EVERYONE BUT YOU

by lisa yee

I had never seen the ocean, Ohio being a landlocked state, when suddenly I found myself adrift on an island. My mother was terrified of water, but even more scared of being poor. That’s why she agreed to marry Mr. Hunter. He was the answer to her prayers—although he didn’t look like an angel or Jesus, or any of the assorted saints she was constantly making deals with. No, Mr. Hunter looked like an old man on the verge of dying, which was exactly what he was.

“Felicity, you’re nuts not to be thrilled,” Natalie Catrine kept screaming. “To leave Ohio for Hawaii—that’s like living a dream!”

I was thrilled, at first. Yet the closer our move date, the more unsure I became. Leaving my friends would be hard. Everyone in Asher (population 5,728) knew my name and who I was. There, it didn’t matter that I was poor. Lots of kids were poor, so it was no big deal. Like having hazel eyes, or bleached blond hair from a box, or a brother who was mentally ill, it was just part of who you were.

Known for my indomitable school spirit, I was voted Asher High Miss Pep for two years in a row and on track to snag it again. But it was my baton twirling skills that got me in the local newspaper almost as often as Mrs. Harvey’s tree-climbing English setter. As head majorette, I lead our well-rehearsed team of eight twirlers. I even designed our red spangled uniforms.

We debuted our new look on Nigel Franklin Day. He was the star of that cheesy cable TV reality show, Nigel, Nigel, Are You Listening? When the City Council learned he’d be passing through Asher on his way to Columbus, they decided to give him the key to the city. The whole town turned out. If anyone was disappointed when Nigel Franklin failed to materialize, the mood changed the minute I kicked off the parade with the Asher High Band behind me.

Twirling meant the world to me. From my pointed toes, all the way up to my straight arms and proper free hands, my form was flawless. Plus, my vertical and horizontal two-spin was legendary. Every football and basketball half-time finale ended with me tossing the baton in the air as the crowd would yell, “Whoooooooooooa.” This continued until my baton made its downward descent and I reclaimed it, whereupon the crowd would shout “Nelly!” and a cheer would erupt.

On my first day at Kahanamoku Academy I woke up early. I was excited to make new friends. Maui’s tropical weather made my perm frizzier than it already was, so I elected to wear my hair in French braids and adorned them with blue and yellow ribbons (my new school colors). To complement this, I wore matching sky-blue eye shadow. I considered wearing my Miss Pep sweater, but didn’t want to appear boastful, so instead I brought my lucky baton to school. That baton won me more twirling awards than I could count. It was the baton I was holding when I was named Miss Pep, and it was the baton I gripped every time Mom and I got kicked out of our apartments for not paying the rent.

At Asher, the majorettes were never without their batons. Carrying one was the sort of status symbol girls could aspire to. Mrs. Smith, our principal, once likened them to security blankets. Though it was true that my baton did make me feel better, I also had ulterior motives for bringing it to Kahanamoku. Even though it was mid-semester, I hoped to talk to the band director about securing a spot as a majorette. My twirling skills were a surefire way to propel me into the popular group.

“There’s no band?” My mouth hung open. I had specifically made an appointment to see Headmaster Field to discuss band.

He ran his hand though his unruly gray hair and offered me a sad smile. “Not this year, Francis,” he said apologetically.

“Felicity,” I corrected him. Headmaster Field’s office was full of photos of him shaking hands with well-coiffed people wearing nice suits. My father was fond of nice suits, which was probably why he never had enough money for child support. “Was there a band last year?” I sputtered.

Headmaster Field shook his head again. “We’re more of an academic school than a sports one. Our sports program was, er, cancelled last year ago due to the, er, well, the abuse of—” I followed his gaze as he looked out at a blue jay that had alighted on the windowsill. Finally, Headmaster Field turned his attention back to me. “The University of Hawaii gives a full athletic scholarship to one high school baton twirler each year!”

We both brightened at the idea of this, but our smiles soon faded when I pointed out, “I won’t be a high school twirler since Kahanamoku Academy doesn’t have a band. Besides, I don’t need a scholarship. My stepfather can pay for college.”

