13. Kai
THIRTEEN
To show a child what once delighted you,
to find the child's delight added to your own -
this is happiness.
~ J. B. Priestley
My lesson with Cody wraps up. We paddle in on the next waves. Just as I predicted, he stood after his first few attempts in the shallow water, and then he moved on to more sizable waves for the rest of the lesson. He fell off the board a good number of times, but he also caught his fair share of rides.
I feel alive after our hour in the water. The ocean always resuscitates me, clearing away the debris of life on shore, putting everything into perspective.
“That was awesome!” Cody shouts over to me as we lift our boards from the shallow shore pound and walk side-by-side onto the beach.
His family is waiting, a younger brother and sister building sand castles, while his mom reads in one of the loungers provided by the resort. His dad, who never sat down the whole time we were out in the water, as far as I can tell, walks toward us and thanks me. Mrs. Snider calls Cody over to share the videos she took of him on her phone.
“Can we get in the water now?” Cody’s brother asks their dad, interrupting our conversation.
“We’re going back to the resort so your mom can have her massage.” Mr. Snider tells his son. “We’ll come back down here this afternoon. In the meantime, you can swim in one of the pools.”
Mr. Snider thanks me again, and I leave the family to pack up while I remind Cody how to turn his wetsuit in at the shack where our weekend part-timer, Jamison, can take care of it for him.
I instinctively look over toward the shack in time to see Mila and Noah walking this way. Cody’s loaner board and mine lay on the sand, ready for Noah to have his first lesson from me.
I watch Mila and Noah share conversation, her smile visible even at this distance, her long brown hair blowing recklessly in the onshore breeze and the skirt of her sundress following suit.
About half the way across the sand, Noah breaks into a run. He never slows, and when he’s about three feet away, I sense what he’s planning. I spread my arms wide and brace my legs just in time to catch him as he flies at me.
“You’re getting too big for that maneuver,” I say, spinning him in the air despite what I just said, and then plopping him back on his feet.
I’ve known Noah since he was three. He’s run into my arms like that for nearly as long as I can remember. Today may be the first time I realized I won’t always be able to lift him and propel him in a broad circle.
“I am getting bigger, right?” Noah puffs up just a little to prove his point.
“Big enough to start learning to surf.”
“Yep.” He beams.
I ruffle his hair and he ducks away like he’s too cool to be messed with.
Mila catches up with Noah.
“Hey,” she says, smiling up at me.
“Hey,” I smile down at Mila. “Good to see you.”
She’s wearing a light coverup over her dress and her beach bag is slung over one shoulder. I turn my attention to Noah to keep myself from staring at her.
It’s warmer today than it’s been in a while. The sun is out and the waves are just right for learning. I couldn’t have asked for better weather if I had ordered it.
“Thanks again for doing this,” Mila says. Her eyes soften and her smile feels like a gift I could never earn.
“My pleasure. It’s a privilege, really.” I look at Noah. “My dad took me out surfing when I was one.
“Years old?” Noah’s eyes go wide.
“Yeah. I don’t even think I was actually one yet when he had me on the board with him. And I rode my own board by the time I was two and a half with my dad overseeing me.”
“Whoa.”
“It’s a little different in Hawaii,” I explain.
“Do you just come out bigger?”
I chuckle. “No. We come out the same size. Most of us do, anyway. But we’re a surf culture—at least the part of the islands where I grew up—so we get our children in the water young.”
“No wonder you’re a superhero.”
I send Mila a help-me-out-here look. Noah definitely looks up to me, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think I’m a superhero.
“A professional?” Mila asks Noah.
“Yeah. That. You got to surf for your job. Like a superhero.”
I chuckle again. “Yeah. Sort of like Aquaman, huh?”
Noah cracks up.
“Okay, boss man, let’s get you surfing.”
Mila drops the beach bag from her shoulder and spreads out her blanket. I spend the next hour teaching Noah the fundamental principles of surfing, starting with a lesson on the sand with basic safety measures followed by how to paddle and pop up. He’s boogie boarded over the years, so some of this is repeat information—and he’s quick to tell me everything he already knows.
