Everything, Everything (21 page)

A:
Chewing gum. Also, kissing.

Q:
Which is the best seat: window, center, or aisle?

A:
Window, definitely. The world is quite a sight from 32,000 feet above it. Note that a window means your traveling companion may then be stuck next to a spectacularly loquacious bore. Kissing (your companion, not the bore) is also effective in this situation.

Q:
How many times per hour is cabin air refreshed?

A:
Twenty.

Q:
How many people can an airline blanket comfortably cover?

A:
Two. Be sure to raise the seat arm between you and snuggle as close as possible for maximum coverage.

Q:
How is it possible that humans invented something as amazing as an airplane and something as awful as a nuclear bomb?

A:
Human beings are mysterious and paradoxical.

Q:
Will I encounter turbulence?

A:
Yes. Into all lives a little turbulence must fall.

THE CAROUSEL

“I’VE DECIDED BAGGAGE
carousels are a perfect metaphor for life,” Olly says from atop the edge of a nonmoving one.

Neither of us has any checked luggage. All I’m carrying is a small backpack with essentials—toothbrush, clean underwear,
Lonely Earth Maui
guidebook, and
The Little Prince
. Of course I had to take it with me. I’m going to read it one more time to see how the meaning’s changed.

“When did you decide this?” I ask.

“Just now.” He’s in a crackpot-theory mood, just waiting for me to ask him to elaborate.

“Want to give it some more thought before you regale me?” I ask.

He shakes his head and jumps down right in front of me. “I’d like to begin the
regaling
now. Please.”

I gesture magnanimously for him to continue.

“You’re born. You get thrown onto this crazy contraption called life that just goes around and around.”

“People are the luggage in this theory?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“Sometimes you fall off prematurely. Sometimes you get so damaged by other pieces of luggage falling on your head that you don’t really function anymore. Sometimes you get lost or forgotten and go around forever and ever.”

“What about the ones that get picked up?”

“They go on to lead unextraordinary lives in a closet somewhere.”

I open and close my mouth a few times, unsure where to begin.

He takes this as agreement. “See? It’s flawless.” His eyes are laughing at me.

“Flawless,” I say, meaning him and not the theory. I thread my fingers through his and look around. “Does it look like you remember?” Olly’s been here once before, on a family vacation when he was ten.

“I don’t really remember much. I remember my dad saying it wouldn’t kill them to spend a little money on first impressions.”

The terminal is dotted with greeters—Hawaiian women in long, flower-patterned dresses holding welcome signs and strands of purple and white orchid leis draped over their forearms. The air does not smell like the ocean. It smells industrial, like jet fuel and cleaning products. It’s a smell I could come to love because it would mean that I was traveling. All around us the noise level rises and falls, punctuated by choruses of
alohas
sung out by greeters and families alike. As first impressions go, this one isn’t bad. I wonder how his dad has managed to live in the world all his life without knowing what was precious in it.

“In your baggage theory, your mom is one of the bags that gets damaged?”

He nods.

“And your sister? She’s one of the ones that gets lost, goes around and around forever?”

He nods again.

“And you?”

“Same as my sister.”

“And your dad?”

“He’s the carousel.”

I shake my head. “No,” I say, and grab his hand. “He doesn’t get to have everything, Olly.”

I’ve embarrassed him. He tugs his hand out of mine, moves a small distance away, studies the terminal.

“You, my dear, need a lei,” he says. He nods at a greeter who hasn’t yet found her party.

“I don’t,” I say.

“Oh, but you do,” he insists. “Wait here.” He makes his way over to her. At first she shakes her head no, but Olly persists, as he’s wont to do. A few seconds later they’re both looking over at me. I wave to prove to her that I’m nice and friendly, the sort of person you might want to give a free lei to.

She relents. Olly comes back triumphant. I reach out to take it, but he places it over my head instead.

“You know leis were traditionally given only to royalty,” I say, quoting from my guidebook. He gathers my hair into his hands and caresses the back of my neck before letting the lei fall into place.

“Who doesn’t know that, princess?”

I finger the strand, feeling as if the lei has transferred some of its beauty to me.

“Mahalo nui loa,”
I say. “It means
thank you very much
.”

“You read every single word in that guidebook, didn’t you?”

I nod my head. “If I had a suitcase,” I say, “I would love it. I would shrink-wrap it when I traveled. I would put stickers from every place I’d ever been on it. And when I saw it on the carousel I would grab it with both hands and I’d be so happy to have it because then my adventures could really begin.”

He looks at me, a nonbeliever confronted with, if not evidence, then at least the possibility of God. He pulls me into his arms and we’re wrapped around each other, his face buried in my hair and my face pressed into his chest, no daylight between our bodies.

“Don’t die,” he says.

“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.”

He 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 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.