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“We’re almost on the ground,” she says.
“I swear I just fell asleep.”
“Eight hours ago,” she tells me. “Whatever Dr. Lucas gave you worked well.”
I lean forward, looking past Olive in the middle seat and Ami on the aisle to where Ami’s new boyfriend—and my longtime friend and physician, Lucas Khalif—sits on the other aisle seat. “I think you gave me a dose for a horse.”
He lifts his chin. “You’re a lightweight.”
I fall back against the seat, preparing to close my eyes again, but Olive reaches for me, turning my face to the window so I’ll look. The view sucks the breath out of my throat; the intensity of color is like a slap. I missed this the first time we came to Maui, spending the entire flight pretending to not look at Olive’s boobs through my anxiety haze, but below us, the Pacific Ocean is a sapphire, resting on the horizon. The sky is so blue it’s nearly neon; only a handful of wispy clouds are brave enough to block the view.
“Holy shit,” I say.
“Told you.” She leans in, kissing my cheek. “You okay?”
“Groggy.”
Olive reaches up and tweaks my ear. “Perfect, because first up is a dip in the ocean. That’ll wake you up.”
Ami dances in her seat, and I glance at my girlfriend as she takes in her sister’s reaction. Ami’s excitement is infectious, but Olive’s is nearly blinding. Things were hard for her for a long time after losing her job, but it also gave her a clarity she’d never had before. She realized that, while she loved science, she didn’t particularly love her job. While waiting tables at Camelia, she served a woman who ran a nonprofit health advocacy center. After a long meal peppered with intense, enthusiastic conversations while Olive worked a busy dinner shift, Ruth hired Olive as her community education coordinator, in charge of speaking at schools, church groups, retirement communities, and businesses about the science behind vaccines. She gets to geek out all over the Midwest about the flu vaccine now.
When she found out where the National Community Health Awareness winter conference would be this year—Maui—we knew it was fate: We owed Ami a trip to the island.
The landing gear lowers; the plane crosses the coastline and then sweeps over the lush landscape of the island. I glance down my row to where Ami has reached across the aisle to hold Lucas’s hand. It’s fitting that her first time in Maui should be with someone who adores her with as much devotion as he does.
And it’s fitting that this time Olive and I are headed to Maui, I’ve got a real ring in my pocket.
• • •
DAY TWO AND IT TOOK some convincing to get Ami to agree to go zip-lining. For one, it wasn’t free. And also, zip-lining essentially requires jumping from a platform, trusting the harness, and flying through the air while hoping there really is a platform on the other side. For a woman like Ami, who relishes keeping a stranglehold on all of the variables possible at any given moment, zip-lining isn’t ideal.
But it’s one of the few things Olive and I didn’t get to do on our first trip, and my girlfriend would hear no dissent. She did the research for the best location, bought the tickets, and now ushers us up to the platform for our first jump with a no-nonsense wave of her hand.
“Step right up,” she says.
Ami peers over the edge of the platform and then immediately takes a step back. “Wow. It’s high.”
“That’s a good thing,” Olive reassures her. “It would be way less fun to do this from the ground.”
Ami stares flatly at her.
“Look at Lucas,” Olive says. “Lucas isn’t scared.”
He finds himself the object of all of our attention right as he’s adjusting himself in the harness.
Lucas gives her a little salute but I tilt my head. “Lucas probably isn’t scared because Lucas regularly goes skydiving.”
“You’re supposed to be on my team,” Olive growls. “Team Listen-to-Olive-Because-This-Will-Be-Fun-Damn-It.”
“I’m always on that team.” I pause and give her a winning smile. “But is it a good time to suggest a better team name? Or no.”
She stares me down, and I fight a smile because if I told her right now that with her blue shorts and white tank top, and the blue harness and yellow helmet they’ve given her, she looks like Bob the Builder, she would murder me with her bare hands and feed me to the creatures on the forest floor.
“Look, Ami,” she says, and her mouth curls into a delighted grin, “I’ll go first.”
The first drop is 50 feet above a ravine with a platform 150 feet away. Two years ago, Olive would have waited until everyone was safely on the other side before taking her turn, certain her bad luck would snap the cord or break the platform and end with us all crumpled on the forest floor. But now I watch as she stands behind the gate, following instructions to wait until her lead is strapped to the pulleys, and then steps out onto the platform. She hesitates for only a moment before taking off in a running leap and sailing (screaming) through the tops of the trees.
Ami watches her go. “She’s so brave.”
