Heat Wave Read online

  And get out of there I did. I’m pretty sure my parents felt the same way about me because it was them, my mother specifically, who told me about the cook position at Moonwater Inn. Of course, it meant leaving my friends and life behind and moving to the island of Kauai, but even so it was an opportunity I couldn’t afford to pass up.

  At least, I keep telling myself that. In reality, I don’t have a choice in the matter.

  It’s not long before the plane gets lower and lower and then the wings dip slightly to the left and the blue blue ocean comes crashing against dramatic green cliffs, the island of Kauai, my future home, rising dramatically from the depths.

  A thrill runs through me, the kind that tickles your heart, makes your stomach dance. My hands grip the arm rest as the plane goes through some mild bumps.

  “Afraid of flying?” the man beside me asks. He’s in his late fifties, a round face, skin that’s so tanned it’s almost red, and wearing a rumpled white shirt. He hasn’t said two words to me the entire flight.

  “Afraid of crashing,” I tell him and turn my attention back to the window just in time to see the runway rushing up beneath us, red dirt bordering the asphalt. But instead of feeling relief as the wheels make contact with the ground and the plane does its overdramatic braking, another wave of nerves goes through me.

  This is it.

  If this doesn’t work out, there’s no way off this island except for a six-hour flight over open water. If this doesn’t work out, I’m back at square one with my tail between my legs. If this doesn’t work out, I’m once again a disappointment in the Locke family.

  Kauai’s airport is in Lihue and it’s small. Like, way smaller than I had imagined, and dated. It looks like it was built in the 70’s and hasn’t had a single upgrade. I always assumed that a city’s airport was indicative if the city itself, which makes me think that Kauai is a little more backwoods than I thought.

  And it’s muggy too, I realize as I step out into baggage claim to find my two suitcases. It’s open to the outside and a hot blanket of air settles over the carousels, nearly choking me with the humidity. On the screens above the baggage are safety videos droning on and on, warning visitors of the millions of dangers that wait on the island.

  There’s also a damn chicken hanging out near the entrance.

  I’m definitely not in Chicago anymore.

  Eventually I find my two giant suitcases—there was no chance of me packing light for this—and I’m already sweating by the time I haul them out to the road, hoping to spot a taxi.

  “Veronica?” a voice asks.

  I look over to see a guy with a big smile and a goatee, holding a piece of lined paper that’s obviously been torn out of a notebook with Veronica scrawled across it in blue ink.

  “Yes?” I say, frowning at him. “Are you from the hotel?”

  He nods, offering me his hand. “Yup. Charlie,” he says. “Sorry the boss couldn’t make it, he’s tied up in some emergency with the pool. You know how it is.”

  Actually I don’t, but I shake his hand and give him a tight smile. Truth is, part of the reason my nerves are going all crazy was because I thought Logan was picking me up and I’d have to endure an awkward car ride with him. Yes, Logan’s my new boss and I’m sure there will be plenty of awkward times to come, but for the moment I’m relieved I don’t have to face him.

  Yet.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say. Charlie’s easy on the eyes, I have to admit. The goatee, the spiky light brown hair, the tanned limbs and tattoos. Then I notice he’s not even wearing shoes.

  His eyes follow mine and he grins broadly. “Welcome to Kauai,” he says. “No shoes, no shirt, no problem.” He tugs at his neon green Billabong tank top. “Though I wore the shirt just for you. Come on, let me help you.”

  He takes one of my bags and I follow him along the road and across to the short-term parking lot. A rooster struts past the chain-link fence and I stop, quickly pulling out my phone to take a picture. Paolo and Claire are going to go nuts when I show them there’s a chicken at the airport.

  I look up, still smiling at the sight, to see Charlie watching me with amusement. “You’re going to get real bored of the chickens, real fast. The rest of the world has pigeons. We have chickens.” He starts pulling the suitcase along and says over his shoulder, “At least pigeons don’t wake you up at 4 AM.”

