by Edie Claire
Maddie turned to the window and rubbed at the condensation on the glass with her forearm. Now that the boat was moving at a faster clip, the raindrops on the outside were being whisked away by the wind, permitting a poor to marginal view of the Au'au Channel in the dimming light of sunset. After a few moments of what was probably a fruitless search for a whale spout, she pivoted back to face him.
“I keep thinking about our conversation last night,” she said in an unexpectedly playful tone. “And I can’t believe how many things I’m dying to know about you that I didn’t ask. So now that I have you captive for a while, I’m determined to run through the list.” Her gray eyes glinted at him with a hint of their old mischief, and he felt an instant pang in his chest that surprised him. Her ability to attract him physically was one thing. But the direct pull she could exercise so effortlessly over his heartstrings was another. How could she be so deeply entangled in his emotions after having been absent from his mind for so long? He wasn’t entirely sure what he had felt for her back then, but whatever it was, it had obviously been strong.
“Knock yourself out,” he challenged.
She smiled. “First of all, where exactly did you go to college? You just keep saying Utah.”
Kai braced himself. Here it came.
He knew that answering even the most basic questions about his life on the mainland would require an extensive explanation, more so to Maddie than to most people, because she was starting out with a false presumption about him. That was entirely his fault, and he was expecting to have to set the record straight — and to suffer the consequences. He just wished he’d put a little more effort, in the last twenty-four hours, into planning how best to do that.
“BYU,” he answered. “Brigham Young University.”
Maddie blinked. “Oh. So, you’re Mormon? Or part of your family is?”
She sounded surprised, but not scandalized. That was encouraging. “No, and yes,” he replied, measuring his words like any good attorney. “That branch of the family are all LDS: Latter Day Saints. I wasn’t raised that way, as you know. The Nakamas are Buddhist and Nana is Catholic and my parents never attended any particular church on Lana'i that I can remember.” All true, he praised himself, technically.
He paused a moment, debating with his conscience. He wasn’t ashamed of the truth. It wasn’t even a secret. Any random adult on Lana'i could probably tell Maddie his entire family history. The truth wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he’d kept it from her before, when it might actually have mattered to her. The more he thought about his selfishness, the more unforgivable it seemed. But he couldn’t bear the thought of making her angry with him now, just as they were on the brink of reconnecting again. And although he had no way of knowing how this Maddie might react to the revelation, he knew damned well that that Maddie would not only have his head on a platter, she’d put the platter on a pike, put the pike in the ground, and then stand there stamping her feet and screaming at his severed head…
Surely it could wait.
“Are we talking about your mother’s side of the family or your father’s?” this perfectly reasonable-looking Maddie asked.
Kai answered evenly and without hesitation, as per his legal training. “My father’s.” Then he added, smoothly linking two unrelated topics, “There are LDS churches all over the islands. They were the first missionaries on Lana'i, you know.”
“I know,” Maddie replied, still looking thoughtful. “So, you said you got a scholarship, and you went to BYU for undergrad and law school. But you don’t consider yourself LDS?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Growing up in Lana'i City, he hadn’t thought of the small number of Latter Day Saints in town as being any different than any other church or temple-goers. However, if growing up on a 141-square-mile island was as close as one could get to growing up inside a bubble, spending seven straight years in Provo, Utah ranked a close second. It was not until he had been unleashed onto the secular island playground of Maui a mere six months ago that he had begun to see his family’s religion as others saw it.
He could only assume that Maddie’s having spent most of her life in the Midwest and South would not bode well for him. But he wasn’t going to lie.
“They first invited me to fly out and spend the summer with them when I was thirteen,” he explained. “I have a lot of extended family in Provo, and they were all very warm and welcoming. I really bonded with a few of my cousins, and so I kept going back. When it came time to look at colleges, BYU seemed like a no-brainer. I had the chance to go to school on the mainland at hardly any cost to my parents, and I had plenty of family and friends close by.”
“Weren’t they hoping to convert you?” Maddie asked.
Kai smiled a little. Maturity had changed many things about Maddie. Lack of subtlety wasn’t one of them.
“Well, duh,” he replied in kind. “Of course they were. It’s an evangelical faith, and it’s not like I had anything else going on in that department. Nothing would make them happier than my joining their church, and I did try to keep an open mind. But in the end, I just couldn’t make myself believe everything I was supposed to believe.”
He braved a deeper look at her. She didn’t seem to have drawn any conclusions about him yet, but her interest was definitely piqued. He wondered if she professed any particular religion herself. She didn’t use to, but that could be either good or bad for him.
He took a breath. He might as well get it over with. If she was going to dismiss him as a weirdo, so be it. That would be her problem.
“That said,” he continued, strengthening his voice. “I do admire the way they live. There’s so much strength and support in the LDS community, and the people have a certain zest for life and capacity for joy that’s hard to explain. After a while I realized that the lifestyle suited me better than I would have guessed. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have stayed in Provo as long as I did.” Although, he added silently, the last three years were definitely pushing it.
