Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

SUNDAY, APRIL 26

They’ve been getting bigger all evening. This one might be too big, but I can’t be choosy. Dad’s waiting on the bluff, arms crossed. I lie down on my board and drive my arms through the water.

No sweat. Just relax .

“Geev’um, Lei!” shouts Tami.

The wave is coming like a train. I paddle fiercely, though the life vest rubs my upper arms raw.

The wave pulls on me, hungry. For once my timing is perfect. The wave surges under me; I catch the break and spring up on the board.

Two seniors on their boards shoot me the stink-eye as I wobble past. One snickers. The life jacket feels like a straitjacket. I nearly tumble backward off the board but catch my balance.

I kick my back leg to the left and angle the board to the right, feeling a rush of speed. I dart between a keiki body-boarder and a lazy green sea turtle, finally sinking back into the water as the wave dies. I turn to salute Tami, who’s bobbing out past the first breaks. Her honey-blond corkscrews bounce even when wet.

“Next week!” I shout.

“Nice one, girl!” she yells back. “Aloha! Enjoy the north shore!”

All next week I’ll be in Honolulu, on the island of O`ahu, with Dad, and he’s promised me some time at Banzai Pipeline on the north shore. Just to watch. Only the pros tackle those waves.

I sweep my long, soaked hair out of my face as I clamber over the rocks tumbling in the breaking surf. O`ahu. Anxiety flutters through me. I’m surfing to forget the EKGs and MRIs and OMGs that I’ll be facing.

You just nailed one of your biggest waves ever. Focus on that .

I trudge up the steep stairs to the road, using both arms to carry my longboard. Dad takes it from me as I reach the car, offers me a high five. “Way to end the day.”

I smile and clap his waiting hand. “Thanks.”

He leans against our purple car, a MAY THE FOREST BE WITH YOU bumper sticker broadcasting his dorkiness. We have the only hybrid vehicle in a long row of big trucks at the end of the cliff. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last hybrid car I saw in Hilo—or on the entire Big Island of Hawai`i.

“That was totally gnarly, but I’m still annoyed you made me wait so long.” He passes me a towel after he places the board on the car’s rack.

“Dad,” I groan. A couple of Hawaiian girls from school walk past us on the steep road, giving me a hard look. I turn away as I slip out of my vest. “No one asked you to babysit me. And ‘gnarly’? Wrong century.”

Dad runs a hand through his Malibu-certified sandy hair. His grin widens. “Whoa. Sorry, dudette.” He intentionally raised his voice so those girls would hear, didn’t he? Drives me nuts.

“You more relaxed?” He ties the board down for me.

No . But I nod. A light drizzle begins to fall. Rain on the Hilo side of the Big Island is as abundant as sun in a desert. It’s like background noise. I keep drying off as I sit in the car. I eye the steering wheel. I’m sixteen, finally old enough to drive. The doctor hasn’t signed off on me getting my license yet, but I manage to get behind the wheel now and then.

“Can I drive?”

“Haven’t you done enough damage to Grandpa’s clutch?”

Ha, ha .

I toss my towel in the back and look in the mirror. Long black hair. Oval face with high cheeks. My eyes are hazel, my complexion is … too light. I’m almost as white as Dad. Pretty, I guess, if you listen to my parents. If I ever get a boyfriend, maybe I’ll believe it.

Dad performs one of his infamous fifty-point turns to get us facing the right direction on the narrow road. I glance down from the cliff at the strip of rocky beach. The waves are getting big. Tami better wrap it up . We pull away and the hard-eyed local girls study our car as we roll past. I know one of them—Aleka. She’s always staring me down. I sink into my seat.

“You were good out there,” Dad says. “It’s coming to you pretty naturally now.”

“Dad, being a haole around here pretty much sucks—especially a haole with head issues—”

“You’re hapa ,” he corrects me, feigning shock. “You’re only half white, hon. I’m the only haole here. Your mother and grandparents count for something, don’t they?”

Mom and her parents are pure Hawaiian. That’s beside the point. I was born and raised in the Bay Area of California. Mom always wanted to return to her home. Three years ago she and Dad became professors of ecology at the University of Hawai`i at Hilo, and here we are.

“But … I can’t go in the water without you spying … or without a vest. Goofing off around me in front of this crowd only makes it worse.”

“Sorry, hon. I’ll stop doing that—on purpose. Howzit, anyway? Looks like you fit in just fine.”

I force a smile. “Things are okay.”

“Hey, wanna hit Wilson’s for some ice shave?” We’re at the stop sign leading onto the highway. Our house is to the right, a few miles north of Hilo.

“Sure.”

We turn left, toward Hilo.

“Don’t let this ruin your appetite for dinner,” Dad warns as he turns onto the bay front. The clouds and rain have retreated, the sun is getting ready to set over Mauna Kea, and the sky is full of colors that can only be … Hawaiian . The “gorgeous colors,” Mom calls them.

“No problem. I’m starving.”

Wilson’s-by-the-Bay is like most Hilo joints—a run-down hole-in-the-wall. We get in line and wait.

I’m reminded of a bumper sticker that I’ve seen a lot since moving here: RELAX, THIS AIN’T THE MAINLAND. Life moves at its own pace in Hilo. I can’t even see an epilepsy specialist without taking a weeklong trip to another island.

I fiddle absently with the medical bracelet shackled to my wrist.

“Wanna talk about it?” Dad asks.

Not really . Or maybe I do. I shrug. “Just nervous.”

Wilson’s is famous for snow cones—called ice shaves in Hilo. Three bucks gets me one the size of a football, with a vanilla-ice-cream core, drowned in as much flavored syrup as I want, covered in condensed cream, and capped with li hing mui powder. Dad gets cherry, piña colada, liliko`i , and bubble gum.

“Bubble gum?” I ask.

Like some sort of corn-syrup vampire, Dad’s too busy sucking the life force out of his prey to answer.

As we walk back to the car, a siren pierces the calm. Dad and I share a look of confusion. He says, “Tsunami warning?”