Nothing to Declare Page 16

  After lunch he put aside his ledger books and drove to the surfers’ beach for a sprint along the water line, followed by a plunge into the shallows. The ocean was bluer than he had ever known, the sun hotter, the sky lit from within. Maybe he had come here for the tan.

  One afternoon when Jesse returned from his run, Eileen was at the woodpile, carving a cradle out of a log of Norfolk pine. The swing of her adze tossed shaved wood behind her in a quick, scented arc. Lucy watched from a rocking chair on the porch, and Jesse sat beside her, admiring Eileen’s skill. They ate some passion fruit plucked from Lucy’s vines.

  “If this isn’t heaven, I don’t know what is,” he told Lucy. “Everything you need in arm’s reach, including someone to love. If I were you I’d never leave.”

  Lucy licked her fingers. “You haven’t heard us fight.”

  “Aren’t you happy together?”

  “Yeah, but we don’t make a pop song out of it.”

  “I’m what, too romantic, that’s what you’re saying? I’ve got my head in the clouds?”

  Lucy cut into the fruit, exposing its bright black and yellow center. “It’s not a crime.”

  Jesse listened to the blunt stroke of Eileen’s tool against the wood. “I’m not sure Marty would agree.” He went into the house to wash the juice from his skin.

  The night turned hot and the breeze flocked the screens with insects and the perfume of moon flowers. Jesse slept fitfully. Only a few hours later, he jolted awake, twisted in his sheets. Lucy was sitting on his bed, calmly playing a flashlight beam against his face as if that were standard at 4 in the morning. No griping—zero hour had come, time to visit the volcano. He could get there before sunup and be home for dinner if he hustled the eleven miles in and out of the summit. It would change how he looked at everything. Jesse hid under his blanket—he needed sleep, he told her, not a self-improvement project.

  Lucy peeled back the covers. “You don’t know what you need.”

  She watched him put on sneakers, hurried him down her lane and tucked him into the car, told him how to find the summit road. She reached through the side window and set his palm atop her navel. “Feel that, the little señor had his Wheaties today, he’s doing back flips.”

  Sure enough, an elbow or foot rippled within the drum of her belly, amazingly strong—he’d never felt anything like it. Jesse spread his fingers to take in more of the sensation. “You’re having a boy,” he said.

  “Tell me about it. But you’ll be hanging out here, I bet, now that you know the way? Watch football with the kid, and play trucks, show him how to whiz standing up?”

  “I can teach him how to make a tarte tatin.”

  In the dim light, he could just pick out Lucy’s faltering smile. She seemed tired and afraid —the mysterious future hurtling toward her faster than she knew.

  “Hey,” Jesse said. “You’ll sail through this, you and Eileen. You’ll be a family. That’s what you want.”

  “The expert speaks. And you—what do you want?” Her knuckles were white against the window frame.

  “Well,” Jesse told her. “Wouldn’t it be great if I knew?”

  He drove in darkness toward the highlands. A ramble through a dead volcano, fine. And then back to California. Time to go home.

  Knowing what to want—it’s not exactly Jesse’s talent, is it? Always stalling for a perfect unison of place and time, weighing his feelings out in ounces like he used to mix his paints. Way back when, I showed him how to let it whoosh the other way, full bore on everything so hard we all got swamped. That’s my story, my tale of woe. Whooshed me right to eighteen months in the pokey. Seems like Jesse whooshed himself to eighteen years.

  I’m glad he made the hop to Maui. It kind of shook me up, a swerve like that, it goes against his nature. You’d think he’d want to come back to his daily regimen after old home week in Santa Cruz. She’s a peach, Natalie, guaranteed to leave you wailing for your momma. Too bad she’s such a pill about my money. Her kids need shoes.

  Look at Jesse hustle near the visitor’s center, stumbling over his laces in the dark, right foot, left foot, as if it doesn’t matter how he goes. Keep an eye out for the trailhead, Little Brother, and take care—the weather’s cold enough to crack your fillings. Two miles of elevation, the wind jumps through you and your thinking turns to rubber. You might get spooked and lose the trail, lose track of where you are.

