Juniors (20 page)

AFTER MY BIG BUST, I GO O
VER TO WHITNEY'S TO
SEE IF
she wants to jump off Waimea rock.

I knock on her door, but she doesn't answer, so I go around back. Will is there with his dad, reading the paper and eating breakfast. He looks up at me, then back down, shifting in his chair. Eddie doesn't seem to recognize me.

“Hi, Lea,” Will says.

“Lea,” Eddie says, looking at me as if with fresh eyes.

“Hi, Mr. West.”

“Your mom with you?” He takes a sip of what looks like a Bloody Mary.

“No, just me here.”

“We used to date, you know,” he says.

I laugh, uncomfortable, and Will immediately says, “Dad. Can I have Sports?” I think as a way to change topics.

“It's really nice having her around,” Eddie says.

“Dad,” Will says. “Sports.”

“Sports,” he says. I wonder how many Bloody Marys he's had.

“Is Whitney around?” I ask.

“Kitchen,” Will says, looking down at the paper.

“Thinking of going to the North Shore,” I say. “If you want to go.”

“Golf,” Will says.

I stand there, insulted by something intangible.

“Another big day,” Eddie says. “My boy.”

Will looks like whatever he's reading about is paining him. I want to run away before Eddie says anything else. I don't want to think about his sickness and weirdness with my mom. I want to flee and get in the ocean.

Will looks up and finally flashes me a small, private grin. I want to sit on his lap, tell him he's hot, mysterious, cool, and charming—and hot, did I mention that? I want to be seen with him and not seen with him as we hook up on the daybed, or in the ocean at sunset. That would be nice. I glance at the daybed, then back at Will.

“Lei!” Whitney says. She walks out in another long T-shirt. “What's up?”

“Want to go to the North Shore?” I ask. “We can jump off the rock?”

“Totally,” she says. “Let me get my act together.”

Will jostles his newspaper, holding it in front of his face, concluding something that never quite began. I feel so bad for him, taking care of a father who sometimes seems like a child. That same tension is on his face that he had the other day after being up all night, caring for him. And yet, his compassion keeps him going.

“You girls need some cash?” Eddie says.

“Sure, Daddy,” Whitney says.

She take a few bites from his plate, and I get a surge of sadness, thinking of how their family will cope. I'm watching Whitney, but can feel Eddie looking at me as he hands her a stack of cash. I quickly look at him and smile, and have the sensation that he's gazing proudly at something that belongs to him.

I FEEL LIKE WE'RE O
N A DIFFERENT ISLAND
, ON VACATION
somewhere far from home. I drive down the country road, flanked by rows of sugarcane, getting closer and closer to the dark blue sheet of ocean. It's like we're marching down the aisle to a vast, liquid altar. We listen to Johnny Cash for a while, then switch to A Tribe Called Quest, which makes me feel older, wiser, above the teenagers we know.

The sky before us is cloudless; to the left along the mountain range, the clouds hover, seeming still as wallflowers.

We've driven in silence for most of the ride, but now I tell her about last night, how I drank, got caught, and am grounded.

“That sucks,” she says, and then, “What were you thinking?”

I laugh. “I don't know. I wasn't, clearly. How was Mari's?” I try to measure my voice, but it gives something away.

“Oh God,” she says. “She wasn't even supposed to have a party. People just invaded. You should have come.”

How does one say
I would have i
f I'd known about it
without sounding defensive? One doesn't. I go with sarcasm. “I was busy,” I say, “dancing with myself.”

“So gangster,” she says.

And since I went there, admitted my loserness yet infused it with a bit of nonchalant badassed-ness, I continue on and ask the questions I want answered.

“Danny says he's going to your hotel sometime this week? You guys having a honeymoon?”

“I wish,” she says, and tries to evaluate my reaction. I smirk, look ahead. “I don't know how you've been friends so long,” she says. “You've never hooked up?”

“No,” I say, keeping the times we kissed each other to myself—that was more like playing house than hooking up.

We are driving through Haleiwa now, and I go slow to participate somehow in the scene around us. Shirtless surfers with low-riding trunks, lowriders and trucks pumping music, tourists eating their shave ice on the bench in front of Matsumoto's. Everyone looking at everyone else.

“So you don't like him, right?” she asks.

“Me?” I say. “No, he's like a brother. He's . . . Danny.” And yet my voice is funny, like I'm trying to convince her or myself.

“Have
you
guys hooked up?” I ask. My jaw tightens, and I hold the steering wheel with one hand, assuming a relaxed pose, which also betrays me to myself. I don't know why I feel threatened.

“No,” she says teasingly, as if not telling the whole truth. “I wouldn't mind, though. Last night . . .” She smiles to herself.

“Yes?” I say.

“Last night was cool,” she says, again with the secret smile. “I like him, but . . . it's cool you guys are such good friends. Jealous.”

This feels both nice to hear and yet, lately, untrue.

