My room isn’t ready. I was so manic in my determination to come on this trip to Maui that when looking at flights I chose a 6:00 a.m. departure. Just because Ted isn’t coming with me, I told myself, doesn’t mean I can’t go. So what if one minute he was saying he “couldn’t overstate how excited” he was about our vacation and the next minute he was saying he “couldn’t do this anymore.” He’s not going to fucking ruin it for me, I said over and over, crying, cognizant that the “it” wasn’t just this vacation, but my future, the second half – okay, the last third – of my life.

But now here I am, too early to settle in. The valet took my bags, and while I wait, I am sitting at one of the tables by the pool so I can stare at the ocean while drinking my Tropical Monkey. “It’s like a chocolate banana shake, but with alcohol,” the bartender yelled excitedly over the whirring of the blender. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate and banana together, but he was enthusiastic, and I didn’t want to disappoint him.

I have my sunglasses on, my wide-brimmed hat. I’m writing in my journal. A middle-aged woman, alone. I am holding my back straight, willing my body to send a message I’m not sure I believe. I imagine the woman by the shallow end of the pool – the one corralling her three toddlers while her husband scrolls through his social media – is envying my freedom. I must look so content.

***

People kept telling me to journal. They said writing my feelings on paper would help me “process all that’s happened.” So the day before I boarded my flight, I went to my favorite stationery store in Berkeley. I ran my fingers along the shelves: so many journals, so many sizes and styles, so many blank pages to be filled. Some covers were clean and stark, and others were elaborately decorated with paisley or fairies. One journal had inspirational quotes on each page. I flipped it open: “Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.” I put it back on the shelf. Then I walked over to the school supplies section and grabbed a black Mead spiral notebook, the same kind I used all through college, a million years ago when I saw the world so full of propositions, so many offers I was ready to answer with yes.

***
I’m surrounded by couples, either married or about to be. I remember one year, once the boys were old enough to be left alone in the room, David, my ex-husband, got them a pizza and a DVD, and we were finally able to eat alone at a nice restaurant. As we mulled over the menu, the young man at the table next to us proposed to his girlfriend. She was so excited she knocked over her drink, and pina colada spilled all over her dress. They both laughed, and she was crying, and everyone in the restaurant was clapping. I felt a lump in my throat and couldn’t stop the tears from welling in my eyes, and I thought at first it was because I was so happy for her and moved by the immensity of joy in the room. But then I realized it was something else – no one had ever proposed to me.

***
So I have been here many times. Every summer with David and the boys. Then, in the divorce settlement, instead of selling the timeshare, we agreed to trade off years. I couldn’t bring myself to come here at first, and I skipped my turn, but then I was getting serious with my first post-divorce boyfriend, Liam, and I thought it would be a nice vacation for us. Instead, Liam was anxious and uncomfortable, and we broke up one night on the beach. When we got back together he told me that I had been “acting like we were on a honeymoon” and he knew I “wanted it to be romantic.” As if that thought were abhorrent to him. We broke up again.

Now, who is Ted, you may wonder. So many names, different men, dead relationships, beginnings, endings, evolution. Ted is the man I believed would be the one to propose, to make the offer, to hold his hand out and say, “Will you come with me?” He would be unlike the others who saw my alliance as a given.

***

When I kept a diary in middle school, the kind with a lock and key, I imagined becoming a famous author, famous enough that someone would want to write my biography. My biographer would ask if I had ever kept a diary because of course my readers would want to know the adolescent wounding that had created such philosophical, insightful genius. After about a week of entries unworthy of secrecy (I threw the key away; it had kept getting jammed), I started making things up. The events of my days didn’t seem to match the pain I was feeling, the pain my imagined future biography readers also felt and needed to understand.

This time, however, I do not need to make things up. I could, though. I could say that Ted is dead. I could write that he was alive one morning, and we had coffee while we talked about our trip to Maui, and then he got in his car to do his parents’ grocery shopping, and then he was hit by a careless driver, and then he was dead. Because that would match the pain I am feeling. No, actually, that would be better than the pain I am feeling. Because in that scenario, he is taken from me rather than having left me. In that story, it makes sense that there was no warning. Of course I didn’t see it coming. No need for shame. And the best part of that story is the absence of the infuriating bullshit of “It’s not you; it’s me.” But he had to tell a story too, didn’t he, to make sense of it all. Everything we tell ourselves is a story, a narrative of our own making that we then offer to others with their anxious expressions – to assuage the fear that is always lurking, the grief that is always possible for them as well – a proposition that asks, does this make you feel better too?

