"Actually they have," Todd said. "When my dad and I used to come out here camping, it was much worse."
"Worse!" Paula squeaked. "How could it be worse?"
"Parts of it weren"t paved. It was gravel and dirt and very muddy when it rained."
"They sure don"t make it very appealing for a tourist to come all the way out here," Paula said.
Todd smiled and nodded. "I think that"s the idea. The locals like it unchanged. I don"t blame them. Hana is a unique place."
"Are we almost there yet?" David asked for what seemed like the fiftieth time.
"Almost."
About fifteen minutes later, the Jeep hit smooth pavement and wider road. They knew they were in Hana by the community of small houses that suddenly appeared on the hillside.
Christy spotted an old white church with a tall steeple and smiled to see that the undaunted missionaries had found their way to remote Hana more than a century ago. Across the road from the church lay a huge fenced pasture with a carpet of emerald gra.s.s running all the way to steep cliffs. The cliffs dropped into the bright turquoise ocean. The blending of colors struck her as incredibly beautiful.
A dozen or so horses nibbled on the rich green gra.s.s, their shiny coats looking silkier in the tropical sun than that of any horse she had ever seen.
She felt twinges of homesickness for the farm she had grown up on in Wisconsin. But Wisconsin gra.s.s never turned this dazzling shade of green, and horses back on the farm were merely black or brown, not silky ebony, amber, and caramel like these.
"Where are the waterfalls?" David whined.
Instead of answering, Todd swung the Jeep into a tiny old-fashioned gas station and filled the tank.
David whined the whole time. "I"m hungry. When are we going to eat? How much farther is it? Can"t we get out here?"
"David, stop it! You sound like a big baby," Paula scolded. "We shouldn"t have let you come with us."
Before Todd got back in, he roughed up David"s already wind-snarled hair. "Think you can hang in there another half hour, dude?"
"A half hour!" David squawked.
"I thought we were almost there," Paula moaned. "You didn"t tell us it would take all day to get there! I thought you said it was about seventy miles."
"It is," Todd explained. "Something like that. But you may have noticed that we haven"t been driving very fast."
"Then let"s get going," Paula ordered. "It seems like the middle of the afternoon, and we"re not even there yet. We"re barely going to have any time left before we have to turn around and go back."
"Oh no," David groaned. "Do we have to take the same road back?"
"Unless you want to go the long way back on the dirt road," Todd said, hopping into the front seat and bringing the engine to a roar. "Come on, you guys, where"s your sense of adventure?"
"Yahoo!" Christy shouted spontaneously as Todd made the tires peel out on the road.
Christy loved this. She really, truly did. If this was what he meant the other day about being adventurous, then maybe she really was after all.
"Oh, one thing I should tell you," Todd called over his shoulder as they drove under a huge plumeria tree, which filled the air with its rich fragrance, "the road to the falls is ten times worse than the road we just came over."
"This road should be condemned!" Paula shrieked. "How much farther is it?"
"Not much. Relax, Paula. This is the real Hawaii," Todd said.
"I"d rather be back at the condo," Paula muttered, crossing her arms.
"I like it," Christy called out. They were driving slowly, and the wind had subsided, so her voice traveled clearly.
She laughed at her own exuberance and then let loose all her pent-up feelings. "Look at this, you guys! It"s beautiful. I don"t care how long it takes to get there. Look! Have you ever seen flowers growing out of a rock before?" With a daring grab, she s.n.a.t.c.hed a tiny purple flower. She sniffed the fragrance and told them all, "I could live here the rest of my life."
Todd glanced at Christy over his shoulder, and she could see his dimple when he smiled. "I knew you"d like it here."
He slowed the Jeep to creep over another one of the many bridges they had crossed. But this bridge was longer, and people were standing at its edge, looking over the side.
"This is it, guys!" Todd announced. "The parking lot is down the road, and then we walk to the falls."
"Finally." Then with a quick look around, David said, "That"s all there is? No waterslides or anything?"
"Sorry, dude. It"s all natural, the way G.o.d made it."
From her side of the Jeep, all Christy could see was black rock lining a round pool that flowed into the ocean.
