Lefty gave each of us a large ginger leaf with holes in it he’d punched out for eyes, and we put those over our faces. It helped, though the leaf almost melted and my eyeballs were sizzling. But who could stop watching?
I’d never in my whole life seen anything like it. It was so awesome to think that the earth was just a ball of fire held together by a thin, dried shell, and inside it was raging to get out, like now.
But the lava didn’t flow anywhere. It just fell into the crater and made a giant cinder cone behind it.
While me and Tina were looking, Lefty walked off for a while.
Tina said, “This is kind of spooky. What if the whole crater blows?”
I said, “Yeah, but we’d never know it, would we?” And she said, “Probably not.”
And that’s when it happened.
Not the volcano.
Tina.
She moved around behind me and put her arms around me in a real soft kind of bear hug. The top of my head only came up to her eyes. But she hugged me so nice and easy, and I was so surprised I couldn’t even think of what to do or say, especially when she started rocking, just the smallest bit, side to side.
Ho.
I just let her do that.
Even though the heat from the volcano was frying me and making me sweat like a spit-roast pig.
I could see Lefty making his way back over to us, and as he was coming closer, Tina said, “Izzy.”
That’s all. Just my name.
We stood there, and all the time Lefty was getting closer and closer. When Tina saw him, she kissed my ear and let go.
We left soon after that because it was way too hot. But I was so far gone I didn’t care where we were by then. I knew from that moment, and really for the very first time, that now we wouldn’t be just friends. I didn’t know what to do about that.
And that ain’t all.
There’s still the trip to Honolulu on the
Angel-Baby II.
It’s weird, because it just keeps getting worse and worse. Or better and better, I don’t know.
Jeese.
And that’s where I am right now.
On the boat.
Just me and Tina.
Alone.
See my problem?
We left early this morning.
It was a windy, overcast day when we got down to the pier, and Lefty said, “Maybe you two should wait a day, let this weather pass.”
But Tina said, “Nah, Daddy, we can do it.”
Lefty looked at me like,
you
tell her, Izzy. But I just shrugged and said, “I don’t get seasick.”
He grinned and tapped my shoulder, like that was what he wanted to hear. “Fine,” he said. “Go.” Just like my mom. “But if you get down by Kawaihae and it’s gotten worse, you set in there and wait out the weather, okay? I don’t want you two out there in a nasty sea. I got enough to worry about with this damn hip.”
Tina gave him a big hug. “Don’t worry, Daddy. I know what I’m doing.” Then she turned to me and said, “Let’s go,” and that was that.
We set out on that stormy morning with Tina standing at the wheel. She had a kind of imp look on her face when she checked out that bad weather, so sure of herself. I thought, Man, here we go.
When we got out past the lighthouse the world opened up, free of land, free of people. Just me and Tina and the sea. It was unreal . . . and so was the weather, in a bad way.
Now, ever since that night at the volcano, Tina’s been on my mind. In my dreams at night she’s kissing my ear and holding me in that soft bear hug, the both of us frying in the heat and not caring about it one little bit.
Wow.
So here I am on the boat, wondering if Tina ever thinks about the volcano like I do. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she just felt good that night, or something. I keep trying to stop thinking about it. Impossible.
It takes us a couple of hours to get down by Kawaihae, where her dad wanted us to set in if the weather looked worse. Well, it does look worse, but not terrible worse.
Tina smiles and winks.
I say, “You gonna call him?”
“Nope.”
A little while later she says, “Shall we see if we can make Lahaina by nightfall, or you want to check in at Kawaihae and make Daddy happy?”
What can I say to that?
So I go around tying everything down. It’s going to get a lot rougher out in the channel between the islands of Hawaii and Maui. Alenuihaha, in case you didn’t know, is one of the world’s most treacherous ocean passages.
As we rumble out from the protection of the mountains on the north end of Hawaii, the wind smashes into us like an overloaded cane truck. It rises up and spits whitecaps across the ocean for as far as you can see, and the swells crank higher, and deeper, and it’s as wild as I’ve ever seen it.
But it isn’t really stupid to be out here. Not yet, anyway. Tina would not have come this far if it was. I know that girl.
