Morning again. My first whole day in which I know about Mom. We have one of those tour things, to the other side of the island.
“What’s on the other side of the island?” Abby asks at breakfast as I stand behind her, attempting to wrestle her hair into submission. Abby has long blond hair, but a darker, sandier blond than Afton’s or mine, and it’s curly, like mine but way, way more.
“A volcano,” I answer. I am trying—so very hard—to act like everything’s normal. Jokes and all.
Abby’s mouth drops open. “Shut up.”
“No, it’s true. And today we’re going to see it up close.” I finish braiding Abby’s hair, tie it off, and check my phone. “It’s almost time to go.” Right on time, the tram arrives. “Come on, Abby.” I take Abby’s hand. “Are you coming?” I ask Afton.
“Of course she’s coming,” Abby answers. “She’s not stupid, is she? She can’t not see a volcano. Duh.”
“We don’t say stupid, Abby,” I say. “And we don’t say duh.”
Abby scoffs.
Afton has her phone out, texting again. Always texting. Phone at the table, in flagrant violation of the family rules, but then Pop’s not here to enforce them.
I’m trying not to think about Pop.
The tram starts to beep. It’s about to leave.
“Let’s go, Afton!” Abby cries, and Afton throws her phone back into her bag. We all sprint to the tram. We barely make it, but we do.
“Where are we going?” Afton asks as we’re whooshed away.
I tilt my head to look at her. “Uh, the volcano?”
She closes her eyes like I am annoying her greatly. Afton’s never been what you’d call a morning person. “I mean, where are we going to start this wonderful trip to a real-live volcano?”
“Oh. There’s like a parking lot for buses where we’ll meet up. Off the floor under the front lobby.” Clearly she did not read through the folder of helpful information about the conference that was left for us in our room. With the stuff about schedules and the outings we’re taking and what we’re supposed to bring and where we’re supposed to be. I, of course, have read the folder cover to cover.
Abby is frowning. “The volcano’s not alive, is it?”
“No.”
“Afton said it was a real-live volcano.” Abby looks troubled. It’s difficult to say what kind of worries pass through my baby sister’s head.
“I didn’t mean it was alive,” Afton clarifies. “Hey, look.”
She points to outside, where in the center of its own small island there’s a large gray bird with a yellow Mohawk. I take a quick picture. Because that’s my normal behavior. I see a pretty thing, I take a picture. For painting purposes.
Abby spends a few seconds in appreciation of the startling bird. “I’m going to call him Walter,” she says. Then she tugs at my arm. “Is this the kind of island where they have to throw people into the volcano to appease the gods?”
I frown. “How do you even know about that?”
She shrugs. “Well, is it?”
“No. I don’t think there are any more islands like that. Or if there ever were islands like that, outside of the movies.”
“Good,” she breathes. “I don’t want to become a human sacrifice. Poppy would miss me.”
I reach over and smooth down her curly hair. “And I would miss you.”
She nods, accepting my love for her so simply it hurts. “And Afton would miss me.”
Afton nods. “I would.”
“Although not as much as Ada,” Abby says, and neither of us argue the point.
“And Mom would miss you,” I add, because that, too, is something Normal-Ada would say. Because Normal-Ada would of course include Mom in our happy family.
“Mom would be sad, that’s true,” Abby says, and it’s wild to me that even at five years old, my sister seems to understand that there’s a difference. Between missing someone and being sad that they’re gone. Or maybe that’s my own messed-up thought and not Abby’s.
“I miss Poppy already.” Abby sighs and leans her head against the window as the palm trees and tropical foliage whiz past. “I wish he was going to see the volcano.”
Afton’s gaze catches mine. I look away.
“I know,” I murmur around the lump in my throat. “I miss him, too.”
The first people we see when we climb up onto the tour bus are the Wongs, minus Billy, who’s back at the conference center with Mom. Jenny Wong and her kids are occupying the first two seats on the left side of the aisle, and she’s leaned over tying one of Josie’s shoes as Afton, Abby, and I clamber up the steps. I’m usually happy to run into Jenny, because it means that Josie will also be there, so Abby will have somebody her own age to play with, i.e., less work for me. Plus, more often than not, Jenny offers to take care of Abby, too, and give me some time to myself.
But this time my stomach clenches, seeing Jenny, thinking that it’s possible—possible but not probable, I tell myself—that it was Billy I saw with Mom yesterday. Which still makes me want to throw up. So I try to slip us past her unnoticed, but then Abby of course sees them and yells, “Hi, Josie!” and Jenny looks up.
“Hi, Abby!” she greets my little sister warmly. Afton’s already scooted by her and headed straight for the back of the bus. Afton prefers the back. I like the front. Usually we compromise and sit somewhere in the middle.
Jenny turns to me. “Hello, Ada. We missed you last night at dinner. Are you feeling okay today?”
She says this like she’s concerned about me, but also like she’s a tad worried that a sick person might be about to hang out around her kids all day.
