Chapter Six
She was actually a decent swimmer. Even if she were caught in a rip, she would probably do fine. But I’d panicked before, thinking of the two of us swimming alone, the long empty hours stretching in front of us, and all of that silence to fill. At least if we were swimming, I wouldn’t have to think of things to say.
"I can't believe how amazing this is," she said after our fifth lap, flipping over and tipping her head back into the water. "How many people know it's here?"
I swam next to her and rolled onto my back so that we floated side by side. "All of the locals know about it. But we don't advertise it. We don't want it to end up in a tourism brochure somewhere."
Her eyes closed as she relaxed into the water and I swam away to the shallows. I watched her bobbing on the surface for a few seconds, opening my mouth to speak, and then changing my mind again. I wanted to ask her about her music, but Dad always said that when you entered The Hidden Place, you didn't talk about anything that happened on the other side of that rock. Illness, arguments, financial worries, even your work - none of that was welcome.
"What are you thinking about?" Tess said. She was swimming toward me in smooth even strokes. She didn't need lessons. And by the expression on her face, she knew it.
"Nothing much. You happy here, or do you want to go?"
"Happy," she smiled, before ducking under the water. She was a streak of white along the bottom, and then she shot up, breaking through the surface.
"It was nice watching someone see it for the first time," I said as she walked out of the pool toward me, more and more of her revealed as the water dropped away.
She couldn't have been more different from me. Her skin was snow white on her stomach and legs, but a light spray of caramel colored freckles traveled up her arms and spilled over the curves of her shoulders. The fine hairs on her arms caught the light, and her long blonde hair hung over her shoulder where she'd twisted it into a rope. Her limbs were long and thin and she had bony knees. I thought I could fit my hands right around her waist if I tried. Next to her I felt clumsy and too big, like an oaf. I was going to trip over my feet at any moment.
"Thanks for bringing me here," she said. "What were you thinking about just then?"
I met her eyes and tried to keep my face composed. Because I was pretty sure she just caught me staring at her. "What?"
"Just then. You had this look on your face. Like you were far away."
"I just remembered something," I said quietly, realizing it was true. I was remembering something. Or, someone. "Hey,” I said, changing the subject. “We have a name for people like you.”
She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, yeah?"
"It's nothing like that. It's Kama Hele. It means traveler. Someone who moves around."
"Like the Hawaiian version of a hobo?" she laughed and I heard myself laughing with her.
"No, more like a gypsy. Or a nomad."
She pushed the hair off her face. "Well, I guess that's pretty accurate."
Above us, I was surprised to see the shadows advancing over the rocks. We had been there for hours, but it felt like minutes. "It's getting late. We'd better walk back. The cold pool is worse the later you leave it."
"Urgh," she groaned, "I forgot about that."
I followed her up the path to the opening in the rock and waited for her to go through. When I saw the vines fold back over of the entrance, I got down on my hands and knees and made my way to her.
"I don't want to get back in there," she said as she put our things back into the bag we'd left on the rock. Now that the sun had moved, the pool was cast in shadow and the low mist that came in the evening was just making its way over the ridge. I saw that she was eyeing up her clothes on the opposite of the pool.
"Don't even think about it. It's way too dangerous. We're swimming."
She scanned the ridge. "You’re bossy."
"I’m not bossy. I’m sensible."
"Sensible makes you boring."
I pointed to the section of the cliff that fell down in last year's storms. There was no way anyone could jump it without killing themselves. "Sensible keeps you alive."
"You win, Kai," she said, putting her hands up in surrender as she made her way to the edge of the water. "You put up a persuasive argument." She followed me until we were shoulder to shoulder, looking out across the velvet water. "So, who are you going to be?"
"Excuse me?"
"You know, for the Olympics? Are you the man ready to fulfill his destiny after training for this moment his whole life? Or are you the plucky underdog, only recently discovered by an aging gold medalist turned coach?" She was bouncing on her toes as she stared at the opposite shore, like a boxer in the corner of a ring, psyching herself up to fight.
