I WAKE REFRESHED AND READY TO MAKE SPRING BREAK official.
The thought of Will has given me a buzz, a spring in my step, a confidence. Whitney hasn’t said anything about our plan to surf, but I’ve decided that I am going to Kailua, and she can come if she wants to.
Just days ago, I’d have felt cautious; I’d have looked out the window, not sure if I should remind her or worry that she wasn’t serious about coming with me. Now I walk across the lawn to knock on her bedroom door with an assuredness that makes me feel like a new person. I like my outfit—short jean shorts and a white T-shirt that falls off my shoulders. I’ve borrowed my mom’s black Ray-Bans, and I like the way they look so much I’m hoping she forgets to ask for them back.
I see Will and slow my pace. He sees me, but from this distance, I can’t read his expression. He’s putting clubs into the trunk of his SUV.
“Morning,” I say.
“What’s up?” he says. The familiarity, the easiness, everything is gone. He looks preoccupied, his face pinched in irritation or anger. Aren’t we supposed to be climbing the ladder to something? Or are we going back down again? I want to shake him, throw myself at him, kiss him, and say, “Remember this?”
He’s wearing a baseball cap, light gray shorts, and a green golf shirt. “Nice outfit,” I say.
“Yeah, you too,” he says.
“What’s going on here?” I ask. He seems to scoff, but then his face settles down into something normal.
“Sorry,” he says. “I suck at this. And I’m stressed. Big tournament today, and my dad had me up all night helping him out with work stuff.”
“Oh,” I say, comforted by the fact that he was just sitting home with his parent too. It also makes him seem so in charge, the fact that his dad needs him in that way. I love this light he’s in—both a caring son and a responsible heir. “Is he okay?”
“Yeah,” Will says and takes his hat off, wipes his brow with his forearm, then puts it back on. I’m so tempted to touch him as a girlfriend would.
“He’s just worried about everything, a little paranoid,” Will says. “He had me go through all his finances—again—things he wants kept from—” He stops suddenly.
“That’s a lot to deal with,” I say.
“Yeah. Anyway.” He touches me lightly on the waist, his hand bringing comfort and relief. “You okay?”
I laugh. “I’m good.”
“I’ll see you soon?”
“Yeah, okay,” I say. “Good luck today.” We make eye contact while walking backwards in different directions. He holds his hand out toward me as if he were palming a basketball, then turns to his car.
• • •
Whitney opens one of the doors to her room. She looks like she just woke up. She’s wearing a large Billabong T-shirt, and I imagine it being handed down from Will. It looks like something he’d wear when he’s out of his golf costume.
Will has deflated me a bit, but I want to patch up that hole and keep my good-mood momentum. I’ve missed Whitney this week.
“Let’s surf!” I say.
She covers one of her ears, indicating a headache, a hangover. Something—a ring or a bracelet—catches on her T-shirt, which gets momentarily lifted, revealing that she isn’t wearing anything beneath it, not even underwear. I try not to react to the sight of her body, but it’s jarring to see it—she’s completely shaved, and my first thought is that it looks so cold.
She groans. “Too loud. Too happy.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m going to Flat Island, if you still want to come with.”
“What time is it?” She hits her forehead repeatedly with the palm of her hand.
“Almost ten, I think.”
“Oh God,” she says. She looks behind her, then moves out a little more toward me, holding the door against her. I almost ask, jokingly, Hiding someone? then realize that maybe she is. The thought, coupled with her bareness down there, makes me feel incredibly childlike.
“I guess I’ll go,” she says. “Give me a sec. You want to load up the boards while I get ready? Mine’s on the side of the house.”
“Sure,” I say, and she closes her bedroom door.
• • •
My board is already on the roof, and I put hers on top of it. It’s a Saffron James board and has a batik-like white-and-blue print. It’s like a beautiful cake you can’t bear to cut into. Still, I’d love to have one. It’s achingly cool.
I knock on her door again. She opens it, all the way this time, and looks like she went back to bed.
