Mistwalker (10 page)

She wasn't scolding him, just reminding him to be careful.

“I listen, when I'm in there. And my parents don't care.”

Ellen uttered a sound of disbelief.

“Really,” Patrick insisted. “My dad's into fishing, mostly, and my mom's writing a book about the plantation. As long as I keep my grades up, they don't care
what I do. They say I'm a pretty low-maintenance kid, except for the doctor bills.”

Patrick scratched his arms through his long sleeves. Did he have some kind of rash, or were the mosquitoes out and biting?

“What kind of saddle is that?” Darby asked.

“An endurance saddle. My mom picked it because it looked like a cross between an English-style saddle and a Western one,” he said. “Mom didn't know which I wanted, but she figured she'd be at least half-right.”

Mistwalker opened her mouth for the bit and rubbed her head against Patrick's chest after he'd folded her ears into the bridle's headstall. He dropped the reins and she stood waiting while Patrick tossed the saddle—made of nylon canvas instead of leather—onto her back.

“You two are quite the team,” Ellen said.

“She's my best friend,” Patrick said. “But I can tell she likes you. It's good for her to know other people. It really would be okay if you rode her.”

“I'll remember that,” Darby's mom told him.

The indulgent way she said it made Darby worry. Her mom didn't sound like she planned to spend much time hanging around the forest, where Mistwalker would appear out of the fog.

Darby handed Navigator's reins to her mom. Interlacing her fingers, she stood facing Mistwalker's tail, with her shoulder near the filly's.

Patrick was heavier than he looked, and Darby grunted with the effort needed to boost him into the saddle.

“Thanks.” He settled into the small saddle, then pulled a veil-like thing down from his pith helmet. “Mosquito netting,” he explained, and then waved. “See you at school!”

Listening to the filly's hoofbeats as she watched Patrick go, Darby said, “That is not an ordinary kid.”

“Hawaii has its share of interesting personalities,” Ellen said.

Then, as Darby started to mount up, her mother stopped her.

When she spoke, her voice sounded rehearsed. “Darby, take your boot out of the stirrup. I have to tell you something.”

“W
hat do you have to tell me?” Darby asked.

She didn't like the sound of this.

Her mom wouldn't answer until Darby lowered herself back to the ground. She twisted the ends of her reins as she studied her mom's face.

“It's not bad,” her mom insisted. “In fact, what was that expression you and Heather used to use? Oh, I know. It's a VGT.”

VGT
meant Very Good Thing, and her mom looked lighthearted.

But Darby's jaw tightened. She couldn't help it.

Ignoring the reins they held, Ellen took both of Darby's hands in hers, then asked, “Are you hyper-ventilating?”

“Maybe,” Darby admitted.

“Stop. Here's my news: We're not poor anymore.”

Not poor. When had they been poor? Didn't all mothers spend phone time talking to the bank, landlord, and power company? And the Stormbird reward was for college, so Mom must have gotten another acting job.

“This isn't a riddle, Darby. I'll tell you what I'm talking about if you'll listen.”

“Okay,” Darby said, but she still watched her mom's eyes, wanting to know before she was told.

“Starting in August, I'll be spending half the year in Tahiti.”

“Tahiti,” Darby echoed. That was where Ellen's job was now.

“While the movie shoot was delayed by rain, the early footage was making the rounds in Hollywood and it was a hit. It's gone from being a made-for-TV movie to a pilot for a new series. The producer loves the Tahitian light, color, tax advantages—and the cast.”

“Especially you,” Darby said.

“
Including
me.”

But Ellen was being modest. Darby knew her mother would end up being the star. And a TV series meant a steady job, at least for a while.

“Since it's being shot in Tahiti, you'll be nearby.” Darby tried not to celebrate too soon, but her blood was carbonated with excitement.

“Fifty-fifty,” her mom said, releasing Darby's hands. “Part of it will still be shot in the Hollywood studio, so we could keep our place back home, or—”

“We're going to live in Hawaii!”

“I didn't say that,” Ellen cautioned.

