Page 43 of The Love Thief

It was now the end of November. Maya explained to me that November through March is high season for tourism in India, mostly because of the more temperate weather.

She fully expected we could do a red carpet opening for both the locals and the jet-setters on March 1.

According to my math, we had roughly 120 days to design, renovate, build, create a menu, train the chefs, and hire the staff, while also teaching them how to speak like San Fernando Valley girls and guys.

Thereafter, we would have to beta test everything.

“Maya, where in this hotel are you hiding your magic wand and your genie in a bottle? Just how are you going to make all this happen?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

Having watched countless hours of the Property Brothers, I knew just enough about remodeling to know it always took longer than expected, and there was always a sagging, mold-filled ceiling lurking somewhere.

“Oh, Holly,” she laughed. “It’s easy. We have an entire construction department here filled with lightning-fast electricians, carpenters, designers, installers, and bricklayers.

I don’t need a magic wand: just a plan, a deadline, a big smile on my face .

. . and,” she said in a whisper, “a few well-placed rupees to get things done on time.”

The morning had flown by. As we went back up to my suite, we ordered room service for lunch.

Maya was thinking about naming the diner “California Dreamin’,” after the song by the Mamas and the Papas.

We asked Siri to play it for us, and while we sang along, it became clear to me that this was not the best possible name.

The lyrics had a dark, dreary quality that did not match the vibe we were going for.

Something more like “Surfin’ Safari” by the Beach Boys or “Surf City” by Jan and Dean.

I then asked Siri to play “Wipeout.” Maya had never heard it before, but she instantly fell for the Beach Boys’ driving percussion.

We bounced around the room, drumming on every solid surface.

Despite our love for the song, we quickly decided “Wipeout” was not a great restaurant name; however, we decided it was the perfect name for a signature drink.

All thoughts about naming the restaurant vanished as we latched on to the possibilities of a signature drink.

My suite didn’t just have a small minibar; it had a fully stocked bar of top-shelf liquor, including Gran Patrón Platinum Silver Tequila, a blender, and anything else a mixologist would need.

We began brainstorming the “signature” drink and agreed that it should be a hybrid India-style margarita: fresh mango juice with the potency of a Long Island iced tea.

We called room service and amended our lunch order to include fresh mango, orange juice, and limes.

Just as I was putting the tequila in the freezer and checking to make sure we had plenty of ice, room service arrived with our pizza.

Maya had insisted I try it as the crust was made from traditional Indian garlic naan, homemade tomato sauce, and authentic mozzarella cheese from Italy.

It was exceptionally delicious, and the texture and crunchiness of the naan, with the yummy cheese on top and in the crevices, was about as good as anything I had ever tasted.

Clearly, this was going on the menu for the diner.

With full tummies, we applied—some could say, sacrificed—ourselves to the roles of beach bunny alchemists.

Neither of us had ever made a margarita, but fortunately, google supplied a ton of recipes.

We pulled out the blender and began experimenting with the mango and orange juices, while figuring out if we both preferred Cointreau, Grand Marnier, or Triple Sec with the tequila and lime.

We even tried one version with all three liquors, which was too much of a good thing.

In less than an hour, we had to give up.

We were totally wasted and had forgotten to take notes on which drink had which ingredients and how much.

As I plunked down on the silk-covered couch adjacent to the kitchenette, a thought permeated my tequila-saturated haze.

“Moondoggie.”

“Holly, what did you say?”

“Moondoggie. Oh. My. God! That’s it. That’s the name. Don’t you remember him from the movie Gidget ? He was so dreamy. He saved Gidget’s life and fell in love with her,” I explained in my woozy state.

“Who is Gidget? What in the world are you talking about?” Maya’s speech sloshed into the air fiercely.

“The best beachy surf movie ever! Gidget —it stands for “girl midget.” Sandra Dee played this young, adorable girl who loved to surf in Malibu, and Moondoggie was this gorgeous, super cool dude. Let’s call the diner Moondoggie’s.”

“But what does Moondoggie mean?” Maya asked. She suddenly sounded sober. “I mean it sounds cool, but also very strange.”

“Moondoggie is someone who loves to surf at night under the moon,” I explained.

Maya grabbed the tablet off the coffee table and punched the keypad a few times. Within seconds, we were transported to the shores of Malibu, watching Gidget on the flat screen.

“I must meet this Moondoggie now!” she laughed.

In our mutual state of tequila-fueled giddy dreaminess, we regressed to teenagers sighing over the hunky love interest, James Darren, a.k.a. Moondoggie. We were rooting for darling Gidget to get the guy, to win over Moondoggie, and to fall in love.

The rest of the afternoon was spent time traveling to the mythical good old days of surfing as we watched several of the old “beach party” genre films, including Beach Blanket Bingo .

