Under a Maui Moon Read online

Ma o mai a pu’u nani, ma kela ao mai ka’i.”

  “Hark! ’Tis the voice of angels

  Borne in a song to me.

  Over the fields of glory, over the jasper sea.”

  AS THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS checked to make sure the passengers were ready for the plane’s descent, Carissa adjusted her seat to its upright position and gazed out the window. Below her stretched the vast Pacific Ocean, a deep turquoise blue blanket dotted with frothy white caps in a wide, irregular pattern.

  “You going home?” The man beside Carissa leaned over and looked out the window. He had been friendly and helpful with her overhead luggage when they first boarded the plane, and she thought his accent was charming. Australian was her guess. For the majority of the flight, he had snoozed or watched the movie.

  “No, I don’t live on Maui,” Carissa answered.

  “I used to. Met my wife there. She’s coming to meet me at the end of the week for a bit of a holiday. I’m set to put on two weddings. Both couples are old friends who happened to plan their big days close to each other. Convenient, right? Makes for a nice reason to come back.”

  “Are you a wedding coordinator?”

  He laughed. “No, I’m a pastor. I guess I should have explained that I’m officiating at two weddings, if that’s the right term.”

  Carissa could see why this guy had been requested to officiate. His demeanor was cheerful and kind.

  “You have any friends on the island?” he asked.

  “No, I’m on vacation.”

  “Well, you have a friend here now.” He extended his hand and shook hers. “Gordon McAllistar. If you need anything during your stay, the mates at Hope Chapel will know where to find me. You just call them and say you’re trying to get ahold of Gordo. They’ll track me down.”

  “Thanks. I’m Carissa, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  Gordon leaned closer, his sight set on something outside the window. “Aww, there she is! Hello, beautiful. Did you miss me? I missed you, Maui girl.”

  Carissa tried to visually drink in all the rich colors as the island came into clear view. I’m really here.

  “Make sure you go to the top of Haleakala to see the sunrise.” Gordon pointed to a magnificent volcano that rose from the center of the island wearing a halo of clouds. “Better yet, do what my wife and I did. Take a hike inside. It’s not an easy hike but definitely worth the effort.”

  Carissa had no intention of hiking or doing anything strenuous while she was on Maui. She came to relax—to sit on the beach, swim, read, and eat fresh pineapple, among other delicious things.

  As the plane curved around and came in closer to the flat center of the island, Carissa noticed fields of waving, silver green stalks.

  “What crop is that?”

  “Sugarcane. And that’s the old sugarcane mill.”

  A tall smokestack issued a continuous, elongated cloud of dull white smoke from the burning of the sugarcane stalks. The runway came into view, and with a bump and a hop, the landing plane slid to a stop at the terminal gate.

  Gordon helped her to pull down her suitcase from the overhead compartment and struck up a conversation with a scruffy-looking young man standing in the aisle. They were talking about a surfing spot called “Slaughter House.” Carissa wondered how it got its name.

  As she waited her turn to slide into the aisle, she noticed a pervasive sense of excitement yet contentment among the passengers. The group feeling was different from what she had experienced on flights to Chicago or Dallas. It was easy to believe that every passenger wanted to be here, and they all expected something wonderful to be waiting for them.

  The minute Carissa exited and stepped into the open-air terminal, a rush of soft, warm air touched her face and teased her with its gentle fragrance. She knew she was in a place like no other she had ever been in. Her heart told her, You are safe.

  Everything was exactly as Betty had described it to Carissa, the tropical feel of the airport and baggage claim, the greeters in floral print shirts and mu‘umu‘us, with strings of purple orchid leis over their arms.

  Carissa spotted her large suitcase coming toward her on the conveyor belt and moved into position to retrieve it. Apparently Gordon saw her movement as well because he stepped over and asked, “Would you like a hand with that?”

