Lokahi

by Edie Claire

  His green eyes studied me warily as he thought about it. “Like, a red polo shirt. I think.”

  I nodded and offered a smile of encouragement.

  He smiled weakly back.

  We entered the restaurant and were seated by a familiar hostess who confirmed that my future classmate at Frederick High was indeed on duty. She led us to a prime booth in his assigned section, and within seconds the football/water polo player appeared, toting the obligatory basket of tortilla chips, bowl of salsa, and two ice waters. On recognizing us, his handsome baby face lit up into a smile, and his friendly voice boomed. “Hey, guys! What’s up? Haven’t seen you two in a while. You haven’t been cheating on me over at Dos Amigos, have you?”

  I chuckled. Zane faked a smile.

  Matt was wearing a bright red polo shirt.

  “Never!” I protested. “Really. How could you even think that? The way they put rice inside their enchiladas? Please.”

  “Yeah,” he teased back, serving his wares and then tucking the empty tray under his arm. “I thought you had better taste.”

  “We do,” I agreed. “We’re just poor, that’s all. Been having a lot of picnics from Foodland.”

  “I hear that.” Matt cast a glance at Zane, who was being uncharacteristically quiet. “You okay, dude?” Matt punched him in the shoulder with his order pad. “You look like you just saw a ghost, man.”

  I choked back a laugh, gracelessly spitting out a sip of ice water. Awesomely smooth, Kali.

  Zane threw me a glare.

  “Oo-kay,” Matt said humorously, looking from one of us to the other. “Story behind that. Too bad I’ve gotta work. What do you guys want to drink? Are you ready to order?”

  I asked Matt for his always-sage advice on the menu, and by the time I made up my mind, Zane seemed to have recovered his usual good humor. “Surprise me,” he told Matt. “Bring out whatever looks good.”

  Matt gave him a smirk and a fist bump. “Will do.”

  When we were alone again, I reached across the table and took Zane’s hands in mine. “Since you’re obviously going to obsess over this until we figure it out, why don’t we just figure it out? I propose a test.”

  He arched his eyebrows at me. “Didn’t we just do that?”

  I shook my head. “We know it’s real. But what are you seeing exactly? What brings it on, and how can you control it?” I smiled encouragingly at him. “Trust me. Control is everything.”

  He pulled one hand away just long enough to feed himself a chip. Then he fed me one. “Okay,” he said when we’d finished crunching. “What do you suggest?”

  I glanced around the restaurant. “Let’s keep it simple, to start with. Let’s see if you can imagine what’s happening in the kitchen, right on the other side of that wall.”

  I gestured with our joined hands, and Zane looked toward the swinging saloon doors that led behind the bar area. We could hear voices and clinking dishes, and it seemed as though steam was wafting out the opening and into the room. Zane stared at the door for several moments, but then he shook his head.

  “I’ve never been in the kitchen,” he said.

  “Does that matter?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe. All I know is I’m getting zilch.”

  I considered. “Interesting.”

  Matt’s tall, solidly built form burst through the doors carrying a tray with a lemonade and an iced tea. He crossed over to us in a few strides and set the drinks down with a flourish. “How’s Lace, by the way?” he asked. “I haven’t seen her in ages.”

  “We just saw her and Austin at the pool earlier,” I reported.

  Matt’s face fell. “Oh? They still going out?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  Zane bumped my foot with his toe.

  “Why do you say that?” Matt asked, looking genuinely concerned.

  I shrugged. “I don’t think he makes her very happy,” I said honestly, giving Zane a stubborn nudge back. “But then, she didn’t ask me.”

  “Oh,” Matt said flatly. He stood awkwardly for a moment, staring at our bowl of chips. “Um… you guys need anything else right now?”

  “No, we’re good,” Zane said quickly.

  Matt’s expression returned to normal. “Cool. Food’ll be up soon.”

  He turned and headed back to the kitchen. “Don’t start,” I said to Zane. “There is a method to my madness.”

  He shook his head at me and dipped a chip.

  “Lacey will thank me eventually,” I insisted, dunking a chip of my own.

