Under a Maui Moon by Robin Jones Gunn
Or was she the one who had left?
This was hard.
The answer was obvious, but she didn’t want to speak it. She also didn’t want to face those thoughts anymore. She didn’t want to have to analyze herself or her problems one more minute.
Putting the car back in drive, she made a big circle in the parking lot and accelerated past the sign with the name of the church: Hope Chapel.
She drove another four blocks before she realized why the church’s name was familiar. The guy on the plane had said he had friends there. If she needed anything, she could go to Hope Chapel and his “mates” would know where to find him.
Jutting out her chin and flipping on the car’s turn signal, Carissa told herself she didn’t need anything. She was here to relax. Not seek counseling—spiritual or otherwise. The insights that had come to her in the shopping center, on the beach, and now in the car weren’t part of her agenda for this getaway time.
A few blocks later she reasoned that, once she returned home, she would seek out a therapist and give counseling another try. She could put all her insights on the table and let a professional tell her she was a mess. She didn’t want to process those thoughts on her own anymore.
Turning down Irene and Dan’s street, she resolved to shift back into holiday mode. She pulled into their driveway and saw that the garage door was up. Kai was inside the garage, lifting an ice chest from off the built-in shelves along the side.
“Should I park the car here in the driveway?” she called out.
Kai came over to hear what she said. His expressive eyes met hers.
“Should I park here?” she asked in a lowered voice.
“Sure. You can leave the keys in it.” He went back to wrestling with the camping gear to get it ready for the trip the next day.
Carissa got out but hesitated a moment before stepping a few feet inside the garage. “Do you need any help?”
“No, I’m almost done. Thanks.”
She went back to the car, retrieved her bag of groceries, and sauntered toward the cottage.
“Carissa?” Kai’s voice echoed in the empty garage.
She scooted back around and entered his space a second time.
“Have you been to the other side of the island before?”
“No.”
“Then why don’t you come with us?” Kai asked.
“Do you mean go camping?”
“Yes, camping. You should come.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.”
“You sure? You could see the real Hawaii. It’s a good group of people who are coming. My parents have been friends with some of them for most of my life.”
Carissa tried to picture this gathering of elderly folks, all pumping up their air mattresses and circling the campfire in reclining lawn chairs.
“I’m better off staying here, I think.”
Kai shrugged, as if he were trying to be helpful and friendly, but she was giving him the brush-off.
“Thanks for inviting me, though.”
“If you change your mind, you can always take my parents’ car and come. We’ll have plenty of food. We always do.”
“Okay.”
Now Carissa didn’t know how to close off the conversation. He made her nervous, and she didn’t want him to catch any hint of that. In an effort to appear carefree, Carissa gave her plastic grocery bag a swing and said, “Well, thanks anyway for the invitation.”
“Sure.”
“I hope you guys have a good time.”
“Thanks.”
On the second swing of the plastic bag, the small package of false eyelashes sprung from the partially opened top and flew across the garage, landing on top of the ice chest.
Kai picked up the package, took a look, and held it out to Carissa.
She couldn’t form a response, so she took the silly things from him and made a quick exit.
The eyelashes made it as far as the cottage, where they were introduced to the bottom of the trash bin and there they stayed. Carissa spent the rest of the day exploring the nearby corners of the island and playing the role of the energetic tourist. Activity seemed her only hope for enjoying her time there and not getting pulled back down into the muck of her depressing thoughts.
While at the shopping mall in Wailea, she picked up some free tour brochures that came with loads of coupons, maps, and descriptions of all the interesting things to see. Later that day she went to a place described in the brochure as the best taco bar on Maui. After two tacos, she was ready to write her own review to counterbalance the one in the brochure. It was another downer of a day in paradise.
Carissa forced herself out of bed Thursday morning to make her trek down to the beach, where she swam for a short while in the calm water. Two paddle boarders bobbed on the water farther out. They stood on their surfboards and used long, flat paddles to move out to where the slow, curling waves began their dash to the shore. One of them managed to catch a wave for several yards before it hurried on ahead of him and tagged the sand first.
The refreshing swim felt good, but the morning seemed void of any of the celebratory feelings she had felt on her last morning swim there. Maybe she was too tired today to respond to the beauty.
She was out of breath by the time she had hiked back up the hill and arrived in front of Dan and Irene’s home. Kai’s small SUV was parked in the driveway, and Irene was perched in the passenger’s seat.
“I was hoping we would see you before we left,” Irene said. “I put the key to the house inside the mail basket on your front porch. You know where we keep the key to the car, and you’re welcome to use it as much as you like.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate it. Is there anything you would like me to do while you’re gone?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, there’s a corner of the garden that the sprinklers don’t quite hit. If you could give that a good watering once or twice while we’re gone, I know Dan would appreciate it. And be sure to help yourself to anything you would like in the garden. Some of the smaller watermelons are ready now.”