"Ah, I'm from Hawaii?"
"No!" She glanced at me sideways. "You can't be from Hawaii! You have to choose something else."
I watched in amusement as she clasped one wrist with the other hand and lifted her arms up and over in a sideways stretch. "I am Svetlana from Russia and I'm the reigning champion of cold pool racing. I'm undefeated. No one can take me down."
"I see." I put my hands on my hips and met the challenge in her eyes, raising my eyebrows. "In that case, I'm from Japan. And I've been cold pool racing since the day I was born. You may as well forfeit now, little girl, you've already lost."
We walked in up to our knees and gave each other frozen smiles as we tried not to let the coldness of the water show on our faces. Tessa held her hand in the air and lifted her pointer finger. "On three. One, two -"
I dove in, smiling as I imagined her outrage, and as soon as it was deep enough I tipped my body down, moving deeper, going as far as I could without losing sight of her. The water was so cold it stung my skin and made my eyeballs ache when I looked up through the indigo and cobalt blue to Tessa, her shape warbled and rippling up above. She was on the surface, splashing furiously, her legs kicking from the knee and her long, slender arms powering through the water. Her movement sent bubbles down to where I hovered below, fizzing and popping against my skin. I waited until she was almost to the other side and then darted under her, pushing off a shelf of rock with my feet and shooting up so that I broke the surface a couple of feet in front. It was an easy win.
"Nooooooo!" she cried, putting her head in her hands when she found her footing. I met her eye as we stumbled out of the water and she made a fist, shaking it at me in mock fury.
"You weirdo."
"It's more fun that way, though, right?" she said, sitting down on the rock and picking up her clothes. "I used to do that when I was little. If I didn't want to do something, it was always a little easier to get it done if I pretended it was the Olympics."
"Why the Olympics?"
She threw me my shirt. "Why not? You can choose your country and make up a name, and besides, everyone loves the Olympics. Don't you?"
"I guess so. Feel like playing again? We forgot the bag."
She balled the clothes in her hand and dropped them onto the sand. "You're on."
"Hey!" she said when we were getting ready to climb back up to the track. "You didn't give yourself a Japanese name."
I glanced at her, smiling at the earnest look on her face. "You choose."
"Alright. I have to think about it, though. It has to be perfect."
The sun was low in the sky so we hurried to make our way up over the rocks before we lost the light. Once we were at the top, it was just a short downhill walk to the car park.
"Thanks for taking me all the way out here," she said when we were back inside the truck. "I hope I didn't ruin your plans for the day."
"Not at all." She had her legs crossed on the seat and her body turned so that she was almost facing me. “I had fun.”
Actually, it was the most fun I'd had all year. But I didn't tell her that.
She leaned forward to switch on the radio, and then we were bumping our way out of the car park and back on the road into town. A few mi
nutes into the drive she leaned her elbow on the door and rested her cheek in her hand, and the next time I glanced at her, her eyes were closed. Her chest rose and fell with the deep breath of sleep and every few seconds her thick gold eyelashes fluttered. And I drove slowly, desperately trying to keep my eyes on the road in front of me and away from her.
As soon as I parked, she woke with a sleepy but mischievous smile on her face.
"Mikio," she said, opening her door and climbing out. "That's your Olympic Games name."
"Mikio?"
"Definitely." She shut the door and turned toward the house, stopping just before the gate to glance back over her shoulder. "It means tree trunk man."
Chapter Seven
From that day on, all I could think about was Tessa. I ran over the details of our day at the Hidden Place as I lay in bed at night, still unable to sleep even though the season has slipped into Fall. I'd laughed more in that one afternoon with her than I had all year. She made me feel young and stupid again. I liked it. Every night, I ran past Garrett’s house hoping to catch her out on the lanai with her violin. But she was never there. All I knew was that I wanted to spend more time with her. I just hoped I'd be able to convince her to spend time with me. Especially since when it came to women, I was very out of practice.
