by Nicola Yoon
“I won’t,” I say back.
MADELINE’S DICTIONARY
prom•ise (ˈpräməs) n. pl. -es. 1. The lie you want to keep. [2015, Whittier]
HERE NOW
ACCORDING TO THE guidebook, Maui is shaped like a head. Our cab ride will take us across the neck, along the jawline, over the chin, mouth, nose, and up to the wide forehead. I’ve booked us into a hotel in Ka’anapali, which is in the skull just beyond the hairline, geographically speaking.
We turn a corner and suddenly the ocean is just there, running alongside the road to the left of us. It can’t be more than thirty feet away.
The vast endlessness of it is shocking. It falls off the end of the world.
“I can’t believe I’ve missed all this,” I say. “I’ve missed the whole wide world.”
Olly shakes his head. “One thing at a time, Maddy. We’re here now.”
I look back at Olly’s ocean eyes and I’m drowning, surrounded on all sides by water. There’s so much to see that it’s hard to know what to pay attention to. The world is too big and there’s not enough time for me to see it.
Again he reads my mind. “Do you want to stop and look?”
“Yes, please.”
He asks the driver if it’s OK for us to pull over, and he says it’s no problem at all. He knows a good place coming up, a park and picnic area.
I’m out of the car before the engine’s off. The water is just a short walk downhill and then across the sand.
Olly trails a distance behind me.
The ocean.
It’s bluer, bigger, more turbulent than I’d imagined. Wind lifts my hair, scrubs sand and salt against my skin, invades my nose. I wait until I’m down the hill to take off my shoes. I roll my jeans up as far as they’ll go. The sand is hot and dry and loose. It waterfalls over my feet and slips through my toes.
As I get closer to the water, the sand changes. Now it sticks to my feet, coating them like a second skin. At the water’s edge, it changes again and becomes a liquid velvet. My feet leave impressions in this softer mix.
Finally, my feet are in the surging water, and then my ankles are, and then my calves. I don’t stop moving until the water is up to my knees and soaks my jeans.
“Be careful,” Olly calls out from somewhere behind me.
I’m not sure what that means in this context. Be careful because I may drown? Be careful because I may get sick? Be careful because once you become a part of the world it becomes a part of you, too?
Because there’s no denying it now. I’m in the world.
And, too, the world is in me.
MADELINE’S DICTIONARY
o•cean (ˈōSHən) n. pl. -s. 1. The endless part of yourself you never knew but always suspected was there. [2015, Whittier]
REWARD IF FOUND
OUR HOTEL SITS right on the beach and we can see and smell the ocean from the small open-air lobby. We’re greeted with alohas and more leis. Olly gives his to me so that I now have three layered around my neck. A bellhop in a bright yellow-and- white Hawaiian shirt offers to retrieve our nonexistent luggage. Olly makes a noise about our baggage coming later and steers us around him before he can question us further.
I nudge Olly toward the check-in counter and give him our paperwork.
“Welcome to Maui, Mr. and Mrs. Whittier,” says the woman at the desk. He doesn’t correct her mistake, just pulls me closer and gives me a loud smack on the lips.
“Mahalo very much,” he says, grinning wildly.
“You’ll be joining us for…two nights.”
Olly looks to me for confirmation and I nod.
A few keystrokes later the woman tells us that, though it’s still early, our room is already ready. She gives us a key and property map and tells us about the complimentary continental breakfast buffet.
“Enjoy your honeymoon!” She winks and sends us on our way.
*
The room is small, very small, and decorated much like the lobby, with teak furniture and large pictures of bright tropical flowers. Our balcony—called a lanai—overlooks a small garden and a parking lot.
From the center of the room, I turn a 360 to see what’s considered necessary in a temporary home—television, a small fridge, an enormous closet, a desk and chair. I turn another 360 trying to figure out what’s missing.
“Olly, where are our beds? Where do we sleep?”
