Chapter 22 The Ride
The Ride
Hekili: thunder; to thunder; figuratively, passion or rage
Minnow sat upright, wiping her eyes as sand poured down her back. Even more reason to swim when she got home. Luke was still
headed to her end of the beach and she figured he must have forgotten something. Just before hitting the sand, he cut the
engine and tilted the prop up.
He was looking right at her. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”
There was no question in his voice.
She stood and dusted off her rear. “How did you know I was down here?”
“Just a hunch.”
“No, really. Tell me.”
“I went to the bar to grab some nuts and a bag of chips for my ride and saw Sawyer. He told me.”
Minnow went to the water’s edge. Fortunately, she was wearing jean shorts, because the tiniest wave splashed up on her legs,
soaking them.
“Where are you going at this hour?” she asked.
“I was hoping to see some of the meteor shower before that bank of clouds moves in.”
She hadn’t heard anything of a meteor shower, and stars had begun to show but only in the northeastern part of the sky. The
rest was a blank slate of gunmetal ready to swallow them up.
“Fine. I’ll come. As long as you’re not going to be fishing.”
“Cross my heart. Not tonight.”
She didn’t have it in her to ask anything else, so she waded in deeper, grabbed his hand and let him pull her into the boat.
He lifted her as though she weighed no more than a leaf and was just as precious.
“Do you want a life vest?” he asked.
She was quick to answer. “What do you think?”
“Just had to ask. Safety first.”
It was hard to tell if he was serious, but just being on the water made her feel a little lighter, and she leaned against
the center console, grabbing on to a leaning post for support. This boat felt so much more substantial than the little Whaler
she and Nalu had been tootling around in. There was room to spread out, and she made sure to keep a safe distance between
herself and Luke. Already she could feel the heat coming off his skin and hear the soft whoosh of his heartbeat.
As a girl, she had thought that everyone could hear the things she could. She remembered asking her father when the eggs would
hatch as they passed underneath a heron’s nest high in cypress.
“How do you know there are eggs up there?” he’d asked.
“I can hear the babies wiggling around inside them. They’re almost ready.”
He gave her a strange look, then said, “How about we come check every morning? That way we’ll know for sure.”
They hatched three days later. The earth and the animals spoke to those who were willing to listen.
That’s what her father told her. Her mother, on the other hand, would tell her what a great imagination she had when Minnow said she could hear chirps of the bats hanging in the attic or fish nibbling on kelp.
Eventually she stopped mentioning it and the heightened sensitivity became a secret she held close to her heart.
In the boat neither spoke as Luke navigated them out of the bay. The engine purred along, and as they headed seaward she watched
the lights from the resort grow smaller and smaller. She kept waiting for Luke to turn south, but he didn’t.
“Hale Niuhi is that way,” she finally said.
“Are you in a hurry?”
She sighed and resigned herself to let him take her wherever he wanted. “No, I guess not.”
“How about we just pretend the world back there doesn’t exist and enjoy this stunning evening,” he said. “Have you eaten yet?”
“No.”
“Good.”
It felt nice to be on a boat at night without wearing ten layers and a wool beanie. Even with the light wind on her face,
she was perfectly comfortable. But she felt on edge—mad at herself and mad at this crazy world that couldn’t seem to see beyond
the immediate and how the entire planet was all one beautiful and troubled organism.
“Why is that good? Are you going to share your nuts and chips with me? Or do you have ‘opihi?” she asked.
He slowed the boat down to a crawl. “I only eat ‘opihi fresh, and believe it or not, I have a big sandwich and a tub of mac salad in that cooler back there. Only one fork, though.”
A tiny crack formed in her armor. “Do you do this often? Go out just to eat and watch the stars?”
“Lately, yeah. There’s something about this island that makes me want to be outside all the time. I feel restless when I’m
indoors, like I might be missing something spectacular. Have you noticed?”
Why did he have to sound like such a kindred spirit? It made her like him even more, when she wanted not to like him at all.
“All hours of the day and night. I think it’s the warmth and the color of the water.”
“That, but more. If you had asked me five years ago if I ever wanted to live in Hawai?i, I would have shaken my head. But now that I’m here, I’m not sure I’ll be able to leave. The pull is physical.”
She understood. She’d felt it too. “Like an umbilical cord.”
He shot her a glance. “You could say that, yeah.”