  Zane quirked an eyebrow but said nothing else, and for a few minutes we concentrated on emptying the chip basket. Then I reached out and took hold of his hands again.

  “Let’s try having you imagine someplace you’re more familiar with. Like my house,” I suggested. “Just sit back, relax, and concentrate on something specific. Like maybe my lanai?”

  Zane settled more comfortably in his seat, although he couldn’t really sit back without letting go of my hands. He closed his eyes and was still for a while, but then he shook his head and exhaled with frustration. “It’s not working,” he said. “When I try to think about your lanai I just think about you, and I know you’re here with me, so I think about here instead.”

  “What if you relax instead of concentrating?” I suggested. “It seems to be more of an unconscious mind thing, after all.”

  He closed his eyes and let his shoulders slump, and I began to caress the backs of his hands with my thumbs.

  His eyes flew open.

  “Did you get an image?” I asked excitedly.

  “Oh, I’m getting images all right,” he said wryly. “But when you do that, they’re not of your lanai.”

  I pulled back my hands. “Sorry.”

  He grinned at me. “No problem.” He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back against the seat of the booth, and stretched his feet out under the table. “All right,” he reported again. “I’m relaxing. What am I supposed to think about? Besides you and your bedroom, maybe?”

  “Um… yeah,” I agreed. “How about outside the restaurant? You’ve certainly been there. Try to picture where we parked the car. Look around and find me a chicken.”

  He laughed. “A chicken?”

  “Yes,” I demanded playfully. “Start at the car, and then scout all around it until you come to a regulation, wild Hawaiian chicken. They’re always out there; it’s bound to happen. Then tell me exactly where it is and what it looks like, and I’ll go outside and see if it’s there.”

  He cracked open one eye and smiled at me. “You’re a genius.”

  “Old news,” I quipped. “Get busy.”

  His posture relaxed gradually, and he remained still for several minutes, during which I emptied the chip basket of any broken bits big enough to hold between two fingers and dip into the salsa. Then I sunk even lower and shamelessly scraped the paper liner for any crumbs that would stick to my fingers. Geez, I was starving!

  A scream, a shout, and a loud crash of metal assaulted my ears. I jumped up in my seat, banging my thighs on the table. I looked out the window of the restaurant toward the sound but I couldn’t see anything; the windows were colored glass. I heard a sudden thud and a scuffle and glanced toward Zane. He hadn’t reacted to the sound when I did, but now he was out of the booth and running toward the door.

  “Wait!” I called frantically, following him.

  We joined the hostess and several other patrons rushing to the parking lot. Not far from where I’d parked my dad’s car, a shiny new sedan had completely crumpled its trunk by running backwards into the rear of a parked minivan. As we approached, two obviously drunk middle-aged women were standing outside of the offending car, helping to pull a third occupant out of the rear compartment from in between the front seats. Apparently, both rear doors were jammed. None of the three well-dressed, heavily accessorized women appeared to be injured. In fact, they were laughing their heads off. �
��Don’t wo-worry!” one of them yelled loudly to the gathering crowd, her speech slurred with drink. “It’s a rr-rental!”

  The other women hooted with laughter again.

  “Are you insane?” a man yelled angrily, approaching them from the direction of the minivan. “You almost hit my son!” He gestured emphatically towards a woman standing just to the side of the damaged van. She was holding a baby about a year old. The baby was crying. So was she. A stroller lay sideways on the ground beside her.

  “You absolutely did!” another woman accused. “I saw the whole thing! And every one of you’s drunk!”

  “I called 911 already!”

  “So did I!”

  “Nobody let ’em go anywhere till the cops get here!”

  “Ha! They can barely walk!”

  The heavily accessorized women stopped laughing.

  I breathed a sigh of relief that no one seemed to be hurt. But when I looked up at Zane, my anxiety level shot back up. He was far too tanned to go pale, but if his stiff posture and unsteady lower jaw were any indication, the guy was practically in shock.

  “Come on, Zane,” I said gently, taking his hand and attempting to pull him away. “Nobody’s hurt, thank goodness.”