All of a sudden Paula shrieked, and Todd slammed on the brakes.
"He"s going to jump!" Paula screamed. "Somebody stop him!"
Too late. A man in fluorescent green trunks sprang from the edge of the old stone bridge and jumped into the water below.
"Oh. There"s water down there!" Paula said in a flash of discovery. "I didn"t know he was diving into the water!"
"Whoa!" David exclaimed. "Did you see that, Todd? Have you ever done that? Have you ever jumped off that bridge?"
"Not yet."
After they parked, they hiked the long gra.s.sy trail down to the lower pools. Then they waded through the chilly water over slippery rocks until they came to a gravel spot by a large pool, where they put down their belongings. Paula laid out her towel and began to sunbathe. David yanked off his T-shirt and gla.s.ses in one motion and jumped into the pool.
"Anybody want to go exploring?" Todd asked.
"Not me," Paula said without looking up. "I got enough Indiana Jones trailblazing on the ride here."
"I do!" Christy followed Todd over the rocks and into the refreshing water.
Todd motioned to a big black rock and excitedly said, "Here. This is the one. Sit right here. What do you see?"
"It"s beautiful," Christy said. "So tropical. I love it!"
What she didn"t tell him was that she also loved having him all to herself.
"Take your time." He placed his foot on the rock next to where she sat. His soggy tennis shoe dripped water on her leg. "Take it all in and tell me if you see it."
Slowly, she scanned the tall black sides of the canyon, covered with foliage hanging down in long vines. She counted three large pools that each flowed into a waterfall, then on into the next pool. A fourth pool stumbled over precarious chunks of black lava before giving itself over completely to the hungry ocean, which sent wave after wave to lap up the fresh mountain spring water.
"You mean the colors?" she asked Todd. "The blues are so blue, and the plants are an indescribable shade of green I"ve never seen before."
"No, no, up there," Todd pointed.
Christy studied the huge volcanic mountain dressed in the ruffled green gown of wild foliage that flowed down to the canyon where they sat. Then she saw it. It took a minute to place where she had seen that exact scene before. Finally, she remembered.
"The bridge! It"s the bridge on the poster you gave me. This must be the exact spot they took the picture from."
Todd smiled and nodded, looking pleased that she had figured it out. "I found that poster the first day Bob and I were here. In the grocery store, of all places! I bought three. One for me, one for you, and one for my dad."
He wedged himself onto the rock next to Christy. "My dad and I sat right here on this same rock when I was about ten years old."
"Really? That"s why you remembered the bridge and bought the posters?"
"There"s more to it. Remember the guy who jumped off the bridge when we were going across it?"
"It"s the same bridge, right? The one we drove over?"
Todd nodded. "My dad jumped off the bridge a couple of times, and he wanted me to jump too. But I never could get up the nerve."
"Well, I don"t blame you." Christy tried to sound encouraging. "It"s a long way down! How far is it?"
"I don"t know. Maybe sixty feet or more. And you have to land in a certain spot where it"s deep enough, because lots of rocks are hidden underwater. Kimo came with us one time. He jumped. But I couldn"t do it. I thought my dad would be disappointed in me, you know, that I wasn"t a real man or something because I wouldn"t jump."
"You were only ten years old."
"Kimo was ten too." Todd looked at Christy.
She turned away from the bridge and met his gaze. His eyes looked as blue as the sky. As blue as the ocean. As blue as the freshwater pool at her feet. It hit her in that moment, looking into his eyes, that there was so much she didn"t know about Todd and so much she wanted to know.
"So what happened?" Christy asked, feeling a tiny bit nervous with Todd sitting so close and looking at her so intently. Yet at the same time she wished they could sit there all afternoon and talk and talk and talk.
"My dad brought me over to this rock, and we sat here just like this. He told me to look at the bridge and always remember it, because my life would be full of bridges. With every bridge would come a choice. Then he told me he admired me that I didn"t jump just because Kimo did."
"Wait a minute," Christy interrupted. "He said he admired you for not jumping?"
