§ § § -- May 6, 1980
Roarke invited Leslie to drive again, and directed her down the same dirt lane she had used to take Mei-Lian to the restaurant earlier. This time they passed the restaurant and continued on to the end of the road, where a large flat-roofed building stood. There were quite a few bikes parked in bicycle stands along the front of the building; bikes were the island's main mode of transportation, but there were enough spaces for about ten vehicles as well. Leslie peered at the sign over the door.
" 'Fantasy Iceland'?" she read, delighted. "That's great! It's an ice-skating rink, isn't it, Mr. Roarke? Who thought up the name?"
"Three guesses," Tattoo said dryly, and Leslie laughed, parking the car. They alighted and walked into the rink, which was so dark they could see nothing.
"Isn't anyone here?" Leslie whispered; the dark seemed to command silence. "I mean, there're so many bikes out front, somebody has to be here."
She felt Roarke's arm slip around her shoulders. "Lights, please," he called out.
Multi-colored lights flared into life all around the arena, and people kept popping out from behind counters and tables, shouting birthday greetings at Leslie. Overwhelmed, she stared in astonishment, her eyes enormous and a smile blooming across her face. It seemed the rink was packed; all her friends, along with every member of their families, had come. Maureen Tomai was there with her parents, Janos and Romana; Michiko and all the other Tokitas were there, including Saburo and Kayoko with Kiichiro Matsuda; Myeko Sensei was with her mother and father, twin brothers and younger sister; Lauren McCormick had brought her parents, brother and sister; and Camille Ichino stood with her parents, Tommy, and all four quadruplets, now nearly thirteen months old.
"Oh my gosh," Leslie said, and Roarke could feel her shaking slightly. "I can't believe it. Everybody's here! I…when did all this happen?"
"Over the last four or five days," Tattoo told her. "After crazy Cornelius and Alphonse almost ruined your birthday last year, we decided that this year you were going to get the biggest birthday bash we could cook up. So here you are."
"This is the best birthday I've ever had," she said softly, smiling at everyone and then looking up at Roarke. "Absolutely the best."
Roarke smiled back, but he had no chance to say anything, because Tommy Ichino called out, "Hey, it hasn't even started yet." Everyone laughed, and the entire crowd made their way over to about half a dozen tables that had been set up in an open observers' area of the rink. As they were settling down, the door to the employees' area popped open and two young native men wheeled out a table bearing a giant birthday cake studded with fifteen candles, sitting on a plate surrounded by huge tropical blooms. Roarke got Leslie's attention and directed it to the cake; her mouth fell open and her eyes got bigger than ever at sight of it. Tattoo began to sing "Happy Birthday to You", and everyone else promptly joined in while Leslie sat, red-faced but with shining eyes, and alternated between staring at the cake and gazing around at her friends and their families.
The song came to an end and everyone clapped; yet she hesitated at blowing out the candles, even after plenty of photos were taken of the cake. "What're you waiting for, your sixteenth birthday?" Lauren urged. "Make a wish, Leslie!"
Her words were taken up by many of the other partygoers, but Leslie hunched her shoulders and cast Roarke a slightly overwhelmed look. "I don't think I have anything left to wish for," she finally said, which earned her a round of laughter.
"Oh, there must be something," Michiko said. "Really, Leslie, you can't blow out your candles before you make a wish."
"But you should hurry up before the frosting gets a wax coating," Myeko put in, bringing on more laughter. "Heck, just wish for a cute guy and get it over with. But wish for something already."
Leslie looked around at the eager looks on her friends, the smiling faces of their families, at her guardian and his assistant who both looked for all the world like proud fathers, and suddenly knew exactly what to wish for. She closed her eyes and thought fervently, I want to stay on Fantasy Island forever. Then she took the deepest breath she could, leaned over and blew out all the candles on her first try. In the midst of the applause and cheers, Tattoo happened to notice a thoughtful expression on Roarke's face, and was convinced his boss knew just what Leslie had wished for.
After that the candles were removed and the cake was cut while Michiko's and Myeko's mothers alternated in stacking presents for Leslie on an unused table. There was enough cake for everyone to have a generous slice, and ice cream was served along with it. Finally everyone had had his or her fill, and one of the rink employees went around pouring glasses of tropical-fruit juice for everyone while Myeko and Maureen appointed themselves gift bearers and took turns handing Leslie presents to open. It turned out the nearly all the gifts were decorative items for her room: for example, the Tokita family had given her a beautifully crafted wooden knickknack shelf, carved by Kayoko's husband Kiichiro and varnished by Saburo, with whom he ran a small woodworking shop in Hawaii. Each family member had individually added figurines that she could display on the shelves. From the others, she received copies of favorite books, a photo album, a few record albums, and even a beautiful doll dressed as a Japanese geisha from Myeko.
Tattoo had had a quick word with Myeko and Maureen before they started bringing Leslie her presents, and now he nodded at Maureen, who lifted his gift and toted it over to her friend. Leslie stood up, gaping at it. "This is from Tattoo," Maureen told her.