  “Why are there so many chickens?” I ask as he leads me toward a beat-up green Toyota Tacoma from the 80’s, a surfboard in the back.

  “Hurricane Iniki swept through here in ninety-two, let them all loose. Here.” He grabs my other suitcase from me and swings it in the back with a grunt, shoving them under the board. He wipes his hands on his surf shorts and gestures to the passenger seat. “Hop on in.”

  “Were you here for the hurricane?” I ask him as I settle in the seat, the raw leather hot against my hands as I adjust myself, stuffing coming out of the torn seams.

  He starts the car, a beefy rumble from the engine. “Nah, I’ve only lived here for six years. Before that I was in Boulder, Colorado, dreaming the dream. You know?”

  “And now you’re living the dream.”

  “Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “This island will shake-up your soul, I’ll tell you that much.” He glances at me as he pays the parking fee to the attendant with dimes he scrounges out of a compartment on the dash. “Aren’t you here to live the dream?”

  “What did Logan tell you?” I ask him,

  “Shephard?” he says and the name jolts through me like a bullet. “Nothing. Our cook Hugo left a few weeks ago and it’s been a scramble to find a new one. Me and Johnny been working overtime. Not that that’s anything new.”

  “You’re a cook?” I ask, surprised. I’m not sure what I thought Charlie was, maybe a surf instructor.

  “Cook, errand boy, Jack of All Trades,” he says, rolling down the window as we pull onto the highway, my gaze stolen by the contrast of colors around me. The rich rusty earth juxtaposed with the the startlingly bright greens of the lush land, the ocean in the distance. “At the compound, everyone has more than one job. I wonder what yours will be.”

  “The compound?”

  “That’s what we call it. Once you start working at Moonwater Inn, you don’t leave. We’re like a big family.”

  Family. Another word that cuts like a knife.

  “Or a cult,” he adds with a chuckle. “Depending how you look at it. I’ll tell you, finding a good permanent job on the island isn’t easy. Shephard treats us well. It’s a small hotel but it’s got a good reputation, and even if we’re all stretched thin sometimes doing side jobs, he makes sure we’re still living life. Ya know? That’s why people live here. To live the life. To take that away…might as well go off-island.” He glances at me over his shades. “So how do you know him, anyway? It’s not every day that someone comes all the way from the mainland. You from Seattle?”

  “Chicago,” I tell him. “Changed planes in Seattle.”

  “Bears, Cubs, Blackhawks?”

  I grin. “Cubs.”

  “This is your year.”

  “Hope so. 2016 has been a shit-show.”

  “Well you came to the right place to escape all that. I know how it is. Why live and work where there’s winter and cold and gloom and shitty people, busy, busy, busy, when you can live and work here?”

  The thing is, I liked the winter and the cold and the gloom and the shitty people. Maybe I didn’t like it all the time, but it’s what I knew. Better the devil you know, they say, and I’ve lived in the Chicago area my whole life. I knew many devils and I knew them very well.

  I turn my attention to the scenery whizzing past. I shouldn’t say whizzing since we aren’t moving very fast—the highway is two lanes for the most part and traffic has been steady—but it gives me a better chance to soak it all in.

  Not that it helps.

  To be honest, it feels like none of this is real. To the right of me, golf courses and resorts stretch out among
palm-strewn grounds, to the left, verdant hills lead sharply to jagged peaks, the razorback cliffs lined with thick vegetation. When we cross a bridge going over a river, I get my first true glance at the ocean, azure waves pounding a golden shore, a few surfers bobbing out on the swells.

  “How do you know Shephard anyway?” Charlie asks. “He a friend of yours?”

  “Through family,” I tell him, my voice firm.

  “Ah,” he says. “Then you know what you’re getting into.”

  I give him a sharp look. “What do you mean?”

  He raises his brows. “Oh, well, you know there are…were…two Logan Shephards, right?”