We paddle out into the white water, practicing standing where the water’s shallow. Once he’s had enough practice in the slush, I remind him about what he’s going to do in the glassy waves further out.
“What do you do if you fall?” I quiz him as we float side by side, our legs dangling off the edges of our boards while we sit upright.
“Don’t put the board between me and the wave so it doesn’t smack my face. Fall to the side of the board. And wave my hand overhead before coming out of the water so I don’t bonk the board on the way up. And don’t swallow the ocean. Hold my breath when my head is under.”
“Perfect. I think you’re ready.”
“Oh, yeah! I was born ready!” Noah shouts over to me.
“Where do you get these sayings of yours?” I smile over at him.
“School, of course.”
“Of course.”
He’s too much, this kid. And I love him.
We paddle further out. I send Noah into a few waves. He misses the first few, falling off the board, but he’s a champ about it. And he’s leashed to his board, so we don’t have to chase it down and start paddling out from shore. After a few fails, another sweet wave comes toward us. It’s the perfect size and shape for a beginner.
“This one’s all yours, buddy,” I tell Noah.
The look of determination on his face makes me wish I were wearing my GoPro. Mila would love to capture this moment on film from my angle.
Noah follows my directions step by step, and when it’s time to pop up, I shout, “Now!”
Noah jumps up, and he’s standing. I can’t count the number of people I’ve taught to surf over the years. Only a few of them mattered like Noah does. He’s like a nephew to me—calling me Unko before he could really make sense of who I was to him. As far as I’m concerned, Noah is my ohana, and today I’m the one who gets to teach him how to ride the waves.
“I’m up! I’m surfing! I’m surfing!” Noah shouts.
His grin nearly splits his face in half.
He starts waving his hands around in his excitement, which causes him to lose his balance and fall into the water. I’m right there to guide him back to his board.
Once he’s on the board and recovered from the fall, he turns to me and asks, “Did you see that?”
“I sure did. You rode your first wave!”
“Next time I’ll save the celebration for the beach.”
I chuckle. “Good plan.”
We paddle out again and Noah catches the next wave, following my prompts as to when to aim his nose in and when to stand. He rides that one a good distance toward shore. After that wave, he catches a bunch more, falling every so often, but riding a lot more than he misses.
When I finally tell Noah we need to take the last wave in, he pouts. “But I’m having so much fun!”
“And that’s a good time to call it quits. Believe me, you’ll be feeling this tomorrow as it is.”
We catch the next waves. Noah goes ahead of me, and I ride right behind him, landing in the shallow surf near the sand. I coach him as to how to lift his board to carry it onto shore. He’s got it going on until he hits the place where the water isn’t holding the board up for him, so I give him a hand and tote both boards. Noah runs to where Mila’s waiting for him on her beach blanket with a smile that takes my breath away for the briefest moment.
“Did you see all that?” Noah asks his mom.
“I sure did. I watched every minute of it. I’m so proud of you!”
“It was awesome. I did great, huh Unko? Didn’t I?”
“You sure did. You did just as great as the teenager I taught just before you.”
Noah beams at the compliment.
“When can we learn again?”
“How about I talk with your mom about that while you run over to the shack and give Jamison your wetsuit?”
“Okay. I think we can surf next Saturday too. Huh, Mom? Right?”
“We’ll see.” Mila smiles at Noah.
He doesn’t wait for either of us to say anything else before he’s off and running toward the shack.
Mila starts packing up her bag. I grab two corners of the blanket and we fold it as a team, meeting in the middle, her staring up at me while I hand my edge to her. Our fingers brush together in a touch so feather light I could almost miss it. The problem is, I don’t. I never used to catalog the small moments with Mila. I’m sure I’ll get back to some sort of neutrality with her in a few days or so. We simply need to adjust to this new arrangement.
I leave the boards for Jamison to retrieve and rinse. He’s the low man on our totem pole in the shack, and that means he gets the grunt work. We’ve all been there—recipients of the initiation weeks where we test the new guy with pranks. And then he’s brought into the unspoken hierarchy of workers. When I came on, the two guys who had been there longer than me put me through that same rite of passage even though I was ex-pro and came in at a management level. They couldn’t have cared less if I bought the Alicante. In the shack, we have our own culture, and if you want to be a part of that family of workers, you earn your way in and up.