"Yeah. He said, "I don"t care if you ever jump off that bridge. All that matters to me is that you make your own decision and follow through on it because it"s your choice, not because someone influenced or persuaded you to do it," or something like that."
Todd paused, and Christy could see that this moment meant as much to him as it did to her.
"Anyway, I"ve never forgotten that day and what my dad said. I think I became more of an individualist after that, making my choices because that"s what I chose to do, not because someone cornered me into it."
Todd stood up, reached for Christy"s hand, pulled her to her feet, and said, "Come on, I"ll show you the trail up to the top."
Christy slipped on the first rock, then regained her balance and kept holding tightly to Todd"s hand as he led the way up a narrow trail on the rocks. They wound their way under the jungle growth of huge leaves and trailing vines. The pools on their right side grew smaller and more distant the farther up they climbed.
Halfway up in a clearing, Todd stopped and called down to Paula. She lifted her head from her beach towel and looked all around. Not being able to determine where Todd"s voice was coming from, she lay back down and closed her eyes to soak up some more sun.
Christy thought Paula probably couldn"t see them without her gla.s.ses, anyway. Knowing Paula, she probably left them back at the condo with the unused one-piece bathing suit.
David, who had joined some local boys in the shallow water, was busy watching his new friends catch prawns with their homemade metal cages.
Todd and Christy kept climbing until the trail met the road, and Christy realized they were at the top-at the bridge. A few cars pa.s.sed slowly, and two older ladies stood at the side, cautiously holding onto the railing while snapping pictures of the pools and the ocean.
Todd led Christy along the bridge"s edge, looking into the water far below. He stopped at what seemed to be his chosen spot, a few feet from the old ladies. He let go of Christy"s hand.
She caught something in his expression and carefully said, "Todd?"
His silver-blue eyes locked on hers, and she knew he was going to do it. Todd was going to jump.
"You don"t have to, you know," she fumbled. "Like your dad said, it has to be your decision, not a whim or a pressure thing."
Todd firmly grasped Christy by the shoulders and pulled her close as a car pa.s.sed inches behind them. His eyes were swimming with the secret dreams of his heart, and she knew he spoke the truth before he even said the words.
"This is my decision. I"m not doing it for my dad or Kimo or anybody. This is for me." He broke into a wide grin. "In case I don"t come up, the keys to the Jeep are in my backpack."
Then he enveloped Christy in his arms and kissed her quickly and firmly, like a soldier giving his beloved one last kiss before going off to war.
Before she could respond, Todd released her and positioned himself on the stone railing of the bridge. He set his sights on the small area of deep water below. Without looking back, he bent his knees, and without a sound, Todd launched his six-foot frame into the thick tropical air.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" screamed one of the old women on the bridge"s edge.
Her friend frantically waved her arms. "Someone save him! He jumped! A man jumped off the bridge!"
Christy, clawing her fingers into the stone railing as she leaned over as far as she dared, held her breath and waited for the splash.
Splash!
Then she counted and frantically scanned the water"s surface, watching for Todd"s sandy-blond head to pop up. Three...four...five...six... Come on, Todd, How long are you going to stay down there? Seven...eight... There he is! There he is! He"s okay! He did it!
Christy reached over and touched the arm of the old woman, who was still screaming and waving her hands to the pa.s.sing cars. Her friend had trotted down the road, hollering and trying to flag down a car.
"Look!" Christy pointed, trying to get the woman"s attention. "He"s okay! See him down there?"
Todd, treading water in the center of the pool, called out to Christy with hoots and hollers, waving wildly.
Christy stretched her arms over the edge so Todd could see her applauding him.
"Thelma!" the woman on the bridge called. "He"s all right! Come see!"
Thelma bustled back to the edge and peered over. Todd waved at her with both arms.
"Oh, my heavens!" Thelma sighed. "That young man gave me quite a scare!" Then turning to Christy, she said, "Whatever possessed him to do that?"
"He wanted to," Christy said defensively. "He knew what he was doing. He"s been here before...with his dad."
The women did not look impressed, nor did they join Christy in applauding him. Rather, they clutched their cameras, linked arms, and cautiously made their way off the bridge.