Darby forced herself to think past her exhilaration. She'd read that the secret to a convincing argument was slow delivery. You had to allow three seconds between each point you made. Three points, she remembered. And, you should use a low-pitched voice.

“I love my new school,” she said.

One, two, three.

“I'm healthier in Hawaii,” Darby pointed out.

One, two, three.

“I love Hoku and learning about horses.”

Darby took a deep breath. Slow and low was working. Her mom hadn't interrupted yet.

So, why did she have to remember what Jonah had said at lunch?

“Mom, you know why else I have to stay, don't you? How many people get apprenticed to a real-live horse charmer who's training her to take over his ranch? That just doesn't happen in real life! Except for Cade, of course, but—”

Ellen pointed a resolute finger at her, and said, “Remember that, Darby. It just doesn't happen.” She stopped to let her words soak in. “The very idea that he'd turn the ranch over to you is absurd.”

What had gone so wrong that her mother really believed her father wouldn't leave the ranch to her, his only grandchild? This had to be about something more than Jonah not letting Ellen stay after school for play practice.

Darby tried to recall all that Jonah had said at lunch, word for word.

Not next week, you know. But, eventually,
Jonah had said. Didn't her mom remember that?

“I think he meant later, when, you know…” Darby tried to speak slow and low, but the word
absurd
kept poking at her. “Who's going to inherit it, then? Aunt Babe? Why
not
me?”

Navigator snorted and jerked his head high against the reins. Darby wondered if she'd been shouting. Probably, because her mother waited until she'd run out of words, then changed the subject.

“Here's my plan,” Ellen said. “I know you have chores, but there are—what? Two or three cowboys on that ranch.”

“Three,” Darby said. “But they do lots more than I do. Besides taking care of horses, they work the cattle, check the water troughs, tend sick animals, act like mechanics and plumbers….”

Her mom didn't seem to have heard anything but the number.

“That's three more than there were when I lived at ‘Iolani Ranch, so Jonah can do without you for a couple days while you stay with me at Aunt Babe's.”

Ellen left no wiggle room in that sentence, and she wore an “or else” expression, as if she expected Darby to refuse the chance to spend time with her!

With raised eyebrows, she waited, and even though Darby would've liked it better if her mother had stayed at the ranch, getting to know Jonah again, she knew that scheme might backfire. She loved both Mom and Jonah, but right now they were a volatile combination.

“That would be so much fun, Mom!” Darby said, and she meant it. She wasn't being selfish, either. She could get her mom to say yes about staying in Hawaii just as easily at Sugar Sands Cove Resort as she could on ‘Iolani Ranch. Maybe easier, without Jonah as a distraction.

Later, she'd work on bringing father and daughter back together.

Ellen's eyes sparkled and she laughed with delight. She squeezed Darby with one arm just as a niggling worry popped into Darby's mind.

“Hoku still hates men, so I'll have to see if Megan or Aunty Cathy can take care of her.”

“Is there any doubt in your mind they'll do it?” her mom said against Darby's ponytail. “They're both wonderful, kind people. I can see that Megan would do anything for you, and Cathy would do anything for Jonah.”

That was kind of a weird way to put it, but Darby let her mom's words lie.

 

Leaving ‘Iolani Ranch was entirely too easy.

Jonah wasn't in sight. Cade took their horses and insisted on cooling them out and putting away their tack. Hoku wouldn't come to the fence to say good-bye.

While Darby packed an overnight bag, Ellen talked to Aunty Cathy, and Megan offered to take over Darby's chores and care for Hoku.

Megan leaned against the door frame of Darby's room. Darby sat in the middle of her bed, deciding which book to take along.

“This is only for a couple days, yeah?” Megan asked.

“Only
one,
if I can swing it,” Darby whispered.

“You're crazy,” Megan told her. “If I could stay at Sugar Sands, all expenses paid—”

“Do you want to come?” Darby asked. Excitement pulled her up onto her knees. “That would make it—”

“Quiet,” Megan shushed her. “Really, this is one time I'm so much more mature than you. I just don't get it.”