He looks momentarily confused until he spots something. “Oh, you mean this?” He walks over to what I thought was an enormous closet, grips the two handles near the top and pulls to reveal a bed. “Voilà,” he says. “The very model of modern-day, space-saving efficiency. The height of style and comfort, of convenience and practicality. I give you the Murphy bed.”
“Who is Murphy?” I ask, still surprised that a bed came out of the wall.
“The inventor of this bed,” he says, winking.
With the bed unfolded, the room feels even smaller. We both stare at it for longer than is strictly necessary. Olly turns to look at me. I’m blushing even before he says:
“Just the one bed.” His voice is neutral, but his eyes aren’t. The look in his eyes makes me blush harder.
“So,” we say simultaneously. We laugh awkward, self-conscious laughs and then laugh at ourselves for being so very awkward and self-conscious.
“Where is that guidebook?” he asks, finally breaking eye contact and making a show of looking around the room. He grabs my backpack and digs around, but pulls out The Little Prince instead of the guide.
“I see you brought the essentials,” he teases, waving it in the air. He climbs onto the bed and begins lightly bouncing in the middle of it. Murphy’s springs protest noisily. “Isn’t this your favorite book of all time?”
He turns the book over in his hands. “We read this sophomore year. I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand it.”
“You should try again. The meaning changes every time you read it.”
He looks down at me. “And how many times have you—”
“A few.”
“More or less than twenty?”
“OK, more than a few.”
He grins and flips open the front cover. “Property of Madeline Whittier.” He turns to the title page and continues reading. “Reward if Found. A visit with me (Madeline) to a used bookstore. Snorkel with me (Madeline) off Molokini to spot the Hawaiian state fish.”
He stops reading aloud, continues silently instead. “When did you write this?” he asks.
I start to climb onto the bed, but stop when the room sways a little. I try again and another wave of vertigo unbalances me.
I turn and sit, facing away from him. My heart squeezes so painfully in my chest that it takes my breath away.
Olly’s immediately at my side. “Mad, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Oh, no. Not yet. I’m not ready. “I’m light-headed,” I say. “And my stomach—”
“Do we need to go to a hospital?”
My stomach growls loud and long in reply.
I look up at him. “I think I’m—”
“Hungry,” we say simultaneously.
Hunger.
That’s what I’m feeling. I’m not getting sick. I’m just hungry.
“I’m starving,” I say. In the last twenty-four hours I’ve had a single bite of chilaquiles and a handful of Nurse Evil’s apple slices.
Olly starts laughing. He collapses backward onto the bed. “I’ve been so worried that something in the air was gonna kill you.” He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Instead you’re going to starve to death.”
I’ve never actually been this hungry before. For the most part I’ve always eaten my three meals and two snacks exactly on time every day. Carla was a big believer in food. Empty tummy, empty head, she’d say.
I lie back and laugh along with him.
My heart squeezes again, but I ignore it.
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PRESENT
I FEEL MUCH better after we grab a quick bite to eat. We
need beach gear and, according to Olly, souvenirs, so we stop in a store called, helpfully, Maui Souvenir Shop and General Store. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much stuff. I find myself overwhelmed with the sheer volume of it. Stacks and stacks of T-shirts and hats that say Maui, or Aloha, or some variation of that. Racks of hanging flower-patterned dresses in almost every color. Carousel after carousel of tchotchkes—key chains, shot glasses, magnets. One carousel is dedicated solely to surfboard key chains with stenciled names, alphabetically arranged. I search for Oliver or Madeline or Olly or Maddy, but don’t find any.
Olly comes up behind me and wraps a single arm around my waist. I’m standing in front of a wall of calendars featuring shirtless surfers. They’re not unattractive.
“I’m jealous,” he murmurs into my ear, and I laugh and rub my hands over his forearm.
“You should be.” I reach for one of the calendars.
“You’re not really—”
“For Carla,” I say.
