“I’d still take the snake.”
“No one ever picks the snake,” he says.
“I just did.”
I hate the thought of him playing this game with someone else. With some other girl, back in his real life. The life he’s going to return to at the end of the summer.
“All right, my turn,” Will says. “Invisibility cloak or the Marauder’s Map?”
“Marauder’s Map.” It sure would have saved me a whole lot of trouble when sneaking out of the house and avoiding Kahale.
“I think I’d take the invisibility cloak,” he says. “There are plenty of times I’ve wished I were invisible.”
It’s hard to imagine Will, with his seemingly perfect life, feeling this way. And it’s not lost on me that we hardly ever agree on anything. But even though these questions are ridiculous, he was right—they are a good way to learn about someone.
“Moving on,” I say. “Never be able to stop dancing or have to sing everything?”
“Singing.”
“Me too! Then life would be like a musical.” I clap my hands.
He sighs. “I change my answer.”
“You can’t change your answer!”
“Says who?”
I nudge him with my elbow and he laughs.
We’ve reached Island Coffee. It’s a shabby, nondescript little place, sandwiched in the middle of a strip mall. A very different vibe from the coffee shop on the beach we went to the other day. Gus, the owner of the place, is obsessed with the Beatles, and the entire shop is plastered in the band’s vintage posters and record album covers. Behind the counter, there’s even a glass case containing an Island Coffee mug that Gus claims Ringo Starr once drank out of.
“Hey Jude” is playing when we walk in. We’re the only customers. Gus glances at us from the wooden stool he’s perched on behind the counter. “Aloha, Marty. It’s been a while.” He stands up and leans on the counter, smiling so wide that his eyes crinkle at the corners. “How’s your dad?”
I swallow. It’s impossible to escape the memories of my dad when he’s everywhere I turn on this island. He used to bring me here all the time when I was a kid. I’d get a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and we’d sit outside on the veranda, even though there wasn’t much to look at but the cars coming in and out of the parking lot.
“He’s good,” I say. And I’m sure it’s the truth. Whatever life he’s made for himself on O’ahu, it must be better than the one he had here. After all, it was worth leaving his family for.
“Well, you tell him I said hi,” Gus says. “Now, you want the usual?”
I nod. “And two coconut cappuccinos, please.”
“What’s the usual?” Will asks as Gus punches our order into the cash register.
I smile. “You’ll see.”
Will tries to pay, but I insist on buying. He only relents when I tell him that the hotel will reimburse me. We go and sit at a table near the back, underneath the famous poster of the Beatles walking across Abbey Road. “Hello, Goodbye” is playing now, and I can just make out the hiss of the espresso machine over the music as Gus makes our cappuccinos.
“So, that guy said you come here with your dad,” Will says, resting his elbows on the table. “I know your mom works at the hotel and that you have a brother, but you’ve never mentioned your dad before.”
I glance away from him. I haven’t really told him anything about my life—not anything important, anyway—but that’s on purpose. It’s better if we keep things surface level. I don’t want to go deep with another person who isn’t going to stick around. And Will isn’t permanent.
And while he may think he wants to know more about me, I doubt that includes hearing all about my parents’ breakup and my dad abandoning us. Will’s on vacation—he’s here to have fun, not be brought down by my sad backstory.
“There’s not a lot to tell.” I fiddle with the four-leaf-clover charm on my necklace, zipping it back and forth on the chain.
Will looks at me expectantly, his eyebrows raised. So I guess I’m not getting off the hook that easily.
“My dad left six months ago,” I say, shifting in my seat. “I don’t talk to him.”
“Like, ever?”
I shake my head.
Will winces. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m over it.”
It’s really the furthest thing from okay—and I’ll never be over it—but what else is there to say?
Gus saves me from having to delve any further into this conversation by placing two huge plates, each containing a gravy-covered hamburger on rice with a fried egg perfectly balanced on top of the whole thing, in front of us.
“Loco moco,” he says.
“Best on the island,” I reply.
Gus also hands us blue mugs with a sea turtle detailed in the cappuccino foam, along with a bottle of barbecue sauce, then retreats to his stool behind the counter. I pick up my fork, ready to shovel my breakfast into my mouth if Will asks any more follow-up questions about my dad, but his attention is now focused on his plate.
“This smells amazing,” he says. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
I smile. I like that he’s interested in seeing more of Maui, beyond the grass skirts and tiki torches. And I like that I’m the one who gets to show him the island.
I reach for the barbecue sauce and shake a generous amount of it on top of my egg. Will stares at me, his brow furrowed.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m not sure how I feel about mixing barbecue sauce and gravy.”
I laugh. “You don’t have to. It’s not required.” In fact, I think I’m probably the only person, besides my dad, who eats it this way. “But you’re missing out.”
Will takes the barbecue sauce from me and adds some on his eggs. “I’m trusting you on this.”
My phone beeps. It’s Nalani, checking to make sure I haven’t forgotten about the party tomorrow night. I don’t really want to go, but she’ll kill me if I don’t show up. She’s texted me a bunch of times about our trip over the past few days, and I haven’t responded. I know she knows something’s up. I sigh. I haven’t found the right time to tell her I’m not going.
