Try Easy
Jill Brashear
Momentum Press
Copyright © 2019 by Jill Brashear
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN 978-0-57843-793-4
This book is dedicated to the Islands of Hawaii, for inspiring me, and to my family for encouraging me to reach for my dreams.
Contents
Prologue
1. Walls of Water
2. The Best and the Worst Days
3. Mondays at Jeffersons
4. Airport in Paradise
5. Red Velvet Invitation
6. Tropics Drive-In
7. The Graveyard
8. The View from the Top
9. Secret Beach
10. Might As Well Stay
11. The Great Kamehameha
12. Chili Water
13. The Rescue
14. Heroes Die Hard
15. The Surf Lesson
16. Change of Plans
17. The Duke Kahanamoku Invitational Surfing Contest
18. Breaking the Rules
19. A Night Without Scars
20. No Ordinary Dive
21. Patterson’s Point
22. One More Night
23. Wet Roses
24. Molaka’i
25. Moment of Weakness
26. Nothing to Lose
27. Fifty Dollars for the Pair
28. Scars and Everything
29. Promises
30. A Fresh Start
31. The Plan
32. Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Jill Brashear
Prologue
Sunset Beach, North Shore Hawaii
March 20, 1966
* * *
Three men carried their surfboards into the glassy blue water of Hawaii’s North Shore. The sun was high overhead, and not a single white cloud dotted the blue ceiling of sky. Sunset Beach didn’t have the biggest or the longest waves on Hawaii’s 208 miles of shoreline, but it did have consistency. Sunset Beach wasn’t fickle. It didn’t rage during a storm like Waimea Bay or flip riders into somersaults like the backwash of Makaha’s Bowl, but it did offer steady, year-round waves.
For those who sought them, Sunset Beach always offered a wave to surf.
The three men were best friends and closer than brothers. They were from different backgrounds, but one thing had brought them together: their love for the ocean. They were the descendants of a sailor, a warrior, and a merchant. They had all been born in Hawaii, but only one of them considered himself to be Hawaiian.
The men were three of the best surfers in Hawaii, and therefore, the world.
Each of them had big plans for their future and dreams of a life just beginning.
One of them was planning to propose to the girl he had loved since high school.
One had just signed a contract with a surfboard company and was poised to compete in every major surfing contest across the world for the next two years.
The third man was Hawaii’s beloved son. At twenty-three years old, he was already a legend in big-wave surfing. He dreamed of bringing Hawaii the world recognition it deserved, and he was willing to risk everything to make a name for himself on the waves.
The three men strode into the turquoise waters of Sunset Beach with their boards under their arms and their minds on their dreams. Only two of them came out alive.
Walls of Water
Waimea Bay, Oahu
January 20, 1968
* * *
Keoni
* * *
The whole car was shaking as Keoni maxed it out at top speed, racing across the island to the North Shore.
“Come on,” Keoni urged the car. “We’re almost there.”
He rounded the cliffs of Waimea and gasped as the shoreline unfolded before his eyes. He had seen big waves before, but nothing like this. This was crazy. Violent. Unsafe. Perfect.
Walls of water two stories high sprayed into the air, shrouding the entire North Shore in a lavender-hued mist.
Keoni slowed down, wanting to remember every moment of the day. There might not be another one like it for years. Then he punched the gas again and headed straight for Waimea Bay.
The other surf spots along the eight-mile stretch of sand on the North Shore would be no better than boiling cauldrons of water. They would eat a surfer alive. Only Waimea Bay could handle a storm like this one.
Keoni screeched to a stop in the church parking lot that overlooked the bay and jumped out of the car. He stood in the same spot where his ancestors had once stood, studying the conditions of the surf. He noted where the waves broke, how many were in each set, and how fast they were coming. People assumed Keoni had a magical gift for predicting where the best waves would break, and for always being in the right spot at the right time. But it wasn’t a gift, it was a skill that had been passed down for generations. Keoni’s father had taught him how to listen to the voice of the ocean, and his mother had explained how to feel the mood in the wind.
Surfing was in his blood.
Keoni could still remember the days when the locals had said that only gods could ride the wild waves of Waimea Bay. They all said the waves were too big, too angry. They believed the bay was haunted from above by the heiau in the cliffs and from below by the bones of a dead surfer.
Keoni had been a child when the locals had been proven wrong.
It had been a sunny day in the winter of 1957. Keoni was in sixth grade, and his dad had let him stay home from school to watch the haole surfers from California try to commit suicide on the giant waves.
The Kamehameha Highway had been lined with cars. Everyone was sitting on their hoods, watching the show. Keoni, his four siblings, and his parents had climbed onto the roof of their Studebaker and eaten a picnic of fried chicken and macaroni salad while the surfers wiped out. It had been better entertainment than a World Series baseball game.
