The evening’s muggy, tropical air was the first thing to greet Ricky as he got off the plane. It had been heavier and less fragrant the last two times he’d flown into Kahului, and while those trips had felt like nightmares, this time he floated through the airport like he was in a lucid dream. Fifteen minutes later, the dream peaked as Alicia greeted him with a purple lei and a hug just past his baggage carousel.

“Welcome home.”

Another one of his new roommates was waiting in the parking lot in his white, rusted F-250. He didn’t get out of the truck as Ricky put his suitcases and longboard in the bed and got in the back seat. 

“Ricky, this is Shaker. He runs the house where we live.” 

“Hey, dude,” Ricky said and extended his hand. 

“Yo,” was his only reply. He was looking at his side mirror and didn’t notice Ricky’s attempt at a handshake. He recognized Shaker as the thin-haired muscle dude from the blood moon party just four months earlier. 

As soon as they started moving, Alicia passed Ricky a beer.

“I figured you might wanna brew after a long trip.”

Marry me, he proposed silently but thanked her out loud.

The windows were down, and the wind on the drive to the west side hit his face, thick, cool, and salty. It whipped his curls across his forehead as he sipped his beer, smelled his Lei, and told Alicia about LA. There were no streetlights once they reached the winding Pali, and the sky wore her stars like a thin lace shawl. He slowly continued traveling into a different life, as he had been for months, but only now did it finally feel like he’d made some good decisions. 

They reached Lahaina Town, made two lefts and a right, and pulled down an unlit dirt driveway guarded by tall shrubs. The old truck crept through the dark, jungly path and under a coconut palm that had grown sideways and formed a large arch over the driveway. Past that was a grassy yard surrounded by a small house, two bungalows, and a garage covered in lilikoi vines. A massive breadfruit tree was canopied over half the property, and young banana palms glowed orange by a large flaming pit.

“I told those fuckin’ guys not to make a fire,” Shaker complained as he parked, got out of his truck, and marched straight towards them. Even though he was from Orange County, he spoke with a mellow drawl and said “y’all,” a lot. That came from having worked for the military in the middle of Texas for way too long. He was a few inches taller than Ricky, with tanned skin, sunburnt lips and a large sundial tattooed on his chest that poked out of his faded Rusty tank top and across his left arm. The contours of his shoulders and triceps reminded Ricky of his recurring vow to do more pushups and get in better surfing shape.

Shaker was talking down to Wes and Jessie, who were sitting in beach chairs drinking beers and throwing sticks and rocks into the bonfire. Wes took a swig straight from a bottle of Crown Royal as Shaker lectured. He was saying something about the fire marshall and nosy neighbors and how easy it would be to burn down the neighborhood. Alicia’s eyes widened as she smiled nervously and helped Ricky unload his bags.

“You do realize that you’re twenty yards away from a fifty-year-old wooden house. All of y’all’s shit’s in there.” 

“Hey guys,” Alicia came cautiously to their rescue. “This is Ricky.” They both stood up, eager to escape their property manager’s wrath for a moment.

“Rickster!” Jessie was clearly the youngest of the group, tall and lanky, with a friendly, snaggletoothed smile, and shaggy blonde hair.

“Sup Ricky?” Wes was shorter, stalky, with mellow, squinted eyes, and a thick, salt and pepper beard.  

They greeted him like an old friend, with bring-it-in handshakes and pats on the back. Ricky thanked Shaker for the ride with a fist bump. 

“No worries.” He muttered as he met his fist unenthusiastically, shook his head at his shithead roommates, and went to his bungalow.  

“Come on, I’ll show you around the surf shack,” Alicia said as she picked up one of his bags and headed inside. Ricky loved the sound of that. 

The lanai had a pair of wooden benches besides a table covered in glued-on beer caps. There was a small fridge in the corner and a table with lilikoi and small bananas. A small lizard hung from the lights that were strung across the canopy. 

 As soon as they walked inside, the house started creaking its age with each step they took. The windows were mostly just screens, the termite damage was visible, and while there was a lock to the front door, no one had a key for it. A basket overflowing with mail sat on a table by the entrance. Above them, a frayed wire ran high across the living room, seemingly keeping the two opposing walls from collapsing. A handful of surfboards stood against the walls behind the couches, and two longboards hung on thin ropes attached to the ceiling. The floor slanted visibly from the kitchen towards his bedroom. 

“Shaker was able to find you this mattress and dresser, and there’s also a Salvation Army store in town with tons of furniture and stuff.”

Both the mattress and dresser looked like they were from a thrift store. They were perfect. 

“Let me show you around a bit,” Alicia said after they put his bags in his room. She led him down a hall with chipped-painted walls. 

“Straight ahead is Jessie’s room.” Ricky’s next breath filled him with the skunky odor of fresh marijuana. He took a deep, satisfying inhale. 

“And here,” she muscled open a door with a sagging frame. “Is our lovely toilet, which we really only use for number two. You kinda have to lift the knob to get the door to open and close.” 

“Okay,” Ricky answered with a few more unasked questions left as he looked at the discolored bathtub, a mildew-laced shower curtain pulled halfway back, and a sink covered in tiny hairs and littered with toiletries. 

“The septic system is a bit outdated, so we usually pee outside.” 

Ricky remembered getting drunk at Mom’s house and pissing in the backyard, as if he was committing an act of defiance and a serious offense. Here, it was not only encouraged but compulsory.  