Maddie sat up straighter. Behind her out the window, Kai saw the distinctive spray of a whale plume in the distance.
“So you don’t have to be an LDS member to go to BYU?” she asked. “Can you be any religion?”
Kai chose his words carefully. “There’s no requirement to profess any certain religion, no. But you do have to agree to abide by the honor code, which follows some of the basic LDS principles about lifestyle and values.”
Kai looked hopefully for any signs of disinterest on Maddie’s part, as now seemed an excellent time to change the subject. Unfortunately, she appeared fascinated.
“Like, not drinking alcohol? Caffeine?” she asked.
“That’s right.”
“So, you went along with that? The whole time?”
“Yes.”
Maddie’s eyes widened slightly. He couldn’t tell if she was impressed or merely amused.
“I didn’t really need to ask that,” she said, flashing him a knowing look. “Your sense of justice would never allow otherwise, would it? If you agreed to it, you’d do it. If you didn’t agree, you wouldn’t sign on and cheat — you’d more likely lead some official protest.”
Kai felt that “laid bare” feeling again. That is, in fact, exactly what he would do.
“So what else was in the honor code?” Maddie pressed. “What else couldn’t you do?”
“Whale!” Kai cried, pointing.
Maddie whirled around. “Where?” she asked with frustration. “I don’t see anything.”
The last traces of white spray had long since floated back into the sea, but under the circumstances, Kai felt no guilt. After all, there was a good chance they’d see another one. In any event, she had forgotten her question. “Keep looking that way,” he advised.
Maddie sat quietly, staring, and he sent up fervent hopes the whale would reappear. It was a lousy time to whale watch. The sinking sun had left both the sky and the waves a dull grayish color, and al
though the rain had let up, the surface of the water was etched with white chop, making the spouts harder to distinguish on the horizon.
“Oh, there it is!” she cried happily, pointing herself.
Kai looked in the direction she indicated. “I see it!” he replied, gratified. But the whale had moved farther away, and even though Maddie kept her eyes glued to the window for some time, she saw nothing more. Finally, with a sigh of disappointment, she turned back to him.
“What were we saying now?” she asked.
“I was thinking about the whale game,” he answered, launching into the first on a list of diversions he had come up with while she was preoccupied. But when he faced her, he did a double-take. At some point while looking out the window, she had removed her hat. That one small change was enough to make his brain play tricks on him — to convince him for an instant that she was someone he’d never seen before. Even with her hair bound up tight in the juvenile-looking braids, the raw beauty of her adult face was jaw-dropping. Yet if asked last week, he would not describe the Maddie he remembered as pretty, even though he remembered other girls as seeming pretty at the same age. How could he possibly fail to see the potential in her? It had to be there, albeit hidden beneath a rat’s nest of red tangles and perpetually smeared dirt. Was he freakin’ blind?
“I used to win the whale game,” he continued, speaking by rote while his mind wandered, “And you used to accuse me of lying.”
Maddie looked confused for only a second. Then her lips drew slowly into a wide smile.
Such full, sumptuous, rosy lips…
Kai made a concerted effort to redirect his thoughts.
“I remember the whale game,” she said devilishly.
Kai smiled back at her. They would climb to the top of a good lookout during the winter months, most often the cliff across from Pu'u Pehe. She would claim the ocean to one side of the rock, and he would take the other. Every spout sighted was worth five points. A tail fluke or other body part counted ten, and grand prize — a full breach — snagged twenty. But the sighting only counted if verified by someone else, which was a problem if there were only two of you and your opponent refused to look, which Maddie sometimes did when she was in a mood. And if she didn’t see it herself, she refused to acknowledge it, even though she knew Kai wouldn’t lie.
Thinking back on it now, the dynamic seemed bizarre. If Kenny or one of the other guys had accused Kai of lying, he would have been angry, and they would have regretted it. But Maddie did believe him, and he knew that.
“Were you lying?” asked the incredibly kissable grown-up lips which were inches away from his and bore no resemblance whatsoever to anything from his childhood memory.
He swallowed and regrouped. “What do you think?”
The woman smirked. “I knew you wouldn’t lie to me,” she answered. Her gray eyes held his, and for a moment he thought he sensed a message in them, almost a plea. It was as if she wanted something, but didn’t know how to ask. Her look of longing was so piercing it nearly drove him to speak, but before he could open his mouth, her expression changed abruptly. She straightened in her seat and replaced the wide-brimmed hat on her head. “But I hated how you always won the damn game,” she finished, scowling at him playfully again.
Kai’s mind spun with confusion. What the hell was that? What did she want?
He had no idea. The only thing he knew for sure was that her agenda did not include any scenario whereby he would derive any benefit from her newly gorgeous body, which was unfortunate in the extreme.
Because he wasn’t at BYU anymore.
“We’ve got to get back to Hulopo'e Beach sometime this weekend,” Maddie suggested brightly. “Maybe we can have a rematch. I’m dying to get my feet wet again. And swim with the dolphins! Do they still come around when people are in the water?”
Kai tried not to imagine grown-up Maddie swimming in the ocean. He failed.