“True, true.” Headmaster Field nodded and absentmindedly began to twirl his pen. “You’re paying full tuition here. We like that. Well, perhaps you can practice baton on your own? You know, sort of like independent study, except without grades or the credit.” This idea seemed to please him. As he made note of it in my file, the blue jay and I studied each other from opposites sides of the glass.

“What about clubs?” I finally asked. I had been president of the French club (mais oui!) back at home.

“Clubs?” Headmaster Field asked, raising his bushy eyebrows.

“Yes, clubs,” I said again. I wondered if he was hard of hearing. Mr. Hunter wore a hearing aid. “I’d like to know about the clubs here.”

Headmaster Field tapped his pen on the desk, then said, “We don’t have a lot of clubs, but Felicity, why don’t you start one?” His eyes lit up. “Yes, you could start one and I would be your sponsor. What club should we have? Do you play backgammon?”

“No.”

“Pity,” he said, letting out a sad sigh. “Well, is there anything else I can help you with?”

I hesitated. “Um, this may sound weird, but I am having trouble understanding some of the other kids.”

He laughed, murmured something about teenagers being so confusing, then admitted that he himself was often flummoxed by his students.

“No, no,” I tried again. “I mean I can’t understand their speech. It’s like they speak another language. You know, like Portuguese.”

“Ah!” Headmaster Field cried. “That’s not Portuguese, that’s pigeon.” He went on to explain that Hawaiians often slipped into what was called “pidgin” English, a very casual way of talking that set the locals apart from the tourists. For example, “How is it?” would be “howzit?” And “would you like to go to dinner” would be “wanna goda dinna, huh?”

Great. As if moving from Asher to Maui weren’t hard enough. Now there was a language barrier.

Before we met Mr. Hunter, we lived in what seemed to be an endless series of dark, cramped apartments. Because of my brother, there was never enough money. Carl was expensive. We were always looking for ways to save a dollar or two. Sometimes, like when my mother had to perm my hair at home or when we ate spaghetti for a week, I’d blame Carl. Afterward, I always felt bad and would apologize to my brother and Henry, the stuffed monkey who was his constant companion.

Our minister once told me, “Felicity, it’s not Carl’s fault, or your parents’. You must not blame them.”

Okay. So, if it wasn’t Carl’s fault, and it wasn’t my mother’s or my father’s, then whose fault was it? One time, when Mom was pregnant, I ran to give her a hug. Only I was going so fast I knocked her down. Maybe I hurt the baby. Maybe that’s why his brain was damaged. Maybe all our family’s sorrows were because of me.

My mother became a nurse so she could look after my brother. But as he got older, it got harder. Carl would spit out food. He’d wail and cry, and so would she. Even though he had the IQ of a one-year-old, my brother was bigger than both of us. After Carl broke Mom’s nose for the second time, he went to live in a special needs home. I remember his first night. At my mother’s urging, I kissed him and then waved good-bye. Carl, thinking it was a game, gave me one of his big sloppy kisses and made Henry wave back to me. He didn’t know he wouldn’t be coming home.

Even with Carl safely tucked away, my father couldn’t deal with my brother. It troubled him that his son would never be the man he was. So Dad left us for some woman he met at Rotary. That’s how Mom and I came to be poor and on the run from landlords.

I’d love to say that Mom and Mr. Hunter “met cute” like those romantic comedies she is so fond of. Only, that’s not quite how it happened. During a first-class flight back from New York, Mr. Hunter had a stroke and the plane was forced to land. An emergency room nurse was credited with saving his life. On the day he checked out, Mr. Hunter proposed to her and Mom accepted.

Mr. Hunter’s house was unlike anything I had ever seen before. In the bathroom, metal grip bars were next to the toilet. A plastic chair sat in the master bedroom shower. All the light switches were down low, so Mr. Hunter wouldn’t have to get out of his wheelchair to reach them.

The house was sprawling and flat with smooth blond wood floors. Sliding glass doors opened silently onto lushly landscaped grounds, where blue jays, something rare in Asher, adorned the trees. There was a view of the ocean from almost every room. The house was gorgeous and it didn’t cost us anything. Well, it didn’t cost any money.