  Carissa stepped back, giving Gordon room to grab her luggage. The poor man somehow lost his balance and tumbled onto the moving conveyor belt. Instead of releasing his grip on her suitcase, he awkwardly stood and trotted alongside it, plowing past other awaiting passengers as if his hand were permanently attached to Carissa’s suitcase. He managed to ram his way nearly halfway around the turning carousel before releasing his grip and letting the bag go.

  She tried hard not to laugh. He gave her a hands-up shrug from the other side of the baggage claim and called out so all the observers could hear, “I have a message for you from your luggage.”

  Carissa felt her face warm, as everyone was now looking at her and then back to Gordon. “She said she wanted one more turnabout on the carousel, and then she would like to go for an ice cream, if you don’t mind.”

  Everyone laughed, including Carissa. It felt good.

  When her bag came around the second time, she reached for it without any assistance. A woman standing next to her chuckled. “Are the two of you off to get ice cream now?”

  Grinning, Carissa maneuvered both of her suitcases out to the curb where Betty had told her to wait. Carissa pulled out her information sheet but didn’t have to wait long before a large white truck pulled up, and an equally large brown man wearing sunglasses leaned over and called to her through the open passenger’s window. “Eh! You Carissa?”

  “Yes.” She checked her information sheet. “Are you Mano?”

  “Ya, Mano, like da’ shark.” He laughed a high-pitched, childlike chuckle, as if he had made a joke. Carissa had no idea what he was talking about.

  The man jumped out of the truck’s cab while the engine was still running and came over to her, cradling a dainty floral lei in his large hands. His Hawaiian print shirt flapped open in the breeze, revealing his belly button. The image of his big paunch peeking out at her was engagingly childlike and unattractive at the same time. He had on crumpled shorts and flat, rubber flip-flops that looked as if they might fall apart at any moment.

  “E komo mai o Maui.” He looped the fragrant lei over her head and kissed her on the cheek. “Aloha.”

  “Oh! Thank you.” His gesture and kiss caught Carissa off guard, especially because the action was surprisingly gentle coming from such a large man and because he made the greeting all in one motion. None of it seemed foreign to him, as if the action flowed out of his heart and over her head as naturally as the breeze.

  “You got jus’ da’ two?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Da’ kine suitcase. Jus’ da’ two?”

  “Yes. I have only two suitcases.”

  With that, he effortlessly chucked them into the back of his truck as if they were a couple of throw pillows he was tossing onto a couch.

  With his sandals flip-flopping, he trotted over to his side of the truck, and Carissa figured out she was to climb up into the passenger’s side. It was easier said than done, since the step up into the wide cab was a big one. She held on to the inside door handle, and once she was in, Mano took off before her seat belt was fastened.

  The radio apparently was set to a local station because the song that rolled past them and out the open windows had the distinct sound of a ukulele and all the words were Hawaiian.

  “You okay if we stop fo’ sum grinds?”

  She didn’t know what he meant but said, “Okay.”

  Mano drove through several stoplights in a heavily trafficked area. He turned into a strip mall where he parked next to a windsurfing store.

  “You comin’ in?”

  Carissa had no idea where they were, why they had stopped, or where she would be going if she w
ent with him.

  “No, I think I’ll wait here.”

  He left her in the big truck with the keys in the ignition and the windows down. Carissa quickly pulled out her phone and checked the folded-up papers in her purse that had her extensive notes from her conversation with Betty. Dialing the number Betty gave her for her sister-in-law, Irene, Carissa swallowed her confusion and put the phone to her ear. A woman answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hello? This is Carissa Lathrop. Is this Irene?”

  “Oh yes. Wonderful! You’re here. Dan, Carissa’s here. No, on the phone. I’m talking to her now. I don’t know. I’ll ask. Where are you?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I’m in a white truck with a man who knew who I was, so I got in …”

  “Yes, that’s Mano, our neighbor. She’s with Mano, Dan. At the airport?”

  Carissa guessed that last question was for her and not Dan. “No, we left the airport and now we’re at a shopping mall.”

  “Oh, good. They’re at Da’ Kitchen. Did Mano say he was getting the kalua pig?”