"Oh wow," Leslie said softly, stared at Tattoo for a moment in wonder, then turned back to his gift, curiosity overwhelming her. "Hold it up for me, Maureen, would you?" she asked, and Maureen obliged, watching as avidly as everyone else. Other than Tattoo, of course, only Roarke knew what it was, and had a camera at the ready.
When Leslie revealed Tattoo's painting, her face grew slack with astonishment and admiration; she was so stunned by this generous gift that she barely noticed when Roarke caught her reaction on film. "Oh, how gorgeous!" she breathed. "Oh, this is…" Words failed her, and she turned to Tattoo, a sheen in her eyes. "You painted this for me?"
"Well, it's just something I thought you might like," Tattoo murmured, unusually self-deprecating. "Figured it might look good on your wall."
"It's absolutely beautiful," Leslie said, reaching out and wrapping his hands in hers. "It'll transform my whole room, Tattoo. I love it…it's perfect!" She hesitated, glanced for a half-second at Roarke, then said, "Merci beaucoup, mon oncle," in a creditable enough French accent to really surprise Tattoo.
"Where did you learn that?" he exclaimed, then realized just what she had said. His eyes got quite wide, and he swallowed visibly. "Thank you, Leslie…thank you."
A couple of the women brushed tears away, and several male groans emanated from the crowd in response, bringing on laughter that broke the emotional tension. Leslie used it as cover to drop to her knees and hug Tattoo. "You just made my birthday," she told him.
Tattoo grinned. "Hey, it still isn't over yet. There's a reason we're having this party at the skating rink. Free skate rental for all the guests, and you get to stay as long as you're not too tired to skate." He grinned at Leslie's delighted expression. "Since you're done opening presents, I'll go give the word that you're about ready to skate."
Within ten minutes everyone under the age of eighteen had laced on a pair of skates and was on the rink; Kiichiro had talked Kayoko into joining the young people on the ice, and they struck out in wobbly fashion. The only exceptions were the Ichino quadruplets, who had decided the discarded wrapping paper made excellent toys and were busy ripping it to bits, trying to wrap chair legs or adult limbs in it, or flailing each other with it. Cheerful calliope music echoed off the walls of the building, mingling with laughs and occasional shrieks from the skaters; the adults sat around the table chatting over coffee, in some cases getting acquainted with one another. For Roarke and Tattoo, this meant everyone except Masato Tokita, with whom they dealt fairly regularly in his capacity as sheriff.
The talk eventually wound around to the quads, and Paul Ichino admitted that the older they got, the more of a handful they became. "They ran us ragged enough when they were babies," he said, "but we had it easy then. Now they're on their feet and into everything. I can't tell you how many places and things we've had to childproof."
"Do they still share the same room?" Miyoshi Tokita asked in careful English with a thick Japanese accent.
"Yes, they do, and we're trying to decide how we'll handle that arrangement as they grow older," Katie Ichino admitted. "It's possible that by the time they're old enough for it to matter, Tommy will be in college, and Camille might be willing to move into his current bedroom in the basement and give hers to Julianne and Jennette. I hate to ask her to share it now, since she always had Andrea for a roommate until last fall."
"Is Andrea enjoying Harvard?" Roarke inquired conversationally.
Paul and Katie Ichino looked at each other, and Roarke felt his internal radar go into action. There was a quality in their expressions that suggested that not all was right in their world. "Maybe not as much as she did, Mr. Roarke," Katie Ichino finally confessed, obviously choosing her words with care.
Carson McCormick, Lauren's father, remarked, "Well, we all know what a heavy workload Harvard students are supposed to have. Andrea's always been a good student, but even she might be disillusioned with the amount of work." Laughter went around the table; only Roarke noticed the faint discomfort in the man's words. If memory served, he reflected silently, the two families were related; he seemed to recall Leslie telling him that Lauren's and Camille's mothers were sisters. The McCormicks clearly knew something was amiss. What were the Ichinos trying to hide?
On the rink, Leslie, Maureen, Lauren and Myeko were trying their utmost to perform a few fancy tricks, falling now and then and constantly squalling with laughter at their own fruitless efforts. Tommy hovered around them, teasing them good-naturedly from time to time; the girls teased him right back. Toki kept to himself for a change, as if he had decided to cut Leslie a break due to it being her birthday, and was in a far section of the rink skating backwards in slow circles. Reiko Tokita, six-year-old Sayuri Sensei and her ten-year-old twin brothers Taro and Tomi, eleven-year-old Deborah McCormick and her nine-year-old brother Adrian rounded the rink at varying speeds, the boys trying to race one another and the little girls holding hands, giggling ceaselessly.
"This'll never work," Lauren finally complained after the girls had made about half a dozen failed attempts to start up a human chain of the sort usually seen performed by a large group of skaters. "We need more people. What happened to Michiko and Camille?"
"Michiko went to take a bathroom break," Maureen replied, "but I don't know where Camille is." Her tone said that the latter didn't bother her; as Leslie had told Tattoo some time before, Camille openly disliked Maureen, and Maureen had learned to simply ignore her. Lauren, Myeko and Michiko had been happy to accept Maureen into their group, and Camille's animosity made things very uncomfortable at times.