***
My room is ready. The bartender was generous with the rum, and I am buzzed now and thinking that chocolate and banana are not such a bad mix. I will take a nap before dinner.

***
Last night after my nap I put on a dress and walked down to Duke’s. At the bar I met a younger couple, 40s, second marriage for both. They were celebrating their fifth anniversary, and in their celebratory mood they bought me a drink. They told me about his proposal (bouquets of roses all over her house; I thought he could have been more original), and I made the mistake in my tipsiness of telling them no one had ever proposed to me. “But you were married,” the woman said. I explained that my marriage had happened after a series of conversations, that David and I had felt proud of ourselves for being so practical and grounded. She placed her hand on my arm and clucked and said, “Oh, Honey. And no one since?” She saw my eyes fill with tears and mercifully ordered another round of drinks.

“It’s just that someone was supposed to come on this vacation with me . . . I thought he was the one to finally, you know . . . and he . . .” I couldn’t finish my sentence.

“Just tell me his name,” she said. “Ted,” I said. “Well,” she said. “Fuck Ted. Fuck Ted, and Fuck Ted again.” We all raised our glasses. They kept telling me how beautiful I was, how I would find someone soon, how it wasn’t too late. Their proclamations made me certain it was, indeed, too late.

***
I enjoyed some gelato on my walk back to the resort. The trade winds felt soothing. Ted and I had talked about how different the air feels in Maui, how the breezes are like tender caresses even when it’s gusty, how we couldn’t wait to experience it together. His last trip to Maui had been a final effort to save his marriage; his family had vacationed in Maui like my family had, and he and his wife thought going to a cherished place would help in their efforts to repair. They ended up flying home early. My last trip was two years ago with my boys, young adults now in college. One brought his girlfriend. It was nice to feel joy in this place again after the divorce and then after that horrible trip with Liam. We went swimming every day and had boozy evenings watching the sunset; we drove the road to Hana and gazed in awe at the sun rising up over Haleakalā. I couldn’t wait to share all of these experiences with Ted, to be with him in the gratitude I have always felt in this place. Grateful to be alive, and this time I would be grateful to be alive next to him. He had smiled when I told him that. “You have such a way with words,” he had said. And then he told me he couldn’t wait to sleep next to me with all the windows open so we could hear the ocean as we fell asleep and awakened.

***

This morning as I lay in bed, I remembered the first time Ted and I had had sex. At first, I felt happy as my mind took me back: his lips on my neck, his hands wrapped in my hair, now his lips on my stomach as he made his way down my body. I had felt so seen, so . . . tended to. I didn’t come that first time, and when I saw his disappointment, I assured him that it would just take some exploring and communication. He turned away from me. “I don’t want to be the only one in this relationship who’s having orgasms,” he said under his breath as he got up to go to the bathroom.

I realized this morning, as I relived that moment, that he hadn’t been tending to me after all. He had been trying to accomplish a task. Meet a goal. Prove himself.

***
On my way to the beach, I was watching a middle-aged couple walking in front of me on the boardwalk. Instead of holding hands, they were holding pinkie fingers. On the lawn between the boardwalk and the sand, a crew was setting up white chairs in front of a gazebo. “Oh!” exclaimed the woman. “Look, they’re setting up for a wedding. We should renew our vows here!” The man grunted. The woman pulled her pinkie out of his and put her hands in her shorts’ pockets. She said, “But it’s pretty here.” The man said, “I’ve seen prettier.”

***
Propose. Propose. Propose. Propose. Proposal. Proposal. Proposal. Proposal. You know how a word sounds like it can’t possibly be a word, can’t possibly actually mean anything, if you say it over and over?

***
Last night I went to Star Noodle and sat at the bar. I was thinking I might just have a drink and leave, but then out of the corner of my eye I noticed one of the chefs looking at me. Throughout my meal, we continued to look at each other. We would lock eyes and hold the gaze. I thought of leaving my number on a napkin, but what would I write? “For the bearded chef on the right if you’re looking at the kitchen from the bar”? I imagined the staff having a good laugh over that. As I was leaving, I turned to look in the kitchen one last time, and he was already staring at me. He smiled and gave a nod. My body felt alive again.