  Haleakala doesn’t pull its punches—the place hands out the big picture whether you want your picture big or not. Those are clouds streaming past your ankles, can’t you tell, and the stars, who’s ever seen so many, the constellations magnified, Andromeda, Draco, the Northern Crown. Wait till dawn puts out the full show front and center—all that unfiltered ultraviolet, the turbulent geology, the molten center of the earth yanked up so you can crunch your feet on top of it. Like Lucy said, a spot to put you right with God.

  They’ve got a plant there, the only place it grows is in the crater. Silversword, check it out when you get farther down, it’s everywhere, a gray-green fuzzy clump, hardly worth a fuss. For fifty years the thing’ll sit and mind its quiet business, but come one spring, it grows a stalk head-high or taller. Gorgeous item, thicker than your arm and fluffed crown to root with purple flowers, hundreds of them, some stolen color there amid the desolation. Of course, afterward, the plant survives maybe a month before it withers—bloom and die, just like that. Let’s not get too sniffly. At least it blooms.

  Jesse shivered while the sunrise cut a yellow line above the crater’s lip. He was squeezed into one of Eileen’s fleece jackets, and his jeans let the cold in through the ankles. The daylight advanced by degrees—the cinder cones came into shape out of the darkness and the dry plain of the caldera beneath, a whirl of cloud. The wind spun sand across an ocher landscape. After a while, it was possible to think of nothing but the view.

  The altitude diminished his troubles, Jesse decided, starved them of oxygen, and as sunrise continued, he circled the Visitor’s Center with a lighter spirit than he’d known in days. If he headed back within an hour or so, he could be in Santa Monica by tomorrow’s morning prep. The Copain staff would cheer to see him on the job. He walked to the summit and stayed until the sun was fully up, then headed down the main road to where he’d left his car. A circular rainbow dogged him overhead.

  Nearby the parking lot, a crush of tourists tested bicycles and heard last-minute instructions from their leader. He was a young guy with shoulder-length blond dreads, and his spiel had the glistening quality of received truth. The road down Haleakala was the world’s longest, steepest paved incline, thirty-eight miles of switchbacks and curves. They were minutes from taking the ultra-hairiest fun ride in the world—and best of all, the van had done all the uphill miles. Here was a gig for Marty, Jesse thought. No pain—all gain.

  The group wheeled off in ones and twos, the leader at the head. One man hung back. Jesse caught his eye as the guy inspected the pin-tight curves, the long drop that followed, the cloud blanket several hundred yards further on. A T-shirt reading “Ride or Die” expanded over the man’s large belly. He was nearly hyperventilating as he churned through the idea of going down. The man was muttering to himself. It sounded to Jesse’s ear as a kind of incantation: “Just one sec. Go time, Charles. You’ve got this. Go, go, go.” The whoops of the descending riders faded down the mountainside.

  Ride or Die didn’t move, however, and set his almost lashless eyes on Jesse. The poor guy was practically in tears.

  Jesse stepped a few yards closer. “I get where you’re coming from. It’s kind of massive, a ride like this. Lots of ways to fail or fall. So, look—there’s no shame in working the problem as hard as you can.”

  The man smelled of fear, brass in the air. He was doing a ten-count under his breath, his face shuddering with the effort. He held his bike so tightly it was almost bouncing. Jesse pointed the rider down the road. “On the other hand, you could focus on the glory, on the rush. Once the miles are behind
you and you’re on the bottom with your friends, put yourself in that. Valhalla time. Fear conquered. You’ll all be heroes.”

  The man licked his lips. The pulsing in his jaw slowed down. He nodded to Jesse and hoisted himself onto his bike. He wobbled down the long incline, scattering pebbles in his wake. “Wait for me, assholes,” he cried to the empty road ahead.

  Near him a pair of hikers pulled their knapsacks from their trunk. “Beautifully done,” the woman said. “I would have bet a dollar that guy was going to quit.”

  She was seventy or maybe more, a paisley bandanna knotted around her neck. Her blue eyes were bright in the cold, and her white hair was tucked under a ball cap sporting the yin/yang sign. Beside her, a boy opened his bag and checked its contents, counting through a list he’d pulled from his shirt pocket. He looked twelve, Jesse guessed, hiding himself in his chore. The boy was on the small side, and his aviator sunglasses swam on his head. He looked eager, though, happy for the adventure ahead.