Old and frail, Mr. Hunter’s face was pocked and wrinkled and the color of sand. When he coughed, which was often, phlegm or blood, or both, stained his handkerchief. He shook violently, and when he was not in his wheelchair he hunched over, leaning on his carved wooden cane, or my mom, for support.

But Mr. Hunter was good to my mother. Unlike my father, he never beat her, he never called her a mean name or even raised his voice to her. In return, she gave him youth and companionship and, in the end, love.

Despite going solo at lunch, I was determined to make friends at my new school. I didn’t let the fact that I was being ignored deter me. Sure, it was something I was unaccustomed to, but I could understand why. No one knew what I had to offer—but that was about to change.

I took a deep cleansing breath, put on my best majorette smile, and, as I strolled down the halls, I twirled. Nothing too fancy, I didn’t want to show off. To my surprise, the more I twirled, the more people ignored me. Well, not everyone.

With the athletic program suspended, there was a new sport. It involved former athletes grabbing my baton, tossing it to each other, and then hurling it over the balcony like a javelin. After two days of this I left my lucky baton at home.

I need to take a moment to describe my peers at Kahanamoku Academy. At least a third of the kids seemed to be native Hawaiians or at least some version of Asian, and a third were white, and a third I couldn’t tell. With about two hundred students in each grade, the school was twice the size of Asher High. The girls had a sheen to them like they had just slipped off the pages of a glossy fashion magazine.

In Asher, I didn’t dare leave home without concealer, foundation, powder, blush, liner, shadow, eyebrow pencil, mascara, lip liner and two lipsticks (to get my signature color). Yet the strange thing about the Kahanamoku girls was that they appeared to go without makeup, and still looked beautiful. They didn’t seem to sweat, either. And modesty certainly wasn’t an issue with them considering that their clothes consisted of little more than short shorts and tiny tops that looked like underwear.

The boys resembled ads for Sun & Surf Suntan Oil. Muscled and supremely confident, they carried themselves like athletes without the letterman’s jackets. One boy in particular had the looks of a movie star, the build of an Olympic athlete, and the swagger of someone who has never doubted himself. He was so handsome it hurt to even look at him. Kai Risdale was like the sun, with the other planets orbiting around his fiery glow.

At the risk of being blinded by his beauty, I stared. Everyone else stared at Kai, too, except for the few scholarship students who mostly kept their heads down and clutched their books tight to their chests like armor. Perhaps it was. They couldn’t afford to get hurt. Without a scholarship, the privilege of attending Kahanamoku was over eighteen thousand dollars a year.

If in Asher, Ohio, I was considered pale, in Maui I was a ghost. I was peppy at a school where the less pep you had, the more popular you were. Everything was so confusing. The cool kids at Kahanamoku seemed to do nothing more than stand around. Whereas at Asher, the only time people stood still was for the morning flag salute.

At the end of the week things finally started to look up. I was about to head home when Kai brushed past me. With ease, he hoisted himself onto the pedestal where the bronze statue of Duke Kahanamoku stood bare-chested and ready to surf. Duke, the legendary Hawaiian surfer and namesake of the school, was akin to God on the islands. As Kai leaned on the statue I could see that his biceps rivaled Duke’s. I shut my eyes and wondered what it would be like to be held in Kai’s arms. My eyes fluttered open when I heard Kai cry, “C’mon, everyone, party at my house!”

A cheer filled the air and what appeared to be the entire student body started to follow Kai. Not to be left out, I ran to catch up. A party! This would be my first Hawaiian party and I was intent on showing everyone how fun I could be. In Asher, I was known for being something of a party animal. At Natalie Catrine’s sweet sixteen, I was dared to—and did—eat three cupcakes without using my hands.

Suddenly Kai stopped and I almost bumped into him. He smelled like coconuts. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

I looked around before I realized he was talking to me. “To the party?” I said, making it sound like a question. Being this close to Kai made me feel faint.

He smiled for the benefit of those watching and then answered, “That’s funny, because no one invited you.”

My face was on fire. “But,” I stammered, “you said, ‘everyone, party at my house.’”

“Yes, I did say that,” Kai mused agreeably. He had flecks of brown in his green eyes. “But what I meant was everyone but you.”

