Page 38 of Try Easy

The Great Kamehameha

Keoni

The four ofthem spent the day together, and the next three after that. Keoni and Bones showed the girls all the landmarks that made Hawaii famous: Le’ahi Crater, the Punchbowl Cemetery, and Hanauma Bay.

Oahu had been created violently, and its rugged landscape reflected its origin.

Keoni drove. Lou sat up front, and Bones and Penny sat in the back seat. Bones pointed out places as they drove, and Keoni told stories. He told the story of Maui trapping the sun, and the tale of the youngest riddler, Kai, who used his clever tricks to avenge his father’s murder.

They stopped often to eat picnics at the beaches, or take photographs. Penny and Bones would wander off together, getting to know each other better, while Keoni stayed with Lou.

She took pictures of everything, and they talked. They told each other their life stories. Their upbringing couldn’t have been more different. Keoni was one of five siblings, and Lou only had John. Keoni had a close relationship with his parents and everyone in his extended family, including Bones, who was his cousin on his mother’s side. Lou and her parents had never been close, but now they saw each other only twice a year—Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Keoni’s family was poor and uneducated. Lou’s father was an engineer at Boeing, and her mother was an elementary school teacher.

“Do you make up those stories?” Lou asked as they sipped cold Cokes outside a gas station on Highway 1.

Penny and Bones had gone in to buy some food, and they were taking forever. It was hot under the sun, and the cold Cokes tasted like fizzy drinks from heaven.

“Nah,” Keoni said.

Lou raised her eyebrow at him. “Did you make up that one about the talking spear?” she asked.

“Nah. That’s a true story.”

Lou laughed and sipped her Coke. Keoni watched her throat as she swallowed. There was a bead of sweat pooling in the hollow of her throat, and Keoni had the sudden desire to lick her there.

Lou looked up and caught him staring.

“I’ve got somebody at home,” she said.

“I figured as much.”

“I should have told you earlier.”

Keoni shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But that’s why I can’t,” she said. “You understand what I’m saying?”

Keoni drank his Coke, looking away. “You mean if you didn’t have this guy, you would go for me?”

“Maybe.”

“What if it isn’t all up to you?” he asked. “Ever think of that? What if I don’t want to?”

Lou looked up at him, her eyes innocent and wide. “You kissed me,” she said.

His shoulders raised slightly, and he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “I kiss a lot of girls,” he said.

It was what she probably assumed of him, Keoni thought. He might as well let her believe it. It didn’t matter. She was leaving in a few days, and they could forget all about each other.

Bones and Penny came out of the gas station with a supply of food and beer for the rest of the afternoon, and they took off up the Pali Highway.

Lou was quiet while Bones and Penny chatted and laughed in the back seat, and Mick Jagger’s voice rang over the speakers.

Keoni drove up the winding path of the highway, sneaking looks at Lou when the road straightened out. She had her hair tied back from her face with a colorful scarf, but a few strands kept escaping to blow across her face. Keoni wished he hadn’t said anything about kissing a lot of girls. It hadn’t been true. He’d only said it because he was jealous of the man Lou had back at home. He should have known a girl who looked like her would have a steady boyfriend.

“Do you know any stories about this place?” Penny asked Keoni.

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