Ellie’s toes drew a heart shape in the sand before she realized what they were doing. She hastily stepped on the outline.
“I’ll send you an email, Denver.”
“I’ll look forward to it, Ellie.”
The rhythmic pounding of the waves on the shore echoed in her head as she watched Denver’s retreating back.
He beats Baby Hater. By a mile.
Chapter 6
Noa flashed a shaka gesture to the teen managing the snorkeling shop counter and headed to a jacked-up pickup in the parking lot. The rusty door hinges squeaked as he entered and threw his empty lunch bag on the ripped upholstery of the passenger seat.
On Mokulele Highway, he rolled down the windows and gunned past two Mustang convertibles. The asphalt road stretched straight between the detritus of the former sugar cane fields that cast long shadows in the afternoon light. His mind wandered to the highlight of the morning’s snorkeling lesson, the long-haired brunette in the bikini.
She let me touch her body. Came back to me after that dude ‘rescued’ her. That was sick.
He patted his pants pocket, feeling for the registration information he’d swiped from the store’s folder.
She’s my girl.
The truck whined reluctantly uphill into Macawao. Noa pulled a torn sweatshirt from the backseat and tugged it over his head, one hand on the wheel. He slowed and eased into an empty spot in front of the Pukalani Superette, a phone with a cracked screen held to his ear.
“Just pulling into Puk Sup. Need anything? …Got it.”
He shuffled through the aisles, his flip-flops slapping the shiny linoleum as he picked items from the displays. Plastic tubs of Chef Boyardee beef ravioli, a six-pack of Budweiser, a bag of rice, some carrots, a daikon, a container of eggs, and a few cans of Spam filled the basket he brought to the checkout.
“Hey, Lisa. Howz it?”
“Howz it, Noa. You shopping for auntie again, yeah? How she doing?”
He shrugged. “She’s okay. Up and down. You know.”
“Yeah. Say hi for me.”
The clerk bagged the ravioli and beer separately from the remaining items and waved to Noa as he walked out. A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of a gray, one-story house with corrugated metal roof and faded green shutters. A scraggly overgrown plant evoking only the faintest memory of tending and watering battled for life in a blue stoneware pot on the entrance steps. A sloping-roof concrete structure with a separate entrance and two small, shutter-less windows leaned against the side of the house like a black-sheep relative.
Noa parked on the grass by the side of a chain link fence. An elderly, stooped Asian woman in gym shorts and a tank top leaned against the doorframe of the main house, waiting. Noa raised the bag of groceries. The woman smiled, showing a large gap in her lower front teeth.
“Mahalo.” She swayed sideways with the weight of the bag.
“No problem. You need some help?”
“You come for dinner tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
The woman nodded, pushed herself from the door, and disappeared into the dark interior. Noa watched until she vanished into an adjoining room.
He kicked an outdoor washing machine hose from the path and pushed open the adjacent building’s unlocked door. An uncovered rack of fluorescent lights on the ceiling illuminated a bare concrete floor and sparse furnishings. A TV and mattress rested on the ground opposite a sink, refrigerator, cabinets, and a two-ring burner on a short counter. A white plastic table with a matching chair occupied the center of the space. A surfboard leaned against the one empty wall.
Noa flicked a remote and opened a tub of ravioli. He flopped onto the mattress and ate, staring blankly at the football game on the screen. When he finished, he pulled the fuzzy bolster pillow against his chest and dozed.
A nearby revving engine roused him. He looked at his phone.
“Almost eleven.”
Back in the truck, the cans of Bud rattled next to him and his hair whipped in the cool night air as he drove the nearly empty roads down to Kahului and then up to Wailuku. On a back street east of town he shut off his lights, cut his engine, and coasted in neutral until the truck reached a series of small but well-maintained stucco houses. He braked by one with flat metal sculptures of the Hawaiian island chain drilled to its outside wall.
