The Raft (2 page)

“That sucks.” I wasn’t looking forward to cutting short my trip and going back to Midway. But I saw her face and added, “It’s only a week short, I was going back next week anyway.” I took a sip of my Coke.

The waitress brought the bill and AJ got out her reading glasses. “You don’t have to go back.” She leaned forward like she was going to tell me a secret. “Bobbi can stay with you.”

Stifling a groan, I faked a smile.

Bobbi was a friend of AJ’s who lived on the other side of Oahu. We’d been up to see her a couple times at her beach house, which was always messy and full of smelly cats. Bobbi was old, like fifty, and had thick, waist-length dreadlocks and really tan, leathery-looking skin. She didn’t believe in bras. Or deodorant.

“No, that’s okay. I can go back to Midway.” I paused. “Or … I could just stay at your place by myself.”

She started to shake her head and protest, but I cut her off. “AJ, I’m almost sixteen.”

AJ huffed out her nose. “Robie. You are not almost sixteen. You’ve only been fifteen for two months.”

I shrugged. “Still, you have security up the ying-yang at your place, I know my way around…”

She looked at me over the top of her black cat-eye reading glasses. “Your parents would kill me.”

“We won’t tell them?”

AJ tapped the pen on the bill for a moment, and then pointed it at me. “Only if Bobbi stops in every day after work.”

Ew. “Every other day.”

Her voice was firm. “Every day.”

“Fine.” I held out my hand and we shook.

The next morning, after about an hour of instructions, admonitions, and warnings, AJ left for the airport. I was just getting ready for the pool when the phone rang. Bobbi said, “Hi, Robie. Jillian fly out yet?”

Technically not, since she was probably still sitting at the airport. “No.”

“I can’t talk, but can you give her a message for me?”

“Sure.”

Bobbi’s words were rushed. “I’m not gonna be able to stop in like she asked me to. My car died and I have to carpool with a guy from up here.”

“That’s okay.” I smiled as I noticed AJ had left me a small fortune’s worth of bills on the counter.

“Can she get someone else to check in on you?”

“Yes. Definitely. Don’t worry about it.”

I hung up. I was free for a week. Although I did already miss AJ, I did a little dance.

Free!

two

Starbucks was on the first floor of AJ’s apartment building, and every morning, I ran down and got myself a grande vanilla bean frappuccino. Before I went by the pool to read, I washed off the rest of the henna. The turtle was faint orange, but the lady had said it would darken.

And then I carefully doused my new piercing in rubbing alcohol.

The pool was lonely by myself, and I didn’t stay as long as usual.

Back in AJ’s apartment, I watched the rest of the DVDs from the final season of
Battlestar Galactica.
We didn’t get much television on Midway, and I made up for it when I got to Honolulu. AJ had Netflix and I usually went through an entire series or two during my visits. Maybe it was weird, that I didn’t get to watch television like other people, and I had to watch stuff long after it was on TV, but I also didn’t have to wait from week to week to see what happened.

On the other hand, watching an entire series over a few days could be a letdown. Being so immersed in the characters and the story, kind of sleeping and eating them, it was even harder to come to the end, to know it was done.

The final episode had me in tears partway through, and I had to hit Pause while I looked around for some Kleenex. Finally, I had to settle for a roll of toilet paper and used up a lot of it by the time the episode ended.

I clicked off the television. My shoulders sagged and I sniffled and blew my nose again. I felt drained. I could always start the series over, meet Starbuck again for the first time, but decided not to.

For lunch I had some ramen noodles, and then walked down to Ala Moana Center. I’d been visiting AJ in Honolulu since I was eight, so I knew my way around. After shopping for a while, and scoring big on a pair of pink high-top Chuck Taylors, I headed back to the apartment, which was very quiet and empty.

AJ had several seasons of
Lost
on DVD, so I put on the first episode. The plane crash was a little intense, but I couldn’t stop watching until the episode was over. Instead of watching the next one, a nap sounded good. When I woke up it was dark. I’d planned on running to McDonald’s for dinner, but I didn’t usually go out after dark by myself. But it was Honolulu, I knew it like the back of my hand, and McDonald’s was barely five minutes away.

