"I"ve had my share. You get enough down there, Bob?"
Bob, Marti, Mom, and David all reached for their bowl of poi at the same time. Marti was the first to say, "Here, Todd. You can have the rest of ours."
They all laughed, and the merry mood continued through the luau. Christy decided to be adventurous and try a few things she didn"t normally eat, like mangoes in the fruit salad and shredded pork wrapped up in ti leaves, which Todd called laulaus.
Paula, not demonstrating an adventurous spirit, barely ate a thing besides the white rice. Part of Paula"s problem was her sunburn.
All day at the beach Christy had obediently smeared her skin with sunscreen, but Paula refused, saying she tanned easily and never burned. Even Marti"s warnings bounced off Paula, who seemed determined to soak up as much Hawaiian sun as possible, parading her white flesh up and down the beach in her pink bikini.
When they dressed for the luau, Christy had covered herself with aloe vera gel, and now in the coolness of the setting sun, she was only a tiny bit sunburned on her back. Paula"s flaming red face proved she"d gotten too much sun. Even her lips and eyelids had swollen. She was hurting, even though she"d convinced all of them on the way to the luau that her stomach felt a little pink, but that was all.
Todd looked incredibly good in his blue-flowered Hawaiian shirt. Like an island boy. With his tan face, sun-streaked blond hair, and screaming silver-blue eyes, Todd had never looked better.
Christy wasn"t the only one who noticed how good Todd looked. Paula had once again locked her gaze on him, and all during dinner, every time Christy looked up, she felt something was going on between the two of them.
By the time the show began and the Polynesian dancers appeared on stage in their ceremonial costumes, Christy had convinced herself that whatever game Paula was playing, Christy could play it too.
They applauded the talented hula dancers, and when David"s favorite, the fire dancer, jumped onto the stage, Christy moved her chair closer to Todd for a better view. She slightly moved her arm so that she brushed up against the sleeve of Todd"s shirt. She couldn"t tell if he noticed or not. He seemed completely caught up in the show.
The show"s host came to the microphone and asked for the crowd to "put your hands together" for the fire dancer one more time. Then he asked if there were any birthdays or anniversaries in the group.
David pointed at Christy, whistling loudly. She shrank down in her seat and prayed they wouldn"t make her stand up or anything. To her relief, all they did was ask the group to sing "Happy Birthday" to the six birthday people. It was kind of fun being sung to, as long as she didn"t have to stand. That would have been too embarra.s.sing.
"You got off easy." Todd leaned closer to her. "I thought they were going to call you up on stage."
He barely finished speaking before several guys, dressed only in cloths around their waists and wreaths of thin green leaves around their heads, came running through the audience to select their dance partners. One of the brown-skinned dancers appeared at their table and beckoned to Christy, holding out his hand as the drums on the stage beat their commands, "Come, come, come, come..."
Christy resisted, sinking into her chair, shaking her head. She could feel her pulse begin to beat time with the drums.
"Go on, Christy," Paula urged. "Go with him!"
"No, you go, Paula. Take her!" Christy pointed across the table. Now"s your chance to be as adventurous as you want, Paula!
"Take both wahines!" Todd shouted to the dancer. "Make both girls go."
The dancer stood firm, one arm stretched out to Christy and the other arm now pointing to Paula. In a voice much larger than himself, he spoke. "Both wahines come!"
And so they did.
The drums changed into Tahitian dance music the minute Christy and Paula stepped onto the stage. They joined the seven other "victims," and in front of more than a hundred people, Christy swayed and wiggled and stamped her feet, feeling silly and embarra.s.sed.
The flowered lei around her neck swished back and forth across her favorite flowered sundress, and she couldn"t tell at all if she looked cute or ridiculous. By the time she"d come up with some kind of pattern for her feet to follow, she had the feeling she looked more like a cheerleader in slow motion than a fluid-moving hula dancer.
Paula was into the dance, wiggling her hips so her white shorts swished back and forth. She locked her blue-eyed gaze on her native dance partner, who by now had turned his back on Christy, totally ignoring her and having fun showing off with Paula.
The drums came to an abrupt halt, and the dancer slipped his arm around Paula"s waist and said something Christy couldn"t hear. She wasn"t about to stick around on stage to see if anyone had any secret messages for her.
Quickly making her way down the stage steps, she was aware some people she pa.s.sed had video cameras. They might have actually taped her embarra.s.sing moment on stage.
Good thing I didn"t do anything really embarra.s.sing. I could have ended up on that TV show as one of "America"s funniest."
Before she managed to get back in her seat, the girl dancers had spread out in the audience. It didn"t surprise Christy to see that Todd was one of their first selections. He slid past Christy, shrugging his shoulders and obediently following the wahine in the gra.s.s skirt.
David laughed at Christy when she sat down, but Bob, Mom, and Marti had sweet things to say. They repeated the same bits of praise to Paula when she returned to her seat.
Now it was Todd"s turn. The drums began slowly, and the dancers swished their gra.s.s skirts back and forth, inviting the guys to follow their motions. Since Todd had proved to be so familiar with Hawaiian ways, Christy sat back, waiting for him to wow the audience with his expert hula dancing.