Shadows behind a curtained window outlined two figures inside. Noa broke off a beer and swallowed the contents in a continuous gulp. One of the figures passed to the curtain-less window nearest the street, where an overhead light illuminated the blonde head of a woman walking and then bending over a sink. Noa crushed the empty can and threw it across the street. It bounced on the lawn beyond the light cast by the window.
“Two-timing bitch.”
Noa sat in the dark, scrutinizing his ex-girlfriend.
“Putting that fuckin’ restraining order on me.”
Another can quickly followed the first.
“Whining about a few bruises.”
And another.
“Better life my ass.”
One more.
“My father beat me worse than I hit you. And he did it every fuckin’ day.”
He eased open the driver’s seat door, wincing at the noise it made. The woman in the kitchen continued washing.
“Then my stupid-ass mother. Moved us out. Gets laid all she wants. With whoever she wants. And twelve-year-old me gets what? A fuckin’ better life?”
A shaven-headed man appeared behind the woman. Even at a distance Noa could make out the muscular tattooed arms that wrapped around the woman, who leaned into him as he nuzzled her neck. Noa took a step forward. The man looked up. Noa quickly retreated behind the truck, his neck craned from behind the cab as he peered at the entwined couple.
“Who needs you. I got someone better.”
Noa felt in his pocket for the registration, took it out, and lodged it against the window where he could see it. He unzipped his pants, felt the stiff warmth in his hand, and jerked. He closed his eyes and thought of Ellie.
***
That afternoon, Ellie used both hands to steer the car home from the beach so she wouldn’t be tempted to email and drive.
“Viv.” She scooped up the cat waiting at the front door and swung him to and fro by his armpits. “Guess who I met at the beach today? Give up? A totally awesome Hawaiian surfer dude.”
Viv patted mildly at her face with soft paws. She cradled him in her arms and tickled his stomach. He squirmed and writhed his way back to the floor, where he stalked off toward the kitchen. Ellie followed.
“Okay. Maybe not a surfer. But a lifeguard. Used to be. And drop dead gorgeous.”
Viv emerged from behind the counter with a desiccated gecko in his mouth.
“Ha. Good try. Even that can’t spoil my mood. Now drop it.”
Viv slinked off toward the bedroom. Ellie raced after him, laughing.
On the lanai, leftover slushy piña colada in hand, she crafted an email to Denver. She read it aloud to Celine.
“Good.” Celine’s image on the iPad nodded. “You don’t sound desperate.”
“I’m not desperate.”
“Just frisky.”
Ellie’s gaze drifted to the ocean. “What I really am is flattered.”
“Don’t start the ‘who’s gonna be attracted to little ol’ me’ routine again. Thought I talked you out of that.”
“You should have seen him.”
“Don’t need to. He saw you. And what he saw, he liked. That’s all you need to think about. Give him your phone number and push send.”
“Sent.”
“You go, girl. Now take me out to that beach again.”
Ellie worked on calling contractors for the two remaining hours before her self-imposed Hawaiian quitting time. She called companies from the long list Devora had emailed first thing in the morning, starting with the cleaning service Devora said she hoped would be up Ellie’s standards.
That’s D
evora’s version of a joke, right? My standard right now is no dead animals in the kitchen sink.
She coordinated logistics, checked references, and set up appointments, all the while willing herself not to look at her email unless work demanded it, which, somehow, it did, frequently.
But Denver didn’t reply. And the next morning Ellie didn’t even think about email until after coffee, when his name stood out like a beacon in her inbox.
Ellie read,
Here’s a link to theuploaded pictures.
Her eyes shone as she sat on the lone deck chair, shielding the phone from the morning sun’s glare.
Sorry it took me a while. Work was a bear yesterday. Business calls and emails. Didn’t even have dinner. Fell asleep with the phone on my chest.
A vision of Denver’s broad chest glistening with seawater spun through Ellie’s mind like a slow motion throwback to a Baywatch commercial. She shook her head to dispel the image and read on.