We walk toward the dock. Mila smiles over at me and thanks me again.
“Being with your son is never something you have to keep thanking me for. Teaching Noah is my honor. Best hour of my week so far.”
Mila’s smile widens. A gust of wind catches her hair and whips it around her face. She moves to swipe it away. I watch her like a man watching a woman. What is wrong with me? I’m an idiot. I spent nearly four years in her presence, all but numb to her beauty and her tender, compassionate heart. I know why. She made it clear to me early on where she stood with men in her life. We could be friends or nothing. Knowing her stance on dating flipped a switch inside me, keeping me safely unaware of her—unaffected and relatively oblivious. Nothing about her stance has changed.
“Here, give me that beach bag so you have both hands free,” I tell Mila when she shifts the weight on her shoulder.
“You don’t have to …” her voice trails off when I give her my serious look. It’s the same one I use with Ben when he’s goofing off at work and I’ve had my fill.
“The dad face!” She laughs, her finger pointing at me. “You have that down pat.”
“It’s my boss face,” I correct her.
“Well, here’s my bag, boss.” Mila bumps her hip into me playfully and hands the bag into my hands.
“That’s more like it,” I tease.
“Man, I thought surfers were supposed to be chill.” She smiles up at me through her lashes.
“I’m so chill. I just spent two hours in the ocean. There’s nothing more chill than that.”
“Teaching. You spent two hours teaching. I’d bet you were on high alert that whole time, watching for the safety of your other student and my son.”
“Yeah. I was. But it was a super-chill kind of high-alert.”
I make the shaka sign with the hand that’s not carrying her bag to emphasize my totally relaxed personality. Hang loose. All’s well. It should be my motto, considering my heritage, but I’ve always carried a burden for the people around me. It’s just part of my makeup.
Mila’s laughter fills my chest like helium. She is sun through clouds—her misty rays piercing the sky with light. She’s simultaneously sharp and ethereal. Captivating and elusive. I’m aware of the muscles in my throat as I swallow the lump forming there.
Mila.
Talk about a complication.
Noah’s voice carries out from inside the watersports shack. I can’t contain my smile. He’s like any surfer, boasting about his waves, reveling in the thrill of the ride. One morning sesh and he’s already hooked on my favorite sport—the passion I devoted my life to for years.
He’s a storyteller too. His animated voice has both my employees’ rapt attention. “And then I stood up! But that time I got so excited I flopped right off.”
Noah laughs hard at himself, with his typical childlike resilience. Ben and Jamison laugh along with him.
Noah sees me and Mila enter through the front door. “Mom! I was just telling the guys here how I surfed!”
“You were, were you?”
“Yeah. Show them. You got a video, right?”
“I got more than one, but they aren’t super clear.”
“That’s okay. They still wanna see it. Don’t ya, guys?”
If you could plug Noah in right now, he’d power the shack and most of the boats in the harbor.
“We definitely want to see it,” Ben says. “I don’t think I can move on with my day without seeing this video.”
“I left the boards on the sand,” I tell Jamison.
“Let him see the video first, man,” Ben says.
“Fine. Watch the video. Then get the boards.”
No one will bother the boards. This is Marbella. Our crime rate is basically non-existent. We leave doors unlocked, bikes out in racks, golf carts parked with keys still in the ignition. It’s one of the perks of living on this kind of island.
“I thought you and Mila had something to discuss … alone … out front … anyway.” Ben punctuates each of his statements with a slight lift of his brows.
Subtle. So subtle.
As if he hadn’t made his point, he says, “You know. Since you two might need time alone to say those things, we’ve got Noah here showing us videos. So, take full advantage of the opportunity to get those words out.” He smiles at Mila, then me, like he’s some sort of genius.
Noah looks up at Ben. “You’re acting weird.”
