I wrote that on the cover with the Sharpie Miss Wilson passed around.
Miss Wilson is new here. “Every day, the prompt will be up on the whiteboard,” she told us. We don’t always have to write about it, though. We can write anything. We can just write words.”
It’s the most beautiful notebook I’ve ever seen!
Three hundred blank pages, if you write back to back. Mine is green. Brielle’s is blue. Henley’s and Isabelle’s are red. Tae-sung’s and Fetua’s are purple.
Fetua asked if we can take our notebooks home, and Miss Wilson said no—they’re just for school. Then Fetua asked if Miss Wilson will read them, and Miss Wilson said no again—they’re just for us. We’ll write every day for the first fifteen minutes of class. Tae-sung looked like he literally wanted to die over that.
Three hundred pages. I’m pretty sure by the end of this notebook, something amazing will have happened. Something big. Something that makes this year everything for me, like it is for Eli.
Eli’s applying to UC Santa Cruz. He’s leaving me behind, here alone, and it will be just me and Mom and Dad. Mom will worry all the time about where I am, and Dad will be on me about my grades, and it will all be completely boring. But at least I’ll still have Li Lu.
Or maybe, like Dad says, Eli won’t get into UC Santa Cruz. Maybe he’ll stay here a little longer.
Before I passed the Sharpie to Brielle, I added my favorite quote: “Fashion is not about looking back. It’s always about looking forward.” That’s from Anna Wintour (Vogue editor) (and Queen of Everything) (and hopefully my future boss).
Today is the beginning. It’s the start of making my own life happen, one step closer to getting out of here, off this island.
Out of nowhere, Brielle Branson just gave me a brand-new M·A·C Lipglass! For no reason. All My Purple Life, it’s called.
“Limited Edition,” she whispered. If Miss Wilson hears us, we’ll get detention.
My goal in life is to stay out of detention. My other goal is to write for Vogue. I already have my whole platform—MAKE IT MAJOR. I describe the look someone has, then MAKE IT MAJOR. It’s like this: Today, Miss Wilson is: flowy orange dress … South African, maybe, colors, prints, patterns like I’ve seen from Solange Knowles?
But also, Miss Wilson is: worn-out sandals, beads around her neck. MAKE IT MAJOR means keeping the dress but mixing in some trendy metals, like silver and copper (think long earrings and/or long necklace), wrapping the beads around the wrist, and ditching the sandals for wedges. Now Miss Wilson is MAJOR glam, the whole next level!
I’m going to change the world, one look at a time.
And I’ll know I’ve made my whole life happen when I get it, the Victoria Beckham tote in citrus, $860. That tote is my life goal.
I almost forgot about the prompt! Summer … It was … the same as it always is here. Hotter, though, because the trade winds never came. They stayed stuck up north. By the end of August, everything was totally, completely still. We were all suffocating to death. The entire island was literally holding its breath.
The good part is that I barely had to keep the sidewalk clean. That’s my chore, sweeping up the plumeria petals that blow in from behind us, the ferns that dry and curl, the palm fronds that drop, the hibiscus leaves that usually blow all over all afternoon. This summer, everything was still—even the fire ant scouts that come one at a time to see if it’s safe for the rest to follow.
But other than that, it was like every other summer. Just like fall and winter, even. It’s palm trees and pineapples and nothing to do.
Any second, though, the trade winds will come, and they’ll change everything. At the end of this notebook, after three hundred pages, my life will be completely different.
WINTER
Prompt: Time.
Macario says in Hawaii the wind is time. It is immeasurable. Unstoppable. How can wind be time? It doesn’t make sense.
Time.
It’s too long.
Two weeks off right in the middle of the school year is too much.
There’s nothing to do.
Write words.
* * *
“Where’s Eli’s plate?” Mom asked last night. Her eyes are clouds now. The skin sags down at the corners of her mouth, and her hair has turned into strings.
Dad was staying late at work. Catching up on some grading or something.
“Remember, Mom,” I told her, “Eli is…” I couldn’t get out the rest. I wanted to say the right thing. But I didn’t know what it was. And I didn’t want to make everything worse.
Mom got a plate. She set it on the table, added silverware and a glass of water. “He’ll be hungry,” she said. “Eli will, when he comes home.”
Does she really think he’s coming back and sitting down and eating with us?
At first, I told myself I wouldn’t go to the paddle-out. I didn’t have the right to, I knew that’s what people would think.
But I wanted to see for myself.
So I put on a floppy hat and big glasses and sat under the pink umbrellas at the Royal Hawaiian and watched them—the whites, the pinks, the greens, the Channel Islands, the Firewires and Rustys. At first they were scattered all around, but they came closer and closer together. Girls and guys, kama‘āina and haole, long-stem daisies between their teeth. Babies draped in maile riding the noses of Billabongs.
Why did they have it on Waikiki? Koa and Tate would’ve hated that. When the waves came, they didn’t even break. “Ankle biters,” that’s what they would have called them. Instead, the water rolled softly under the circle of paddlers, raising it up and letting it down gently, one family. One living, beating heart.
The splashing started—one, then two, then ten, then twenty paddlers showered the center with spray. They tossed in orchids, ti strands, kukunaokalā leis. The sisters and brahs all rose up and down together, whistling, hugging, holding hands. They beat at their boards—the people who had known Koa and Tate forever, the ones who had met them just before, probably a few who had never met them at all. Pros, keikis, brown skin, white … One heart of color, of flowers, of everything happy.
I didn’t expect it to be happy. I didn’t think everyone would be smiling and splashing. And while the chanting of their names didn’t surprise me—KOA, KOA, then TATE, TATE, TATE—the one voice that called out ELI trapped my breath inside my chest. I pulled my hat down, had no idea what everyone would do. They had to all hate him, like Brielle does.
But the other voices joined the one—ELI, ELI—and the heart beat for Eli. Even though he didn’t deserve that at all.
The people out there—Eli’s other family—they left what they were going through on the beach with their backpacks and bags.
And I don’t get it at all, how they were just moving forward like that. I watched from shore where the cabana boys dug like crabs, stabbing umbrellas into the sand, and I thought about Mom and Dad and me, how we—Eli’s real family—will never, ever, ever move past this.
WINTER
Prompt: Collective action.
Art. Outlet. Podium. Projector.
Collective action.