***
This morning I was out of the room by 7:00, walked all the way to Black Rock and back, got an iced coffee. I took my coffee down to the beach, and as I was sitting in the sand, I was thinking, what a beautiful blue ocean. I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything so beautiful, the way the light was dancing on the water, and I felt happy. And I thought, maybe that person who was quoted in the journal had it right, maybe one small positive thought in the morning really can change your whole day.

***
I went to a farmers’ market for pineapple and fresh flowers. Two women picking out tomatoes were talking about another woman they knew, Janna, who had invited them to a party to celebrate her marriage to herself. “Who does that?” the first woman asked. The other responded, “She’s gotten so weird since her divorce.” I wondered if Janna had proposed to herself. I envisioned various scenarios: her on one knee in front of a mirror; her switching chairs as she sat on her patio, one chair for the proposal and then a jump to the other to accept; her strolling through a meadow, picking daisies she gave to herself as she accepted her own hand in marriage.
The first woman asked, “What do you bring to a celebration of ‘a commitment to wholeness’?” She used her fingers to make air quotes.

I turned back to look at the flowers again, and the old man behind the table held something out to me: “A beautiful orchid for a beautiful woman.”

He sensed my confusion. “Please. For your puuwai nani,” he said. I looked at the woman beside him. “For your beautiful heart,” she explained.

***
Every day vendors set up tables in the open-air lobby. Some days it’s hand-woven baskets, other days it’s homemade jams, and other days it’s handmade candles or leis. Today it is jewelry. The vendor’s name is Leilani. I tried on a necklace. A woman standing next to me noticed and said, “It’s so pretty on you! Go get your man, and he can buy it for you!” She winked. I picked the necklace back up off the table, grabbed my credit card out of my purse, and handed both to Leilani.

A couple my age approached the table then, and as the wife said, “Oh, look, Honey, how beautiful!” I noticed she was also using sign language. The husband signed something back, and she responded as she signed, “You’re right! I do need something to wear with my new dress.” She tried on necklaces, admiring each one in the hand-held mirror Leilani kept on the table, and he patiently waited next to her. She tilted her head as if to ask “What do you think?” Her husband put his fist to his lips and then kissed his fist as he pulled it away. She smiled. “I love it too.” He reached out and gently touched the necklace where it lay against the top of her sternum, and then he ran his finger down her chest to her heart. She brought her hand up and placed it on top of his for a moment, and then she took his hand in hers and raised it to her cheek. I turned away to catch my breath.

As she was paying for the jewelry, her husband signed something else, which pleased her greatly. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “Yes, let’s!” The wife took her purchase, and as they walked away, I watched her hands move feverishly as she continued to communicate her excitement over whatever it was that he had proposed.

Was it drinks at a favorite restaurant? Surfing lessons? A phone call home to the kids? A tennis match? The way they had looked at one another when she held his hand to her cheek, I could see that the specific activity didn’t matter. She loved him. And with his eyes and his hands he had asked, “Will you come with me?” And she had said “Yes.”

***

I took the shuttle into town. I was wearing my new necklace. I sat next to a young woman and noticed she had a notebook with a sticker on the front that said What a Wonderful Thought It Is that Some of the Best Days of Our Lives Haven’t Happened Yet.

“I like that,” I said.
I startled the girl; she jumped a little. I pointed at the sticker.
“But the older I get, I wonder if it’s true,” I said. I’d had a happy hour cocktail before boarding the shuttle. “I mean, I want to believe it’s true. But, like, you’re sixteen years old or something, so it’s going to be truer for you. I’m 56, so maybe I’ve already had all of my best days. That’s a real possibility. Mathematically speaking.”

She turned toward me. “I’m twenty,” she said. Then she looked out the window. We sat that way for a couple of minutes. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter how old a person is. It stands true regardless.” She turned her whole body toward me. “Each day you wake up, you have no idea what’s going to happen. And all the days those other best days happened, they could have been regular days or shitty days, but they weren’t. They were days that wonderful things happened to make those days best days. Right?”

“Yes.”
“Those are always the possibilities: regular, shitty, or best. One of those three is going to happen. So there’s a 33.3 % chance it’s going to be a best day. That’s true every day. It’s the theory of probability.”

I thought about this for a few seconds. I wasn’t sure she completely understood the theory of probability, but then again neither did I.

“Tell me about one of your best days,” I said.
“The day Stacey Patterson sprained her ankle.”
“Do we hate Stacey Patterson?”
“No. But I got to play Clara in The Nutcracker, and I killed it.” Her cheeks flushed at the memory. “What’s one of yours?”