Nothing to do now but wait and see what happens. Ride it out and pray some rogue wave doesn’t roll the boat.
I think about Lefty. “Don’t you think you should call your dad? He’ll worry.”
“No. He’ll tell me to turn around.”
I shrug.
“We can do it, Iz. I’ve seen worse.”
“You’re the skipper, Angel-Baby.”
She grins real big. “Say that again, would you? I like the sound of it.”
She
does
have a sense of humor.
By three o’clock the sky is as black as tire-dump smoke. We’re fully out into the channel now. Behind us Hawaii is barely visible. Ahead is Maui, coming closer, growing more visible, but we’re still way out in the middle of a very angry sea.
The swells rise up and we rise with them, then we slam down into the troughs between. Tina clings to the wheel with both hands, muscling the rudder to stay on course. I grip the seat across from her, gritting my teeth as the boat bangs ahead, pitching and rolling like a dead fly whirling down a flushed toilet.
Tina glances over at me. “Almost as good as the volcano, huh? Remember that?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t know about her, but the volcano itself isn’t what I’m thinking about. “What were we doing there, anyway, Tina? I mean, you know . . . hugging and all.”
I say it just like that.
She’s quiet a moment. Then, “I wish this boat had windshield wipers like in a car, you know? This ocean is a mess.” Like I didn’t even say what I said.
Fine, I think. I don’t want to know anyway.
Which is a big fat lie.
By five o’clock the channel is tossing us around worse than ever, rattling every loose thing in every drawer and nook and stowage cabinet on that boat. The racket is incredible, like if you take a drawer full of silverware and drop it on the kitchen floor every ten seconds for five hours straight. You wouldn’t believe it. You’d just have to hear it for yourself.
Tina shouts over the noise, “It’ll get calmer just as soon as we get into the lee of the island.”
I’m ready for
that.
Well, we make it, we slip into the lee where the island blocks the wind, and the ocean goes back to just being cranky.
We finally head in toward Lahaina harbor. It’s about seven at night. It’s already dark because night falls like a rock in the islands. The sky is still thick with clouds, but the wind has finally stopped and the ocean is coming flat again. I don’t think I’ll ever in my life forget seeing the lights on shore, how they reached out over the water, welcoming us in, and how I could hardly wait to get on solid ground.
Several yachts are anchored in the bay, and maybe five more are in slips inside the breakwater. It’s all so peaceful after what we’d just been through.
Lucky for us there are no boats docked at the pier, so we tie up there for the night.
Now, I gotta say, the quiet after Tina shuts down that boat is awesome. After a day of humming engines and rattling loose objects and howling wind and a banging, pounding hull, I’m in no-noise heaven. I jump off the boat and I don’t want to get back on it, and I say that to Tina.
“Yeah, you’re right, little big man, let’s get off this tank and go get something to eat.”
Lahaina is as welcoming as a fresh papaya. The air is warm, and the lights inside the stores and restaurants along the shore glow like yellow gold. Ho, man, talk about romantic. We just walk around, amazed at being here at all. And even when Tina takes my hand and holds it, I’m so happy I don’t even think about what we’re doing.
We find a small restaurant, a low, dark green, old-style board building with white-framed windows that edges the ocean. Candles glow in orange jars on every table. Soft Hawaiian music is playing in the background. We get a table by the sea, and after we sit down, Tina reaches across the table and grabs my hands and squeezes them.
“Can you believe where we are, Izzy?”
I shake my head. It’s amazing, all right.
“I’ve never felt so alive in all my life,” she says.
We order and eat and talk about whatever comes into our minds. I probably won’t remember any of it, really. Not the words, anyway. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget what I feel and see. Like, out in the distance there are two boat lights crawling along the horizon. And the music, Cyril Pahinui playing “Panini Pua Kea,” so soft in the background. And a plane light slowly blinking across the black sky, now opening through the clouds, with a million stars in the infinite distance. And a small freckle just to the left of Tina’s mouth that I’d never noticed before.
“Know what I want more than anything in the world?” Tina says, bringing me back.
I blink. “What?”