  I swallow hard, having a feeling I know where this is going. Sometimes I think there are two Veronica Lockes, even if the differences between them are slight, they’re enough. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there was the Shephard I started working for. The Shephards, I should say. It was Logan and his wife that started the hotel. I was one of their first hires. Then she died, drunk driving accident just around the corner from the hotel. Wasn’t her fault but her car went over the edge and…well, he hasn’t been the same since.”

  My fingernails are digging deep into my palms and I’m trying to breathe normally. “I haven’t seen him in a long time…not since the funeral.”

  He looks at me with a guilty expression. “Ah, shit. I had no idea you were that close. I’m sorry for your loss. I knew they sent her…well, that the funeral was out east, but we had a little vigil for her on the beach anyway. She was a great girl, lady, you know, really nice. Always had the right thing to say. Just…perfect, I guess.”

  The thought of a vigil on the beach makes my heart feel like it’s imploding in my chest. “So Logan’s different now,” I say, switching the subject slightly.

  “Still has his sense of humor, but yeah. I don’t blame him. Angrier. Moodier. We call him the grump. Habut.” He pronounces the last word like ha-boo-t. “That’s local speak for all that stuff. But I mean, he still has his sense of humor, right, so he doesn’t mind the nickname. It’s only fair since he has nicknames for all of us.”

  I want to ask more about him, but I’m getting more anxious than I already am. Why oh why did Logan even agree to hire me? My mother says it was his idea, but he’s never been known to be all that charitable. In fact, our relationship has been strained for a long time (if you can even call it a relationship), which is why this whole arrangement has been a shock. It’s either he’s that hard-up for cooks here, or this was my mother’s idea. My parents have shares in Moonwater Inn, so for all I know they could have threatened him.

  Great, I think to myself. I’m probably being forced upon him. A charity case. Logan doesn’t want me here as much as I don’t want to be here.

  To get my mind off of things, I make myself pay attention to the scenery of the cute town we’re passing through called Kapa’a, with its old-west style storefronts, the people milling about on the streets, the coconut palms as they sway lightly with the breeze.

  And chickens. More and more chickens, strutting their stuff down the sidewalk with the tourists.

  Charlie pulls over on the side of the busy road. “Want a coffee?” he asks me, nodding to the quirky-looking coffee shop called Java Kai.

  “Sure,” I say and the minute I do I’m hit with a wave of jetlag, as if the distance has finally caught up with me across the Pacific.

  The coffee shop is absolutely adorable, with a turquoise exterior and a few tables and chairs that seem to meander over to the equally charming Mermaid Café. But inside it’s chaos, completely full of people, with a long-line snaking toward the counter.

  It takes at least five minutes before we finally get to the front of the line, and I take the opportunity to soak up the local atmosphere. There are some couples peering over their laptops, others that are deeply tanned and chatting to each other, adhering to the same barefoot policy that Charlie seems so fond of. I'm guessing they're locals.

  When we finally reach the counter, I order an iced banana mocha from the red-headed barista. She's nice to me, as she's been with all the customers ahead of me, but when she starts talking to Charlie, it's like the sun has just broken through the clouds.

  Charlie is a flirt, I can tell this much already, and this girl seems head over heels for him. I make a note to ask him later on about her but she's already addressing me.

  “Are you the haole?” she asks.

  I give her a look, wondering if she just called me some Hawaiian version of asshole.

  “Haole?” I repeat. “I don't get it.”

  Charlie nudges me with his shoulder. “It means outsider. Not from here.”

  Well that doesn't sound very nice. Haole to you too.

  “I guess,” I tell her, my smile feeling forced now. “I'm the new cook at Moonwater Inn.” I wonder if she even knows where that is.

  “Oh, I know,” she says, smiling again at Charlie as she hands me my iced coffee. “Charlie fills me in on everything. The restaurant is one of my favs.”

  I think she means to say that Charlie is one of her favs.

  He gives her a wink goodbye to which she nearly melts, and we head out of the crowded shop. Despite all the fans that were whirring in there, I’m covered in sweat.

  “Is she a friend of yours?” I ask, stepping around a clucking chicken before I get in the truck.