I had broken up with my last girlfriend over two years before, a local girl who my family thought would make a perfect wife, and I had stayed resolutely single ever since. No one thing was wrong with any of my past relationships, including the most recent one. I even managed to stay friends with every woman I had been involved with. I wasn't the type to get into heated arguments or take offense at things, and I was open to the idea of a long-term commitment. There was just something missing. Something I couldn't name. And I knew enough about marriage and parenting by then to know that I wasn't going to make that kind of commitment unless every piece of the puzzle fit.
"Kailano!" Akamu shouted as soon as I walked into the shop. "You are here again?"
"I am, buddy," I said, putting my dirty hands into the pockets of my shorts. My gray t-shirt was covered in streaks of mud. "Sorry. I should have changed."
"Well, look who it is," Garrett said, walking around the counter with an eyebrow raised. "Here to take Akamu out for lunch?"
I pulled my cap down and scanned the room.
"I can't have lunch with you, Kai, because it's almost twelve o'clock and Garrett takes me surfing from twelve o'clock until two o'clock and we close the store, Kai. The store is closed."
Garrett smiled and slapped Aka on the back. "Don't worry, mate, he's not here to see you."
"What?" That was Tessa, making her way out of the storeroom behind the counter, having just heard the whole thing. "Oh! It's Mikio. Hello again."
"Hi."
"That is not Mikio. That is my big brother, Dipper. He is usually nice but sometimes he pushes me off my surfboard and that is very mean, and when he lived at Onakea his feet smelled very bad, Dipper. Very bad."
"Aka!"
"Kai is here to take you to lunch, Dip," Garrett cut in, trying not to smile.
I narrowed my eyes at Akamu before turning to Tess. "Is that okay? Do you have plans?"
She put down the binder she was holding and glanced at Garrett before turning back to me. "Ah, no, no plans. I brought my lunch from home, though. We could share?"
Garrett put his hand on Akamu's shoulder and nudged him into the storeroom. "Twelve o'clock! Come on, let's go see what the waves are doing." I heard the back door click shut and then Akamu's voice grew faint as they walked around the side of the building and across the road to the sea.
"Brothers, huh?" she said as she walked past me to the front of the store. She flipped over the sign. "I usually eat out the back."
I followed her to the small patio area I had designed for Garrett when he first took over the shop and sat down under the shade sail. "I would have called first, but I don't have your number."
She put two containers on the table and pulled off the lids. "Salad. Is that okay? And don't worry. I'm easy to find."
I took a plate from her outstretched hand. "So am I."
We ate our salads and drank a bottle of water each and then she reached into the bag she had hooked over the back of her chair and pulled out a newspaper that had been folded until it was a square not much bigger than my hand. "You do that one, and I'll do this one," she said, pulling out another one. "Then we can help each other if we get stuck."
I slid the paper across the table. "What is it?"
"Sudoku. Ever tried it? All you have to do is make sure every row, column, and box have every number in it from one through nine. I'm addicted to them."
She rolled a pen across the table and I picked it up and stared at the puzzle. Tessa was already bent over her page, scribbling furiously.
"Hmmm. Not bad for your first try," she said a few minutes later, peeking over at my paper. "You did good, Mikio."
I checked my watch and reluctantly stood up. "I have to get back to work."
She stood up too, staring up into my face with laughing eyes. "Okay."
I clenched my jaw as the familiar knot of anxiety twisted in my gut. For fuck’s sake. Just ask her. I formed the words in my mind before I let them reach my mouth. "Can I see you tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?" A shadow of wariness crossed her face.
"Yes. I can come down at twelve again. I'll bring the food this time."
She picked up the containers and plates and narrowed her eyes. "Okay."
"What does that mean?"
"Look, Kai, just so you know, I'm not sticking around." She lifted a shoulder awkwardly and put the plates back down.
I mentally rehearsed what I should say back. I considered, 'Hey, we're just hanging out, I'm not asking you to move in.' But that would have made me look like an asshole who wasn't interested in her. And I was interested. I wanted to know everything about her.
