Read Online Here Today, Gone to Maui by Carol Snow - Free Book Online Page B

adjusting my mask. I freaked out and sucked even more water into my sinuses, at which point I shot to the surface. When my instructor caught up with me, he said I should never, ever pop up like that. When I calmed down enough to speak, I told him it wouldn’t be an issue since I would never, ever dive again.
    Connor said, “You won’t see much today. I was out this morning—the vizz was real bad.”
    “Vizz?” I asked.
    “Visibility,” Tom said. “The surge is pretty strong today, too. You might want to wait until tomorrow.”
     
     
    Back at the condo, I told Jimmy what Tom and Connor had said about diving conditions, but he didn’t want to wait. “I’ve been dreaming about this dive for a month.”
    I didn’t want to wait, either. If he didn’t dive, Jimmy might leave me for another sales call.
    He pulled his license out of his blue canvas wallet and stuck it in a pocket of his swim trunks. He threw the wallet into his duffel bag, which he had yet to unpack or even move from the middle of the room. “You don’t want to take anything valuable,” he told me. “Stuff gets stolen out of cars and sometimes even off the beach.”
    “Gotcha,” I said, thinking, I bet stuff doesn’t get stolen off Kaanapali Beach.
     
    We parked the red rental car next to two others in a tiny lot. The road was high, narrow, and twisty. A stand of rugged trees blocked the beach below. The instant I opened the door, a gust of wind hit me in the face.
    “Maybe we can find someplace more sheltered,” I suggested.
    “Nah,” Jimmy said, lifting his tank and dive bag from the trunk. “It won’t be bad on the beach. The cliffs will break the wind.”
    I made my way to the top of the steps and peered through the trees, catching a glimpse of steel-blue water and whitecaps. “It looks kind of rough.”
    Jimmy opened the back door and sat down, leaving his feet on the pavement. He reached in and pulled out a worn wetsuit. Once black, it was now more of a smoky gray.
    I raised my eyebrows. “Don’t you, uh, sell wetsuits?”
    “I know.” He smiled. “I have a couple of nicer ones at home. But this was my first, and I’m sentimental.”
    He stuck his feet into the legs and pulled up the black rubber like panty hose, leaving the suit open and hanging at the waist. He peeled off his T-shirt and tossed it onto the backseat. He yanked on his booties. Next came the diver ritual: he propped his BCD (that’s the “buoyancy control device,” otherwise known as the inflatable-vest thingy) on the pavement and attached the tank to the back, pulling on a strap to make sure it wouldn’t slip out. He attached the regulator (that’s the air hose) to the tank, checked the tank, checked the mouthpiece, and clipped his hoses into place. The mask was easy: he pulled it over his head and let it hang around his neck before slipping his arms into the BCD and hauling it onto his back. He’d adjust it on the beach, after he zipped up the wetsuit. Finally, he snagged his flippers, which he’d put on in the water.
    Now you know why I preferred snorkeling. Well, that and fear of drowning.
    “You look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon,” I said. “In a good way.”
    He tossed me the keys. “Hang on to these. We’ll leave the car unlocked—someone might break the windshield otherwise.”
    We worked our way down the concrete steps, holding on to a green railing for support. Above us, heavy tree branches blocked the sky. The steps eventually gave way to a narrow, sloping, dirt-and-rock path. I was glad I wasn’t hauling any heavy gear on my back; my tote was bad enough.
    “This looks like heaven,” Jimmy said when we finally reached the beach, practically shouting to be heard over the wind and waves.
    I made a noncommittal “mm” sound. The pictures of the Hyatt looked like heaven. Kaanapali Beach looked like heaven. This looked . . . scary. It was beautiful, certainly, a crescent-shaped, white-sand beach surrounded by lava-rock cliffs