The Maui Effect (Man-Made Trilogy #1)

Meditations on Fear

Dane

In early October, Yeti came to bring Dane home to Santa Cruz. They took the Pacific Coast Highway, passing through Big Sur, with steep cliffs to the ocean on the left. Craggy rocks and whitecaps and the sharp smell of pine trees. Dane rode with the window down, cool, salty air in his face. Isla rode in his lap, head out.

“Big day, glad I could be a part of it,” Yeti said.

“Thanks, man, I’m glad you’re here.”

“So what comes next? What’s your end game?” Yeti asked.

Dane didn’t have to think. “Ride Pe’ahi again. And Nazaré. XXL.”

“So, the flame hasn’t gone out.”

“The flame will never go out. You know how it is.”

“Did you get the invite?”

There was only one invite that mattered to Dane and that was for the Pe’ahi Challenge. “Not yet, but I’m going to Maui even if they don’t invite me.”

“You won last year, don’t they have to invite you?”

“I haven’t been in touch with anyone on the tour. Just focusing on getting myself back together. Kind of a vulnerable place to be, but hey, the alternative is worse.”

“Vulnerability is sexy,” Yeti told him.

“I don’t feel sexy.”

“In many eyes, you’re even more elevated. Before, it was because you were a surfing legend, now it’s because they’ve seen you fight your way through hell and back.”

“You think?”

“I know. The industry has enough egos to fill the whole state of California. You keep being you and vulnerable and you’ll move from legend to icon status in no time.”

Dane laughed. “Wait, I thought a legend was better than an icon.”

“Nope. An icon tops a legend.”

When he walked into his house in Santa Cruz for the first time since he’d left for Ventura, it felt damn good to be back. A milestone he wasn’t sure he’d ever reach. The strong smell of surfboard wax mingled with dried wildflowers made him feel right at home. Hope and Kama and Jeff were all sitting at his kitchen island with a bottle of bubbly on ice. Isla bounced up to them and began howling. Kama picked her up and swung her around.

“Looks like I’m not the only one happy to be home,” Dane said.

Kama poured glasses for everyone, and Dane took only a tiny bit. His balance was still not all the way back and alcohol was not part of his new program, but this called for a toast.

“Cheers to Dane, our fearless leader back with us again, powered by his own two legs, no less,” Yeti said.

“To Dane, friends for life,” Kama said.

Hope, who was standing next to him, bumped him with her shoulder. “It hasn’t been the same without you around. I’m glad you’re back, even if you do like to fuck up my hair.”

Dane grinned. “The band is back together, watch out, world.”

Once dinner wound down, and everyone else had left, Dane and Kama kicked back on the cracked-leather couch making winter plans. Kama seemed uncomfortable, especially when Maui came up, but Dane figured it was because he was worried for him. They were shooting for late October or early November. Swells weren’t usually enormous yet, but there were likely to be waves of substance. He was still haunted by his reaction to the guy wiping out at Steamer Lane, but the underwater rock running had helped rebuild his faith in himself. Hawai’i was also a good place to start because the warm water was less dangerous.

Kama slid down so his legs were way out in front of him on the floor, and finally came out with it. “Did you see the picture in the Maui Time ?”

At some point in the summer, Dane had picked up the habit of checking the Maui news almost daily. Every now and then there would be a mention of Zen Mountain Retreat, or Jones, or ‘Iwa and Winston and their fight. This morning, in all the madness of leaving Ventura, he hadn’t had a chance to look.

He frowned. “What picture?”

“The one of ‘Iwa and Winston.”

“No. Should I have?”

Kama pulled out his phone and held it up to Dane, who grabbed it with a growing sense of dread. The headline said, “Uncle’s: A Feast for the Senses.” Beneath the story was a carousel of photos, the first one of Eddie standing out front holding up a big fish with both hands. Dane hit the arrow, skimming the next ones, until he came to the one Kama had been talking about. ‘Iwa kissing Winston under fairy lights on the back deck of Uncle’s. Dane may as well have been coldcocked. Would have preferred it actually.

He handed the phone back, and was afraid to ask, but forced himself to. “Are they together? Like together together?”

“I have no idea, but I thought you’d want to see this, in case.”

“It was probably just a matter of time—those two have a lot of history. He seems like a solid guy, too.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions until we find out the story.”

“Looks pretty conclusive to me.”

Dane leaned back into the pillows and covered his face. His worst nightmare had come true. ‘Iwa with another guy. His fault. He had properly blown it with the one woman who could have actually been the one . He should have written her a letter, like Kama suggested. He should have flown to Maui, got down on his knees and told her how he really felt.

Late that month, Dane and Kama both got the official call for the Pe’ahi Challenge. The opening ceremony would be in two weeks, and the holding period for the contest would run from mid-November through the end of March, waiting for clean conditions and a giant northwest swell.