“Yeah, bruh. I’m weird. Now show me that video.” Ben looks over at us. “You two, shoo. Go have your adult conversation while we’re watching the next big name in surfing show us his first waves.”
Mila blushes. I wonder if I’m blushing too. But, to her credit, she turns and walks out the front door.
I follow behind, unsure what we’re actually supposed to do now that we’ve basically been sent into the adult version of Seven Minutes in Heaven, minus the closet.
“Well, this isn’t awkward,” I say, as soon as we’re outside the shack and out of earshot.
Mila giggles. “Ben is so over the top.”
“He’s the poster child for over the top.”
“Is he watching?” Mila asks, her head tilted up toward me.
It’s the exact posture a woman would have if she were waiting for a kiss. My eyes flick toward her lips—soft and rosy, tilted up in a smile, the bottom one just slightly fuller than the top. And that Cupid’s bow at the peak of her mouth. Did she always have that? Why didn’t I notice it before today?
“Kai?” Mila’s words draw my eyes back to hers.
“Yeah?”
“Is he watching?”
“Who? Noah?”
“No. Ben. He thinks we’re dating. I don’t want to stand out here looking like friends if he thinks we’re more. If anyone could blow our cover, it’s him. He wouldn’t mean to, but … you know him. Sometimes his mouth starts speaking before his brain has engaged.”
“Sometimes?” I smile down at Mila.
Then I glance over my shoulder into the shack. All three of the guys in there, Jamison, Ben and Noah, have their shoulders bent so they can huddle close with their eyes fixed on the video playing on Mila’s phone.
“They’re all watching the clip of Noah surfing.”
“We’d better hit a happy middle ground,” Mila suggests.
“Middle ground?”
“If Noah looks out here, we need it to appear like we’re our usual friendly selves. If Ben glances over, we need it to seem ...” She pauses. “You know, like we’re taking advantage of the opportunity he gave us. That’s what we’d do if we were newly dating.”
“How about a hug?” I suggest.
Mila smiles up at me and then she wraps her arms around my waist. I loop my arms behind her and tug her close. Her cheek rests on my chest and I hold her there, hoping she can’t feel the uptick in my heartbeat. I rest my chin on top of her head, and I swear I hear her sigh.
“Okay.” She breaks away abruptly. “That should do it.”
“Okay. Yeah.” I run my hand through my hair. “Seems like we need more rules, or a guidebook. Or maybe it’s just me. Do you feel out of your depth yet?”
“I’m sorry, Kai.”
“No. No. It’s not that. Forget I said anything. We’re laying the groundwork here. Brad will be back when he starts developing the business. We have to get a reputation for being together before he shows up, otherwise we won’t be convincing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Totally. I’m one hundred percent sure. We’ll just take each situation as it comes.”
“Okay! That was great!” Ben’s voice booms from inside the shack. “Noah’s going to come out to interrupt that conversation now.”
Mila and I look at one another and burst into laughter.
Ben. There’s only one Ben. Thank goodness. I don’t know if I could handle more than one.
Noah comes bounding out of the shack with Ben on his heels.
Ben pats Noah on the shoulder. “Proud of you, kiddo. Next time, I want to be out there with you.”
“You can! We might go next Saturday. Right, Mom?”
“We’ll see,” Mila says softly.
“That always means yes. Usually,” Noah says with unbridled confidence.
“Good deal.” Ben raises a fist and Noah bumps it with his.
Ben turns to Mila. “Kai told me about your development. I’m so happy to hear about it. I should tell you, my boss has been smiling a lot more these days.”
“Hey, boss man,” I say to Noah, intentionally cutting Ben off. “Let’s look at the break right now before you take off with your mom. You can point to a wave and tell me when you’d pop up. It’s a game I used to play with my dad when I was learning to ride.”
“Okay!” Noah heads for the end of the dock before I say another word—and more importantly, before Ben does.
I hear Ben from behind me as I follow behind Noah.
He’s saying, “Don’t worry, Mila. I’m keeping everything between you and Kai zipped up tight.”
I glance over just in time to see Ben make that ridiculous zipping motion in front of his lips.
Oh, yeah. He’s a vault alright.