The surfers had been pummeled by the waves and had nearly died, but they had also caught some of the biggest waves Keoni had ever seen.
“I’m going to catch even bigger waves someday,” twelve-year-old Keoni Makai told his father. “I’m going to make our name famous all over the world.”
Once Keoni got a taste of the power of the waves at Waimea, he was hooked. Two years later, he quit school to surf full-time. He didn’t belong in a stuffy classroom all day, learning the literature and history of white people from the mainland. He belonged on the water. The ocean became his classroom.
Watching the waves strike the sand with the force of a power plant, Keoni thought today might be the day.
There were a handful of surfers in the water, not really doing much more than clinging to their boards. Keoni knew all of them.
Rabbit Jones, an old-timer who had been one of the first surfers of the North Shore, looked to be the only one doing any riding.
Keoni saw the flash of Rabbit’s board fly down the face of a giant wave. Rabbit was well over six feet tall with a wiry frame, but he looked as tiny as an ant in the giant swells of water.
Rabbit made the bottom turn and then got pummeled by the closeout.
Keoni could hear the groan of the spectators on the beach as he jogged across the sand with his board under his arm. They were all disappointed to see Rabbit go down.
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Keoni scanned the water anxiously for a sign of his friend and sighed with relief as he saw his dark shaggy head pop up. Rabbit turned toward shore, flashed the shaka sign, and paddled back for more.
“Somebody’s gonna die today,” said a woman in the crowd.
There was a group of housewives with small children clustered together, watching the entertainment just as Keoni had done on that day long ago.
Keoni reached out and tousled the hair of a small boy of about ten years old.
“Ey, kid,” he said. “You wanna be out there someday?”
The boy tore his eyes away from the waves long enough to nod at Keoni. “Yes, sir.”
“What’s your name?” Keoni asked.
“Benjamin Kealoha,” the boy said.
“I’m Keoni Makai,” Keoni said. They shook hands with an air of professionalism, as if they were two businessmen getting ready to close a deal. “One day I’m gonna see your name on a trophy,” Keoni said.
“Yes, sir,” Benjamin said, lifting his chin proudly.
“Laydahs,” Keoni said.
Flashing the boy the shaka sign, Keoni stepped toward shore. The waves were slamming the sand. It would be suicide to charge into them while the set was closing out. Keoni counted in his head, remembering the pattern he’d observed from the parking lot.
When all five waves of the set had closed out, Keoni dove into the water, and popped up on the other side. He started the long, grueling paddle out to the lineup. Every few feet he gained, he was pushed back toward shore by the angry waves. The ocean was determined to keep him from reaching the lineup, but Keoni was even more determined to get there. He crawled over the massive waves, feeling the thunderous power of the ocean beneath him.
Keoni should have been more frightened, but all he felt was a detached sense of calm and the belief that the day to make a name for himself had finally come. These were the biggest waves in the world, and Keoni was going to ride them.
When he finally reached the lineup, he glanced around at the other surfers bobbing on top of their boards. He saw fear in their eyes. Most of them were wondering how to get back to shore alive. There was only one way back to the beach, and it was back the way they had come, through the violent crash of the waves. Even getting this far was either an act of stupidity or extreme bravery.
“Ey, maybe we should go surf Queen’s,” Bones said, hunching over his board while a wave rolled under him, threatening to spill him into the sea.
Keoni smiled at his cousin. Queen’s Beach was for tourists, but it had once been their stomping ground. They’d gotten their first rides at Queen’s Beach, where long, gentle waves caressed the sparkling sands of Waikiki. It was hard to believe those sweet waves inhabited the same ocean as the angry behemoths thrashing the sand of Waimea Bay Beach.
Keoni watched a blue bump in the distance, sensing promise in its obscure shape. It lumbered toward them, and when it hit the reef, it exploded. The other surfers scrambled to paddle over the top, but Keoni turned toward shore, stroking calmly to catch the swell.
This was his wave. It would be good to him. Keoni could tell. He listened closely and heard the voice of the ocean speaking to him.
This wave was going to be a force of nature.
Keoni paddled as hard as he could, racing to get ahead of the wave. The key was strong paddling. It was essential to stay in front of the wave for as long as possible. Although that was an extremely difficult feat when the waves were roaring toward him faster than he could drive his VW Bug.
The wave that had been a lump in the sea a moment earlier became a mountain, and it was bent on crushing Keoni to dust. The inevitable moment came, and the wave caught him.
Keoni stopped paddling and let the wave lift him into the air. He jumped to his feet, landing with feline grace on top of the thin, wet board. He kept his weight centered in his hips, crouching low over the board as the wave threatened to toss him off its lip.
It was already too late for him to change his mind. If he did anything other than drop in, he would wipe out. He stood on top of the cliff, peering over into the watery abyss. Knowing that one moment of hesitation could mean his death, Keoni pushed the limits of time, waiting as long as possible on top of the wave before making the drop.