To her surprise and everyone else"s humor, Todd turned out to be a total hula klutz.
"Guys just can"t move their hips like that," Paula said in between bursts of laughter. "Look at him! He"s the star of the show."
Of the eight or nine men they"d called up on stage, Todd stood out as the worst dancer. A large man in the front row balanced his video camera on his shoulder and taped the whole thing. The funniest part was that Todd seemed to be sincerely trying to hula and didn"t realize how hilarious he looked with his arms in the air and hips doing a sort of offbeat wiggle.
Before the music ended, all the hula-dancer girls formed a circle with Todd in the middle. They danced around him so all Christy could clearly see were his arms waving in the air.
"I"d try to hide that kind of dancing too." Bob chuckled. "A surfer he is; a dancer he"s not."
Bob teased Todd when he sat down by patting him on the shoulder. "We all have our strengths and weaknesses, son. Stick to surfing!"
Christy laughed along with the rest of them, yet she wondered if their teasing hurt Todd"s feelings. If it did, he didn"t show it. He even made some jokes about himself as they left the luau and began a leisurely stroll along the winding Kaanapali Beach walkway.
Christy made sure she was positioned right by Todd"s side while they walked, wondering if she should clutch his arm the way she had at the airport or wait to see if he"d reach for her hand. At the luau Todd had divided his attention equally between Christy and Paula. Now, with the ocean singing its eternal song only a few yards to their left and the velvet sky sprinkled with diamonds high above them, Christy felt hopelessly romantic.
It"s my birthday, Todd. It"s my sixteenth birthday, and here we are, walking along the beach in Maui. You have to hold my hand or pay some kind of special attention to me. You have to!
"Todd," Paula chirped loudly, "wait up!"
She left the clump of Bob, Marti, Mom, and David and scooted up to Todd"s other side, freely clutching his arm and holding it with both hands.
"We should make a deal. You teach me to surf, and I"ll teach you to dance. Wouldn"t that be fun?"
Christy"s mind whirled through a split-second debate on how she could respond to this situation. She could grab Todd"s other arm, she could fall back with the grown-ups to test Todd and see if he came back for her, or she could turn into a cat-woman and scratch Paula"s eyes out.
Before she could choose the best option, Marti nosed into their threesome and stated, "Paula, I"ve been wanting a chance to talk with you, and this is the perfect opportunity."
Marti abruptly linked her arm through Paula"s and pulled her away from Todd, positioning herself and Paula several feet in front of Todd and Christy.
All right, Aunt Marti! I take back every mean thing I ever thought about you. You really are on my side!
"I"ve been meaning to tell you, Paula dear, that with a few simple pointers, I believe you could lose some of your Midwest flavor and take on a more West Coast style. First, let"s evaluate the way you walk..." and on Marti went, conducting her unique style of charm school with a rather willing Paula.
Christy thought of a whole string of things to say to Todd as the gentle evening breeze caressed her shoulders, awakening the sweet fragrance in her plumeria and tuberose lei. But she couldn"t get herself to jump in and start talking because she kept hoping Todd would slip his arm around her or take her hand.
When he didn"t, she struggled miserably over how she could encourage him, even though Mom, Bob, and David were right behind them, watching. She was capable of being forward like Paula. She could easily slip her arm through Todd"s and say, "Isn"t it a gorgeous night? What a perfect setting for my birthday! Isn"t it romantic, Todd?"
Okay, Christy, she coached herself, go ahead. Make a move. Paula would if she were you.
"You know..." Todd sliced through the silence between them and leaned close so the others couldn"t hear what he said. "That"s one of the things I like most about you, Christy. You don"t play games or try to be flirty like a lot of other girls."
She swallowed hard, feeling caught.
If only you knew, Todd! One more minute, and I would have been playing "Miss Piggy."
"It"s not that I don"t think about it," Christy said, shocked that the honest words tumbled out before she could stop them.
"Really?" Todd looked at her curiously. "What do girls think about? I mean, why do they do that to a guy?"
Christy didn"t allow herself to hesitate. If she did, she might not say any of the things she truly felt or thought- things she often wanted to talk over with Todd but usually chickened out on before she said them.
"I guess we"re looking for some attention, some way to find out what the guy is thinking or how he feels about us."
"That"s all backward," Todd stated. "I think the guy should be the initiator and the girl should be the responder. Not the other way around."
"But you don"t know what it"s like to be the girl and to have to wait and wait and wait for the guy to initiate something. When he doesn"t, you feel he"s not interested in you."
"So girls think that the level of a guy"s interest is based on how much he touches her?" Todd sounded surprised, and his voice rose a bit.
Christy wondered if everyone else could overhear their conversation. She was saying so many things to Todd she had longed to tell him that she continued but spoke softly.
"I agree that a girl should let the guy be the leader, but I also think sometimes the guy can be a little more, well, gentle and caring by, you know, holding her hand or other little expressions of how he feels without it being a big deal." Christy looked up at Todd, and in the dim light she could see an amazed expression on his face, as if he"d never considered that point of view before.