“I’m feeling much better,” I mumble. “It was something I ate. I’m okay now.”
A lie. Yesterday was what I imagine it would be like to watch your house burn down, all of your childhood treasures and family heirlooms turning to ash and you just standing there helplessly watching it happen. Knowing that things are never going to be the same again. Knowing that you are going to have to live someplace else now.
But today I’m past being sad. Today I’m officially pissed off. Which is the opposite of okay.
Jenny nods obliviously, smiling like she’s relieved. “Well, I’m glad you’ve recovered. It would be no fun to be stuck in the hotel room when you’re supposed be out and about enjoying Hawaii.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “No fun.”
I debated playing the sick card again today. But last night was bad enough. I barely made it back to the room and into my bed before Mom arrived in full doctor mode, ready to diagnose and treat my mystery illness. I closed my eyes and pretended to be too sick to look at her as she took my temperature, felt my glands, and made me change into a clean shirt. (Apparently mine had a splattering of Hawaiian bacon BBQ burger on it.) Then she gave me a bottle of cold lemon soda she’d picked up at the gift shop on the way over from the convention center, and petted my head in a maternal fashion for a few minutes, and concluded her business by saying I needed rest. There wasn’t much to do for food poisoning except to make sure I didn’t get dehydrated.
“It’s best to let it run its course,” she instructed. “If you feel like you need to vomit, don’t fight it.” She emptied out the ice bucket and stuck it on the bedside table for exactly that purpose: puking. “You’ll feel better,” she said, “if you just get it all out.”
I wish that were true.
After she was gone again I closed the curtains, trying to not even glance in the direction of the door to the adjoining room, watched brainless TV for a while, and finally went to sleep. I woke up this morning still alone. Mom had moved Afton over to her room to share a bed with Abby. A precaution in case I had the stomach flu and not an incident with a bad hamburger.
Or a bad mother, I thought bitterly when Mom bustled in again and put her hand against my forehead.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
I knew that if I said I didn’t feel well still, she’d confine me to the room and examine me over and over again throughout the day. I’d have to keep lying and pretending that the mere sight of my mother didn’t fill me with revulsion.
I also didn’t want to be hanging out in that room a second more than I had to.
So I said I was fine and chose to go on the field trip. If I went on this little excursion, I wouldn’t see Mom all day. That was good enough for me.
“Um, can Abby sit with Josie?” I ask Jenny.
“Of course,” Jenny answers. “We always love to hang out with Abby.”
“There’s going to be a volcano!” Abby exclaims. “But don’t worry; they’re not going to throw anybody to the dogs.”
“That’s good to know, sweetie,” says Jenny, laughing.
I mumble a thank-you, instruct Abby to stay with the Wongs, and flee farther back in the bus in search of Afton.
“Hey, Ada,” says a voice, and there is Nick Kelly again, staring up at me from beneath his shaggy hair in the same slightly worried way he looked at me yesterday. “Are you feeling better?”
“Oh, hi, Nick,” I say. “Yeah. I’m good.”
A lie. A lie.
“Good. You can sit here, if you want.” He gestures to the empty seat beside him.
“Thanks, but I’m sitting with my sister,” I say, and hurry past him, but when I get to the back of the bus, I find Afton already sitting with Kate Jacobi.
It’s for the best, I tell myself even though my feelings are kind of hurt that she didn’t save me a place. I probably should stay well away from Afton until I have this Mom-having-an-affair thing under wraps in my brain.
I throw myself down into an empty seat a couple rows in front of her and stuff my bag under the seat. Then I slump so I’m out of sight of everyone else. I try to force myself to relax. I gaze out the window into the hotel parking lot, where shuttles and minivans and taxis are zooming in and out like bees in a flower garden. Everyone so busy and centered on our own little worlds.
The engine for the bus suddenly roars to life.
“Aloha, everybody!” booms a voice. “My name is Kahoni, which means ‘the kiss,’ but don’t get any ideas, okay, unless you’re a really pretty lady, and then I guess I don’t mind. I’m going to be driving you today to some very special places on the Big Island. Are you ready to have some fun and learn about Hawaiian history and culture?”
There’s a chorus of weak yeses from all over the bus.
“Aw, you can do better than that,” says Kahoni, and everyone tries again, louder. “Okay then, let’s go!” he laughs, and the bus lurches forward.
We ride through the endless sea of desolate black rock for a couple hours as our driver pal Kahoni gives us the lowdown on Hawaiian history. Eventually we stop at a rest area where they let us out in a flat grassy park with picnic tables scattered around. They hand out bento boxes for lunch.
I don’t know where to sit. Eating with Afton or Jenny Wong and her family feels like a bad idea, considering how much I’ve got bottled up inside. So I make sure Abby is settled in with them and then lurk around for a few minutes before walking over and slapping my bento box down on Nick Kelly’s table.
Sweet, clueless Nick.
He’s playing a game on his phone with earphones on. I assume he’s the safest bet for a quiet, no-fuss dining experience.
