“Because it’s your birthday,” she said finally, “I’ll give you another chance.”
He let out a breath. “Thank you.”
“But I’m swimming first.” She frowned at him. “You can wait upstairs.”
“It’s a long drive. We should leave as early as we can,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to get stuck out there in the dark.”
Her eyes widened. “Right. I’ll go up and change, meet you down here as fast as I can.”
He readjusted the bag with her clothes in it on his shoulder. Maybe it would be better to admit he’d touched her underwear after they were on the road.
“I’ll meet you at the front circle in the car.”
Fifteen minutes later, he was behind the wheel of his family’s first-generation hybrid with Nicki at his side in a faded blue T-shirt and cropped jeans, heading south. He was in agony, wondering when she’d ask him where her clothes had gone. The Hana Highway was on the opposite corner of the island, hours away, often choked with tourist traffic, and he had a moment’s hesitation about spending his entire thirtieth birthday stuck in a car instead of…
Well, that was just it. Would he rather be drinking alone at the condo, staring at himself naked in the mirror, flexing his muscles to feel young and vigorous?
No, that was so
last
year.
“Ansel?”
They’d been driving for about thirty minutes, but because of the traffic, they still hadn’t left the western coastline. Soon they’d turn left and head north toward the airport before they could go east into the rainforest, a vastly different microclimate from the arid, sunny west. “Yes?”
“Did you get my clothes? The ones I had on earlier?”
What could she do, jump out of the car? “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. I was trying to be helpful.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“Thought it might creep you out,” he said.
“It did kinda.”
Braking for the row of slow-moving cars ahead, he shrugged. “I didn’t want you to have any excuses about coming.”
“And you think handing me my panties, which you found in my bedroom and I’d already worn, would persuade me?”
He pointed at a fruit stand on the other side of the road. “That guy sells sugar cane. Should I stop? Have you ever chewed on sugar cane?”
“In the future, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t touch any of my things,” she said.
He felt his face get hot. “Gotcha. Sorry.”
She craned around to look at the fruit stand disappearing behind them. “Maybe we could stop on the way back.”
“Deal.” He eased his foot off the gas, letting out a slow breath of relief.
He’d turned her down, clumsily changed his mind, then touched her underwear without her permission.
She was incredibly nice to forgive him.
He glanced at her.
And beautiful, too.
He turned his gaze back to the road, heart pounding, wondering if he’d developed a driving phobia of his own.
I’m way over my head with this one.
* * *
Nicki enjoyed the beginning of the drive more than she wanted. Having apparently shaken off his earlier depression, Ansel was a cheerful, talkative companion who pointed out rainbows and volcanos and encouraged her to come back in the spring for whale watching. He told her about a woman starting a solar business here on Maui, and how he was thinking about investing in her new company, which led him to tell her about a friend with a restaurant in San Francisco, and then about a dog-walking business in the East Bay.
It was a little weird he hadn’t told her about getting her clothes, but he’d obviously been dreadfully embarrassed about it. It was a treat to see confident, cheerful Ansel lose his cool when she’d confronted him. He’d blushed so red, she’d nearly burst out laughing.
When they passed the road to Kihei, where he said he was buying an office building, the car fell quiet. He didn’t say another word until about twenty minutes later, when, as they were passing the airport in Kahului, he pulled into a strip mall and parked in front of a surf shop.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t know that I’m ready for surfing just yet,” Nicki said. “I think I need to master the hotel pool first.”
Ansel pointed to the row of new buildings in the neighboring lot. “My business partner wants us to buy one of those next. After we close the deal we’re working on now.”
She peered over at the small calligraphed sign on the wall. “Medical offices?”
He bent over to rest his forehead on the steering wheel. “Dental,” he muttered into the plastic.
“Sounds practical,” she said. “Everyone has teeth.”
“If they go to the dentist.”
“Exactly. Very motivating,” she replied. “But you don’t want to buy it?”
“Look at it.” He rolled his head back, yawned. “I’m falling into a coma just looking at it.”
“So don’t buy it.”
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t,” she said. “Why should you have to do what your friend wants?”
