Late afternoon found Ald, Rey, Linda, Gail, and I lounging around Sach’s huge rectangular pool; unlike ours, which was in a sad state of disrepair, his was beautiful with ash-gray Italian-slate stamped concrete and Mexican river rock. He was about to grill hamburgers and frankfurters on a natural-gas smart grill. A fitness trainer pal of his, Jake, had just placed trays of finger foods on a large glass-topped table. His next mission was to serve frothy cocktails he’d just concocted in a lovely Tiki bar that took up a considerable corner of the vast backyard. Lovely Luau Libation sounded “lovely” to us.
It had grown wonderfully warm over the course of the day, and we were happily, gratefully, dressed in beachwear. It had been a bit awkward at first, us in bikinis, the men in swim trunks. A