“Are you kidding me?” I say. Her hair is in a sloppy bun, and she’s wearing the same thing, her legs bare.
“What?” she says. “I’m ready.”
“Oh,” I say, and see the straps beneath the T-shirt. I get glimpses of her room while she gets her bag and sunglasses. There are glass doors on the other side facing the ocean, the wooden blinds up. The room is very adult, but not necessarily in a good way. It looks designed and decorated by someone from a place like Martha’s Vineyard who wanted a Hawaiian theme for the guest cottage.
I want to wander around—I love people’s rooms, but this doesn’t look like it would reveal anything true about her. I glance at the unmade bed. I look for clues, but the only thing that strikes me is that the bed is fully turned down. Whenever I wake up, half of my bed is still partially made—I just tuck myself into one side—but I know this doesn’t mean anything. She could just move around a lot. She could kick off all the covers. I stay pretty still when I sleep, and maybe I’ve just gotten in the habit of not disturbing the other side so I don’t have as much work to do the next day. She probably isn’t forced to make her bed.
She closes the door, and we get into my car. Would Danny sneak over here? Would he sleep in her bed? I could just ask her—was there someone in there?—but worry it would come off sounding pathetic.
• • •
On the road, my mood is back to soaring again, triggered by the sight of Nu’uanu and driving up the Pali toward the tunnel. The air is cooler, the sky sunny but muted, trees and wildness on both sides of the highway, all varying riffs on green. Some of the mountain’s sharp wrinkles are lined with waterfalls, though the wind is making them spray in the other direction. Waterclimbs and waterfalls.
Whitney has her bare feet on my dash, and she’s texting someone, which reminds me of the hotel. I want to ask about it, but don’t want my voice to betray me, revealing me and my longing. I’m sure she’ll tell me about it sometime today.
The stereo goes out when we go into the tunnels. When we get to the other side, my heart swells from the feeling of returning home, as if I’d been away for years. Whitney puts her phone down.
“Epic day,” she says.
I carve down the Pali, looking out at the blues of the ocean, the whiteness of the sandbars. I take the big curve by the lookout and see Mount Olomana, which is different from every angle. Of course there’s a helicopter over its peak, rescuing someone who’s overestimated themselves. On the way to Waimanalo, Olomana doesn’t even seem like the same mountain, and I’m always surprised by how something can seem so looming and regal from one side and then, from another, like a mere bump.
“I haven’t been here in so long,” I say. We pass the Kaneohe Ranch building, and the traffic slows.
“That’s right,” she says. “This is your ’hood. Lucky. This place is so much cooler.”
Lucky, I think. She’s right. I was lucky to have lived here. Something I’ve noticed since moving to Hawaii is that everyone kind of feels this way about themselves no matter where they live.
“I’m definitely going to come here a lot over break,” I say. This is true, but I’m also fishing.
“Totes,” she says. “Oh my God, shaddup, love this song.” She turns on the stereo and dances in her seat, nodding her head and slapping the air overhead, something I do too when I’m with Danny, but now I feel I can’t with her, like she’s claimed it. Shaddup, hand flicking—it’s hers. I’m left with lame gestures. I imagine saying “coolio” and raising the roof.
“What about you?” I say. “What are you going to do the rest of break?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Eat. Just kidding. I’ve been eating like a frickin’ . . .” She can’t seem to think of a simile.
“Whale shark,” I say because I hate unfinished sentences.
We get to the entrance of Kailua town, and again I’m warmed by its familiarity, the way I feel an ownership over it, despite not having lived here that long. But my grandparents did, so that counts. Even though I didn’t grow up here, I feel I’ve grown from them, like I’m something indigenous and not a Norfolk pine.
“Oooh, can we hit up Mu’umu’u Heaven on the way back?” Whitney asks as we pass the store.
“Shoots,” I say. We turn at the banyan tree, and Whitney sees more shops she wants to stop at on our way back, which sounds fun. We’ll make a day of it, hanging in my sweet hometown.