Hope the rest of your ‘lesson’ went okay. Instructor looked like a scumbag to me. But I’m glad you got your feet wet. Snorkeling’s one of the best ways I know to spend a Hawaii morning.
Ellie’s fingers could hardly type fast enough. But progress on the actual content of her reply was slow.
I’m so glad I met you yesterday.
Delete.
Thanks for the pictures. Love the ones of the turtles. Might want to Photoshop the ones of me.
Delete.
My parents in Delaware will love the ones of me.
Delete.
My friends in California will love the ones of me.
Constructing the final sentence took more time than the rest of the email put together. She settled on,
Maybe I’ll see you on the beach again sometime.
She closed her eyes and hit send.
In the kitchen, she hid the phone in a cabinet and turned her back on it. Then she stuck a sticky note on the door to make sure she remembered where she’d hidden it. Viv regarded her quizzically from the tile floor.
“I’ve got to get some work done. I won’t check until lunch.”
When she opened the cupboard at eleven-thirty, eight missed work calls stared up at her from the screen. She didn’t finish replying to all of them until after two. The reward email from Denver made her sit down.
“Ugh, Viv.” She stroked the cat who was stretched his full length in the sun on a kitchen windowsill. “He’s on a flight back to the mainland. Says he’ll text me a picture of Seattle when he gets there.”
She wrote back, Safe travels, and attached a selfie of her and the cat before she thought better of it.
“He’s got enough bad photos of me.”
***
A few evenings later, Baby Hater’s gallery opening beckoned from Ellie’s calendar, a lone evening entry in a sea of white space.
“Should I go?” She stood in front of the full-length bedroom mirror in a sleeveless dress of red hibiscus prints on a white background.
“You asking me or yourself?” Celine’s image gave her a questioning glance.
“You.”
“Hell, yeah. Mr. Gorgeous Lifeguard isn’t the only fish in the tank. Go see what else you can catch.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Ellie played with clipping her hair back in a bun. “Men fall all over you.”
“If things get tough, pretend you’re drowning. Worked last time.”
Ellie made a face into the phone and laughed.
An hour later, a white-clad attendant whisked to her car door under the softly glowing lights of the hotel’s massive, pillared entrance.
Ellie blushed. “Sorry about the rent-a-wreck.”
The young man smiled as though she had just handed him the keys to a Rolls Royce.
Ellie’s heels clicked on the polished marble floor as she strolled past exotic flower arrangements taller than a child. They traced the air with the faint breath of tropical perfume. The open lobby encircled an enormous water feature, beyond which stretched more marble, glittering chandeliers, and enough flowers to fill a botanical garden. Ellie sunk into a chair at the edge and watched guests pass in quiet groups. The only sounds were the splashing of the fountains and the hushed hum of conversation in Russian and French from the concierge desk.
Ellie sighed. This is my kind of paradise. Her dress fluttered around her knees as she rose to ask her way to the opening.
On one of the hotel’s lower levels, Valley Isle Gallery occupied a corner location in an alley of high-end real estate. Soft Hawaiian music drifted from the white-carpeted interior. Ellie stood in front of a large picture window framing a purple glass octopus. She gazed past it, trying to get a lay of the land.
People have drinks. And they’re eating. I probably want to avoid both unless I’m looking to get kicked out for spilling something on a fancy painting.
“Ellie.”
She turned to see Baby Hater with a buff, beautiful blonde on his arm, his female twin in all things perfectly surfer.
“Epic. Here’s the person next to me on the plane. Brigie, meet Ellie. I’m getting you two drinks.”
Ellie waved to deter him but his back was turned. She faced the stunning Brigie.
Oh, great. What’s Baby Hater’s real name again?
Ellie fumbled. “It was awesome of…your husband to invite me here. I don’t know anybody on Maui yet except…your husband.”
“He’s always stoked to make people feel at home.”
“He’s a great introduction to Maui. Perfect for the plane. Gave me a really awesome picture.”
Brigie smiled as though she understood exactly what Ellie was talking about.