“The day I spent in a French beach town with a Spanish mariachi man. He played the trumpet. I was planning to catch a train to Paris, but he asked me to go with him to Saint-Jean-de-Luz.”

“And you said yes.”
“I did.”
The shuttle doors opened. “We’re at my stop,” she said. I stood up to let her out.
She stopped in the aisle. “I didn’t get in to Stanford. It felt awful. That’s why I put the sticker on my notebook.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay. I’m transferring to UCSD instead. I’ve worked through it, but, man, did it suck at first. I mean, we all just want to be chosen, you know? Dream school, dream man, whatever.”

She turned around, and I watched her step through the doors and onto the sidewalk. I sat back down as the shuttle lurched forward, and as we drove away, I looked out the window. The girl looked up, and our eyes locked for a moment before the shuttle turned the corner and she was no longer in sight. I thought about the day I got the call offering me a tenure-track position. It was my second choice; my first choice had already informed me they were going with someone else. I thought about the day my colleague – a man I might never have met if I had been chosen by my first choice – asked me to co-write a book with him. I thought about how much fun we had writing it together and how the day we saw it in print we celebrated by taking our whole department – a department of people I loved – for sushi and champagne.

***

My stop was Front Street. I walked around Lahaina, checked out the souvenir shops, bought myself a t-shirt that said “Maui Is My Happy Place,” and had some stale chips and a few watered-down cocktails for which I paid an exorbitant price because of the fantastic view. My table was practically in the water; I could feel the spray from the crashing waves. My server set down two glasses of water and asked, “Do you want to go ahead and order, or are you waiting on your friend?” I told him I was “dining alone” and then said, “Who am I kidding. I’m not dining, I’m drinking.” He asked, “What is a woman like you doing drinking alone?” I asked, “Did you actually just say that?” and we both laughed. His name was Jack; he was working on his PhD in Chicago but was home for the summer to help his dad who owned an art gallery. He kept checking on me, filling my water more often than necessary, letting his eyes rest a moment too long on my breasts, my legs.

When I was finishing my third cocktail, he walked over with another server. “This is Lily. She’s going to take care of you now since my shift is over. If you need anything, she’s got you.” My heart sank as they walked away, but then Jack turned around and jogged back. “Hey,” he said. “I’m gone the next two days, flying over to Kauai with some friends, but when I get back, maybe we could get together?”

“Unfortunately, I’ll be gone by then. I fly home the day after tomorrow.” He looked disappointed, and my heart that had sunk was quickly buoyed. “I’m free right now though.”

I paid my bill, and the next thing I knew we were on his motorcycle headed to a beach farther away from the tourist crowd. The wind was blowing up my skirt and around my legs, and between that and the feel of his chiseled torso in my arms, I was ready as soon as he stopped his bike. We tumbled into the sand, my hands removing his belt, unbuttoning his pants, his hands lifting my skirt, both of us panting and giggling and saying things like, “you’re so fucking hot” and “god, you’re sexy.” His hands wrapped in my hair, his mouth on mine, sand everywhere.

When we were spent, my body half lying over his in the sand, legs entwined, I told him about the girl and her explanation of the theory of probability. “What do you think?” I asked. “I think she’s an English major,” he said. And we laughed.

I realized then I hadn’t thought about Ted since Jack brought over the two waters. It was the longest I had gone without thinking about him, and now here I was, thinking about how I hadn’t thought about him, which meant I was thinking about him again. I pushed his image out of my mind and started kissing Jack’s neck. His hair smelled like French fries and salt water, and when he turned his face toward mine and asked if I wanted him again, I said yes.

***

Today I went on a snorkeling excursion. I loved being on the water, the sensory overload of wind and sun and music, the gentle rocking when the crew set sail, and then the spray of the water when they turned on the motor to speed up and bounce on the waves. The squeals of joy when a pod of dolphins started swimming with the boat and when a turtle broke the surface for a breath. Music, laughter, instructions to smile for the camera, so many sounds of happiness.

The crew included a photographer. She took pictures of each couple and each family; she got in the water and took pictures of everyone with their masks and snorkels on; she took pictures of the fish and the two turtles that had joined us.

When she walked up to me, I expected her to ask where the rest of my group was, but instead she asked, “Are you ready for your photo shoot?”

