Page 57 of Hula Girl

This time, I’m the one pulling her. But she soon keeps pace with me as we climb the steps up the thirty-three percent incline.

“Did you know there are one hundred and fifty-three steps?” I ask when we’re about halfway to the top.

“You’re making that up.”

“No, it’s true. And you remember that this isn’t even the original site? That it was first built and operated about a half a block from here?”

She turns to me, and we stop on a landing, both of us now taking in a little more breath with the effort of the uphill climb. The fact that she’s doing this in heels is not lost on me. She’s something else.

“I do remember something like that,” she says. “But the question is, why do you know that if you’ve never even been here before?”

“I read about it at some point.”

“At some point?”

I shrug. “In eighth grade.”

“Why would you remember that from all those years ago?” she asks with a laugh.

“I don’t actually remember it. It’s just something I can recall.”

She fixes me with a skeptical stare. “Explain.”

Now I laugh. “I have a photographic memory. Or near-photographic. I’ve never actually tested to see if it’s a true photographic memory. But the point is that if I’ve read something, I can recall it.”

“Is that really true?”

I sigh. “Want to test me?”

“I do.”

“Go for it.”

“Um, okay. There’s a plaque I always remember seeing. It says how many feet Angels Flight runs—”

“Three hundred and fifteen feet.”

“And it mentions that the engineer—”

“Was also a lawyer.”

“And a friend of—”

“President Lincoln.”

“Wow,” she whispers. “Boy Wonder.”

Grimacing, I start back up the steps. I’ve hated that nickname for as long as it’s been around. I’d enjoyed almost a year without hearing it in some fashion while I was in Maui.

“I’m sorry,” she says as she comes up behind me, doing double-time in those heels. “I can tell you hate that nickname. I won’t use it again.”

We’ve reached the top and I turn to her just as a breeze picks up and sends her hair flying dramatically behind her. The backdrop beyond her is the lit-up buildings of downtown, peppered by enormous construction cranes. The city’s growth has continued while I was away. It makes me ever more confident in my decision to leave. But my eyes are drawn away from the reminder of the city life I no longer want to the beautiful woman in front of me. The woman who keeps letting me chip away at her walls by revealing the thing that still pains her, the loss of her father.

“What would you and your dad do when you got to the top here?” I ask.

She looks surprised by the question, by my interest. But then she gives it thought and I can practically see her reviewing the memories.

“We’d sit over there,” she says, pointing to a gated off park-like area. “There’s a bench there in the Knoll where we’d eat thegorditashe packed while looking out over the city. I can still remember being little enough that my legs would swing. Not touch the ground, you know?”

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