Maya was captivated and shared with me it might be possible that, in her last past life, she was a Malibu surfer girl, thus explaining her current passion for the beach lifestyle.

Immersing ourselves in the films, along with the tequila and the divine slices of pizza, we had opened a creative vein and unleashed rockets of creativity. We were in sync as we downloaded the vision and the future of Moondoggie’s.

Fortunately, Maya had the presence of mind to record our conversation because we were sparking ideas too fast to write them down and, in our inebriated state, most of it would likely soon be forgotten.

We decided the color theme for the diner interior would reflect the sandy beaches, the myriad shades of blue of the sky and the Pacific Ocean, the vertical racing stripes of the surfboards, and the yellow and red bikinis.

The serving staff would be known as Beach Bunnies and Beach Bums, all wearing branded board shorts and the girls sporting bikini tops.

We would create name tags for them, our very own surf club, with names like Gidget, Annette, Frankie, Kahuna, Loverboy, Lorelai, Baywatch Mitch, The Dude, and Spicoli.

We also designed a piece of performance theater around the delivery of our signature drink, “the Wipeout.” A giant gong would be struck to announce it as two servers would hand-carry an oversized coconut husk filled with the delicious custom-made margarita topped with sparklers and four long straws as the song “Wipeout” was being blasted through the sound system.

By 7 P.M. , we were feeling a bit wiped out and ready to call it quits.

I had only been at the hotel for less than twenty-four hours, and so much had happened.

I needed to stay awake long enough to call Mom and to also call the airlines and change my flight home.

I was tired, but mostly I was excited—excited and elated to feel alive again, on purpose and optimistic.

The next 120 days were going to be a luxury-wrapped adventure, and if I had had the energy, I would have gotten up to do a happy dance, except I couldn’t move. At that moment, the phone rang. It was Mom calling. I had so much to share.

“Holly, are you packed and headed for the airport? Should I plan to pick you up? I can’t wait to see you! It’s been so long!” Mom said without coming up for air.

“Hey, how is the best mother in the entire Universe,” I asked. “Have you had your coffee yet?”

I could see her right now, in her tattered pink chenille robe and matching slippers, leaning on the counter watching the slow drip, drip, drip of her Mr. Coffee.

“I’m making it right now. Are you okay? You sound so . . . different,” she said with a slight tone of trepidation.

“I’ve never been better, and I need to tell you about the most amazing, life-changing things that have happened in the past few days. But I’m not coming home just yet; I probably won’t be home until mid-March.”

Mom went silent as I launched into a long and detailed recap of the past twenty-four hours with Maya and her five-star hotel, beginning with a quick video tour of my two-bedroom, three-bath Gayatri Devi suite.

The words erupted out of me like Old Faithful in Yellowstone as I explained the plans for the diner and the massive amount of work in front of me, the crazy, generous consulting fee of ten thousand a month plus my complimentary suite, room service, the spa, and a driver and car.

“You sound so . . . happy?” Mom said as both a statement and a question.

I took a deep breath and whispered, “Yeah, I am. I am happy, but it’s really something better than happy.

You know how miserable I’ve been, and I was pretty sure I’d never feel like this again, but something has changed, and it’s not just the job.

It’s . . . well . . . it’s deeper than that,” I said, trying to decide if I wanted to attempt to explain my water-borne blessing of sorts while fumbling for the right words to try to explain what happened to me on my last day in Rishikesh.

Then I knew that if anyone wanted to hear about my experience it would be Mom. She lived for this stuff.

“Well, Mom, this may sound a bit, or even a lot, crazy, the short version is I gave my pain to the Goddess, to Ma Ganga, and she took it, and healed me. At one of Sadhviji’s talks,” I continued to ramble, barely coming up for air, “she told us about surrendering our fears and problems to the Ganges and the miraculous healing that could happen.

The first time I tried it, nothing happened.

And nothing happened a few other times, but two days ago, I walked into the Ganga and leaned back, and as I floated, I offered up all my pain and anger and resentment.

“I had this experience that I can barely comprehend, let alone put into words. I was filled with bliss and self-acceptance and a knowing that I was okay, and everything was going to be okay, and my body, my being, was filled with warm golden light as if I was lit from within. I guess this is what nirvana is like, only I think the Sanskrit word for it is santosha , which means “contentment.” Since then, I have been content and feel healed. I no longer feel like the walking wounded.”

For the first time ever, Mom had nothing to say.

And it was okay. I mean, what can you say when your daughter, the lifelong skeptic, shares her profound mystical experience?

The one you yourself have been chasing your whole life?

It took me a few seconds, but I finally realized Mom was quiet because she was crying.

“At this moment, I have never been happier for you. I feel like I’ve just witnessed your birth all over again,” she said, and loudly blew her nose.

I laughed at the cosmic joke of how quickly life returned to ordinariness, and then she laughed.

Then we couldn’t stop laughing until it was time to hang up.