room service.
Laka nodded. “We can fix almost anything you’d like, but my suggestion would be pa’i palaoa hala kahiki.”
They didn’t bill you for services here, and they catered your breakfast? She was growing to like this place more and more with each passing minute. “Pa’i pala…” She shook her head, shrugging. “I can’t pronounce it, but if that’s what you’d recommend, that’s what I’ll have,” she said cheerfully, amazed by how such a simple thing was brightening her morning.
“It’s a pineapple cake,” Laka explained. “A recipe from Doc Etana’s mother.”
“Who’s Doc Etana?” Susan asked. “I’ve heard that name mentioned before but I haven’t met him.”
Laka looked surprised. “He’s Dr Makela. His first name is Etana, and that’s what most of us call him.”
One name for the natives, one for the outsiders? Briefly, Susan wondered if Grant, or Etana, kept his lives separated that way, much the way she did. She was Susan Ridgeway, yet she was Susan Cantwell. “Is he around this morning?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant, even though she was anxious to see him.
“He’s never around this early. He has his morning routines, but he’ll be here soon enough. If you’d like to see another doctor, Dr Anai is here from Honolulu today. Should I call him for you?”
Susan shook her head. “No, that won’t be necessary.” It was a bit of a disappointment. She’d wanted to see Grant Makela before she left, to thank him and to…well, she didn’t know what else. It looked like that wasn’t to be the case, though. Maybe that was a good thing, because there was no medical need to see him. She simply wanted to, no reason. In a life like hers, there wasn’t room for any of that, so it didn’t matter, even though she felt a little let down.
“Would you like to have breakfast on the lanai?” Laka asked. “Lovely view of the water from there. And the gardens, too.”
The water. Another of her fantasies—her surfer Adonis. It was time for his morning visit to the beach, and she was missing it, which was a sure sign that matters were getting too far out of control with her. Come to paradise and forget all inhibitions, apparently. At least, that’s what she was doing. It was also what she was going to put a stop to this very instant. “The lanai sounds very nice,” she said, trying to mount resistance to fend off all these whimsies and wishes assaulting her. They were just another symptom of being overtired. The real reason she needed this holiday.
“Your clothes are in the closet,” Laka said on her way out the door.
Her clothes—a swimsuit, and a baggy shirt to cover it. That didn’t fit the occasion, but neither did the typical faded blue hospital gown she was wearing at the moment. “You wouldn’t happen to have a pair of surgical scrubs handy, would you?” she asked before the nurse got away.
“We do, but no one around here ever uses them.”
As Susan had noticed. Even the nurses wore Hawaiian-print dresses. “Well, if you could dust me off a pair…”
Ten