“It's not just the two of us at the hotel,” Whitney says. “I've been meaning to see if you're free. Friday—just one night.”

“I'm super busy,” I say.

“Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, it's fun. We have the suite. Everyone just crashes wherever. Mike makes brownies. Hopefully you won't be grounded by then.”

The knots in me finally untie. I don't know what upset me more—not being invited or the thought of her and Danny doing something without me.

We drive across the bridge, its structure like a double rainbow that signifies something different to everyone. To me, it's a kind of crossing into the wild, into anonymity.

“Does Will go to the hotel?” I ask.

“He might,” Whitney says. “He doesn't stay at night, though. You like him, don't you.” She's stating this, versus asking, and something in her voice sounds annoyed.

“I mean I like him, but . . .”

“It's a little weird,” she says in an assertive way. Her face is calm yet strong, set. “Since you're my friend.”

“Right,” I say.

“And he's dating Lissa.”

I look out at the road, but feel her watching me.

“But he's not,” I say and glance over.

She holds my gaze for a moment. “Doesn't matter anyway,” she says, then turns toward the mountains, clearly not wanting to talk about her brother. It's all I want to talk about, and I want to confess, but I don't want to leave her with the feeling I have when I think about her and Danny, the knowledge that
something will be changed. And I don't want to be like Lissa—close to her to get to him.

Even though we've gone through the main strip and are back on the country road, the air still smells of barbecue and wood chips. We're a world away from everything. I turn the music up and try to get our rhythm back again.

Soon, Waimea Bay glistens below us, the stretch of white sand like a tiny desert, the ocean moving slowly up and down as if it were taking deep breaths. We watch guys jumping off the rock, arching their backs, then tucking before landing. One does a goofy, yet ultimately graceful backflip. My heart beats with the thought of us not just jumping, but being watched, being surrounded by the guys down there who look so at home. Why do guys get to be so free and stupid? Why do we giggle, as if we'd unexpectedly landed onstage? We pretend we're afraid when we're not. We pretend we're unafraid when we are.

“Let's just do this,” I say, and she seems to know what I mean.

• • •

The sand is hot on my feet and burns between my toes. It's deeper here, thick, harder to walk through, which makes my hamstring muscles flex. It feels like we're crossing the desert. We put our towels down near the rock, but up far enough to be safe if the tide gets higher or the waves bigger. We strip down to our suits and load up on sunscreen.

“What about our phones?” she asks. I was thinking the same thing, not about them getting stolen, but about how we'd take pictures. The event doesn't exist without the pictures.

“Forget the phones,” she says. “If I see another post of my friends posing in their bikinis, I'll die.” She imitates them
posing, shots I see all the time on Instagram—the bikini shot, hair falling over their eyes so you can see just their mouths, smiling as if shy. Whitney does this perfectly.

“Oh, and then this one,” she says, and turns, arching her back a bit so her butt sticks out, her head slightly turned, gazing at the beautiful world.

“Oh my God, so artsy,” I say.

“So artsy,” she says.

We leave our phones and walk toward the water, and then we hear the shrieking noises I recognize as the sound of a girl seeing a girl she knows.

“Whit!”

Down the beach, walking languidly, are her friends Mari, Sobey, and Brooke. Whitney, I notice, doesn't seem as thrilled to see them as they are to see her.

“What are you doing here?” Sobey asks, giving Whitney a hug. She looks at me, wide-eyed, with a huge grin, and yet her eyes dart from my head to my toes, then back up again. I hate that question:
What are you
doing here?
as if you're in a place you're not supposed to be and it's a replacement for a simple
h
ello.

“Sweet, are you showing Lea around?” Mari says. I feel like saying it was my idea to come here and that, like them, we are friends going to the beach. I'm not a visiting cousin or something.

“We're just chilling,” Whitney says.

They say hello to me with small, closed-mouth grins. They all are wearing the thick-banded bikini bottoms, the ones I told Whitney were unflattering. When we happen to look at each
other, I believe we're communicating our understanding of this—both the memory of me saying it and my rightness. Not that these girls don't look good. Sobey, especially, with her long, strong flank of tan torso, her heavy-looking boobs and high, perfectly rounded butt—pick your fruit, then double it. The other two keep adjusting their suits, and though they're not at all fat, their tummies sort of spill over the band, and when they face the water to look at the jumpers, their asses look like they're somewhere they shouldn't be—like dough in a cardboard tube, oozing out after the first twist.

“Oh my God,” Mari says. “Was that not insane last night?”

Brooke laughs. “I have, like, a bruise on my leg—I have no idea why.”

“Probably from jumping into the pool,” Mari says. “Like a loon.”

“I swan dove!” Brooke says. “Or dived.” They laugh at whatever was not insane. I twist my foot into the sand and look down as if something there is fascinating.

I am not a part of this conversation, and so I won't pretend to be, and oddly for a moment, I'm comforted by the thought of Danny, of having him by my side, looking at them in the exact same way.