“It’s actually not even a septic system, per se,” she continued. “It’s really just a cesspool. It’s way back there, so we don’t really smell from the property, thank God. But once you walk down the block towards town…” She paused, plugged her nose, and made an icky face. “Oo ee. So, the toilet is sensitive to say the least.”

Ricky gave the shower another questionable look before following Alicia on the rest of the tour. 

“This is the kitchen, which no one really uses, but the stove works. I think the oven works too, but I’ve never seen anyone use it. And the fridge is always well stocked with beer. There’s another little beer fridge outside too.”

“Right on.”

“You want one?”

“Sure.”

They toasted with a couple of brews and Ricky scoped out the kitchen more closely. There was a spice rack with two long rows of colored powders. A rusted, early-nineties-looking tin of Old Bay was the most apparently expired of the group. 

“That’s my juicer,” she pointed at the only shiny, clean, and modern appliance on the counter. “It’s one of my favorite things I own. You’re welcome to use it.”

“Thank you.” Ricky already wanted to scrub the sink and stove top, but he continued following Alicia.

“This is the living room. But as you can see, it’s mostly board storage. We all just hang out on the lanai most of the time. Sometimes friends crash in here.”

“Yeah, better view out there for sure.”

“Definitely.”

“This is my room.” She cracked her door open and he stuck his head in. It was like an extension of the kombi van he’d visited months earlier, which had been etched into his brain like a song he’d memorized as a teenager. Her singing bowl sat on a ledge, and stringed lights hung over her windows, which were all screens that spanned three of the four walls. Next to the door was that painting of the brunette floating in a coconut that had shown up as flashes in his dreams once or twice. 

“Very nice.” 

“Thank you.”

They went outside, past the lanai where Wes and Jessie now sat demurely as Shaker finished pouring sand on their bonfire. They headed down the old wood-planked walkway and around the back of the house. 

“This is one of our banana trees.” A few bunches of small, green, unripened fruits hung head-high. “Actually apple bananas.” She admired them and touched them lightly like they were a resting pet. 

“And back here is my favorite part of this house.” She opened a small door that led to a wooden, open-air shower. A rudimentary system of pipes led up to a shower head, and a pair of rusty vise-grip pliers were attached to the valves. Ricky was relieved he wouldn’t have to be scrubbing that indoor bathtub. 

“I love this shower,” Alicia sighed peacefully as she smiled at it.

“I actually need a shower pretty bad at the moment,” Ricky mentioned as he discreetly sniffed his jet-lagged armpit.

“Well, get ready for the nicest shower of your life.” 

He couldn’t help but think of the two-hundred-dollar waterfall shower system Ana had asked him to install in their place in Brooklyn. That had been a lot more work than anticipated. It was in the downstairs apartment, which had the roomiest bathroom in the house, so he only got to use it a handful of times before their tenants moved in. An excellent selling point, she’d called it. Still, this old rickety outdoor shower was ten times more appealing to him. 

“These are our propane tanks.” She pointed at the set of metal cylinders on the floor, right under the kitchen windows. “So if there’s no hot water, you just swap out the tanks, and let Shaker know if you swap out the last one and he’ll go and get them replaced.”

“Sounds good.” 

They headed back to the front of the property, where she pointed out the two bungalows, one belonging to Shaker, the other to Wes. 

“And that’s pretty much it. During the day you’ll see how big this front yard is. I just planted some sunflowers out there, and Shaker has been collecting boulders and stones for his rock garden back there.” She pointed into the darkness.

“This place is awesome, Alicia. You don’t know how grateful I am that you invited me to be here.”

“I’m glad you came. So many people have asked me about the island since I came out here. But no one’s actually pulled the trigger and made the move except for you.”

“Like you told me before. It was a strange, difficult decision, but also sort of easy at the same time.”

“Absolutely. That does sound like something I would say.”

“You definitely said it.” There were a lot of things she’d said that night that never left his memory.

He was about to head to his room when he thought of one last thing. “Do you maybe know where I can buy some pot?”

“Oh, yeah, Jessie always has weed to sell. Don’t you Jessie?”

“Don’t I what?” He was clearly stoned and buzzing hard off the beers and whiskey.

“Have some weed to sell.”

“Brah, I always have some pakalolo,” he said, singing the last word. “You wanna little taste?”

“Oh, hell yes.” Ricky sat down. His shower could wait a few more minutes.

“Crown?” Wes offered boozily as Jessie packed an oversized glass pipe.

“Sure thing.” The wall right below Alicia’s windows was lined with the glued-on, yellow, plastic, monarch-themed caps of Canadian whisky bottles. 

She’d gone inside and was lighting incense in her softly-lit room. All he needed was an invite for another sleepover from her and he’d officially be in heaven.

That sleepover wouldn’t be coming anytime soon however, as it was apparent that she still had some sort of thing going with Shaker. It was quickly confirmed when Ricky saw her leave his bungalow a little after sunrise the next morning. He was still on west coast time, so he was up way before any of his roommates, sitting on the lanai with his guitar and a notebook, admiring the sunlight shine over the west Maui’s, and feeling truly inspired to write music for the first time in as long as he could remember. 

“Good morning.” He hid his jealousy behind a friendly, knowing smirk and a slow, jangly strum of his acoustic. 

“Aloha.” She blushed and walked into the house, leaving him on the lanai without another word.