  The drunk women stumbled to a nearby picnic table, where they settled without protest, looking suitably grim. The baby’s cries gradually subsided. At last Zane walked away with me, but instead of going back into the restaurant he veered off just outside the door and stopped to lean against a tree trunk. He ran a hand through his curls and blew out a breath.

  “Are you okay?” I asked worriedly.

  He shook his head. “I saw it, Kali,” he whispered. “I saw the whole thing.”

  I stepped closer to him and steeled myself. “Tell me.”

  “It’s… It’s obviously real-time,” he said raggedly. “I thought about your car, and the parking lot, and as soon as I relaxed enough to let my mind drift, there it was. Like a whole other world. Bright as day, crystal clear, right there in front of my face. It was so weird… I knew I was supposed to be doing something specific, but I couldn’t remember what. And I had the feeling that if I thought about it too hard, I would wake up and I’d lose the scene. How bizarre is that? So I… I never even looked for a chicken. I was just moving aimlessly around the parking lot, and then I heard those women laughing and I saw them get in the car and I had the most horrible feeling.”

  There was a quaver in his voice — so slight most people wouldn’t hear it. But to me it rang out loud as a foghorn. I moved closer to his side. “Zane,” I said firmly. “Never mind. I understand what happened. Don’t do this to yourself.”

  “The parking lot was so busy,” he continued, speaking so low I could barely hear him. “There were people everywhere. I wanted someone to notice the women, to stop them, but no one did. They got in and started the car and pulled out, and I felt myself… well, it was like I was inside the car with them. And I could see that the driver wasn’t shifting out of reverse. I could see her foot move to the accelerator anyway.”

  “Zane,” I tried again. “That’s enough. I get it. You don’t have to—”

  “Then I moved out of the car and I could see the woman and the stroller and the baby,” he continued, his green eyes awash with horror. “I could see the car moving right towards them, the mother reaching down with the baby in her arms. She was just about to buckle the baby in, and the car kept coming—”

  “And the father shouted!” I interrupted desperately. “And the mother heard and no one was hurt. That’s all that matters.”

  His tortured eyes met mine. “I couldn’t do anything, Kali. I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t scream. Couldn’t shift the gear into drive, couldn’t shove the stroller out of the way. Nothing.”

  I breathed out slowly. Experiencing that kind of helplessness had to feel like a knife twisting in his gut. I remembered the anguish he’d felt as a wraith — I remembered it better than he did. But at some level, the pain of that past must still haunt him.

  “Come back inside,” I ordered, taking his arm. “I know that was a terrible thing to watch, but there was no harm done. This is a gift. We just have to figure out how to control it. Then I’m sure you can put these… visions of yours to good use.”

  I tugged on his arm and he followed me like a zombie. We returned to our booth to find our dinners waiting for us. “There you are,” Matt greeted. “I told the manager you wouldn’t dine and dash. I said, ‘Hey, man — did you see how hungry they looked? No way would they bolt before the entrees.’”

  “Sorry, Matt,” I said sincerely. “The accident kind of rattled us. But no one got hurt.”

  “Yeah, I heard,” he replied. He threw a curious look at Zane, who was clearly out of sorts again, but this time Matt made no comment. He merely gestured to the steaming food and retreated. “Enjoy!”

  We ate in silence for several minutes. Despite the shock of everything that had happened and my concern over Zane’s somber mood, I still managed to be ravenously hungry, and it was all I could do not to put my mouth level with my plate and use my fork like a backhoe. Thankfully, after a much slower start, Zane’s appetite picked up. By the time he finished off his last bite of rice, I was relieved to see that he almost seemed back to normal.

  “You’re right, you know,” he said, breaking the long silence. “I’ve got a lot of nerve feeling sorry for myself. And I’ve for sure got no business complaining to you, after all you’ve been through thinking your own gifts were a curse.” He offered me a smile and drummed his hands on the tabletop. “There must be something good that can come from this… ‘special sight’ of mine.”