"Does that make sense? What I"m trying to say is that if a guy holds a girl"s hand or something like that, it lets the girl know he likes her. That"s all. It doesn"t mean he"s trying to, you know, make out with her or anything. It just means she"s special to him."
"Interesting. It"s different for guys," Todd said. "For a guy it"s like-"
He didn"t get to finish his sentence, which frustrated Christy, because Bob interrupted them. He directed them to stop at Whalers Village and find a seat on the patio at Leilani"s Restaurant.
David helped Todd push two of the round tables together under the light of a gas tiki torch and pull up seven chairs. David then made a beeline for the seat next to Todd. Then, before Christy could get around to the other side, Paula grabbed the chair on Todd"s other side. Feeling as though she"d been cut off from one of the best conversations she"d ever had with Todd, Christy dropped into a chair next to Marti.
"Oh, Christy," Marti scolded, "that certainly is not the way a young lady takes her seat! I thought I"d taught you better than that."
Fortunately, the waitress stepped up to their table, and Christy didn"t have to answer.
"We"ll have seven Naughty Hula pies," Bob ordered for them all. "And how many coffees?"
"Bob," Marti interjected, "I only want a little bite of yours, and perhaps the girls would like to split one. The slices are gigantic, and they"re awfully rich."
"Not the birthday girl!" Bob flashed a warm smile at a pouting Christy. "Tonight she gets whatever she wants."
If that was true, I"d get Todd all to myself and I"d hold his hand tightly, and I"d find a way to tell him how I feel about him. If I could wish for anything on my birthday, that would be it.
They all ordered their own slice of pie, except Marti. Then they laughed at their optimism when the huge slices of macadamia-nut ice-cream pie, covered with hot fudge and whipped cream, arrived at their table.
"I tried to warn you," Marti said. "Now you know why they call it Naughty Hula pie. Can you even begin to guess how many calories are in this monstrous piece?"
"Let"s sing to the birthday girl and let her enjoy her pie without the guilt," Bob suggested. "Go ahead, honey. Make a wish."
Christy closed her eyes. She knew exactly what to wish for.
On the drive to the condo, Christy felt overly full, yet not willing to tell her aunt she had been right about the size of the pie. She told herself she"d wasted her birthday wish on something that would never come true. Todd wasn"t even sitting by her in the van. He sat by David on the back bench seat, with Paula close on his other side.
"You have something in your hair, Todd," Paula said. Christy turned slightly in her middle seat so she could see what game Paula was up to now. Paula began to comb her long fingernails through the side of Todd"s hair, leaning close in the dark car to find the something in his hair.
"Did you get it?" Todd asked.
"I"m not sure. It"s kind of dark in here." She kept grooming his short, sun-lightened mane. "You really have nice hair."
Let go of him, Paula! Stop your stupid little games. Todd hates your games anyway. You"re not going to score any points with him this way.
"That feels good," Todd said. "Little more to the left."
He leaned his head closer to her, so she could keep scratching.
"Eww! I think you still have sand in your hair!" Paula squealed.
"Probably. I need fingernails like yours to get it out, I guess."
That"s just great, Todd. Now who"s playing games?
Christy curled her hands into two fists in her lap. The cat-woman image reentered her mind. Would anyone try to stop her if she sprang from her seat and used her claws on Paula at this very moment?
But they were home.
Bob parked the van, and the sand-scratching ritual in the backseat came to an end.
Scrunched together in the elevator, Christy shot angry darts at Todd. Being mad at Paula was one thing. She expected Paula to play all her games to win Todd"s attention, regardless of this being Christy"s birthday. But why, oh, why would Todd say he didn"t like it when Paula played those games and he liked Christy because she didn"t play them, and then give in to Paula whenever she came on to him? Didn"t he see what he was doing when he accepted her attention? Didn"t he understand how that made Christy feel?
"I"m going to bed," David announced when the elevator deposited them on the sixth floor. "I don"t feel very well."
"We have a few presents for Christy. Can you wait until after she opens them?"
"No," David groaned, holding his stomach, "I"m too full to sit up. I just want to go to bed."
David went right to his room, while the others gathered on Bob and Marti"s lanai to admire the stars. While everyone chatted, Christy stared into the vast ocean before her.
She had to admit, the night was beautiful. She didn"t want to ruin what was left of her birthday with such a bitter att.i.tude.
I"m sorry, Father G.o.d. She sent her heartfelt prayer on a sudden breeze that rustled the huge palm tree growing beside the lanai. Please help me not to be so jealous but to act the way You want me to.
Then she remembered. Today, or more accurately tomorrow, was her spiritual birthday. One year ago she had given her heart to the Lord.
I"m not exactly acting like one of Your daughters, am I, G.o.d? I"m sorry.
"You going to join us, Christy?" Marti called from the lanai table. "We have some presents here, and they all have your name on them."
Christy took a breath and allowed a smile to replace her scowl. As demurely as possible, she sat in the seat next to her aunt, secretly pleased with her delicate descent.
The night wasn"t over yet. A few dreams could still come true.