“A hot bath.”
“Well, I could heat some water in the galley and fill up the fish box for you.”
She laughs. “You are so funny, Izzy, you know that? And cute. I like you. I’ve always liked you.”
I look down and mumble something.
“I have an idea,” she says. “If I can’t take a bath, at least I can jump in the ocean and hose off at the faucet on the pier. How ’bout you? You up for it?”
So we hike down the coast to where there’s a beach and we can get away from the harbor water, which smells like boat fuel. At this dark beach we just walk straight into the ocean with our clothes on, our T-shirts and shorts. We go in to waist high and sit down in the water looking back toward shore. I think I’m in heaven. Maybe I am.
Back at the pier, we hose off in fresh water. Then Tina goes aboard and changes into dry clothes. Then me.
Afterward we sit side by side in the dark on the roof of the
Angel-Baby II,
looking out to sea with stars popping out of the black night like silver ice. A slight breeze rises up and cools my face. Funny how small things seem so big in these moments. I don’t want any of it to end.
I have it bad. You don’t
know
how bad.
And that right there is my problem.
Because then Tina says, “Izzy?”
Then she waits, saying no more.
She waits for me to look at her. But I’m kind of scared to.
Finally, I do.
“Izzy . . . will you kiss me?”
Yahhh!
I have no words in me to answer that.
“Really, Izzy. Will you?”
Finally I say, “I guess so, yeah.”
“Good. Come with me.”
She stands and reaches down to pull me up. I follow her down into the cabin. “Wait,” she says, and goes down the companionway to the galley.
I stand alone in the aisle between the table and the bunk, thinking, Oh no, where am I going to sleep tonight? On the bunk? On deck? Or . . .
My hands start to sweat.
Then I hear music on the boat’s sound system—piano, sax, soft drums, guitar.
Tina pops back up the companionway. “My favorite musician.”
“Who is it?” I didn’t even have a clue.
“Houston Person. Kind of a weird name, but boy can he play that saxophone. Listen.”
It’s the kind of stuff you hear coming out of restaurants and bars when you’re wandering around the village late at night. I like it. For real. I
really
like it.
“Good, isn’t it?”
I nod. “Yeah, sweet.”
“What I want to do is this, Izzy,” she says, then pauses. “I . . . I want our first kiss to be one we’re never going to forget. I’ve been thinking about it. I came up with an idea.”
She waits, letting that sink in.
Well, it’s sinking in, all right.
I say, “And your idea is—”
“To kiss you from the first to the last note of my favorite song,” she says, butting in. “The song is called ‘But Beautiful.’ ”
You know what I say?
Nothing. Not one word.
Tina smiles and goes to put that song on. “Don’t run away, now,” she says, turning back at the companionway.
The song that was playing suddenly stops.
There’s a pause.
Tina comes running back. Her eyes sparkle, like diamonds, like stars, like the sun on a stream.
A new song starts, a warm, tender-note piano all by itself, and it’s real dreamy. Sweet, sweet honey in my ears. Tina with those deep, smiling eyes takes my face in her hands and pulls me up close, and I swear there’s a glow all around her, like sunrise.
Then when the sax comes in, she kisses me right when it starts. And, jeez, this makes me embarrassed, but her . . . her lips are so soft and smooshy they make my mind kind of go off, you know? Like peacock feathers, opening up and expanding into every color you could even imagine. I lose all my strength. And when I hear the deep bass and now the piano again in the background, my mind sails away like a lost balloon. I see lights and stars.
And . . .
And the sax plays on and on and on, so pure, so warm, so incredibly smooth, and all the time Tina’s kissing me and hugging me and rocking ever so slightly with the music like she did at the volcano, and it’s so good and so right and so real that something bursts inside me, like a door opening in a breeze, or a wave washing up on the sand.
Something.
And I wonder if I’ll ever be able to come back from this deep, deep place I find myself in.
Toward the end of the song a wave of perfect notes flings me way out over the ocean, only I don’t fall, I just keep on sailing out and out and out, and if there really is a place called paradise, or heaven, or whatever—I am there. I’m in that place, sailing out so far I can never come back.