“As one of Carol's oldest friends, I can say we never look at her surface; under it all is a flabby and kind old heart.”
The little man groaned. “I'm ten years younger than she is.”
“Fifteen, I'm sure. Well, Carol loves to mother people. Happy marriage.”
“You ever been married to her?”
I held up my crossed fingers. “The evil eye doesn't take in my family. I don't know how I avoided it; just luck, I guess.”
The little man went off to see if everybody was trying the rum drinks. It had rained again, and the sky was crayon-blue, and the pink foothills under the purple mountain range were more beautiful than anything else I had ever seen. The native girls, an army of sensual service, were bringing in more food.
I latched onto a platter of pickled salmon called lomi lomi. To make it, the natives take a good-sized salmon and soak it in lemon juice for a day or two, wash it, skin it, bone it, and cut it into slices. They make a paste of shallots, tomatoes, sugar, and lemon juice. This they mix well and stuff into the slices of fish, which they cover and put in the icebox overnight. If you never ate raw pickled fish before, you will this appetizer.
It was followed by vegetable soup flavored with pineapple, kupa bala-ai me kabi meaai luananabelebele, if you must know, and baked lobsters, not just baked but roasted on hot stones buried underground.
I found Mike in a corner eating oyster fritters with two native girls. “Having fun?” he asked me.
One of the native girls giggled. “Mr. Wald is promising us jobs in his next picture.”
Mike grinned and swallowed an oyster. I looked at my wrist watch. “Look, Jerry.” I said to Mike. “Don't you think you better go back to worrying over your productions for next year?”
“Aw, we'll miss the la malao.”
One of the native girls nodded. “We promised Mr. Wald a special order of Bombay duck and dried salt fish.”
“He'd better come; duck never agrees with him.”
“Oh. this is hung in feathers for two years over the door.”
Mike had a sip of bala-ai wai and got up. “Maybe I better sec how Howard Hughes is doing while I'm gone.”
Outside, the host was watching some people getting into cars. He said to me. “You'll be staying and taking care of Miss Tinning?”
“We're leaving in a few days.”
“Too bad.” He suddenly brightened. “Carol said she'd go home if her friends wanted to see her again. Look, I'm not a rich man, I don't expect to make more than three hundred thousand dollars on the pineapples this year. But I'll set her up in a first-class stateroom if you boys will get her on that boat.”
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