It was moments like this, the split seconds between life and death, that Keoni lived for. It was the rush of leaning over and staring potential death in the face that made his heart beat and his blood pump. There was nothing like standing on top of a giant wave, feeling the weight of your own mortality. It was physical and spiritual at the same time. This was Keoni’s church and his playground. It was his passion, his lifeblood.
He inched forward, pushing the narrow nose of his board over the top of the wave. He leaned into the wind, letting the roar of the ocean fill his ears and the rays of the sun shine down on him as if for the last time. He tasted the bitterness of fear mixed with the salt of the ocean and smelled his own nervous sweat.
The moment for hesitation was gone. Keoni dropped into the wave. His board slid along the moving mountain at top speed. Throwing out his arms and bending his knees in a wide warrior stance, Keoni leaned into his toes and plunged down the face of the wave.
One. Two. Three.
Keoni counted silently, savoring each second that he plummeted into the blue abyss. Four. Five. Six. Keoni smiled triumphantly. Seven! He settled his weight in his heels and began to turn the long, heavy board to the right. His smile spread over his whole body as he relished the milestone of getting to the number seven.
Seven seconds. Seven incredible seconds of sliding, of conquering. The ride had felt like forever, and yet it had gone by so fast.
He’d done it. He’d ridden the biggest wave in the world.
Keoni turned back toward the lineup with a triumphant smile and paddled out for more.
The Best and the Worst Days
Keoni
* * *
By the time the sun set on Waimea Bay, the sand was littered with broken surfboards. Keoni sat with his back to the bonfire, watching the sun slip behind the horizon line. He wished for more daylight. He could have kept surfing for hours.
Nursing his cold beer, Keoni shifted on the sand, trying to find a comfortable position.
Keoni was legendary for his skills at avoiding wipeouts, but even he couldn’t avoid them every time. After a long day of surfing the biggest waves in the world, Keoni was bruised and battered. His right eye was blackened, his forehead was cut, and his mouth was bleeding. His ribs were tender enough to be broken. It hurt to sit or stand, or even breathe, but Keoni couldn’t have been happier.
All that he wanted was a simple life: awesome waves to surf, a cold beer to wash down the taste of sand in his mouth, friends to share a bonfire with, and eventually a close-knit family of his own.
It didn’t seem a lot to ask.
He could have included on the list peace in Southeast Asia, and the end of civil unrest on the mainland, but Keoni thought that was pushing it.
Keoni pressed the can of beer to his forehead, letting the cold metal soothe the split skin.
The best days always held a tinge of sadness. They were the days when Keoni missed Eddie the most.
Nearly two years earlier, on a beautiful sunny day in March, Eddie Alvarez, a twenty-five-year-old, third-generation Portuguese immigrant and best friend to Keoni Makai, had died on the waves.
They had been at Sunset Beach, only a few point breaks up the road from Waimea Bay. Eddie had wanted to go to Patterson’s, but Declan and Keoni wanted to go to the North Shore. Eddie was outnumbered. They’d gone to Sunset Beach.
If they had stayed at Patterson’s would things have been different? Would Eddie still be alive?
Keoni had been raised on Christianity, but he found himself drawn more to the old religion of Hawaii. He believed in the ancient gods who could be both cruel and merciful. He believed in the ultimate power of the earth and the ocean. As a Native Hawaiian, Keoni believed that he had some
of that very power in his veins. He believed that he could have saved Eddie.
Keoni had rescued many others from the waves. There was no lifeguard service on the North Shore, and the surfers had to look out for each other. Whether in the lineup or standing on the beach, Keoni always kept an eye out for someone in danger. Dramatic rescues happened so often that Keoni had been featured in the Honolulu Advertiser in an article about the dangers of the ocean.
Keoni’s history of heroic rescues was one of the reasons Eddie’s death caused him so much pain. He’d been on the very same wave as Eddie, and he hadn’t been able to save him. Keoni hadn’t even seen Eddie go under. Keoni had tried for ten minutes to revive Eddie with CPR, but it hadn’t worked. The ocean had already stolen Eddie’s life by the time Keoni had dragged him to shore.
If only Keoni would have gotten to him sooner. If only he’d been paying better attention. If only they had gone to Patterson’s instead of Sunset. If only.
Keoni shook his head, trying to stop his internal dialogue. There were too many “if onlys” for Keoni to count. Eddie was dead, and Keoni could only blame himself.
“You’re crazy. You know dat?” Bones asked.
Keoni looked away from the ocean up at his cousin, whose tall frame blocked the setting sun.
“Yeah,” Keoni admitted. “I know.”
Try Easy: A Slow-Burn Vacation Fling Love Story (Aloha Series Book 1) Page 1