Chapter 7
“Come on, Zar. You’re really going to act like you don’t want in on this? It’s pumping out there.” Moondog gestured toward the clean six-foot waves rolling onto Banyans Beach.
“I’m good, I told you. Mia’s out there in the lineup. Go bug her.”
“Good to see the groms so stoked,” he mused, using the surf term for a young person.
She took a swig from her hibiscus soda. A cooler sat between her lawn chair and a straw mat.
A large beach umbrella shaded her from the midday sun.
A few feet away, her wallet was double-bagged and buried under the sand, with a piece of coral marking the spot.
Nearby, Eddie dug in the sand as if the future of the world depended on him finding a route through the Earth’s core.
Even though he was named after the Hawaiian surf legend Eddie Aikau, he showed no interest in surfing.
“Are you, like, reading?” Moondog stared at the textbook open on her lap.
“That’s the general idea. It’s one of the building blocks of learning, haven’t you heard?”
He shrugged as if none of her words made any sense, and jogged back toward the water’s edge. She shook off the droplets of ocean water he’d scattered over her, then watched with envy as he duck-dived through a wave.
Mia caught a nice A-frame, rode it flawlessly for a breathtaking stretch, then dumped out. She didn’t like having to work her way back out to the lineup, preferring to maximize her wave time. Zara had no idea where she’d found a black bikini—probably dyed it, come to think of it.
She sighed and turned her focus back to the page.
The class on torts was a bitch, and this online law school stuff was probably a massive waste of time.
But it was something she could do in her time off, at home, and she’d already completed half the credits.
If she actually managed to complete the program, she’d try her hand at the bar exam next year.
If she passed that, she could work on appealing her dad’s absurdly long sentence.
As a bonus, she’d have a career that paid better than telling tourists where to see monk seals.
It had all seemed to make perfect sense, but right now, trying hard to stare at her textbook and not at the ocean, she was rethinking the whole plan.
Not that she didn’t like the law; she found the work pretty easy.
Word had already spread among the locals that if they needed legal advice, Zara was their girl.
In fact, one of her “clients” was currently running barefoot across the beach toward her.
“Zara!” Odessa raced across the sand, waving for her attention. “Big…news!”
Zara hoped it was good news, for once. Poor Odessa had been going through it lately.
Odessa was Zara’s go-to babysitter when she had to work and Mia wasn’t available.
She was a kid in her early twenties who’d been hanging around the surf scene for years, ever since she ran away from home at fifteen.
Zara had always been protective of her, filling the “big sister” role by warning her against certain men and especially their drug offers.
Odessa often crashed on their couch to get away from the party scene at her own house.
A week ago, she’d gotten a ticket for indecent exposure when her bikini top had slipped while she was busking.
The officer had confiscated her guitar as well, since she’d been warned before about needing a permit.
Not only could she not afford the ticket, but she now had no way to make money until she got her guitar back.
That put her at risk of getting kicked out of the home she shared with a motley group of other young surfers.
Zara had loaned her money to buy a new guitar, but so far, she’d spent it all on rent. Since Zara herself often lived on the edge, she had nothing more to offer, other than legal advice.
“What’s the big news?” she asked the girl when she plopped onto the beach mat and pulled her legs into a Lotus-style position.
Like most surfers, she was pretty flexible.
Her array of friendship bracelets were thick with salt from the ocean, and a bruise bloomed on her knee.
She’d probably bonked it on a rock or her surfboard.
Zara had lost count of all the injuries she’d suffered while surfing.
“I followed your advice. They agreed to drop the indecent exposure charge because it was a total accident and I could prove it because I was so embarrassed I cried for three days. I showed them a TikTok I’d made just after.
I apologized, just like you said, and promised I would do community service by playing at an old people’s home. I put it in writing, like you said.”
“Excellent. So it’s all good? You’re free and clear?”
“Guess so. Thanks to you.” Her wistful tone didn’t scream joy. Zara herself was probably happier at the thought that she’d put her legal studies to good use.
“Then why aren’t you celebrating?”
Odessa gave a long groan. “Because, I feel soooo bad. The police called my probation officer and she told me I shouldn’t be babysitting for the children of a convict. I thought those were your kids!”
“How…” Zara blinked at her. “You thought I had a fifteen-year-old child? I’m twenty-eight. Okay, I suppose technically it’s possible, but…” That wasn’t really the point, so she moved on. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know about my family. I thought everyone knew.”
“I don’t listen to gossip stuff.” She looked dreamily out at the ocean. “I guess I don’t listen to a lot of things. I just vibe with music and, like, nature sounds.”
“I hear that.” Zara pulled in a breath. Somehow it felt like a punch in the gut that her family was considered a reputational risk for a twenty-something charged with indecent exposure.
But that wasn’t Odessa’s fault. “No worries. I’ll figure out something else for Eddie.
Maybe I’ll send him to horse-riding camp in Waimea. ”
Yeah, right.
“Horse?” Eddie looked up from the structure he was building in the sand. It couldn’t be called a castle, in fact, it looked more like a deformed sea turtle. “I want to ride a horse! A purple one!”
Odessa giggled. “Maybe I’ll write a song called ‘Eddie and his Purple Horse.’ You want some help with that castle?”
“It’s not a castle.” He frowned at her, but allowed her to squat in the sand next to him. “Castles are stupid. It’s a spaceship.”