• • •
The surf is, indeed, epic. Glassy and fun. Whitney follows me wherever I paddle, and when I catch a wave and paddle back out, she always looks a bit lost. She’s out of her element, shy; I can still feel that way surfing—intimidated, embarrassed to be seen falling—but maybe since she looks nervous, it takes that all away. She’s holding it for me. I know exactly how she feels—like a tourist and like a girl.
But I’m not a hostess. I can tell she wants to go in, but I paddle past her to get farther out and closer to the island. I sit in the lineup with the boys, nodding at a few I recognize and even those I don’t. Some people ride standup boards, some are on one-man canoes. From Lanikai, a four-man yellow canoe points toward us, a few kids hanging off the ama.
It’s one of those crowded days when you don’t mind the number of people—it’s like everyone here came alone but is now in on something together, bonded by these hours, by one of the choices they made today that happened to be the same choice as everyone here.
When my arms can’t take another paddle back out and my ribs hurt from the board, I go for one more, then paddle to Whitney.
“Grab lunch?” I ask.
“Yes!” she says, looking burnt and weak.
I catch a wave in for as long as I can, then paddle the rest of the way to the boat ramp. When I look back, Whitney is far behind.
• • •
We’re giddy eating hamburgers at Kalapawai. Sun-soaked sore bodies, salty skin, and huge plates of food. “This is some bomb-ass shit,” I say with a full mouth, and she laughs—honk!—which makes us both laugh. She honks again, then takes a sip of her soda.
“Bomb-ass shit,” she says and we both nod. “Nom nom.”
We finish the rest in silence, and when we walk to the car, she burps and we rub our stomachs.
• • •
Before we hit the shops, she asks to stop at Lanikai to take a picture of the Mokuluas. It takes forever to find parking—there are rental cars everywhere.
“So many tourists,” I say, as we walk down the beach path. “So annoying.”
“I know, and what’s up with the kayaks?”
“Rides of shame.”
She’s puts on her oversized cap with bright flowers on the face. I’m wearing my favorite—a Mike Field design that I haven’t seen on anyone else yet. The beach is so packed that it resembles Waikiki. When Target is built, this will all get worse.
We’re both still in our bikinis, but have pareos tied around our waists.
“Let’s just take the pic, then ditch.” She stands in the ocean so she’s situated between the two distant islands. Everyone takes their picture between them, and at least for me, it never gets old. It creates a perfect symmetry and is always exotic and captivating. The subject is between two everlasting things.
She poses, and I snap the picture with her phone. She laughs while she smiles, that uncomfortable laugh everyone uses when waiting for a picture to be taken.
“’Kay, come,” she says.
I walk to her, and she takes the phone and holds it out in front of us. “Selfish,” she says through her teeth. I like selfies. You can really pose because you’re not being looked at.
“Cheese,” she says.
“Cheesy,” I say.
“Fromage!” she says.
“Aw,” I say. “You’re learning!”
• • •
First we go to San Lorenzo to look at bathing suits. We both try on countless tops and the teeniest bottoms I have ever worn.
“Come out,” she says from the room next door.
“I am not coming out,” I say, looking at my ass in the bright light.
She slides my curtain open. She’s wearing bottoms with a thick, low white band and about an inch of purple fabric covering the essentials. I guess that’s why she waxes it all off: mere safety precautions.
“Oh my God, that looks so dope on you,” she says.
I grabbed it from the back of the shop. The sides of the bottoms are strings that connect the block-print fabric. The bandeau top is pulled together in the middle by a set of strings.
“Your body is, like, banging,” she says. “Is that Acacia?”
“What?” I turn and look at my ass in the mirror, the fabric riding up then out.
“Acacia,” she says. “The brand.”
I look at the tag to see the brand and notice the price. One hundred and twenty, which I’ve come to realize is kind of standard for a suit, but then in the mirror, I see a tag coming out of the top too. I try to lift it a bit and read: $110.
“Holy shizz,” I say. “Not happening.”