  He shrugs as he pulls out into the road. Someone honks at us from behind since we apparently just cut them off, but Charlie just sticks his hand out the window and gives the hang loose sign with a twist of his wrist. “She's harmless. Went on a few dates but that was over a year ago.”

  When the driver of the Jeep behind us gives an accepting wave, I turn back to Charlie. “Seems she's still hung up on you.”

  He gives me a grin. “Can you blame her?”

  I roll my eyes. “So what is this haole business? Do the locals hate outsiders here?”

  “Not at all,” he says. “But it's a term and it sticks. I'm still haole.”

  “Really? But you've been here a few years now. Six, right?”

  “Doesn't matter. I wasn't born here, so I'm not local.”

  “And is that girl local?”

  “Ana?” he asks. “Yeah. Born and raised.”

  I want to make a remark on how she doesn't particularly look Hawaiian because of her red-hair, but I'm starting to think that the whole island is one big melting pot of cultures.

  “And in case you're wondering,” he says to me as the road dips closer to the coast again, the brilliant blue of the waves dazzling my eyes, “you don't have to be of Hawaiian origin to be considered Hawaiian.”

  As I mull that over, my eyes are constantly drawn to the lush vegetation as it swoops past us on one side, fields of dry grass and red dirt on the other. Ahead of us the sharp spears of a low mountain range rise up, looking positively Jurassic, dark clouds hovering behind it.

  “That's King Kong,” Charlie says. “Once we get to the side you'll be able to see the profile better.”

  And as the road turns around the mass of jungled peaks and past the town of Anahola, I can actually see what looks like the profile of a gorilla peering across the land.

  The sight doesn't last for long though because now those dark, distant clouds are right upon us, unleashing rain with one swift movement, like King Kong himself just turned on a shower head.

  I twist in my seat to look at my suitcases in the back, glad that Charlie had tucked them under the surfboard.

  “Are they getting wet?” Charlie asks, frowning in the rear-view mirror.

  “So far so good,” I tell him. “Did you know it was going to rain? It was so nice before.”

  “It rains all the time here,” he says. “That’s why it's called the Garden Isle. But don't worry, it never lasts all day and there's always some sunny spot on the island at any given time. Sometimes that means you're heading all the way to the southwest, to Waimea or Polihale Beach to get the rays, but I actually like the
rain. And once you're in the water, it doesn't really matter.” He shoots me a sly look. “Do you surf?”

  I shake my head. “No. I’ve never tried but I don’t think it’s my thing.”

  “That’s fine. I'm going to teach you how.”

  I laugh. “Oh you are? You think you can teach me-of-little-balance?”

  He nods. “It's all in your head, not your body,” he says, tapping his temple. “And I'm a master of it. I teach surf lessons in the winter to make some extra cash, the swells up at Hanalei can get pretty good. I'll totes teach you for free.”

  I frown at him and his use of the word totes. “I don't know…I feel there's a catch here.”

  He wiggles his brows. “You'll find out sooner or later.”

  I'm not sure if that's innuendo or not, but from his interactions with Ana, Charlie already seems to have a bit of a reputation and I've learned my lesson when it comes to sleeping with the staff. I learned it big time.

  Charlie turns the radio up for the rest of the drive, playing some ukulele music that makes me feel like I’m in the movie The Descendants, as the land becomes more tropical and green as we head north. The rain isn't letting up and Charlie tells me how as we get into winter, the north takes the brunt of the bad weather.

  Along the way he starts pointing out more sights—the open plains where they filmed scenes of Jurassic Park (my inner nerd girl freaks out over this one since I can tell you exactly what scenes those were), the turn-off to some lighthouse, the resorts of Princeville, until the road curves along a cliff and the bay opens up below us.

  Even with the clouds and the rain, I can still see the green expanse of what Charlie tells me are taro fields, backed by the stunningly rugged peaks of the mountains, half-hidden by cloud. It’s absolutely gorgeous and I snap a few pictures in vain, trying to capture it.