I’ll tell her soon, I promise myself.
“Everything okay?” Will asks.
I turn my phone facedown on the table. It beeps a few more times, but this time I ignore it. “All good.”
He cocks his head and stares at me until my palms start to sweat. I thought I was pretty good at keeping my emotions hidden, but he seems to see through me.
“My friend’s throwing a party on Saturday,” I say, “and—”
“I’m in,” he interrupts.
I blink, taken aback. I was about to tell him that I’m not super into parties; I wasn’t going to invite him. And I guess Will realizes he should have let me finish, because his cheeks flush.
“I mean, if you’re asking,” he says.
Introducing him to my friends, bringing him further into my life, is definitely not in the plan. But there’s no way to tell him that without coming off totally rude—and besides, maybe bringing him isn’t the worst thing. Especially because it means I don’t have to show up alone. So I smile and say, “Yes, I was asking.”
Will’s shoulders relax. He polishes off his loco moco before I’m even halfway through mine, and when I see him eyeing my plate, I push it toward the center of the table so we can share.
Ten
“You have to tell Nalani you’re not going with her,” Ansel says. “She’s been blowing up my phone because you’re not answering yours.”
We’re sitting inside a golf cart near the ninth hole, hidden behind the snack shack so the golfers won’t catch sight of us. I can hear the thwack of balls being struck and the occasional curse as someone misses their shot.
“There hasn’t been a good time,” I say, chewing on my thumbnail. I’ll be seeing her tomorrow night, at the party at the rental house, but I’m hoping she’
ll be too busy playing hostess to corner me about the trip.
My brother gives me a look. His feet are propped up on the dashboard. His calves are covered in grass clippings. His main job is to trim the green, which means he spends most of his shift on the riding mower.
“While we’re on the topic of avoiding people, you’re going to have to deal with Dad too sometime,” he says.
“I don’t have anything to say to him.” I cross my arms, like it’s armor that’s going to protect me from this conversation that I very much don’t want to have.
“It’s not all his fault, you know,” Ansel says.
I snort. “He moved away.”
“Come on, Marty. He’s on O’ahu, not on the moon,” he replies. “You need to cut him a break. He’s trying.”
“He’s not trying that hard.” Sure, he leaves a message on my phone a few times a week, but he hasn’t come back to Maui to try to work it out with me in person. Like Ansel said, O’ahu isn’t the moon.
My brother holds up his hands and I relax a little. For once, it seems that he’s not in the mood to fight. He reaches for his phone, tucked into the cup holder on the dashboard. He scrolls through the screen and groans. “Aw man, the waves at Ho‘okipa are sick right now.” He turns the phone to show me the surf report.
The surf report rules his life. My mom doesn’t get his obsession with surfing—she doesn’t see it as anything more than an indulgent hobby, a distraction that takes up way too much of his time. But he loves it, so I wish she’d be more supportive. It might make things easier between them.
“I know of a couple of guys who are looking to learn.” There are a million other instructors I could hire to teach Will and Hayes to surf, but I know my brother is good. And I know he could use the money.
Ansel drops his phone back in the cup holder. “I hate giving lessons.”
“It’s only for a couple of hours and it pays really well,” I say. When Will told me what he’d be willing to spend, I considered giving him lessons myself. “They’re nice guys.”
Well, Will is, anyway.
“Fine,” he says, sighing. “I’ve been thinking of getting back into instructing.”
“What? You just said you hate giving lessons.”
“I hate cutting grass more,” he replies. “And I need a second job. I can’t live in Mom’s basement forever.”
Ansel’s almost twenty, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that he wants to get on with his life, but I still feel blindsided. Just like when Dad left. Just like when Kahale ditched me at prom.
“I’ve got to get out of there, Marty,” he says. He fiddles with the straight-from-the-seventies puka shell necklace his ex-girlfriend Jade gave him. He refuses to take it off, no matter how much his friends make fun of him for it.
“I can’t believe you’re going to leave me alone with Mom.”
“Yeah, well, don’t panic. You’re stuck with me a little while longer.” He starts up the golf cart. He pulls around the side of the building and onto the asphalt path that leads back to the clubhouse. The course is a brilliant emerald green with a few strategically placed palm trees that frame the endless blue ocean and the rise of Molokai in the distance. A group of golfers in Hawaiian shirts glance over at us. One of them raises his hand to catch my brother’s attention, but Ansel pretends not to see him and steps on the gas.
“By the way, I heard your cat wailing this morning.” He takes a corner a bit too fast and I reach out to steady myself on the dashboard. “Don’t worry. I turned my music up so Mom wouldn’t hear. But it’s only a matter of time before she finds out.”
I haven’t even tried to find a home for Libby. The thought of giving her away makes me feel panicky. I’m still hoping I’ll find a way to convince my mom to let me keep her.
“I’ll find somewhere for her,” I say.
Ansel just shakes his head.
* * *
“What are you doing?” Hayes asks later that afternoon as I bend down beside the hotel van. We’re in the parking lot of my favorite restaurant, a little Mexican place in the middle of a strip mall in Napili.
“Find a penny, pick it up…,” I say.