  “Pig? I don’t know. The only animal he mentioned was a shark.”

  Irene chuckled. “That’s because his name, Mano, is Hawaiian for ‘shark.’ The pig is what he’s bringing home for lunch. Yes, Dan, he’s picking up lunch for us now.”

  Carissa was beginning to question this adventure altogether. If Mano was taking a pig home to Dan and Irene, where did they live and what sort of cottage would Carissa be staying in on the other side of the banana trees? Betty had said it wasn’t much of a place, but she hadn’t mentioned pigs. What if there were chickens? Carissa didn’t care for chickens at all.

  “So should I just wait here in the truck?” Carissa dearly hoped the pig was going to ride in the back and not up front with her.

  “Yes, you wait right where you are. Mano will bring you to our house. We’ll see you very soon.”

  “Irene, wait. Before you hang up, I was thinking. Since we’re still near the airport, it might be a good idea for me to go ahead and rent a car after all.”

  “No, that’s not a good idea. Renting a car, Dan. She said she could rent a car. Yes, that’s what I told her. Here, you tell her.”

  The three-way phone conversation turned to just two people when Dr. Walters’s brother, Dan, got on the line with Carissa. “E komo mai o Maui. Welcome to Maui.”

  “Oh, thank you.” She realized then what Mano’s earlier greeting meant.

  “You may not rent a car.” Dan’s voice carried the calm, authoritative tone she had come to know and love in Dr. Walters’s voice.

  Still, she had to protest. “It’s not a problem for me, really. I think it might make things easier.”

  “No. We told Betty and Norman we would take care of you, and that’s what we’re going to do. You don’t want to get me in pilikia with my sister-in-law, do you? No, you may not rent a car. You’re going to borrow our car whenever you need it. That’s what we decided. Therefore, you may not rent a car.”

  “Okay.” Carissa leaned back, feeling put in her place.

  “Mano is a good driver. You’re not worried about his driving, are you?”

  “No.” It was an honest answer. Mano’s driving was the least of her concerns at the moment. She was trying to figure out if she might need to rent a hotel room if this setup turned out to be a disaster.

  “Well, then we shall see you by and by.”

  With that he hung up.

  Carissa looked around. She tried to relax and get her bearings. By the comings and goings of the people in the parking lot, this was a place where locals gathered. She could hear some of them greeting each other using the same clipped sort of dialogue Mano used. Their conversations had a rhythmic cadence, the questions rising and receding like the ocean tide. The warm air flowing in through the open windows kept her from perspiring even though it had to be in the mid-eighties. She heard a low rustling sound and realized it was the tall palm trees across the way, shaking out their shaggy manes.

  So this is Maui.

  In her excitement and packing flurry of the past two days, Carissa had dreamed up many images of her first visit to the Hawaiian Islands. Not one of her dreamed-up visions looked like this—a parking lot at a strip mall.

  With her lips pressed together, Carissa punched in Richard’s cell phone number. A trickle of perspiration slid down the back of her neck.

  “Carissa?”

  “Hi. I just thought I’d call to let you know I arrived. Are you back from Sacramento?”

  “Yes.”

  A pause hung between them before she asked, “How was the wedding?”

  “Vow renewal. I’m on my way there now.”

  “I hope it goes well. I know how much you enjoy those.”

  “Thank you.”

  By his polite responses, she knew this conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere. She didn’t know why she had called him. Maybe because, whenever she had stepped out of her comfort zone in the past, Richard was the first person she talked to, so she could process the situation. Yet, here she was, trying to make small talk with him while sitting in a truck with a stranger named “Shark,” who went to get a pig and left her to stare at a window sticker on the windshield that read “Got poi?” How could Richard relate to any of this? Their two worlds weren’t going to intersect here.

  “Listen,” Carissa said. “I want to tell you I’m sorry things are in such a bad place for us right now, Richard.”

  “I’m sorry they are, too.” He offered no further apology nor any words that would lead them out of the pit they were tumbling into once again.

  “Do you want me to call you while I’m here? Because I’m getting the impression that I’m bugging you.”