Laughter filled the air, and even though it pained me, I joined in. According to the Miss Pep mission statement, “Asher High School’s Miss Pep is always peppy, even in the face of adversity.”

If I had thought things couldn’t get any worse, I was wrong. I had tried to befriend the scholarship students, but they eyed me with suspicion once it was discovered that Justin Hunter of Justin Hunter Electronics was married to my mother. Yet our newfound money wasn’t enough to buy my way into the popular group.

In an attempt to fit in, I toned down my blush and switched to a waterproof mascara since the humid weather made my makeup melt. I stopped putting ribbons in my hair, and although I didn’t wear short shorts or skimpy tank tops, I did go sleeveless quite often. I even tried to swear like the popular kids by throwing the occasional “damn” into my sentences. Once I even said “bitch,” though I instantly regretted it.

One day Kai cornered me by my locker. “Hey, you, what’s your name?”

It didn’t matter that I had been at school for almost two months, or that the teachers often called on me in class, or that anytime Headmaster Field saw me he’d say, “How are you today, Felicity?”

“So what’s your name?” Kai asked again, this time leaning in so close I could smell cigarettes on his breath. My heart raced. His friends looked bored.

It had occurred to me that maybe Kai was testing me. Or joking, the way the boys at Asher High did when they were flirting. Back home, I had 1.5 boyfriends. The first, Don Connelly, was in band. If you saw him strut and play the trumpet, you’d understand what the attraction was. We were named His and Her Asher High Sophomore Spirit leaders during football kickoff week last year. Don and I dated for three months, but there was never any true spark between us. Plus, I never liked it that he tucked in his sweaters.

The .5 was Jeremy Hall. Since we were both major Sound of Music (Do-Re-Mi!) and Julie Andrews fans, we started hanging out. Before we knew it, we were an item. This came as a surprise to us, since the other thing we had in common was that we both had a huge crush on Kyle Kincaid, the actor from that musical where rival schools are pitted against each other in a battle of the bands on Mars. If only Jeremy hadn’t been gay. I think we could really have had something special.

My name is Felicity,” I told Kai cautiously.

“What was that?” Kai said, even though I had taken the care to enunciate clearly. “Felicity.”

“Interesting name,” he said, toying with my hair. “Fellatio?” Kai boomed, “I’ve never met a girl named Fellatio before.”

“It’s FELICITY,” I said loudly, trying to mask the sound of my heart beating furiously. “Felicity. F-e-l-i-c-i-t-y.”

“Fellatio?” Kai repeated as his entourage howled. “Isn’t that the technical term for oral sex?”

After weeks of being ignored, suddenly everyone knew who I was. Only, instead of saying, “Hi, Felicity!” or “Loved your routine, Felicity!” the Kahanamoku students would shout, “Hellooooo, Fellatio!” Sometimes the girls would chide their boyfriends, but then they would crack up, too.

I had turned into one big joke.

As the rest of the year wore on, the fellatio wordplay wore old. By then everyone had taken to calling me BJ, the slang for blow job, which I discovered when I looked it up in the Oxford American Dictionary, was the slang for fellatio. Even though I would have preferred to be called Felicity, BJ was at least a compromise I could live with.

At home, whenever Mom asked about school, I’d just say, “It’s great!” I didn’t want to worry her. She was having trouble adjusting, too. With Carl settling into Celebration Residential Center, my mother now took care of Mr. Hunter, who was falling apart even faster than I was.

I visited my brother every day. We’d sit and talk for hours. Well, I’d sit and talk for hours. Carl would listen, or at least I liked to think he did. It was hard to tell how much Carl comprehended. Just when you thought you were breaking through to him, he’d fall asleep or fling himself out of his wheelchair, or throw his plush monkey across the room. Once he even tossed Henry out the window. If it hadn’t been for a Good Samaritan down below, Henry might have been lost forever.

The six-hour time difference made it difficult to call to my friends back home—most were busy with their twirling and school activities. And when I did talk to Natalie Catrine and the rest, they refused to hear that I was miserable. They were more interested in the white-sand beaches, Maui’s current temperature, and Mr. Hunter’s big house.

“Paradise,” Natalie Catrine would murmur. “Felicity, you’re living in paradise.”