“Strange how it’s all the same ocean but so different than the West Coast, like another planet. But as magical as it is here,
I’ll never leave my sharks.”
He went quiet for a bit, and Minnow turned to look back at the land. There were only tiny patches of lights here and there,
and the four tall mountains stood dark against the stars, cutouts of massive pyramids.
“Did you know they have orcas in these waters?” Luke asked.
“I’d heard they occasionally visit.”
“Every few years. Last month I got lucky and ran into a small pod about five miles south of here. Four females and three males.”
“What a shocker that must have been. Do they come all the way from the mainland, like the white sharks?” she asked.
“Nah, we believe there’s a Central Pacific population—you can tell them apart by their markings—and they veer into the island
chain now and then.”
“We?” she asked.
A pause. “Those of us who . . . know about orcas. They’re in my blood, what can I say?”
Her heart sang for him because there was a sadness in the way he said it, almost an apology. And she knew that feeling well.
Being misunderstood. Apart.
“You don’t have to say anything. I get that,” she said.
“Most people don’t.”
“Would you rather be in the water with an orca or a white shark?” she asked, wanting to lighten the mood, both for his sake
and her own.
He leaned sideways toward her. “You must not know much about orcas, ma’am.”
She had to laugh. “Excuse me, but do you know who you’re talking to?”
“A gorgeous and arguably mad marine biologist who has a bunch of fancy letters at the end of her name.”
Heat collected on her neck and the hidden places on her body. “Gorgeous and mad are both debatable, and I do know some about orcas, but not as much as I’d like.”
He leaned back, head tilting skyward. “To answer your question, give me an orca any day. As the largest member of the dolphin
family, they are quite possibly the most intelligent animal in the water and they rarely attack humans in the wild. I hate
to break it to you, but I think you might be one of the only people alive who would rather swim with Carcharodon carcharias than Orcinus orca.”
There was something so appealing about a man who spoke Latin to her, and she felt a deep longing for him to show her his northern
undersea world and the giant dolphins that inhabited it. Something she understood would probably never happen, and yet a vision
of them both in full wet suits staring down a curious orca flitted across her mind like an old black-and-white film. So clear
it unsettled her.
“I’ve seen a few pods in Northern California, just passing through, but never had the chance to go down with them. Their size
is shocking after getting used to bottlenose dolphins. Maybe in another life I’ll get to know them better.”
“Yeah,” was all he said.
They finally veered south, and they rode for another fifteen minutes or so before Luke cut the engine. Her eyes had adjusted
to the night sky, and she watched him go to the built-in cooler and pull out a plastic bag and two bottles, then lay a sunscreen-infused
towel on top of the cooler.
“Sorry, it’s a little damp. I wasn’t expecting company,” he said, popping open the caps of the bottles in a one-two pop and handing her one.
His hand brushed against hers, and something about his rough skin gave her a rush between her thighs.
Whatever this was between them had a life of its own, and it felt like the more she resisted, the more she was drawn to him.
The dangerous unknown had always appealed to her, and Luke in his own beautiful way was just that.
Minnow sat on one side of the food bag, Luke on the other. The sound of deep ocean rose from below them, a blue and insistent
hum.
“Do you hear that?” Luke asked, tilting his head away from her and listening.
“Hear what?”
“The abyss. It has its own language. When I was a kid, my pops would take me out in this old canoe he found on the beach and
restored, and we would paddle straight for the horizon. It was a Salish canoe, I think, with no outrigger. One wrong move
and you were toast. We’d only go out on calm days, and I remember my dad talking about the silence and how much he loved it.
I remember thinking to myself that it was far from silent. Water lapping on wood, distant gulls and the sound of the ocean
breathing.”
Minnow felt her heart swell. She wanted to tell him that she heard it too, along with the singing of the stars, but she had
held it in for so long that no words would come. Instead, she took a gulp of the ice-cold beer.
Luke went on. “I know it sounds crazy, but when you spend your whole life outside like I did, it’s just natural. Anyway, sorry
for rambling, you’re probably starving.”
“No, I like to hear you talk.”
It was the plain and simple truth, but saying it out loud gave it life—it being this thing that was growing between them. In the dark it was hard to read his expression, but she thought he might
have smiled.
Carefully, he pulled out a sandwich and unwrapped it, handing her half. “I hope you like jalapenos.”