While Irene was asking this favor of Carissa, Kai was in the driver’s seat with the engine idling. She could feel his gaze on her.
He leaned over. “Sure you won’t change your mind?”
“I don’t think so. Hope you guys have a great time.”
She stepped to the side, as he backed out of the driveway. Then, sticking his muscular arm out the window as they were driving away, he gave Carissa a wave of his hand with his little finger and thumb both sticking out. She didn’t know what that particular gesture meant, but it was nice to have a little friendly attention from him. She hoped he had forgotten about the flying eyelashes. She was certainly trying to.
He hasn’t exactly expressed an interest in me, but then I’m sure he knows I’m married. He must not be married. Divorced perhaps? I noticed he doesn’t wear a ring.
Carissa made herself stop speculating. She had plans for the day, and the best way to occupy her thoughts was always to get on track with a list of tasks. First on her list, after shower and breakfast, was a trip to the town of Lahaina, where the whalers used to pull into port for winter.
She walked around the old, western-style town and toured the art galleries on Front Street. The tour brochure recommended a visit to the whaling museum in Ka’anapali, so she drove farther up the road and strolled around the shopping center where the museum was located. She stopped to watch an outdoor performance of a troop of little girls doing the hula in rustling grass skirts and long, dark hair that swished with the skirts every time the small girls turned.
Carissa had a coupon to ride the sugarcane train and a map to drive up to the coffee plantation. But after a short stroll down the beautiful beachfront walkway that connected all of Ka’anapali Beach, Carissa finally admitted defeat. Her plan to keep herself so busy that she wouldn’t feel anything was failing horribly.
Pulling out her cell phone, she strode back to the Whaler’s Vi
He didn’t answer.
She didn’t leave a message. He was probably in the middle of a counseling session. Or he could be on his way to Denver for the conference where he was speaking this weekend. Carissa wondered what he had decided to do with Murphy when he went to Denver. He would be away too long to leave Murphy at home alone in the backyard. Most likely Richard would pay the boy who lived at the far end of their street to come down every day to feed Murphy and give the old dog some attention.
Then Carissa wondered what Richard was going to think when he saw that she had called but not left a message. Brushing away the thought, she pulled the brochure from her purse and flipped through the coupons in the back. Her eye caught on one for a free ice-cream cone at Whaler’s Village. Perfect. She found the ice-cream shop listed on the coupon and walked in, feeling frugal and in the mood for something tropical. She selected a flavor called “Makena Mango” and asked for it in a waffle cone, as the picture showed on the coupon.
The end result was huge! More than she thought she could eat. She handed the coupon over and said, “Thanks.”
“Wait,” the guy behind the register said. “You didn’t pay yet.”
“I thought it was free with the coupon.”
“No, you got the wrong one.”
“The wrong one?”
“See, on the back of the coupon it says you can get a free keiki cone.”
“What’s a kay-key cone?”
“Kid’s size. Like this.” He held up a two-inch-high sugar cone that looked as if it would hold a scoop about the size of a golf ball.
Carissa looked at her monster-sized cone and back at the one the guy was holding up. The keiki was the one she originally had wanted. How was she supposed to know what a keiki-size was? Clever the way they put the picture of the waffle cone on the front of the coupon.
“I suppose I have to pay for this one, then.”
He nodded.
“How much is it?” She could feel the “Makena Mango” drip out of the waffle cone’s bottom.
He pointed at the sign above his head, and Carissa’s jaw dropped. This one ice-cream cone was going to cost her the same price she would have paid at home for three cartons of gourmet ice cream.
At least it tasted good. That is, the ice cream she managed to eat before it melted when she went outside. Tossing the remainder of the cone into the trash, Carissa went looking for a restroom so she could wash her sticky hands. Nothing seemed to be quite the way she had hoped it would be when she decided to try to turn her visit on Maui into a real vacation.
“I might as well go …” she muttered to herself. She hadn’t finished the sentence, but the mystery followed her into the restroom. Might as well go …where? Back to the cottage? Home to Portland? Or to the other side of the island where Kai and Irene are camping?
The final option intrigued her the most. But that was crazy.
Carissa looked at her reflection in the washroom mirror and decided that what was crazy was the way she had been talking to herself, analyzing her life, or avoiding thinking about anything. In general, not acting normal but instead feeling desperately lonely. Being alone wasn’t a good course of action for her right now.
If she were going to experience anything enjoyable from this trip before returning home to what she was sure would be a long, painful stretch in her life, then she might as well be adventuresome and go camping.
