Chapter 27: Gary

Okay, I'll admit that once I saw Malia, I had to go up and see her. I was drawn to her like Eros to Psyche. She grabbed me by the eyes and sucked me towards her. To describe her is to do her an injustice, but in vague terms she was brown and smooth, toned and alive, balanced and beautiful, exotic and familiar. The details were amazing too, but I won't go on. Imagine your womanly ideal and Malia was maybe twice as good as that.

And she seemed so at ease, sitting there spread-legged on the sand in the surf, with her arms back to support herself, the sun on her face.

What do you say to a Goddess?

You don't.

As I approached her, I could see that she had her eyes closed, and that her lips were moving. I settled down quietly into the surf next to her, not near enough to touch, not facing her, but looking out the way she was facing. I could faintly hear that she was, perhaps, meditating, though the form was unfamiliar to me. I closed my eyes too, though the beauty of the cove matched her own and it seemed wrong to shut it out, to exclude it, to ignore it.

I simply sat there nonetheless, with the waves washing against me, so warm, so intimate. I let the wind bring me news of nectars, of overripe fruit, of the cycles of the sea. My ears were lulled by the rhythm of the surf, and pierced by the calls of gulls. My fingers met the grains of sand beneath them, and learned their squirrely ways. My toes sensed the currents of the water, even as my hair felt the different ripples of the breezes. My eyes watched the sun boil and blossom and bless through my eyelids. I forgot where I was. I forgot the Goddess beside me. I forgot myself. I forgot time.

Then my ears brought me something new to play with, and I felt myself coalesce back into Gary, sitting on the surf. The sound was singing, coming from my right, coming from the Goddess. The words were not my words; the tune was not one I knew. But still the song spoke to me of mountains and clouds and trees and birds and flowers and children.

When the song was over, and the surf gave quiet thanks to the air, I turned to face her. "That was beautiful."

"Oh! You startled me," she said, turning her eyes towards mine.

I've been told that my own eyes, of such an unexpectedly pale blue, are startling and captivating and repellant and riveting and amazing and weird. I don't think anyone can look at them and be blasé about them. They're a curse as much as a blessing. Malia's eyes made mine look like a cheap parlor trick. They were every color except blue. Or perhaps they were as blue as her mother's, but her father's side had gathered all of the other colors of Maui to hide that fact." I'm sorry," I managed. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

"You didn't," she said, smiling. "I had no idea you were there until you spoke. You arrived quietly, or I would have noticed. I'm Malia."

"I'm Gary." Somehow it didn't feel right to offer her my hand, not yet. "You belong here."

"Mmmm. I live in a village above us. I learned to swim in this cove. My pinky toe met a crab for the first time right over there when I was three. I reflexively looked over to where she indicated with a nod of her head, not that it really mattered where the crab had been. Just as reflexively, I looked up when I heard to squawks from overhead. A Brown Noddy with a fish in its beak was being pursued by a Great Frigatebird over the cove.

"Look!" I exclaimed involuntarily. The noddy made two frantic circles in the sky, and the frigatebird stayed in remarkably close pursuit for a while, before wheeling off and disappearing behind the cliffs.

"Iwa," Malia said with disgust. " 'The Thief'. But this time he failed," she added brightly.

"Yeah, I guess a noddy has a bit too much maneuverability," I said.

"You know your birds," she said, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, I'm a pretty serious birder."

"So you're here for a birding vacation?"

"Not really. We ended up with some unexpected business. We were going to be passing through Hawaii quickly on our way to Fiji, but we've ended up needing to stay for a week or two. Not that I mind. It's a beautiful island, and we got to see a Kikekoa at Waikamoi the other day."

Malia looked very surprised. "You can't usually see them there, at least not in the public areas."

I shrugged. "Private tour," I explained. Her eyes searched mine for a minute, though her reaction to my statement was unreadable.

"So who are you with?" she asked. "You said 'we'..."

"Oh." I looked over to the beach, and caught sight of Moira and Saralinda propped up on their elbows, talking quietly together.

"Moira and Saralinda are with me. Come over and meet them? I could use a soda. We've got lunch stuff too. Want some?" I asked as I stood up in the waves.

Malia looked over at the girls, and then gave me another long, inscrutable stare, and then shrugged and made to stand up. I reached down my hand to help her up, and she took my hand and let me help her, but then dropped my hand as soon as she stood. She walked back to the beach, grabbed a floral wrap, and wound it around her waist.