He snorts. “That’s just a dumb superstition,” he says. “Besides, that’s a quarter.”
Maybe it is just a dumb superstition, but I’m not taking any chances. Ever since I lost my luck, I’ve picked up every coin I’ve come across and knocked on wood more times than I can count. I’ve responded to every chain letter that my aunt Kaye forwards to me, even though I’ve asked her not to at least a million times. And, okay, none of it has seemed to make much of a difference, but it hasn’t hurt, either.
“I get it,” Will says. He pulls a tiny red plastic telescope out of his pocket, the kind of cheap toy you’d get from a bubble-gum machine. “I’ve carried this for luck for years.”
Hayes shakes his head. “There’s no such thing as luck—good or bad,” he says. “It’s like believing in leprechauns. Or unicorns.”
Will ignores him. “When we were kids, we spent the summers with our grandparents at their house in the Hamptons,” he says. “My grandfather used to bury treasures for us in his garden. Rubber balls, plastic soldiers. Things like that. When he gave me this telescope, he told me that when I looked through it, I’d always be able to find him in the stars.”
It sounds like such a happy memory, but Hayes’s face has closed off. He storms away from us and into the restaurant.
“Our grandfather died a few months ago,” Will says, watching him go. “He’s having a hard time with it. And then some other stuff happened, too. It’s just been a crappy couple of months.”
I wonder if that “other stuff” is what has been keeping him up at night.
“I’m sorry about your grandpa,” I say.
“Thanks.”
We walk into the restaurant. It’s decorated in green and red and white, the colors of the Mexican flag, and the whole place smells of cumin and garlic and chili.
Hayes is slumped at a table in the corner, looking sullen. I’m sure this place is far from what they’re used to—sand on the floor and people eating in their bathing suits. It’s as close to a glimpse of my real life as I’ve given them so far, and I suddenly feel nervous that they won’t like it.
“So what’s good?” Will asks me, studying the menu board above the cash register.
“Everything,” I say. “But I usually go for the tacos.”
“Can’t go wrong with tacos.”
Will places our order—nine chicken tacos, a basket of chips and salsa, and three bottles of pineapple soda. We have to wait for our number to be called, so we head over to the table. Hayes is tracing a finger over the map of Maui imprinted on the sticky tabletop. “We should go to Hana,” he says, his finger stopping on the easternmost tip of the map. “Grandpa used to talk about how gorgeous it was. Remember?”
Will’s eyebrows lift in surprise. “Yeah. He talked about Hana a lot,” he says. “He said it was magical. Marty, would you be up for going there?”
Normally, I’d take a hard pass. Hana is at least a five-hour drive and while the scenery is breathtaking, the road is made up of stomach-churning switchbacks that never fail to make me carsick. But I’m supposed to show them around the island, so if they want to go to Hana, then I guess I’ll take them.
“Sure,” I say. “It’ll take us a full day to do it properly, though.”
“Cool.” Hayes grabs a bottle of the hottest hot sauce from the little basket on the table and sprinkles way too much on his tacos. I’m about to warn him, but then I remember the stupid way he’s behaved so far and the fact that he threw up on me. So, okay, maybe it’s mean, but I let him take a big bite. Which probably isn’t going to help my karma at all, especially because his face turns hot-sauce red and he starts to cough.
“You okay?” Will asks him.
Hayes’s eyes are watering. He grabs his soda and chugs it, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
And now I feel wor
se than I have since I started sending the stolen items back. Because if there’s a lesson that the universe is trying to teach me—treat others as you would have them treat you, for example—obviously I haven’t learned it yet.
* * *
Half an hour later we’re standing on the beach, watching the sea turtles fight against the waves as they make their way to shore.
Napili Bay is quiet, a bit out of the way. My dad used to bring Ansel and me here sometimes. We’d stand on this same rock, watching the turtles bob in the water, and my dad would tell us that they were a family. They stuck together. Just like us.
Only that turned out not to be true.
“They come here every night?” Will asks.
I nod. “Right at sunset. Like clockwork.”
Ten feet away, one of the turtles climbs out of the water and onto the same expanse of slippery black rock we’re standing on. The turtle is about three feet long and, in the waning light, looks almost the same dark color as the rock.
“I didn’t realize they were so big.” Will takes a step toward it, holding up his phone to take a photo.
“From her size, I’d say this girl is probably at least twenty-five years old,” I say. “Don’t get too close. It’s illegal to touch the turtles in Hawaii. Besides, she might bite if she feels cornered.”
“How do you know it’s a she?” he asks.
“Her tail. It’s shorter than the male’s.”
The sky is beginning to darken. There aren’t that many people left on the beach, just a few families packing up their gear.
“So what else is there to do on this island, besides eat tacos and look at turtles?” Hayes asks me. “Both of which, by the way, I can do back home.”
“Really? You have sea turtles in Philadelphia?” When I think of the East Coast, I think of tall buildings and snowy winters and people in a big hurry to get where they’re going. I don’t know how sea turtles fit into that picture.
“Sure, in an aquarium in New Jersey,” Will replies. “Not the same as seeing them in the wild.”
Just My Luck Page 7