Driving back to Kihei took twice as long as it had taken to get to Lahaina because of all the cars on the two-lane road. At least the drive along the ocean was pretty. She spent the time listening to the Hawaiian music on the radio station set in Irene’s car and feeling the lovely breeze through the open windows. Those two ingredients seemed to work as an elixir strong enough to dull her senses and make her feel as if things weren’t quite so bad after all.
Once she was back at the cottage, she used the key to the house to look at the map on the dining room table where Irene had marked Kipahulu. Finding the same spot on the map in her island guide brochure, Carissa read what the brochure had to say about the waterfalls, hiking trails to the bamboo forest, and the pristine beauty of the Hana area.
She was convinced this was a good idea. What wasn’t a good idea was leaving now, at four-thirty in the afternoon. It would be better to leave in the morning.
Carissa organized her clothes, trying to figure out what she should take and whether a few days’ worth of items would fit in her carry-on bag. She was checking on her damp bathing suit hanging in the bathroom when her cell phone rang. It was Heidi.
“I know, I know, I said I’d wait until you called me, but you never called. I was worried. It’s been a week, Carissa. Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Well …”
“I first should tell you that I just tried calling your office, and someone named Molly answered. She said you were no longer at that number. What does that mean? Did they give you a new office? What’s the new number?”
“Actually …”
“And then Mom said she called you at home last night and talked to Richard, and he sounded awful. She thought maybe she woke him up, or he had the flu or something. All he said was that you weren’t home. I don’t know if she reached you on your cell last night, but both of us are concerned. This isn’t like you not to return our calls.”
“I’ve been …”
“I know. You’re busy. But still, Carissa …”
Carissa couldn’t take her chatty sister’s speculations another minute. “Heidi, I’m in Hawaii.”
The other end of the phone went silent.
10
“Mamua ke ku nei ka pae pu’u
He kino mai ka honua
Mai kino hi ‘oe e ke Akua
A mau loa ano.”
“Before the hills in order stood
Or earth received her frame
From everlasting thou art God
To endless years the same.”
AS CARISSA LOADED HER carry-on bag into the trunk of Dan and Irene’s car, she assured herself that joining the camping group was a good idea. The morning had dawned beautiful, she had everything ready, and she had convinced herself, after her sister’s phone call, that she definitely wanted to do this.
It took Carissa only five minutes to confide in her sister last night the overall details of what was happening. All she included in that list was that she had been let go from her job, and Dr. Walters had offered the key to his cottage. Since Richard had an important conference in Denver, Carissa decided to get away for a little while before starting a job search.
That was all Heidi needed to know.
Carissa backed the car out of the garage and wondered how Heidi had relayed the information to their mom and how long it would be before Carissa received a call from her mom. Or another call from Heidi.
The only thing that truly concerned Carissa at this point was that Richard hadn’t called back. True, she hadn’t left him a message when she dialed his number yesterday, but Heidi said he had sounded terrible on the phone with their mom. Maybe he had been sick all week. Or maybe he was struggling with this horrible disconnect as much as Carissa was.
In sorting through the issues while trying to fall asleep last night, Carissa compartmentalized each struggle and neatly labeled a mental folder for it, just as she had done for years at the doctors’ office. When she returned from Maui and Richard returned from Denver, she would take out the files, one by one, and evaluate the test results with a professional.
But for now, she was going to have a small adventure by driving herself to the other side of the island and going camping. She had already decided that if Kai wanted to strike up any interesting conversations with her while they were there with all the old people, then fine. If he didn’t pay any particular attention to her, that was fine, too. She was going to see th
Yeah, right.
She swatted away the pesky thought and decided that was Heidi’s voice, still reverberating from their call last night. She let her sister’s voice fly out the window since the directions for reaching the campground were what required her full attention now that she was on the road.
The guide brochure made it sound as if the only way to get to Kipahulu, or as the tour companies called it “The Seven Sacred Pools,” was to go around the airport in the center of the island and along an intensely winding road called the Hana Highway.
Carissa was convinced that the longer route was the way the tour companies wanted all the tourists to go so they could capture their revenue at various stops along the way. Why else would it say in the brochure that it took four hours to reach Hana in that direction?
The route Irene had casually sketched with a pen on her map the other day showed a different road that went up into the base of the volcano first before it came down to follow the island’s curve and led into the campground from the back side. That was the route Carissa preferred. To her, it looked as if it might take an hour. An hour and a half if she stopped at one of the shaved-ice stands.
Rolling along on the wide, smoothly paved road that led up along the side of the imposing volcano, Carissa felt a small sense of accomplishment. She was taking care of herself. Charting her own course. Finding her way not only to the campground but also in life. She could do this. She could make herself strong.
As the road continued to climb, the views of the valley below were breathtaking. Stunning shades of rich red island dirt blended with a variety of greens right up to the shoreline’s edge. There, etched in white from the foam of the waves, was the dividing line where the island stopped and the immense blue ocean began.