The tropical evening was warm and windy, and tons of people were on the well-lighted streets. Still, my heart pounded a little as I crossed the avenue. I’d never realized that I did everything in Honolulu with someone, either AJ or my parents. Come to think of it, everything I did, I did with someone. Even on Midway, when I was alone, people were never very far away.

As I got my plain cheeseburger Happy Meal and headed back, bag in one hand, vanilla shake in the other, I wondered what, if anything, I had actually ever done on my own before. A dirty guy without a shirt leaned against the traffic light as I waited for it to change. With my peripheral vision, I could see him watching me, and I shuffled away a little bit, trying not to be too obvious.

He yelled, “Lucy!”

The light changed and I stepped down into the crosswalk, walking fast. Just as I reached the other side, a hand grabbed a chunk of my cornrows and yanked.

My food went flying as I was whipped around.

The dirty guy stood there holding my hair, looking like he could barely stand up. “Lucy!”

My heart pounded as I tried to scream, yell, do something, anything to stop him. But all I could get out was, “I’m not Lucy.”

“I told you to go home!” He grabbed my cornrows tighter, forcing my head down so I could only look at the ground where my vanilla shake had splattered white all over the sidewalk. “I told you to go home.”

I tried to move away, grab my hair back,
something
, but he had a tight hold and was wrapping it around his fist.

I started to cry. “I’m not Lucy!”

Why wasn’t anyone helping me?

Instead of letting go, he wrapped my hair even tighter so I had to step closer and closer to him. He smelled like fried onions and something else that made me cringe. Something gross.

A male voice shouted, “Hey!”

The guy let go and I stepped back. Another guy started yelling at the first one and I ran, the sound of pounding footsteps close behind me.

I sprinted all the way back to AJ’s building, crying. The security guard wasn’t there and I didn’t want to wait in the lobby where someone on the street, maybe the dirty guy, could see me. So I ran to the elevator and punched the 10. When I finally got to the apartment, my hand was so shaky I had to hold it with my other one to reach in my pocket for the key. It wasn’t there.

“No!” How had I lost it?

Calm down.

I took a deep breath, and then felt again. My fingers closed around the smooth metal and I breathed a sigh of relief. My hands were still shaking so hard I almost couldn’t unlock the door. When I finally got in, I slammed the door, locked all three locks, and dropped to the floor, breathless. My back against the door, I hugged my knees and sobbed.

three

No way was I staying there by myself.

Despite my initial excitement at being on my own, being free, I was done. I didn’t want to be on my own. I wasn’t
ready
to be on my own. More than willing to go back to Midway to be with my parents, I wiped my face and found my little calendar book from my bag.

Running my finger down the dates, it was clear I’d missed the passenger flight that went every other week, but the monthly supply flight left the next evening. Only one plane did those three trips to Midway a month, an aging Gulfstream turboprop. Unlike regular airline flights, the flights to Midway on the G-1 were pretty mellow. No security lines, no wait to check in, no worry about getting bumped. If you were a Midway resident, you could pretty much decide an hour beforehand that you wanted to go. Just show up with a passport, and they’d get you on.

I took a few deep breaths, just so my parents wouldn’t be able to tell how upset I was. Then I picked up the phone and dialed.

I waited for the click, then the pause, then the ring. I envisioned our heavy old-fashioned black curly-corded phone sitting on the counter just outside the kitchen, could even hear the loud ring.

But there was nothing.

I hung up and dialed again. Waited.

Nothing.

Periodically, along with the Internet, the phone lines on Midway crapped out. They were all dependent on the satellites, and the wiring on the island was old, so it wasn’t a surprise. Still, I wanted to talk to my parents, have them arrange the flight for me.

Should I call AJ?

I shook my head, answering my own question.

She would just freak out and feel guilty about leaving me alone. Not to mention maybe get mad at me for not telling her Bobbi wouldn’t be checking on me after all.

Figuring I’d call Mom and Dad in the morning, I brushed my teeth and put on my pajamas. My room was down the hall from the bathroom. Usually no big deal, but I always had to pee in the middle of the night, and tonight I didn’t want to go walking around when it was dark, and nobody was there but me.