She gave up waiting for me to reply and blurted, "I just, you know..wanted to be honest,” before looking away.
For something to do, I picked up the plates and opened the back door for her, inclining my head to tell her to walk through. And then I said the first thing that came into my head. "Honesty is important."
"I’m happy you think so, too," she said, stopping on the opposite side of the doorway so that we were face to face. "Then we can be friends."
The following day, I pulled my truck into the only available parking space at twenty minutes past twelve. I'd had trouble getting away from the site after one of my uncles smelled a rat and hid my keys. I drove the road into town in a state of white-hot panic at the thought of being late and missing our date. She was sitting in a chair in the corner of the garden when I rounded the corner, wearing a big pair of black sunglasses and a brightly colored scarf tied around her head like a gypsy. Her feet rested on the edge of a plant pot as she did something with a large notebook balancing on her legs.
"Hi," I said, as I walked over to her.
She tapped the end of her pencil to her bottom lip. "Hey there, Kai. How's your morning been?"
"Okay. What's that?"
She dipped her eyes to the page and after a moment's hesitation, picked up the book and spun it around to show me. It was a sketch of Akamu next to a surfboard. She'd captured him perfectly. "Just mucking around."
"Have you shown him? It'll blow his mind."
She wrinkled her nose. "You think?"
"Show him. Trust me, he's going to love it."
She lifted her feet off the planter and stood up, closing the notebook with a shy smile. "Maybe I will."
We sat at the same table as the day before, but this time, I served the food. I'd spent an hour at Lulu's kitchen table the night before quizzing her on what I should make. Finally, I'd decided to keep it simple and just make what I'd want to eat.
"Since I was Mikio in the Olympics, I made Japanese. I hope you like seafood."
She peered into the first container and raised her eyebrows.
"Did you make this?"
"Yes. Akamu and I took a night class last year. He was a disaster."
"Wow," she said, pulling out a thumb-sized nigiri with a slice of pink salmon laid over the top. "This is pretty fancy. Are you trying to impress me?"
I laughed, surprised at how direct she was, and put my hand on the back of my neck. "I guess?"
She took off her glasses and looked at me carefully. "Well. Thanks. No one has ever brought me lunch before."
I sat down opposite her and opened the containers, passing her a pair of chopsticks and pouring her a mug of miso soup from my thermos. "No one has ever brought you lunch?"
She took a bite of a California roll and groaned. "Yum! And, no."
"So I'm the first. I like that. I'm going to keep on doing it."
She swallowed another bite and opened up the second container. "You'd better."
We ate lunch together every weekday after that. We never said we would, I just kept turning up and she was always waiting. We didn't make any other plans either, even though I wanted to ask her out every time I saw her. I found myself checking my watch as I worked, waiting for the moment when I could sneak away and call it a lunch break. I practically skipped my way back after seeing her, flying high on adrenaline and the energy and wellbeing that comes from talking with someone you really like.
About three weeks into our lunch dates, I surprised her by walking in early with a picnic basket and a blanket over one arm. Akamu was talking a tourist into a surfboard that was obviously way out of her price range and Garrett was sitting on a stool at the front counter, reading a magazine.
"Aloha," he said, lowering the pages to his lap as he took in the picnic basket. "Bringing in the big guns, I see."
I shrugged. "It's just a picnic."
"Is it? Taking a woman on a picnic is never about the food and the blanket, kid." He stood up and nodded at Akamu. "The sales shark is at it again."
He was. There weren't many people who could resist Akamu when he was in full sales mode. I heard him rattling off statistics and details about how the board was made. The girl must have only been about eighteen. She gave him a strained smile and reached for her purse, following him to the register. While Aka rang up the sale, I went out back to find Tess. She was sitting at our table working on a new sketch, this one of Garrett's face with his glasses on the end his nose and his eyes down as if he were reading.
The 'Ohana Tree Page 4