“You want to swan dive off the rock?” Whitney asks.

No!
I want to say. This is my plan, my excursion, and Whitney knows this—because as soon as she asks, she looks at me, quickly, with guilt and apology.

“That's what we're doing,” Mari says. “But no swan diving.”

My plan now seems clichéd, and again I feel Danny, but this time the smirk is back, the belief that I'm just like everyone
else. I shake him off—why is he here anyway, like some kind of angel/devil on my shoulder, either grinning approvingly or making wisecracks? I summon the feeling I had in the car—this isn't cliché, and who cares if it is? It's just about wanting to jump off a goddamn rock, take the plunge, feel alive and scared and thrilled for a moment.

“Have you guys done this before?” I ask.

“I have,” Brooke says. She runs her finger under her suit, adjusting so the fabric goes in. “Before you land. Make sure to close your legs.”

• • •

It's an easy climb up, but for some reason, Mari is having trouble. In one section she scales the rock like a crab and is unsure of every step. I like climbing rocks, getting into the rhythm and making quick choices. When we get to the top, there are about ten other people, and no one is jumping. It reminds me of going to the terrain park in Tahoe—everyone waiting before a jump or rail slide, seemingly planning their trick, but most likely waiting for everyone else to go so no one will be watching if they screw up.

I look out at the beautiful bay, the white sand and reef visible under the slow swells. The expanse of ocean, the varying blues that seem to inhale and exhale. Spray from the surf mists my face, and on my shoulders is a thin layer of powdery salt.

I look back, and Brooke is taking pictures of Mari and Sobey, who are laughing hysterically, but every so often freezing their laughter for the pictures.

“Wait, take one of me on the edge,” Sobey says. She goes to the edge of the rock and does the arched-back, butt-up pose
while contemplating the jump, her arms up in diving position. Then she comes back to look at the picture. “Nice,” she says.

“Are you going to jump?” Whitney asks.

“No way,” she says. “I just got my hair blown out.”

Whitney looks at me and rolls her eyes. It's weird to think that I saw her as part of this group, even the head of it, with no difference between her and the pack. Now I don't see her fitting in at all. She must fit only when she hides the things I get to see—the weirdness and vulnerability.

Mari runs her hands up and down her arms, which are shaking a little. It's funny the way another person's fear sucks yours away, so all that's left is a little residue, a little dust. Brooke, the expert, looks like less of a rock scholar now, adjusting her bikini, making the chin-tucked frown face required when checking one's boobs.

“I'm going to go down to the beach to get pics,” Sobey says.

“It's so far,” Whitney says. The blue water churns below.

“I know,” I say, but we both smile.

A few guys quietly trickle off the rock, and we watch them land and splash below. It's not so intimidating here after all—it's less local and more Texas, or wherever these guys are from. Mainland guys are just plain dorky, no matter who they are back where they're from. It's like HNL has a customs that confiscates anything cool or desirable. We have Hawaii boys to compare them to—Asian, Caucasian, Hawaiian, it doesn't matter. They are mysteriously more capable, attractive, effortless.

“You girls going to jump?” a sunburnt auburn-headed guy says with a drawl. The thing is—he'd be attractive on, say, Clement Street or the Marina. Anywhere but here.

“Yes, we're going to jump,” Whitney says, as if he's a first-grader. “That's kind of why we're here.”

His friends laugh, then one suddenly runs to the edge and throws himself into a sideways tuck. That's why people wait too, I guess—they wait for girls to watch, or for the perfect audience.

“Your turn, ladies,” the drawler says.

“You guys go ahead,” Brooke says. She has a hand on her waist, daring them.

The one sitting down on the uneven rocks, who looks like he's chewing tobacco or something, eyes Brooke and squirms a bit, and I wonder if he's getting a boner.

“What's you girls' names?” the bonified guy asks.

“Grammar,” I say. “Grammarcy.” My friends, or Whitney's friends, all laugh.

The two boys speak to themselves, then the auburn-headed one stands at the precipice and jumps, yelling the mainland equivalent of
chee-ho
o,
which is
yahoo.

A new batch of guys come up, slick like eels, tan, and wearing low-riding shorts revealing the smooth bumps of their asses. The mainland guys aren't so loud anymore. They're mumbling to themselves, shy and deferential. It's funny that moments ago our group was practically a Hawaiian sovereign nation next to these haole boys, and now, in the newcomers' presence, I don't even feel like I live here. My Hawaiian blood cowers in some corner of my body, tucks itself into my spleen. The girls they're with are wearing baggy soccer shorts and T-shirts, and look at us like we've insulted them without having said a word. One carries a cooler, which I've come to think of as a local's accessory, like a watch, or no—something necessary—a wallet. In
Hawaii we all give ourselves so much credit for being a melting pot, but I don't think we melt—we just pick from one another's cultures, then carry out the things we like best.