"Oh, that sister of mine," Tommy grunted. "She's off in a corner brooding."
"At a birthday party?" Myeko demanded. "What's her problem?"
Tommy and Lauren looked at each other, but neither said anything. Maureen rolled her green eyes. "Let her sulk if she wants to. There's no reason we should let her problem become our problem too."
Leslie bit her lip. "But…it doesn't seem right," she said. "It's just that she's been like this ever since New Year's. She can't stay this way forever."
"You don't know Camille very well, then," Tommy remarked. "Camille's very good at holding grudges and keeping things to herself. I'm with Maureen. If she wants to sulk, then let her. She's the one who's missing out."
Michiko came skating out towards them at that point, and Myeko turned to her. "Did you see Camille anywhere?"
Michiko sighed. "Yes. She's in that corner over there." She indicated the bleachers set up for spectators; on the highest tier, in an unlit corner, they could just make out a figure huddled on the seat.
Leslie took a breath. "Well, nobody's going to sit out my birthday party. Mr. Roarke and Tattoo went to all this trouble so everyone could have a good time, and I'm going to make Camille have a good time whether she wants to or not. I'll be back in a few minutes." She skated off to the side of the rink, slipped in through the penalty box set up for hockey games, and clumped awkwardly along on her unguarded skate blades till she was standing directly below Camille, five tiers above her. "Hey, party pooper, come down here!"
Her playful voice caught Camille's attention; the other girl sat up. "What?"
"You were invited to my party too, you know," Leslie told her. "It's kind of antisocial to sit off in the corner and avoid everybody. We're having a great time out on the ice—why don't you come join us?"
"Sorry," Camille said. "I don't feel very festive. Just go away and leave me alone."
Leslie lost her patience. "Come on, Camille. You've been out of it for months. You hardly said anything to us on New Year's Eve, and you've been all but impossible to live with ever since then. You're lucky we're still willing to hang out with you, because you're almost as big a grouch as that Jean-Claude at the hotel. And the worst thing is, we know there's something wrong, but you refuse to tell us—yet you're letting it run your whole life and influence the way you treat everybody around you. Frankly, I for one am really fed up with it. Now you can join us on the ice and have a good time, or you can sit up here and sulk till your head falls off—but you should know that you're going to lose all your friends if you keep this up. This is your last chance, Camille. Are you coming or not?"
Camille stared at her in surprise for a few moments. Finally she said, "Geez, Leslie, do you really have to be so blunt about it?"
"Yes, I do," Leslie said, refusing to back down. She was rarely so confrontational, but five months of Camille's snappish brooding and refusal to share her problem with her friends had pushed Leslie beyond her limit. "We're all really sick of your mood. We don't even know what your problem is, since you won't say anything and you won't let anyone else say anything either. Either you join the real world again, or we'll just tell you where to get off, and you can waste your whole life sulking over whatever it is. I mean, really, do you honestly believe you can treat people like that all the time and get away with it?"
Camille thought this over and finally shrugged. "All right, look, can you keep a secret? If I tell you something, will you promise not to blab?"
Leslie scowled. "I don't know if that's such a great idea, but if you actually feel like talking, then I guess the least I can do is keep your secret for you. So what is it?"
Camille made her way down the bleachers and stopped in front of Leslie, opened her mouth, and hesitated. Then, to Leslie's astonishment, Camille winced sharply and squeezed her eyes shut, hanging her head. "I still can't really talk about it," Camille mumbled, her voice thickening with impending tears. "It's just…well, something happened to Andrea at Harvard just before the Christmas break…and, well…" She broke off, her jaw clenching. "I just can't talk about it yet."
Leslie, more perplexed than ever, considered her words for a moment. She had never had the chance to meet Andrea before the older girl's departure for Boston, by some strange quirk of fate; but she was aware that Camille was very close to her older sister. Whatever had happened to Andrea, she mused, must have been pretty major for it to affect Camille the way it had been doing for so long. And that apparently made it a truly serious problem. She nodded finally. "Okay, Camille. I could say that if it's something that happened to Andrea, it won't help her for you to sit around letting it take over your life. But that's up to you, I guess." She folded her arms over her chest. "But you don't get to sit around and be a wet blanket at my birthday party. So get your rear end out here and skate with us."
Camille looked sharply at her, frowned and brushed away a tear that was threatening to escape. Then she unexpectedly produced an uncertain little smile and shrugged, as if to say it was no big deal. "Okay, I will…if you promise to get off my back about it."
Leslie grinned. "You skate, I stop bugging you. Come on, let's go."
The other girls and Tommy were amazed to see her emerge onto the ice with Camille in tow. "Wow, you actually got her out of her dungeon?" Myeko exclaimed.
"She sweet-talked me into it," Camille wisecracked, and both she and Leslie broke into laughter. The other girls joined in, not knowing the joke, but glad to finally see Camille back in their group again.