I’m wrong. He pulls his headphones down around his neck the instant I sit across from him. “Hi.”
“Hi. Can I join you?”
“Let me think.” He looks deliberately thoughtful for a second, then smiles, a flash of crooked teeth. “Okay, just this once.”
“Thanks.”
It’s quiet for a minute. Then Nick says, “White people suck.”
I swear, that’s what he says.
I stare at him. I mean, Nick is about as typical a Caucasian teenage boy as they come. “Uh, what’s that?”
He points with his thumb at Kahoni a few tables away. “You know, how the white explorers brought mosquitoes to these islands? Oh, and tuberculosis. Rats. Syphilis. If you ask me, Captain Cook had it coming.”
I haven’t been paying attention to Kahoni’s history lesson. I’ve been too busy stewing over my own disasters.
“I did think it was interesting, though, when he said they traded nails for sex with the native women,” Nick adds.
And we’re back to talking about sex. Everybody is so fixated on sex.
I sigh.
“Nails, like, iron nails. Like what you build houses with,” he continues.
I’m not sure what I can say to that.
“You don’t talk a lot, do you?” he says.
“I’m just trying to eat, I guess.”
“Right. Sorry. I’m not usually this loquacious, either.” His cheeks turn pink, then his ears. “Sorry. I’ll let you eat. The food’s actually better than it looks.”
I pull off the lid of the bento box and stare inside. There are three compartments: one that holds a piece of fried chicken, another with a bunch of unidentifiable chunks of meat, and the third a large pile of white rice with shredded seaweed on top and what look like two large, bloated zombie fingers, but what turn out to be a type of purple potato.
I spear a zombie finger with my fork and eat it. It’s not bad, so I move on to the mystery meat, which I decide is teriyaki pork.
“Nene,” Nick says then.
It’s like we’re not even speaking the same language.
“What’s nene?” I ask.
“Hawaii’s state bird. It’s a goose, actually.”
I promptly spit the meat back into my napkin, and then it’s Nick who’s staring at me strangely. “You don’t like it?”
“I didn’t sign on to eat a goose!”
His eyebrows come together and then smooth as he starts to laugh. He points behind me. I turn. About five feet away a group of birds with black-and-white stripes are strutting around in the grass. Nene. On the lawn. Not on my plate.
“Oh,” I say. “Oh, thank god.”
Nick keeps laughing, until it’s hard for me not to laugh, too, in spite of everything. It is pretty funny. We laugh, and the geese honk, and for like five seconds I actually forget that my life is being turned upside down, and then Nick goes back to his phone and his game, and I resume eating the mystery meat, which is still, probably, pork.
After that Nick decides we’re buddies, and I don’t argue. He gravitates toward me whenever we stop, first at Rainbow Falls, which is gorgeous but crowded, and then to a beach where the sand is pure black. From the pier, Nick points out a sea turtle. But I can’t find it.
“I love turtles.” I squint to find the shape under the water, but all I see is reflections of light and gleams of darkness.
“What kind of turtles?”
I shrug. “Big ones. Small ones. Tortoises. Little snappers. They’re the best.” Something about turtles just speaks to me. I like their weird textures, their mix of being kind of rough and reptilian but also beautiful, somehow. Their quiet. Their steady intelligent eyes.
“Which ninja turtle are you?” Nick asks, a bit of a non sequitur. “You strike me as a Raphael,” he says. “Maybe a Leonardo.”
I don’t know the ninja turtles—they were before, and possibly after, my time—so I go with the OG artists. “Raphael was good—I like his portraits more than the religious stuff. Michelangelo’s genius kind of intimidates me—I could never accomplish what he did. But Donatello, now he’s approachable. He was interested in real people, not only ideas or storybook figures. He was a sculptor, and I’m not very good in that medium, but something about his work—I don’t know—it transfixes me. I get Donatello.”
The neural pathways of my brain immediately lead to me another sculptor: Diana Robinson, and from there, straight to Leo. Calling me his mom’s groupie. Saying that we didn’t have anything in common. If anyone asked me about my feelings for Leo at this point, I’d say I was over it now, it was yesterday’s news, but still, my chest gives a painful squeeze when I think of what he said about me.
But, again, I also recognize it for what it is: a minor bump in the hazardous road that’s become my life lately.
Nick smiles at me obliviously. “That’s right, you like art.”
“Yes. I like art.” I spot Afton walking along the beach with the Wongs, keeping up with them but looking at her phone. Something about her expression catches at me. Wistful? Resigned?
“Sometime,” Nick is saying.
“Huh?” I didn’t catch the first part of his sentence. Or any of the past two or three sentences before that.
“I said, you’ll have to show me your work. Sometime.”
“Oh. Okay, sure,” I say, but I don’t mean it.
I turn my attention back to Afton. She catches me looking at her and frowns for just a second, like a single cloud passing in front of the sun, before she smiles at something Mrs. Wong says. Guilt lies heavy in my gut. I want to tell her. I really, really do.
But I’m not going to.