One day as I walked home, I spotted a tour bus near the waterfall. I didn’t believe it at first, but sure enough, there was Mrs. Cardiff, from the dry cleaner back in Asher! She was the last person I would ever think would travel to Maui. Mrs. Cardiff was shading her eyes with one hand and fanning her face with the other. I hardly recognized her—she must have put on eighty pounds.

I raced over and before I could stop myself I was sobbing, telling Mrs. Cardiff about my poor sad life. When I got to the Fellatio part, I could see the fear in her eyes. That’s when a skinny pale man in shorts with a leather fanny pack cinched tightly around his waist stepped in and said, “Beatrice, is this girl bothering you?”

Only then did I realize I wasn’t talking to Mrs. Cardiff at all. Instead this was just some fat version of someone I once knew. I apologized profusely as she scurried back to the safety of the bus.

After school and on weekends, when most of the kids headed to the beach, I pushed past them in the other direction. My skin burned easily, and as a rule I stayed away from the shore except at dusk when the water looked the prettiest and the sun was kinder. It was cool inside the library, and I would spread my homework out under the approving eye of Mrs. Yamashiro the librarian who, like me, looked like she rarely ventured outdoors. The musty smell of the books was the sweet perfume I preferred to the strong sea air or the mockery of the students who hung around Kahanamoku to socialize, score drugs, or have sex.

In less than four months, I had morphed from golden girl to invisible girl, the former Felicity, Fellatio, BJ, and who now was not called anything at all because none of the other students even noticed her. Or if they knew me, it was only as the weird girl who had tried to impress everyone with her baton. It pained me to even think about it. Was this how my brother felt, I wondered? In Maui, whenever I took Carl out in public, little kids gawked and all others pretended not to see him. It wasn’t that way back home. There, the only person who pretended that Carl didn’t exist was my father.

Occasionally, I’d spy a fellow Kahanamoku student, but they always averted their eyes, especially if Carl was howling or making the loud moaning sounds that signaled he was happy. With no one to hang out with I threw myself into my studies. I was determined to get into a good college. At Asher High I had wanted to prove to everyone that I was someone. At Kahanamoku I needed to prove it to myself.

When third quarter reports came, I was pleased, although not surprised, to discover I had gotten all A’s. With several students within earshot, Headmaster Field congratulated me with unbridled enthusiasm. My feeling of pride quickly dissipated when he turned to congratulate Kai, whose report card apparently mirrored mine.

I took in a sharp breath that felt like a stab to the heart. Kai never studied, turned in his homework, or aced any exams. “How can this be possible?” I said out loud.

Danny, one of the scholarship students from my AP English class, slammed his locker shut and shook his head. For a brief moment our eyes met. Then he turned away.

At Asher High every good grade was earned. Here at Kahanamoku Academy it seemed that actual work didn’t factor into the GPA. I hated Kai, and hated myself even more for not being able to stop thinking about him. Ever since I had spied him surfing one afternoon, Kai had worked his way into my dreams. His body was the definition of perfection, and as his surfboard cut through the water, it appeared as if the Hawaiian sun and surf had materialized solely for his benefit.

That afternoon, I bypassed the library in favor of the Golden Goodness Bakery, where I bought a big bag of malasadas, the Hawaiian version of donuts. I carried the brown paper sack to the park that lined the shore across the street. As I bit into a malasada, I savored the taste of the sweet balls of fried dough rolled in sugar. Carl loved these and I made sure to save some for him. In the months that I had lived on Maui, my skin no longer burned an angry red thanks to the natural adjustment of my pigment and SPF 80 sunscreen. The warm weather did wonders for my mother and brother, too. Everyone had taken on a healthy glow, except for Mr. Hunter, who appeared to be fading.

Carl clapped and set Henry aside when he saw me. “You do know how much I love you, don’t you?” I asked. Carl merely smiled and moaned as he motioned for another malasada. It was only when the bag was empty that Carl picked up Henry and retreated into his silence.

His doctors always said that he didn’t understand much. Yet Carl always knew when I was leaving. “It’s okay,” I’d say, wiping away his tears. “I’ll be back tomorrow, silly. You know that.” Then I’d kiss him and wave good-bye.