The girl got to work and a few minutes later both were covered with sand.
Goddamn it, thought Zara. Just when she was getting things into a workable groove.
Odessa was the best babysitter she’d ever found for the kids.
Mia liked her—possibly because she wasn’t much older than her.
Eddie adored her. Odessa never got tired of playing whatever game Eddie was obsessed with at the moment.
True, Zara generally checked in every hour or so to make sure Odessa hadn’t forgotten she was babysitting and wandered back to the beach.
Or decided to make macadamia nut cookies and burned down the house.
Or invited a weed-smoking boyfriend over.
Reliable would not be the first word she’d use for Odessa.
“Reliable” was a shaky concept for Zara herself, so she didn’t judge. How could she, when she’d started and abandoned multiple career paths, never lasted more than six months in a committed relationship, and had a habit of dropping everything to surf in Panama or Brazil if the waves called her?
But all that was in the past. She hadn’t done any of those things now that she had guardianship of Mia and Eddie.
No time for a relationship, even a casual one.
Maybe this law thing would pan out, maybe not.
She wouldn’t put money on it, knowing her own history.
As for surfing…she had to be more careful now that she was the only adult in her siblings’ lives.
No surfing for her unless the waves were under four feet on the Hawaiian scale, so two feet for non-surfers.
Mia emerged from the tumble of white foam at the edge of the beach, her second-favorite longboard tucked under her arm.
As always, Zara was relieved to see that she was in one piece.
Banyans was known for its rocky surf break and strong currents, which was one reason why the surfers were drawn to it.
Swimmers and snorkelers usually went to other beaches.
After shaking the water off, Mia dropped onto the beach mat next to Zara and lay flat on her back.
“Good ride,” Zara told her, meaning it sincerely. In Hawaiian surf culture, it wasn’t cool to over-compliment. Authenticity was everything.
“Thanks. I guess the waves don’t care if your dad’s a fuckup.”
Zara’s heart sank. Poor Mia had been dealing with bullying at school around their father’s legal issues. That was why she’d been doing homeschooling lately. But she couldn’t do that for long. Zara didn’t have the time or knowledge to be her stand-in teacher. “Did someone say something?”
“Rebel did, but it’s okay, he was just trying to rattle me so I didn’t steal his wave. It didn’t work, so screw him.”
“Okay.” Should she reprimand Mia about her language? It seemed trivial compared to what her sister was dealing with. “Just ignore Rebel. You’re twice the surfer he is and he’s jealous.”
That got a smile from her morose little sister.
It was strange how different two people could be who shared half the same genetic material.
Zara’s mother had died when she was young; Mia and Eddie were her half-siblings.
Where Zara was optimistic and saw life as a continuously unfolding adventure, Mia was more easily knocked into depression.
Zara knew better than to tell her she was wrong to see things so bleakly.
You couldn’t talk people out of their feelings.
She just hoped some of her own joyful approach to life would rub off eventually.
“Have a snack. It’s good to get your blood sugar back up after a surf session. Have I told you about the time—”
“Yes. A million times.”
“I nearly fainted into a bonfire?” Zara finished quickly. “That was the same day I swallowed my own hair and nearly suffocated.”
“You should get back to surfing so you have some new stories to tell.” Mia rolled over and reached for her ancient patched-up backpack, in which she’d stashed her phone, water bottle, snacks, and journal. As she rummaged around in it, she paused.
“I found this weird thing at the resort and I keep forgetting to show you.”
Mia pulled a tiny, perfectly circular object from her pack and set it on her palm. Zara leaned over to look more closely. It glistened in the light like a chip of mica. It was clear but with a hint of rosy pink when the light hit it.
“A gemstone?”
“Maybe, but feel it.” She passed it to Zara. As soon as she took hold of it, a shiver traveled through her, a very subtle vibration. The chip warmed against her skin. She closed her fist around it and the sensation subsided.
“Where did you find it?”
“Remember when we were hanging out in that hale and then the gardener told us to get out, so we hid in the plants? It was after we came back in. You were outside with the gardener for, like, forever. What were you even talking about?”
“My hair got messed up in the…never mind that.” She shook her head. “Where in the hale did you find it?”
“By the front door.”
Right where the intruder had been, the man in black with the Japanese accent. He must have dropped it. But what was it? And more importantly, what should she do with it now?
“Is it some kind of electronics chip?”
“Maybe. Or it could be a crystal. It’s beautiful.”
“I wonder if it’s valuable.” Why would some random intruder have dropped a precious gem in the entryway of hale twelve? “I’d probably know if someone had come looking for it. I suppose I can take it to the lost and found at the resort.”
Mia’s face fell. “It’s so teeny-tiny, they probably haven’t even noticed it’s gone. Can’t I keep it as a good luck charm? Finders keepers?”
Zara thought it over. That man hadn’t been a guest, so far as she knew.
He’d claimed to be scouting a vacation getaway spot for his boss, but she hadn’t seen any sign of him since then.
No one named Lincoln Kerr had checked into the resort.
Maybe the scout had been dissatisfied with the security arrangements, or maybe none of that had been true.
Either way, it seemed pointless to take this tiny object to the lost and found. And the Morrissey family was big on good luck charms.
“Sure, why not?” she told Mia.
When her sister’s face lit up with a rare full-on grin, she decided she’d made the right decision. Lately, Mia had been so down about everything. If a tiny crystal cheered her up, Zara would take it.