“Because I twisted his arm to work with me, and if I’m difficult…”
“Yeah?”
He shot her a sad puppy look. “He’ll dump me.”
She hesitated. He was only sort of kidding. “But aren’t you the one with the cash?”
Shaking his head, he played with the buttons on the aftermarket GPS attached to the window with a suction cup. “You don’t understand.”
“All right, explain. What’s so great about this guy?”
He sighed. “Brand Henry Warren, Jr. is really, really good at making money.”
“So?”
“So I want to make money too. To date, I’ve only shown an aptitude for spending it.”
For the first time since she’d arrived in Hawaii, she studied him dispassionately, as she would if she’d never seen him before. His well-worn sandals were high quality but old. His khaki shorts were pale from many washings, and his San Francisco Giant’s T-shirt was a popular commodity garment sold across the Bay Area. Even the car was at least eight years old, not the type a swinging playboy would choose; zero to sixty… eventually.
“It looks like you only spend money on other people, not yourself,” she said. “Your friend’s restaurant, those other businesses…”
“Don’t remind me. Brand is trying to break me of that habit.”
“I don’t like the sound of
Brand
,” she said. “Even his name is corporate. He’ll name his kids ‘Proctor’ and ‘Gamble.’”
“It’s easy to give money to friends. I’m trying to learn how to find successful businesses. It’ll be better for everyone in the long run,” he said. “They can hire employees, support their families, and contribute to the tax base of their community.”
She made a retching sound. “Let me guess. Brand told you that?”
“Bank commercial. But it was very touching.” He restarted the car and maneuvered the city streets of Kahului, past the airport, then out along the country highway. Both of them slipped into silence. When they reached Paia, a small artsy town on the coast that reminded her of gourmet ghettos around San Francisco, he pulled over and they went into a cute little place to order a picnic lunch, along with a line of two dozen other tourists, and then they were on their way again. So far, she agreed the drive was pretty, but she wasn’t sure she would enjoy six more hours of the same, even with Ansel’s company.
Especially with his company.
Soon the forest thickened, the air grew moist, cooler, and the long highway behind them became narrow and twisted.
“Here we are,” Ansel said. “The famous Hana Highway.” Braking, he drove off the road and parked in a turnout of gravel under a lush overhang of flora. The movie set of
Jurassic Park
, ferns and humid air and chirping exotic birds, surrounded them. Then, to her surprise, he got out of the car, walked around, and opened her door, smiling.
Her heart had understood what he was doing before her mind processed it. Pounding wildly, it bounced off her lungs, restricting airflow. “No,” she said, gazing up at him.
“Your turn.” He opened the door wider and held out a hand.
“You didn’t warn me.”
“You would’ve said no.”
Licking her lips, she glanced around in a panic. “Maybe I’ve never driven a hybrid before.”
“It’s not a spaceship. I think you can figure it out.”
She had to close her eyes and focus on breathing. He was trying to be helpful, but the surprise made it worse. If she’d had a few hours to get used to the idea, she wouldn’t be suffocating right now.
Deep breath.
Just a car.
She could do it.
His eyes softened. “Hey, Nicki, I’m sorry. Never mind. I was just kidding.” He started to close the door.
“No!” She thrust her leg out. “I’ll do it.”
“No, really, it’s a crazy drive. Windy one-lane bridges, traffic, distracting views…”
Seatbelt unbuckled, lungs pumping, she climbed out of the car, hand gripping the metal roof, slick with mist, and swatted away the tendrils of panic rising up from her toes. “I’m thirty years old. I’ve been driving a car half my life in urban California. I’m capable, sensible, and totally fucking insane because I’m about to puke.” Folding over, she braced her hands on her knees.
“I’ll drive,” she heard him say from a foggy distance. “It’s okay. Can I get you anything?”
“A spine,” she said through her teeth, straightening. She drew lush rainforest air into her lungs, which reminded her where she was, how lucky she was to be there. A tree with peeling red-and-purple bark over a lime-green trunk rose up in front of her, straight as a redwood. She focused her attention on it to calm herself. “What is that?”