As we entered the last quarter of my junior year, I started going to the park every day and began twirling once more. When my baton flew high in the air, so did I. It made me happy.

One day when I was practicing I spotted a familiar group of boys. When they got close, I had trouble focusing and dropped my baton. Kai and I reached for it at the same time. “Give it to me, BJ,” he whispered in a low growl that made me want to swear and swoon at the same time. I despised myself for that.

With his cronies looking on, Kai tried to yank the baton from my hand, but I hung on tight. He loosened his grip and before I could think, I grabbed the baton and whacked him on the head.

Instantly, the laughter stopped.

Novice twirlers get hit on the head all the time and seldom sustain injury. Of course, none of this mattered to Kai. His eyes narrowed as he hissed, “You’re lucky I don’t hit girls.”

I held my baton like a baseball bat, ready to strike again. “Shove it, Kai,” I shot back. “You’re lucky I don’t hit girls, either.”

Kai blinked his long eyelashes as if unsure of who or what I was. Then, he slowly reached toward me. I stood frozen, determined not to flinch. “BJ, you’re all right,” he said, tousling my hair.

His laughter gave the others permission to laugh, too.

As I watched Kai and his pals stroll away, I wasn’t sure what had just happened. In my confusion, I hardly noticed the giant gecko standing nearby. He waddled up to me and in a muffled voice said, “That was really something.”

“Excuse me?” Maybe I was the one who had been hit with the baton. The gecko handed me a brochure. “Auntie Alea’s Authentic Hawaiian Luau?” I read out loud.

The gecko nodded and then said, “Help me get this head off, will you? It’s like Hades in this costume.”

It was a struggle, but finally I was face-to-face with an elderly Hawaiian gentleman. Despite his being in a lizard costume, he had a regal bearing. His skin was dark and smooth and his brown eyes glistened, like he knew a secret. “My name’s Jimmy Chow and I’m Alea’s second cousin,” he said. “I’ve been watching you. You’re amazing. Have you ever twirled fire?”

“I can twirl anything,” I told him.

“We could use someone like you,” Jimmy mused. He was almost as old as Mr. Hunter, only wiry and full of energy. “Help me get my head back on; there’s a tour bus I have to meet. But first, promise me you’ll call Alea. Be sure to say Jimmy sent you.”

On Jimmy’s recommendation, and three auditions later, I became the only female and the youngest baton flame twirler at Auntie Alea’s Luau. Sure it’s a tourist attraction, but aren’t we all tourists at some point? I was also the only haole. Haole. That’s Hawaiian for white person. Shortly after, I had another name change, but this time I didn’t protest. Auntie Alea christened me Kalani. It means heaven and sky.

Auntie Alea’s felt like home. She treated everyone like family. On my first day I was pleasantly surprised to find Danny from my AP English class working as a waiter. “The tips are really good,” he explained. “I’m saving up for college.” His black hair was thick and wavy and he had freckles trekking across his nose bridge. “Plus, Auntie Alea lets me study when it’s slow.”

Danny and I would study together during our breaks, and later on our days off. Eventually we’d just hang at the beach or visit Carl. Danny introduced me to some students at Kahanamoku who I had never noticed before. I guess I had been too busy staring at what I thought were the popular kids, when really they were the jerks.

Not too long ago, Kai and his friends came in for the luau waving their fake IDs. At first they didn’t recognize me in my grass skirt and green bikini top. It had been over a year since I had first landed on the island. I had toned down my makeup and stopped perming and dyeing my hair, letting it go back to its natural auburn color. It’s just easier, plus Danny thinks I look best with my hair straight. I had also learned to chill out, something I was incapable of doing back in Asher.

The boys hooted and whistled when I first stepped onstage, and when Kai finally figured out who I was he shouted, “Hey, BJ, wanna get lei-ed?”

I was about to tell him off when my music cued up. So instead, I glared at him and lit my batons on fire. When I heaved them into the night sky, it silenced any snide remarks that were still floating around. Instantly, Kai and his ilk turned into nothing more than faces in the crowd, with their necks turned upward and their mouths hanging open, waiting to see what I would do next. Finally, when my routine was over, they stood up and cheered with everyone else in the audience.