  I smiled back at him, exhaling with relief. He was going to be okay. “Of course there is,” I assured. “Think about it. You can be in one place and see another place in real time. How cool is that?”

  “Just think,” he offered cheerfully, “If I want, I can tell you whether there’s a roach crawling across your bedroom ceiling right now.”

  I made a face. “Gee. Thanks.”

  His eyes sparkled with mischief. “And maybe later, I can see how well that new grout we put along the base of your shower is holding up!”

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said heavily, frowning at him. “That creepy invisible stuff was bad enough when you were a wraith!”

  “Yeah, but I can’t remember any of it!” he protested innocently.

  I growled at him. The supernatural spying thing really had been annoying. “You told me you didn’t snoop!” I reminded.

  He smirked at me. “Oh, well, I’m sure I didn’t, then.”

  I groaned out loud. I hadn’t thought about this wrinkle. So he could see anywhere he was familiar with? In real time? And he’d already seen my house?

  Crap.

  I held his eyes. “I trust you, you know,” I said pointedly.

  He looked back at me a moment, his green eyes dancing with amusement. Then he turned away from me with a sigh. “You would have to put it that way, wouldn’t you?”

  Matt returned to the table, pulling out his order pad with a flourish. “So, Svenson,” he said to Zane. “You springing for the lady’s dessert, or what?”

  “Yes,” I said sharply, thinking of my aching muscles and remembering that I had been looking forward to a long, soaking bath tonight. How could I enjoy it now?

  “Yes,” I declared again. “He is definitely buying dessert.”

  Chapter 4

  “So where’s Zane?” Lacey asked me as I pulled myself out of the pool the next day, huffing and puffing with exhaustion again. She was surprised that I would come out and swim laps alone, and frankly, so was I. With no drill sergeant barking at me, I could have gotten out of it. But exercise was addictive, and besides, Zane wouldn’t take me out surfing in the open ocean until he was convinced I was a strong enough swimmer.

  “He’s doing something in town today,” I panted. “But he’s supposed to meet me pretty soon.�
� I collapsed onto my towel and looked up at Lace, who was on a break. Usually she disappeared into the clubhouse, but today she threw her towel on the grass and sat down beside me. She looked tired. And more than a little sad.

  “What’s Austin up to?” I returned, then felt guilty. I hadn’t meant to kick her when she was down.

  She sighed. “I don’t know. He was supposed to come out today, but now he’s not answering my texts. I hate it when guys do that.” She gazed out over the pool, probably by sheer force of habit. Then, seeming to realize her mistake, she turned and rotated to where she couldn’t see the water at all. “But all guys do it,” she continued, catching my eyes with a plea. “Don’t they?”

  Well, now I was stuck. But I wasn’t going to lie to her. “I don’t know about all guys,” I answered softly. “But Zane doesn’t ignore my texts, no.”

  Lacey lifted her eyebrows skeptically. “Come on. He may be perfect looking, but I know he’s not perfect perfect. Are you saying he’s never stood you up for anything?”

  “Of course he’s not perfect,” I retorted, subconsciously covering the bruise over the knuckles of my right hand. It looked like I had hit somebody in the jaw. In reality, I had rammed my hand into the corner of the soap shelf last night while trying to take a shower with the lights off. “But no, he’s never promised to be somewhere and then left me waiting, either.”

  Lacey looked at me with annoyance. “Never? Really?”

  “Really,” I replied. Then I decided to go for it. “What makes you think all guys pull that kind of stuff?”

  She shrugged. Then she looked wistful and fell silent.

  I really, really wanted to say, “You know, I bet Matt would never do something like that.” But I controlled myself.

  “I think some guys are just naturally more considerate than others,” I said instead. “I mean, not just with girlfriends, but in general.”

  My phone made the sound of a rooster crowing. I pulled it out of my bag to see a text from Zane.

  Sorry. Something else came up in town. Can we meet later at your house? Like 5ish?

  My heart fell. I was disappointed we couldn’t spend the afternoon together. But under the circumstances, his timing couldn’t be worse. I answered him with a quick “K.”