Hula Done It - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,33

don't make much of a wake. No one's ever gotten seasick on the Wailua." A skinny guy with a peach fuzz beard and aviator sunglasses handed me a small white box that I suspected was lunch.

"Anything good?" I asked.

He laughed out loud at my question, which I didn't think boded well for those guests who were anticipating cucumber and watercress.

"A few things before you head out," said another guy with a long ponytail and freckles. "Around this first bend here there's a fork in the river. Every time you see a fork, bear left. When you come to an island, paddle past the fallen tree and haul your kayak onto shore. Here's a map of the trail to the Secret Falls." He handed me a blue index card. "It's not real detailed, but all you have to remember is to follow the path along the river until you come to a wide stream, then follow the stream inland. Don't follow any of the smaller streams unless you're an expert hiker. Those paths are pretty treacherous. The Secret Falls is probably a half mile from where you turn inland. Any questions, ma'am?"

"Yeah, about those smaller strea --" I blinked in horror. Ma'am? He called me, ma'am? I stared at him, my question caught in my windpipe like a half-chewed Twinkie. To be a ma'am you had to have white hair, no waist, and a ruff of loose skin hanging from your throat and arms. Nana was a ma'am. I couldn't be a ma'am; I was too young to be a ma'am!

"Forget what you were saying, ma'am?"

EH! He said it again!

"Okay, you two." He slapped our heavy-duty plastic hull. "We're cutting you loose." The whole crew gave us a shove that sent us skating away from the boat ramp into deeper water. I stared at my shoulder bag, wondering if I'd brought along anything sharp enough to cut through my wrists. Teenagers calling me ma'am? Why didn't I just end it all now before I had to join the rush for support hose and orthotic inserts? I didn't want to age gracefully. I didn't want to age at all!

"I hope you won't think I'm being a know-it-all," Jonathan apologized from behind me, "but that paddle isn't going to work unless you stick it in the water."

When I saw that we were floating in the direct path of the Teigs' kayak and about to be rammed, I muckled onto my paddle and dug it into the water. Right. Left. Right. Left. Aging was one thing; getting a close-up of Helen without her eyebrows was a whole other kettle of fish.

With a stiff wind at our backs, I powered us through the water like the Energizer Bunny on a battery high. I hadn't kayaked for years, but the rhythm and motion were coming back to me. I guess kayaking was something you never forgot how to do, like riding a bicycle. Or sex. Although I hadn't had sex in so long, I'd probably need a diagram to remind me which body parts went where.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

"You paddle like a real pro," Jonathan called out. "I bet you've done this before."

"In college. The university was built on a lake."

"My vo-tech school was built right next to the city dump. Talk about great location. Anytime we needed a spare computer part, all we had to do was walk across the street and scavenge for it."

We were at the back of the pack, a hundred feet away from the next kayak, staying close to the snarl of water-hugging shrubs that lined the riverbank. I liked being close to shore. It seemed a lot less risky than the middle of the river, where the water was a lot deeper. My only major concern now was making sure I didn't run out of sunblock.

"There's supposed to be an authentic re-created folk village around one of these bends," Jonathan chirped behind me. "It's only a bunch of huts, but an overhead shot of them appeared in one of the opening scenes of my favorite movie of all times. Outbreak. Did you see that one?"

"I saw the trailer. You like medical thrillers?"Left. Right. Left. Right.

"Not particularly. But I love it when Hollywood portrays someone as beautiful as Renee Russo falling for a loser like Dustin Hoffman. It's like watching my life unfold on the big screen. We're also supposed to pass the field where Harrison Ford was chased by those hostile natives in the first Indiana Jones flick."

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