After the show, as I was downing a bottle of water, Kai strutted backstage. “BJ, you were great!” He swayed when he spoke. Kai reached toward me and twirled my hair as he looked deep into my eyes and whispered, “Wanna join me for a private party at my house?” He was asking me to be with him? There was a time when this would have meant the world to me.

For a moment I felt flush, until the stench of whiskey and cigarettes on his breath brought me back to reality. Then out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed Danny coming toward us with his fists clenched. I motioned for him to stop and turned to face Kai. “What’s my name?”

“BJ,” he said as he blinked slowly.

“What’s my name?” I asked again.

Kai broke into a lazy smile and winked. “It’s Felicity. You’re Felicity. That’s who you’ve always been.”

I smiled back and leaned in so that my lips were practically brushing his cheek. “You got that right, asshole,” I said. Then I emptied my water bottle over his head and pushed him aside so I could get ready for my second show.

As I walked toward Danny he held up his hand and without breaking my stride we high-fived.

My mother was able to bring Mr. Hunter and Carl to the luau one night, shortly before Mr. Hunter died. Auntie Alea gave them the best table and Danny waited on them like they were royalty. When I was onstage Mr. Hunter cheered so loud that he had a coughing fit and everyone stared. Mom tenderly calmed him down, and I could see how much they meant to each other.

Carl clutched Henry and sat mesmerized during the entire show. If you didn’t know his history, he almost seemed normal. Before he left each of my coworkers took off their leis and placed them around his neck. Barely visible under all the flowers, Carl moaned with delight and we all laughed and clapped along with him.

“You guys are great,” I said, choking up.

Jimmy hugged me and said, “Kalani, your brother is our brother, too.”

Not long after that, I went back to Asher, Ohio. I stayed with Natalie Catrine, who proudly showed me her Miss Pep trophy. Though I had a great time, it just wasn’t the same. Everyone had changed so much. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe it was me. I never realized how hard it had been to be so peppy and that all that pep had been weighing me down.

I saw my father while I was in town. Was it true, he wondered, that we had come into a fortune? I told him it was just a rumor. Not once did he ask about Carl.

I was so happy to return to Maui.

It was hard leaving Auntie Alea’s at the end of summer. I had been one of four Kahanamoku Academy valedictorians, the others include Samantha Tsui, a girl I had never heard speak until she gave a killer speech during graduation, Kai Risdale, whose family generously donated the new auditorium, and Danny Kaleho, my boyfriend.

Danny earned a scholarship to NYU, and even though we both knew the time would come when we’d go our own ways, it still hurt. He left first. Danny was eager to get off the island and get on with the rest of his life. I, on the other hand, was reluctant to leave.

“Felicity, you have to go,” my mother insisted. “I’m grounded here and so is Carl, but you can go places. Do this for us.”

Thanks to Mr. Hunter, my education is paid for and I attend Rogers College in Southern California. Even though they have an impressive majorette squad, I elected not to participate. Twirling had taken up so much of my life that I wanted to see what more there was. Besides, I left my lucky baton behind. It was a last-minute decision.

My mother had brought Carl to the airport to see me off. As he slumped in his wheelchair, tourists maneuvered their suitcases around us, pretending we didn’t exist. I knelt down on the sidewalk as I struggled to explain to Carl why I had to leave. But he would hear none of it. He had been increasingly agitated, having lost Henry a week earlier. As my brother began to scream and swat the invisible demons that had been hiding, the people who had been trying so hard to ignore us stopped and stared.

“Carl, Carl, look!” I had to shout to get his attention. “Look at me, Carl!”

I began to twirl my baton and Carl grew quiet. I put everything into my routine—high kicks, trick moves, even stuff I learned from Auntie Alea’s. Everything. When I was done, the crowd cheered and Carl moaned with delight. He held out both hands and reached for my baton, but I held on tight. Yet he kept motioning for it, until we were both on the verge of tears.

Finally, I gave in.

When I handed my baton to him, I knew I was never getting it back.

“It belongs to you now,” I assured my brother as I held him tight. “It’s yours.”

Then I kissed him and waved good-bye.