  “It’s up to you. You’re making your own decisions now, apparently.”

  The next few lines back and forth weren’t kind. Carissa wanted to hang up on him, but she resisted. She closed the conversation saying, “I can see this was a bad idea. I thought I should call you, but I wish I hadn’t. I won’t bother you again.”

  “If you want to take the martyr position, that’s your choice. I can’t change you.”

  Carissa picked up some steam. “No, you can’t change me. And I think that’s what’s bothering you the most.” With that she did hang up.

  She didn’t have time to process her feelings after their short interaction because Mano strolled toward the truck with several plastic bags in his hands. She didn’t see a pig anywhere. He hopped in and handed her the bags. Something smelled delicious. Her appetite, which had eluded her for the last few days, seemed to be back in full force.

  Blocking out Richard and the disconcerting conversation, she asked, “What is this? It smells wonderful.”

  “Kalua pig.”

  “Oh. This is the pig. Is it like pulled pork?”

  “I dunno. It’s kalua pig to me.”

  He drove with one arm out the window and one hand on the top of the steering wheel. He seemed so relaxed. He asked her a few questions, and she understood about 50 percent of what he said, so her replies included a lot of simple yeses and noes whenever she picked up a key word and thought she knew what he was asking.

  They drove less than half an hour on mostly two-lane roads along with lots of other cars. She hadn’t expected the island to be so populated or to have so much traffic. Turning onto a residential street, Mano made another right and then a left and stopped in front of a normal-looking, single-story track home in a moderate neighborhood. No chickens were in sight.

  Carissa slid out, being careful with the big step down from the truck’s cab since she had the bags of food in her hands. Mano retrieved her luggage, and they went to the front door. The landscaping was lush and green with exotic-looking bushes and trees. It was the most intricately landscaped home on the block.

  Above the doorbell was a plaque etched in cursive letters.

  “Dan and Irene,

  Two of God’s Children”

  Before either of them could r
ing the doorbell or knock, the door swung open. A round-faced man, who looked to be of Asian heritage, greeted her with a wide smile. “You’re here. Good. Come in. Hey, Mano, you have the food. Even better. Mo’ betta’, as they say here. Come in!”

  The man’s voice matched Dan’s voice she had just heard on the phone, but Carissa was confused. How could this man be Dr. Walters’s brother? Her expression must have showed her puzzlement because the man at the front door laughed.

  “He didn’t tell you, did he? My brother still likes to surprise people. I’m the adopted one.”

  Carissa tried not to look surprised. She glanced down and noticed an assortment of flip-flops and canvas shoes lined up by the front door.

  “Irene!” He called out. “Where is she? Here, hand me those bags. She must be over at the cottage. I’ll put the food inside, and we’ll go on over. Are you going to eat with us, Mano?”

  “You know it, brah.”

  The three unlikely amigos made their way along a pathway that bordered Dan and Irene’s house. Once again, none of this was how she had pictured her arrival and settling in on Maui. When Betty said Carissa would be picked up by one of Dan and Irene’s friends, Carissa never conjured up an image of Mano. She also expected to be dropped off at a little cottage and left alone for her secluded time of rest, reflection, and restoration.

  Now these people were including her in their lunch plans. What else did they have planned for her?

  As the three of them came upon the open backyard, Carissa’s eyes widened. In front of her was a tropical garden paradise, private and unexpected. She noticed stalks of corn growing in straight rows and orange trees as well as an extensive raised garden with perfectly round watermelons and green zucchini growing like long noses poking out of the ground and having a sniff of the rich earth.

  Interspersed around the yard and along the borders were an assortment of tropical trees and shrubs; tussled palm trees; and skinny, tall papaya trees with their clusters of barely yellow fruit hanging far too high to reach. She stopped and tried to take it all in, amazed to see exotic orchids growing right out of the side of the coconut trees in what looked like small cradles fashioned of bark. A butterfly flitted past her, as if welcoming her to the best playground on the island for all things winged and wiggly.