She took pictures of me with the island in the background and with the sails in the background; she took pictures of me with my snorkel and with my cocktail. She took pictures of me looking out at the ocean, smiling and looking pensive. As we swiped through the pictures after, she kept saying, “You look happy!”

I stared at the woman in the pictures, her hair blowing in her face, her expression caught mid-laugh, her sunglasses askew on her head. She looked so . . . present.

I purchased the whole package.
***
So this is it. My bags are packed; I leave in an hour. When I get home my friends and family will ask if I feel better, if this vacation was the rest and regeneration I needed. I will say yes, and I will mean it.

I think back to my first morning here, and I wonder if that mother ever got to relax on her vacation, if her husband ever recognized and acknowledged her need. I wonder if either of them proposed a different way of doing things, a different way of being. I wonder if she has thought of me, and I wonder if, as I do, she feels like that day was a hundred years ago.

I left the orchid on the coffee table. I wanted to take it home, wanted to think of Janna as I cared for it, to be reminded of her strength each time it flowered, but since I couldn’t, I thought it would be a beautiful gift left behind.
***

I remember seeing a meme that said, “A woman who can eat alone at a table in a restaurant can do anything.” I think of that now as I enjoy my passionfruit mimosa, sitting alone at a table as I wait for my flight home. If you sit alone at a bar, you are open to, perhaps even hoping for, potential conversations, potential connections, proposals of company. But if you sit alone at a table, you are saying, I don’t need that right now; I’m fine here by myself. It says so much that our culture sees that as courageous for a woman.

***

Last night I sat on the beach to watch the sunset. The shifting swirls of orange and red and pink filled the horizon, and enveloped by the beauty I felt small and insignificant, like if you zoomed out further and further away into the vast colors of the sky I would be one tiny speck on the beach among all the other tiny specks, and I felt comforted. All around me were people taking advantage of the beautiful backdrop for family photos, engagement announcements, Instagram posts. Over the ukulele music and breaking waves, snippets of conversations made their way to me.

I heard a mother telling her children to put their arms around one another. “Smile! Smile! Yes! That’s going to be such a good one!” the mother praised. The youngest child responded, “Can we be done now?” Before the mother could answer, the children disbanded and ran back into the waves. The father got up from sitting in the sand and put his arm around the mother’s waist. He kissed the side of her head, and they stood there, watching their children play in the water. I thought about all the photos I have of my boys playing in this same ocean, and I thought about how many waves had crashed on this shore between their childhood and this childhood.

I heard a young woman tell her girlfriend to place her hand on her hip. “You don’t want your hands just hanging there,” she said. The girlfriend placed her hand on her hip. “Look at you, all sexy in Hawaii,” the young woman laughed. “Take another one,” her girlfriend said. She did the peace sign and stuck her ass out a little further. “Perfect,” said the young woman. “You think so?” asked her girlfriend as she walked toward her. “Let me see.” They leaned their heads together as they swiped through the photos.
Another group of girls, younger, were taking pictures too on the other side of me. They started posing, giggling and taking selfies, instructing each other to smile or embrace, to jump, to lie in the sand. Finally, one girl said she was hungry, so they began to walk down the beach away from me. Their words were no longer audible, but the cadence drifted toward me, the lilting sounds of comradery. Suddenly, one of them squealed and screamed, “Yes!” and then they all doubled over, clutching their stomachs, and they kept shrieking, “Yes! Oh my god, yes!” as they fell to the sand in laughter.

What was the question? What was the suggestion that inspired such gleeful, emphatic consent? I thought about the couple from all those years ago, the girl who spilled her piña colada because of her own gleeful, emphatic consent. Are they still married? Are they happy? I thought about the couple at Duke’s and how their first marriages didn’t last forever but here they are, having said yes to another proposal, another possibility, another go. I thought about Janna and her marriage to herself.

I looked down the beach at those girls. They were far away now, but I could see they had their arms around one another’s waists. Their hair was blowing behind them as they made their way. I imagined they were still laughing, still chattering about whatever proposal had elicited such glee. What proposal would make me squeal and scream “Yes!” with such joy that I tumble to the ground? A writing residency in Paris? A creative collaboration with my favorite author? And there still may be that man who asks, “Will you come with me?” The right man, the steady man. I pondered all the possibilities as I gazed upon the horizon, as the swirls of orange and red and pink dissolved into blue and then gray, as the sun disappeared into the ocean.