“I know. They’re super cher. You could buy just the bottoms.”
“I’m not spending that much on just bottoms. And, dude, good job with your French.”
“Do you like mine?” she asks.
She turns around and does what I just did—looks at her ass. Bikinis and jeans—the way the ass looks determines everything.
“I like the pattern,” I say. “But honestly that band bottom thing I see everywhere. It’s not the most flattering.”
“I know,” she says. “Kinda played. ’Kay, I’m going to go with the bunched one. You know the ones that bunch in the butt?”
We both laugh. “That sounds so wrong,” I say.
She goes to her room, and we change back into our own suits. When we come out, she asks if I’m going to get anything.
I tried on four sets of suits. “Nothing really worked,” I say. “Except the one.”
She looks forlorn or pantomimes the look of it. “Let me get it for you,” she says. “It was so cute. And you drove today.”
“No!” I say. “It wouldn’t cost me two thirty to fill a quarter of a tank.”
“Come on,” she says. “We had the best day ever.”
I shake my head.
“Yes,” she says, using a businesslike decisive tone. “I’ll get one too. We can be twins.”
I notice in her pack of suits she has also tried on an Acacia, though the pattern is different, and the style is slightly different too. I guess I can now officially recognize the brand.
I’m touched and follow her to the counter, part of me dragging, part of me feeling like I do when my mom brings home swag—getting to have something I’d never buy for myself. We did have the best day ever, and it’s still going strong, yet it’s the recognition of this that makes me say, “No. I’m not letting you get it for me.”
“Aww,” she says, “boo.” But I wonder if she’s partly relieved.
She goes to the counter and hands over her suits to the young, dark-haired woman who has a friendly plumeria tucked behind her ear but a not-so-friendly face.
I wander around the clothes section of the store, looking at airy dresses and their accompanying price tags. I said no because I don’t want to be—or worse, feel—indebted, but also because I don’t want to set a standard. Like how the snot bubble came out of her nose the first day we talked—it set a tone for us, and this would set a tone too, but the wrong one. I like that we’re different but can still be ourselves. I didn’t hold her hand surfing, and she’s not going to hold my hand now. I think about her seventh-grade birthday party, how she became known for providing a good time. I’m sure she’s set herself up for this with her other friends, that they expect her to cover things for them.
I walk back over to the register and see she’s buying just one suit. She has put the Acacia to the side and I wonder—no, I know—that she’s not buying it out of respect for me.
Transaction complete. We walk out of the store to a cheerful ding and the bright sunshine and music coming from Island Snow next door.
She holds the little plastic bag with her finger and makes it spin.
“Butt buncher,” I say. “Let’s get shave ice.”
• • •
Lilikoi, li hing mui, guava for me. Vanilla, coconut, li hing mui for her. Before we head back, we go to Fighting Eel, HIC, Twin Islands, then finally Mu’umu’u Heaven on our way out of town. I try things on along with her and buy a Samudra clutch at Fighting Eel. I don’t want her to feel guilty about buying things in front of me. I tell her when things look good and when they look bad, and she does the same for me. She buys something at every store except Mu’umu’u Heaven, a store I loved and that had tons of Japanese tourists saying “Kawaii!” after every dress they touched.
On the way to the car, she tells me she thought the dresses were way too expensive and they looked like cut-up muumuus.
“That’s what they are, genius!” I laugh.
“Oh!” she says.
“They’re like, old-school, vintage muumuus cut up, then redesigned.”
We get into my car and drive out of town, and she looks deep in thought.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“It’s just kind of sad,” she says.
“What’s sad?”
“To cut up old Hawaiian dresses. My grandma had the prettiest muumuus.”
“So did mine,” I say, and we’re quiet for a while, both thinking about our grandmas, perhaps, or thinking about each other, having never really considered each other’s roots or lives as little girls.
“But they’re using the past and making it . . . I don’t . . . something we’d wear. Young, you know? New school.”
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s true.”
We drive back over the Pali, listening to music and looking out, alone with our thoughts together.