When they stepped off the plane into the brisk trade winds, a near-full moon and croaking bufo toads were there to greet them. Returning to Maui felt like coming back to hallowed ground. Dane had been having this fantasy that ‘Iwa would know he was coming and would be waiting by the curb with a lei. But there was only Kama’s grandma in the old red truck, two chain-smoking cab drivers and an endless loop of rental car shuttles. They lumped all the board bags and Isla’s crate in the back and headed off to the Mizuno compound.

The next morning, Kama dragged him to Maui Bean & Tea Leaf, and Dane felt skittish as a feral cat. He knew his chances were probably fifty-fifty that ‘Iwa would be there. The worst part was wondering who she might be there with. Kama had not been able to gather any more intel on her status with Winston. Facing his underwater fears was one thing, seeing ‘Iwa hitched up with another guy would ruin him. But his worries were for nothing, because she never showed.

At the opening ceremony that afternoon, a gathering of Hawaiian elders, contest sponsors, twenty-one invitees and fourteen alternates stood on a windswept bluff above Pe’ahi for the blessing. They were each wrapped in a red piece of material—a kīhei —that represented a Hawaiian cloak worn for ceremonies, and they each wore a maile lei.

A bald man with a deep voice spoke, his words swept up by the salt-infused wind. “We are here because of the ocean, not the other way around. The sea gives us life and we must treat it with the ultimate respect. So as you enter, your kuleana is to always do so humbly and to care for it as you would your own. And as you leave, to pass on this awareness to our brothers and sisters around the world.”

Each surfer had been told to bring a surfboard, and as they all lined up for the photo, Dane’s whole body bumped up in chicken skin. This dinged-up mint green board had been around the world with him, and leaning against it now, with the blue waters of Pe’ahi as a backdrop, hit him hard. A few months ago, this moment had seemed out of reach. Walking had seemed out of reach. At times, even a future had seemed out of reach.

If the right waves never materialized, the contest would have to wait until the next year. Or the next. Or the next. Dane was happy to wait as long as it took. If the contest happened sooner than later, there was no telling whether he would be ready to paddle out. Maybe an alternate would get his spot, but he was here, and that was all that mattered.

Dane had contemplated texting ‘Iwa before the ceremony to let her know he was here. He felt like he owed her at least a warning that he was on island. Especially if he showed up at Uncle’s, which seemed an inevitability. According to the laws of small-town life, their paths would cross at some point. But in the end, he chickened out. A text message seemed like a wimpy way to contact her after all this time.

In the weeks leading up to this trip, Dane had been practicing breath holds, and yesterday he and Kama had paddled a downwind Maliko run on prone paddleboards in preparation for the sizable north swell arriving tomorrow. But he knew there was no substitute for the real thing. Waves made their own rules, and surfing involved so many variables, faith was often your only choice.

As they made their way down the cliff, the throaty rumble of surf on rock shook the ground they walked on. They had picked up Yeti at the airport last night, and it was suddenly old times. Except for the fact that Dane was having to coax himself to take each step along the narrow, rocky path. Then he thought of the words of that old man last year, someone is going to die , and he felt even more shaky.

Yeti moved with the grace of a cat. “After this hike, I imagine the waves will seem tame to you, mate.”

“It all seems sketchy right now.”

At the bottom, they had to traverse a small field of smooth boulders before leaping off into the shore break. He stood and watched for a while, working up the nerve to make the leap.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Kama said.

“Yes. I do.”

Yeti came up beside Dane, zipping up his wetsuit. “Let us help you in, at least.”

They waited for a lull, then the three of them scrambled across the rocks and shimmied onto their boards. By the time they arrived in the lineup, Dane was vibrating with nervous tension. He sat on the edge and watched the other guys go, set after set. The waves were a solid twelve to fifteen feet, Hawaiian. Conditions were not epic and the crowd was mellow, which suited him just fine. One wave was all he needed.

When one finally came to him, Dane put his head down and paddled. Instinct took over, and he jumped up, made the drop and went straight down the line. No fancy moves, just pure, unadulterated wave riding. When he kicked out, he heard his friends cheering, but their voices were swallowed by a bigger set behind them. Dane paddled wide, so as not to get cleaned up on the inside, and he had to coax himself into paddling back out. When you let fear stop you, you’re feeding it. And the more you feed it, the stronger it gets. Belinda’s voice rang clear in his mind.

There were long intervals between the sets, and he told himself he was just being picky, waiting for an open one. His legs felt strong, his back solid. The fear was there, but had loosened its grip since his last paddle out. Still, something was missing.

He let himself drift out, away from the lineup, to where he had a clear view of Haleakalā. He slid into the water and dove down, following the sun rays, searching for answers at the bottom of the ocean, bubbles and silence surrounding him. When he came back up, he floated with his arms out, weightless.

The ocean was his soul.

He knew that.

But his heart was in a little restaurant in Pā‘ia. In the rainforest. At a waterfall full of golden algae.