“Sure, sure.”
“What did you get?” I lean my head back against his chest.
“Seashell necklace for my mom. Pineapple ashtray for Kara.”
“Why do people buy all this stuff?”
He holds me a little tighter. “It’s not so mysterious,” he says. “It’s so we remember to remember.”
I turn in his arms, thinking how quickly it’s become my favorite place in the world. Familiar, foreign, comforting, and thrilling all at once.
“I’m going to get this for Carla,” I say, brandishing the calendar. “And chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. And one of those dresses for myself.”
“What about your mom?”
What kind of memento do you get for the mother who has loved you your whole life, who has given up the world for you? Who you may never see again? Nothing will ever do, not really.
I think back to the old photograph she showed me of all of us in Hawaii. I have no memory of it, no memory of being on that beach with her and my dad and my brother, but she does. She has memories of me, of a life that I don’t have at all.
I pull away from Olly and wander around the store. By eighteen years old, other teenagers have separated from their parents. They leave home, have separate lives, make separate memories. But not me. My mom and I have shared the same closed space and breathed the same filtered air for so long that it’s strange being here without her. It’s strange making memories that don’t include her.
What will she do if I don’t make it home? Will she gather her memories of me close? Will she take them out and examine them and live them over and over again?
I want to give her something of this time, of my time without her. Something to remember me by. I find a carousel with vintage postcards and I tell her the truth.
THE SWIMSUIT
IT’S POSSIBLE THAT I should’ve tried on the swimsuit before I bought it. It’s not that it doesn’t fit. It’s that it does, and very closely. Am I really expected to appear in public with so little clothing on?
I’m in the bathroom looking between my actual body and my body in the mirror. The suit is a bright pink one-piece with spaghetti straps. The pink is so bright that it gives color to my cheeks. I look flushed, like a rosy-cheeked summer girl who belongs in the sun.
Humidity has made my hair bigger than normal. I gather it up and plait it into a long braid to subdue it. I look back to the mirror. The only way to subdue this suit is to wear more, possibly all my clothing at once. I scan my body again. There’s really no denying that I have breasts and legs in this thing. All my parts seem to be in the right proportion and in the right place. I twist a little to confirm that my derriere is covered, and it is, but only just. What would I see in the mirror if I were a normal girl? Would I think that I was too fat or too thin? Would I dislike my hips, my waist, my face? Would I have body-image issues? As it stands, my only issue is that I would gladly trade this body for one that works properly.
Olly knocks on the door. “Are you snorkeling in there?”
I do eventually have to leave this bathroom, but I’m too nervous. Will Olly think all my parts are in the right place?
“Deep-sea fishing actually.” My voice shakes only slightly.
“Fantastic. We’ll have sushi for—”
I pull the door open quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid.
Olly just stops talking. His eyes travel slowly from my face to my toes and even more slowly back up again.
“You’re in a swimsuit,” he says. His eyes are on the expanse of skin between my neck and chest.
“I am.” I look up into his eyes and what I see there makes me feel like I’m not wearing any clothing at all. My heart picks up the pace and I take a deep breath to try to slow it down, but it doesn’t work.
He runs his hands along the length of my arms, slowly pulling me toward him at the same time. He touches his forehead to mine when we’re finally close enough. His eyes are blue fire.
He looks like a starving man, like he could devour me all at once.
“That swimsuit,” he begins.
“Is small,” I conclude.
GUIDE TO HAWAIIAN REEF FISH
JUMP
I SURPRISE OLLY by getting into the water right away. He says I’m like a baby who runs headlong into things, not knowing enough to be afraid. Like a baby, I stick my tongue out at him and make my way, life jacket and all, farther into the water.
We’re at Black Rock, so named because of the rocky cliff formed by the lava rocks that run right up to the beach and jut high into the sky. In the water, the rocks form a crescent shape that calms the waves and forms a coral reef perfect for snorkeling. Our guide at the Fun in the Sun desk says the beach is popular with cliff divers, too.