He turned. “Painted bark eucalyptus. Pretty cool, isn’t it?”
She saw now that the river of rental cars was slowing down to stare at them, not just at the trees. Faces peered out at her from the windows. “Fantastic.” She took a clumsy step, then another, until she was walking behind the trunk of the car and reaching for the driver’s-side door. “But we’re making a traffic jam. Let’s go.”
After hesitating only a moment, he flashed a smile and jumped into the passenger seat. “Hybrids have a few quirks you need to learn…”
She took hold of the wheel with the iron grip of a cliff-hanging villain in an action flick, signaled, and eased out into the row of slow-moving cars. “I have the same car at home.”
His eyes widened. “But you said you’d never driven one before.”
“I said, ‘maybe I haven’t.’ But I have.”
“Sneaky,” he said. “Some might even call that lying.”
“Some people are a pain in the ass.”
He laughed. “You’re doing great.”
“Don’t patronize me, old man.”
“Damn, you’re grouchy.”
“Quit your blabbing,” she said. “I need to concentrate.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him grinning at her.
Chapter 9
W
ITHIN
TEN
MINUTES
,
HER
ANXIETY
had faded to a sour memory, the way an early morning nightmare weakens by breakfast time. If it had been an unfamiliar car, perhaps she wouldn’t have managed it so well, but it was the same year, even the same common slate-blue as hers back in Berkeley, and she had to focus only on the wiggly road and the brake lights on the rented silver compact twenty feet ahead. Her pulse slowed to normal levels, and although she couldn’t spare any energy to appreciate the view, she managed to maintain consciousness.
When the traffic came to a stop, her nerves calmed, and she became aware of Ansel’s gaze on her. He wasn’t saying anything, just watching.
Was he struggling to place her face? Or was he just wondering why she was so screwed up?
She wished that night had never happened. In the days and months afterward, she’d been secretly happy to have had as much fun as they did, even if she’d wanted so much more. The taste of his skin, the feel of his tongue in her mouth, the smell of his body on her sheets the next day—she nurtured them as the most delicious memories she’d had from college.
Now she’d give them up in exchange for meeting him fresh and spending the day with him as a stranger in this beautiful, magical place. She was glad she hadn’t reminded him about that night in college. They’d been kids, still teenagers, what did it matter now?
“Try to find a parking spot along the side of the road,” he said. “There, behind that one. There’s a waterfall here you’d like.”
“Are there other ones ahead?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “A bunch. Bigger and better ones. But this one is nice, too.”
She wasn’t ready to stop; she could feel the old fear lurking under her skin, waiting to take over if she let it. “I’m going to keep driving if you don’t mind. Stopping now would break my mojo.”
He reached into the backseat for the bag from the deli. “No problem. Mojo onward.” He pulled out a package and unfolded it. “Banana bread?”
The traffic was creeping onto a one-lane bridge ahead of them. She shook her head, eyes locked on the road and not on the rushing white water beneath it.
“It’s really good. Best in Maui.” He waved it under her nose.
“Do you want to die on your birthday?”
He withdrew his hand and took a bite. “There are worse ways to go,” he said with his mouth full. “Damn, this is good. You sure?” He pushed it at her again.
The traffic forced her to stop in the middle of the narrow bridge. She heard the roar of water tumbling beneath them and imagined it was the old stone itself collapsing. Surely the original engineers hadn’t anticipated this level of congestion when they designed the bridge, or it would be two lanes. One day the overburdened structure would crack and tumble into the rapids, and the media would broadcast the disaster across the globe: Tragedy in the Tropics!
That day could easily be today. It would happen to some poor people, why not them?
“It’s still warm,” he continued, pushing the bread against her cheek. “Feel it.”
The sweat on her hands made the wheel slippery. “I hate you,” she whispered.
He drew back. Folding the wrapper back around the bread, he said, his voice wounded, “Just trying to help you relax.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t talking to you.” Traffic started moving again. She eased her foot off the brake, sighing as she pulled the car up to solid ground. The rapids and the bridge were behind them.