So I went into AJ’s room, which had an attached bathroom. I locked her door, tossed all her blue and green shams and decorative pillows on the floor, and crawled under the covers. The sheets were cool and I stretched out my toes.

Then I reached over to turn off the bedside lamp.

But I couldn’t.

I did not want it to be dark. So I left it on and rolled over, facing the other way toward the sliding glass doors that went out to the balcony. The white curtains were shut.

Pushing the covers back, I slipped out of bed and tiptoed over to them. Reaching out a hand, I grasped the edge of the curtain. “One … two … three—”

I whipped them back, gasping.

Except for a few plant pots, the balcony was empty. And we were on the tenth floor; nobody was going to crawl up.

Don’t be a baby.

I let the curtain drop. Still, I was relieved I’d checked.

I crawled back into bed, but I couldn’t sleep. Without my aunt, my favorite place in the world had turned into something else.

I heard a noise. A tapping.

It’s just someone knocking on the apartment next door.

The tapping continued.

It’s just something loose, blowing in the wind.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It’s the ice maker, something is just loose.

But I knew it wasn’t true. I knew it was the weird guy from the street, trying to get in, trying to get me.

I pulled the covers up over my head and trembled, my heart beating so hard I was almost able to hear it in the quiet room.

Now and then I peeked out of the covers at the glowing red numbers of the bedside alarm clock, which shifted slowly throughout the night.

11:13

1:02

3:29

I waited, ready for whoever might come in to get me.

4:43

Finally, just as it began to lighten outside, I fell asleep.

four

AJ called at about nine and woke me up.

When she asked how I was, I lied, told her everything was fine and Bobbi had stopped in the day before. I felt bad, but what did it matter when I was heading home anyway? Then I tried my parents, but the phones still weren’t working.

When I stepped in the elevator to head down to Starbucks, my heart pounded until I reached the lobby. The security guard who always smiled and called out “Aloha!” wasn’t at his post.

Back upstairs, I packed, then went to the pool for a while, made a ham sandwich for lunch, and took a nap. About four, I got dressed. The drive to the airport, and waiting around there, would be hot, but the plane would be chilly, so I had my standard outfit for flying: khaki Bermuda shorts, a white camisole, and my green hoodie. I wore white flip-flops, but shoved a pair of socks in my bag. I debated adding my new Converse, but put them in my suitcase instead. Then I called a taxi.

As usual, the loading of the G-1 at Oahu Air Services was pure chaos, people hauling boxes and cartons and barrels out to the plane. I left my bags by the door to the waiting lounge and went looking for the woman who usually organized the loading. I didn’t see her anywhere. A tall, bald guy held a clipboard, so I asked, “Where’s Suzanne?”

“Sick.” He shook his head. “Of all days. The Costco order didn’t get delivered and there’s a new copilot.” He waved at a couple guys loading the plane. “Hey!” He headed off, leaving me standing there.

The pilot, Larry, came around the plane, wearing black pants and a short-sleeved white button-down shirt with gold pilot epaulets on the shoulders. Tall with dark hair that never had a strand out of place, he swaggered a bit.

I waved.

His forehead wrinkled for a moment, and I called out, “Hi, Larry.”

“Robie?” A slow smile spread across his face. “I didn’t even recognize you. Nice hair.”

“Thanks. I’m trying to catch a flight home.”

He nodded. “We’ll be stuffed, but there’s always room for you.”

“I didn’t see Suzanne.”

He scratched his head. “Yeah, she’s gone today. It’s a mess, especially with communications down at Midway. My new copilot is around here somewhere, trying to make sense of it all. Max. He’ll get you on the manifest. Why don’t you wait inside where it’s cool? I’ll come get you.”

The waiting lounge inside Oahu Air Services was air-conditioned and I dropped my bags, then plopped down on the couch. There was a little fridge near the seating area, and I pulled out a Coke, and then grabbed a handful of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts from the koa wood bowl on the table. A golf match blared from the television mounted high on the wall, but there wasn’t a remote to change the channel, so I flipped through a
Glamour
magazine for a while.