The water is cold and salty and delicious and I think maybe I was a mermaid in a former life. An astronaut mermaid architect. The flippers and life jacket keep me floating on the surface and it only takes a few minutes for me to get used to breathing through the mask. Listening to the magnified sound of my own breath is peaceful and strangely euphoric. I’m being reassured with every breath that I’m more than just alive. I’m living.
We see the humuhumunukunukuapuaa right away. Actually, we see quite a lot of them. I guess the reason they’re the Hawaiian state fish is that they’re plentiful. Most of the fish are clustered around the coral reef. I’ve never seen colors so intense, not just blue and yellow and red, but the deepest blues and brightest yellows and most vibrant reds you’ve ever seen. Away from the coral, the sun’s rays form rectangular columns of light in the water. Schools of silver fish dart in and out, acting with one mind.
Holding hands, we swim farther out and see gliding stingrays that look like giant white-bellied birds. We see two enormous sea turtles that seem to be flying instead of swimming. Intellectually I know that they won’t hurt us. But they’re so big, and so obviously belong to this water world—where I do not—that I stop moving, not wanting to attract their attention.
I could stay all day, but Olly eventually tugs me back to shore. He doesn’t want us, meaning me, to get burned by the midday sun.
Back on the beach we dry off under a shady tree. I feel Olly’s eyes on me when he thinks I’m not noticing, but we are a mutual admiration society—I’m secretly ogling him, too. He’s taken off his shirt and is only wearing swim trunks, so I can finally see the lean, smooth muscles of his shoulders and chest and stomach. I want to memorize the landscape of him with my hands. I shiver and wrap my towel around my body. Olly misinterprets my shiver and steps close to me to add his towel to my shoulders. His skin smells like the ocean and something else, some indefinable thing that makes him Olly. I shock myself by wanting to touch my tongue to his chest, to taste the sun and salt on his skin. I drag my eyes away from his chest and up to his face. He avoids my eyes and wraps the towel tight around me so none of my skin is showing and then steps away from me. I get the feeling that he’s holding himself in check.
I’m sure I don’t want him to.
/> *
He looks over to the cliff where people, mostly teenagers, are leaping into the ocean. “Want to jump from a big rock?” he asks, eyes sparkling.
“I can’t swim,” I remind him.
“A little drowning never hurt anybody,” says the boy who once warned me that the sea was merciless and unforgiving.
He grabs my hand and we run toward the cliff together. Up close the rocks look like hard black sponge. They’re sharp against my feet and it takes me a while to find foot holes for each step, but eventually we make it to the top.
Olly’s eager to jump. He doesn’t even stop to admire the view.
“Together?” he asks, looking down at the sparkling water.
“Next time,” I say.
He nods. “I’ll go first. I won’t let you drown.” He jumps up and out and does a full somersault before arrowing into the water. A few seconds later he resurfaces and waves up to me. I wave back and then close my eyes to take stock of my situation, because jumping off a cliff seems like a pivotal moment where a little stock-taking should be done. Strangely, though, I find I don’t really want to think too much. Like Olly, I just want to jump. I search out Olly’s face in the water and find him waiting for me. Considering what the future may hold, jumping off this cliff doesn’t seem so scary at all.
CLIFF DIVING: A GUIDE
ZACH
BACK AT THE hotel, Olly calls his friend Zach from our room phone. Half an hour later he’s at our door.
Zach has dark umber skin and enormous dreadlocks and a smile that’s almost too big for his face. He immediately begins playing air guitar and singing a song that I don’t know. Olly grins from ear to ear. Zach thrashes his head dramatically while he “plays” and his hair keeps time with the “music.”
“Zach!” Olly says, and pulls him into a hug. They slap each other’s backs loudly.
“It’s Zachariah now.”
“Since when?” asks Olly.