  Jesse went over to the woman and with her nod, held up her backpack so she could put it on. She grunted with the weight, said thanks. They both looked down the road, Ride or Die a distant speck. “Let’s hope my new friend there makes it down the mountain,” Jesse said. “Could be I helped him to his doom.”

  “Well, who can say? But that was a lovely thing to do.” She had to halfway shout to be heard above the wind. “I was thinking my grandson and I might want one, too, a pep talk. The walk down and up out of the crater’s about eight hours of violence to the knees. We could both handle a little positive motivation.”

  Jesse considered the request. The woman’s legs looked lean and muscled. Her boots were well used, their red laces firmly tied. Her face, what he could see beneath the shadow of her hat, was the picture of determination. As for the boy, he was staring at the trailhead, ready to bolt down the mountain on his own.

  “Looks like your grandson can handle anything Haleakala will throw at him. Last thing he needs is a boost from me. As for you, I bet you could carry someone up and down the hill on your back.”

  She brushed hair off her face and offered him a cocky smile. “You may be right, but I’d never say no to a little white light energy. It does the trick.”

  “So they say. I’ve always found it out of reach.”

  “Ah,” the woman said. “We all can find it, though, if we dig deep. For me it helps remember everything is Maya.”

  Jesse waved his hands at the surroundings. “Even this? The volcano’s an illusion?”

  The woman tilted up her brim to get a better look at Jesse. “Some scientists think everything’s a construct of the mind. Who knows? But it’s beautiful up here in the clouds, and ten times more as you continue on. This is my fifth hike down. I drive up now every year since I moved to the island.” She pointed to her grandson who was wiggling with impatience. “Kyle here, his first. He’s an amazing boy who loves the wild and wooly places. Grandma to the rescue.”

  “Five times—this must be your spot.”

  The woman removed her sunglasses to give Jesse a closer look, as if to tell if he were serious or not. “Haleakala’s one of the spiritual centers of Mother Earth, you know. They’re all over—Sedona, Uluru in Australia, Lake Titicaca in Peru. The one here’s less important, but Hawaiians believe it’s where the sun god La made light. I come here to pay the god his due. And I’m trying to get something going with Kyle, to challenge him. He’s at the age where everything starts to feel stupid.”

  “So it does. For some of us, that feeling doesn’t stop.” Jesse looked at his wristwatch. “OK. I’ve got to get in my car. Tick tock. A pleasure meeting you.”

  She squared her backpack and flipped her sunglasses on again. “Well then—good times on your journey. Come back here when you don’t have to rush.”

  She raised two fingers to her forehead in salute and headed to the trail, the boy leading the way. A few yards in, she turned toward Jesse. “Have a nice life, OK?” Then she continued along.

  Jesse sat in his car as the engine idled. After a minute, he turned it off and grabbed a hat and water bottle and jogged along the trail, scrambling to catch up. When he reached the pair of hikers, they were sharing a canteen. They looked as fresh as when they started, but Jesse was breathing hard. He took off his hat and wiped his face with a sleeve. “You mind some company? I changed my mind.”

  She smiled. “Well, good for you. Now take my advice and stash that wristwatch in your pocket. This thing’s going to take as long as it needs to. But first let’s make sure that Kyle is with the program. One man one vote.” She tapped her grandson on the shoulder to rouse him from the pop tunes he was bopping to. “This guy wants to walk with us.”

  Kyle shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  They walked on together keeping conversation to a minimum, the woman instructing Jesse to breathe in order through his seven chakras as he hiked. Jesse focused his attention on his feet. One foot in front of another seemed hard enough.

  The house was in a state of uproar when Jesse returned to the cabin—Lucy and Eileen had decided this was the day to decorate the baby’s room, and furniture lined the hallways. The women were laughing as they struggled with wallpaper and paste. Through the baby’s window, the sunset spread its color against the lemon walls.

  “What happened to you?” Lucy wanted to know. “We thought you’d fallen into a crater.