God help him.
Chapter 12
Maddie stepped out of the ferry and onto the dock, enjoying the rather spooky feel of the Manele boat harbor after dark, with the lights of the marina glimmering over the water and the palm trees bending in the brisk, wet wind. Everyone in the small crowd seemed to know exactly where they were going, including Kai, and Maddie followed him wordlessly through the misty rain up the hill to the parking lot. Malaya was waiting for them in the Nakamas’ red truck, and after getting out and delivering an enthusiastic hug to them both, she jumped back into the driver’s seat and hastened to be among the first in line to pull out on the road towards town.
“I’m making dinner for everybody at our house,” she explained, driving one-handed with only the occasional glance at the road, as was customary in her profession. “But I hope you’re not starving, because it may be a while. Kai, I’m taking you to your Uncle Shin’s house. Your cousin Riku’s just got in from the Big Island, and he needs help. Your dad’s already there.”
Maddie watched as Kai stiffened in the passenger seat in front of her. She couldn’t recall a cousin Riku, but Kai had a million cousins. When she lived on Lana'i he had at least three uncles in Lana'i City alone, and they were all married with kids.
“What’s happened?” Kai asked, his voice grim with concern. “Something with his wife?”
Malaya sighed. “She’s taken the kids somewhere. He’s afraid she might have gotten them to the mainland.”
Kai’s eyes widened with horror. “Oh, God, let’s hope not. Could she afford that?”
Malaya shook her head. “Not by herself. But she has family there. Riku thinks she might have borrowed the money.”
Kai ran a hand through his hair. He seemed genuinely upset, and Maddie tried again to remember someone named Riku. She could not.
“Can she do that?” Malaya asked fearfully. “Could she keep them there?”
Kai shook his head. “It depends on so many things, Mom. What’s so unfair is that working through custody arrangements can take time, and if the burden of travel falls on Riku…” He blew out a frustrated breath. “He loves those kids. It’s not right.”
Malaya’s lovely dark eyes moistened. “They’re so little. They won’t understand, either.” She looked at her son. “What can we do?”
“We can help him find a good family lawyer, like now,” Kai replied. “And we can help him pay for it. And for plane tickets, if he needs them.”
“That may not be easy,” Malaya said dully.
“No,” Kai conceded. “It won’t.”
They rode the rest of the way into the city in sober silence, and when Malaya pulled up beside a house not far from the Buddhist temple, Kai made apologies to Maddie and hopped out.
“He’s a good boy, that one,” Malaya said proudly as she pulled the truck back onto the street. “If he got paid for all the legal advice he doles out around here, he’d be a rich man already. But he’s always just happy to help. He claims he’s not qualified to do anything in particular and that everything he says is really just common sense.”
Maddie considered. “I’m guessing he downplays his value.”
Malaya laughed. “I think you’re right. People know better, though. They respect my Kai, young as he is.”
Maddie’s thoughts drifted back to the BYU honor code. She could not get it off her mind. No caffeine or alcohol. For seven straight years. And he wasn’t even a Mormon! The alcohol thing wasn’t that big a deal. She didn’t drink either, after all, and no honor code was stopping her. But life without diet cola or iced tea? No thank you. She tried to recall more specifics about the LDS lifestyle, but could not. Where she lived, Mormon churches were few and far between.
“Home sweet home,” Malaya called in a sing-song a few moments later. She parked the truck in the driveway and grabbed Kai’s overnight bag for him. Maddie picked up her own pack, hopped out of the back seat of the truck, and followed Malaya into the house. Her thoughts were still swirling around Kai’s life in Utah, with some lingering sense of confusion, when she realized
that Malaya seemed agitated.
“What’s wrong?” Maddie asked.
Malaya ceased her pacing and exhaled roughly. “It’s Gloria. Of course. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong. It’s just that I don’t know where she is. I thought she’d be here.”
Maddie felt awkward. “I’m sorry about my timing. You guys obviously have enough to deal with without putting up with a houseguest. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Malaya smiled and extended her hands for Maddie’s. “You’re no bother, girl. If you were, I would have dropped you off at Nana’s and made her feed you.”
Maddie laughed.
“You believe me, don’t you?” Malaya asked, giving her hands a squeeze.
Maddie nodded. “Yes.”
“All right, then,” Malaya replied. “So here’s the answer to your question. You can help me by trying to conjure up enough clean dishes for six people to eat off by the time the noodles are ready.”
Maddie grinned. “Done.”
Her hands were deep in the midst of a pile of suds when the muddle of uncertainty in her brain finally crystallized into an askable question. “Malaya,” she began casually, as she and Kai’s mother stood practically shoulder to shoulder in the small kitchen. “Kai told me about going to school in Utah, and how all the family there were LDS, although he never became a member himself.”
“Oh?” Malaya replied offhandedly, her dark eyes flashing with more interest than her tone would indicate.
“But I still don’t completely get it. Where’s the link? I mean, is anybody in the family here LDS?”
“Well, I guess I am,” Malaya answered. “Technically.”