Which is good, because I have no idea what I’m talking about.
Baby Hater appeared fortuitously with champagne. Ellie buried her face in the glass. She grinned at his explanation of the octopus in the window and then dove, drink in hand, into the heart of the gallery.
A marine theme dominated the displayed art. Ellie marveled at the mediums used to depict creatures of the deep and at the imagination that morphed a turtle into a coat rack and a humpback whale into a miniature piano.
“Do you like cephalopods?” An eerily tan man of about fifty materialized at her elbow.
“Cephalopods?” Ellie blinked and tried not to scratch her head. “Sure.”
“Which do you prefer?” The man leaned toward her.
Her eyes flicked from his to the glass in her hand. “Uh, they’re all kind of nice?”
“I agree. Everyone likes Nautilus. But I prefer octopuses.” He took a step forward, nearly rubbing arms with her.
“Oh.”
He inclined his head conspiratorially and whispered in her ear. “Did you know they’re a kind of mollusk?”
“Gosh, no.” Ellie looked around for Brigie.
“Most people don’t know they’re related to clams and oysters. But if you visualize their construction…”
Ellie suddenly jumped. Champagne splashed on her dress.
Did he just pinch my butt?
Mr. Octopus stared blankly. He solicitously proffered his napkin and reached forward as though to help wipe the front of her dress. Ellie pulled back. As she did, her bottom collided with a zebra-painted sculpture of two dolphins cavorting with a ukulele.
“Whoops-a-daisy. Don’t want to break this one.” A smiling woman in flower-print leggings and a cropped dark top steadied the black and white creation. “It’s worth more than you think.”
Ellie shot her a grateful glance. When she pivoted to glare at Mr. Octopus, he had disappeared into the crowd. She swiveled back to the woman.
“Thanks for the save. I have a history of being clumsy.”
The woman took a sip from a Perrier bottle. “You should try yoga.”
Ellie searched for a tray on which to deposit her glass. “For my history?”
“For moving effortlessly through space.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it.”
The lithe woman str
etched out her hand. “I’m Jacqui Novotny. I teach yoga here at the hotel.”
“I’m Ellie Atherton.” Ellie shook the proffered hand and bent to examine the price tag of the piece she almost knocked to the floor. She stood quickly, her face drained of color. “I’ve got to go. I have no business being in a room where I could break things worth that kind of money.”
Jacqui grinned. “I’ll walk you out. I’ve done about all the schmoozing I can stand for one evening.”
Near the exit, Jacqui grabbed two fresh Perrier bottles from the buffet and handed one to Ellie.
Ellie unscrewed the top and took a long gulp. “You don’t drink?”
Jacqui raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I drink. But not on the job.”
Ellie stood at the wide stone railing opposite the gallery and looked out over the manicured garden with palm trees surrounding a Maui-shaped swimming pool. “You work at the gallery?”
“At the hotel. Tonight’s not part of the formal job description. But if they think there might not be enough guests at something like this, the word’s passed around.” She rubbed her hands through her short, bleached hair, making it stand in all directions. “Like stuffing the bottom of the tip jar before you put it out.” She regarded Ellie. “Why are you here? You don’t look like a hotel guest.”
“What gives that away?”
“You’re unattached, for one. Not many single women come to Maui without girlfriends in tow.”
Ellie explained her circumstances, giving Jacqui a brief history of Vivyenne and Viv. Jacqui leaned against a carved pillar, listening and nodding.
“Sounds crazy, right?” Ellie laid her purse on the broad railing and put her hands on her hips.
“I’d have made the same choice.”
“I got totally suckered by the money.” Ellie flung her hands wide. Both women both watched Ellie’s purse sail a graceful arc into the garden below.
“It’s Maui, honey. We’re all suckered by something.” Jacqui took Ellie by the arm. “Let’s go find your purse. And then I’m giving you a free yoga lesson.”
Paradise Wild (Wild At Heart Book 2) Page 6