  But since you’re OK, give us a hand. You do know how red your face is, right? Sunblock, man. I should have given you my tube.” She handed him a pail of paste. Jesse told them of his day and his companions, the wonders of walking through the crater. Lucy smiled to hear about the hike.

  “Sounds like one of those bonus days we get here all the time.”

  “Guess so,” Jesse said. “But, me, I’m back to California as soon as I can find a flight. I’ve got a business to run and people who depend on me. My real life.” Lucy pointed him to the stepladder. “Well, if you’re making tracks, go finish the tall spots, OK?”

  Dinner featured a papaya salsa, and afterward Jesse organized his belongings. Lucy had taken to the couch with What to Expect and she peered over her book while Jesse fetched the box with Marty’s ashes from the coffee table. He sank alongside her—seven-and-a-half hours of walking and several more falls had left their mark on his body. “Soon as I land at LAX, I’m calling the masseuse.”

  “Maybe you’ll have a reason to show up again. How are you at washing shitty diapers?”

  “I have no idea. But once the baby’s here are you sure you and Eileen will want me in your way?”

  Lucy sighed. “Is that how you picture yourself, such bad news you better keep your distance? You better let the rest of us in, pal. We’re out here waiting.” With a grunt, she pushed herself past him and left the room and returned with something she dropped in his lap. A white T-shirt with printing on the front—the Monkey God soaring over a forest, his tail burning, his face a near match to the one Jesse painted long ago on Marty’s storefront wall. On the back, in block letters, Hanuman Designs. “I’m blanking,” Jesse said. “We did T-shirts from the logo?”

  “A friend of mine brought it back from Bali two months ago. A dinky crafts shop in a dinky village up in the mountains. The owner’s American, long brown braid, brown eyes, woman who plays salsa music in her store, my friend didn’t catch her name. Tell me I’m doing you a favor letting you know.”

  Jesse took a breath before he examined the image more completely. He could see her hand in it—the bold colors and composition, the fangs upon the creature’s face. Isabel had toughened Hanuman up, underlined the heroics. “Her touch has gotten stronger.”

  Lucy looked at Jesse with curiosity. “Can’t say for definite who drew that thing or where or when.”

  Jesse roughed his fingers over the ink. He recalled the sweep of Isabel’s pencil against her drawing paper, the furrow of her brow while she worked. “She’ll want to know that Marty died,” he said.

  “Maybe. Mayb
e she’ll want to know you didn’t.”

  “You have a nicer view of human nature than I do. She lost her house because of me. She had to run away.”

  “In that case, L.A. calls,” Lucy said.

  Jesse pushed himself upright. He fought the tremble in his voice. “Keep my distance, you mean?”

  He bent down and gave Lucy a kiss and picked up the T-shirt from where it had fallen.

  “Thanks for this. I guess I have to learn to know a roadmap when I see one.” He grabbed the box with Marty’s ashes and went off to finish his packing. He wondered if the women had an atlas. It would be good to check where Bali was.

  TWENTY-THREE

  JESSE FOUND NO RECORD OF HANUMAN DESIGNS in the Bali-wide phone book provided by his bed and breakfast. The name attached itself to all sorts of businesses—travel agents, restaurants, nightclubs, but Isabel’s shop hadn’t made the list. Through his bedroom window, he watched the fifteen-year-old daughter of the hotel keeper offer up rice and flowers at a courtyard shrine—for good luck, the guidebooks said, the first breakfast went to the god.

  The girl served him breakfast on his veranda while Jesse tried to focus on his island map. Caustic sunlight blanked the tiny print—all he could imagine was a long snooze in the shade and a cold drink when he woke up. The humidity and temperature had edged a hundred close to dawn. The air shimmered. Rain coming soon.

  His bungalow and three others squared around the family garden, and he ate his fruit and yogurt among clumps of wild orchids and scrub palms and the sweetest-smelling hibiscus he had ever encountered. In front of him, the baby brother of his waitress chased a gecko through the plants. Jesse called out to show where the lizard had run, but the boy fled behind the safety of his sister’s hip. She coddled him and whispered something tender in his ear. Her brown arm was scarred by a vaccination mark larger than a silver dollar.