Megan's words rankled, but Darby knew she was right. There was a bigger difference between eighth and tenth grades than she'd thought—on handling parents, at least.

She sat back down, arms wrapped around her legs, and waited for Megan to tell her what to do.

“You want your mom to let you stay here, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Go with her for as long as she wants—”

“But what about school?”

“If you think she'd really take you out of school for a vacation, she's cooler than I thought,” Megan joked.

“I guess she wouldn't.”

“When she's not waiting for Jonah to”—Megan gestured vaguely outside—“act like he does, and when she relaxes a little, she might see that this—that
here
—is what's best for you.” Megan swallowed hard enough that Darby heard her, then looked away.

Touched by her friend's emotion, Darby was starting to go hug her when Megan held out a hand, and said, “Don't even.”

Darby laughed, then realized she hadn't told Megan about her mom's news.

“Wait, I have to tell you about the TV show!”

“What TV show?”

“Swear you won't tell?”

Megan crossed her heart, and that was all the encouragement it took for Darby to repeat what her mother had told her.

Megan's eyes widened with each new detail.

“Oh my gosh. That is so cool!”

“And it's shot half on Tahiti and half in Hollywood, so it only makes sense…”

“What's it called?”

“
Birthright
, I think. Mom doesn't like it, but it's just a working title, and better than the first one, which was
Tahitian Sunrise
or something. She said it sounded like the name of fingernail polish.”

“Oh my gosh,” Megan repeated.

“Darby?” her mom called down the hallway.

“I'm almost ready,” Darby said. She zipped her bag, jumped off the bed, and this time she did hug Megan. “
Mahalo,
Sis.”

 

Darby almost made it to her mother's watermelon-colored rental car without crying.

But Jonah rode Biscuit up from the lower pastures, galloped him down the driveway, and pulled him to a stop.

Darby glanced around, sure she'd missed some emergency. There was no smoke, no earthquake-shaken buildings. No runaway horses, cows, or goats.

Jonah seemed to have galloped up here just to say good-bye.

Darby dropped her suitcase at the car and hurried toward him, but her mom, out of riding clothes and back in her dress, leaned against the car with her arms crossed, watching.

Smelling of leather and horse sweat, her grandfather caught her in a hug.

“When you come home we'll work on that bronc
stop, yeah? Don't want your little Hoku more confused than she has to be.”

“It's only for a day. Or two.” Darby gulped.

“I know that,” he said. Setting her away from him, Jonah looked at the winged heart necklace that Darby still wore.

She tried to think of Jonah pounding the table and yelling at Mom. She tried to be angry because he'd called her a timid mouse. Nothing stopped the tears from gathering in her eyes, or her hand from closing over the gold heart charm.

Because she couldn't talk without crying, Darby flashed him a Shaka sign and headed back to the car.

“He's making me the bad guy,” her mom muttered.

“Ellen!” Jonah had heard, too.

She stopped with the car door half-open.

Jonah strode closer. “I don't want to make you anything but happy. You just won't allow it.”

Ellen was facing away from her, but Darby saw her mother's hand tremble, then grab onto the car door, holding herself back from another fight.

“See you later,” her mom said lightly, but she slammed the car door.

My heart hurts,
Darby thought. She hadn't felt like this since she was five years old, during her parents' divorce. She tried not to cry.

Ellen revved the car's engine. Darby didn't know if she did it on purpose, or because she was unfamiliar with starting it.

Either way, the sound wasn't loud enough to block out Jonah's voice. Darby wished it had been. As she looked out the car's back window, she saw him kick at the dirt. And then she heard her grandfather swear.

I
t didn't make sense.

Darby didn't know why her mother and Jonah were still fighting. Obviously she hadn't read enough of her mom's diary to know what had started this feud.

Darby stared out the car window. Her chances of staying in Hawaii would improve a lot if her mom and Jonah got along.

Jonah had made his teenage daughter stay home and do chores. Darby tried to see it from his side. He was working a five-thousand-acre ranch alone. He'd just lost his wife. He needed the help and probably wanted company. A school play must have seemed pretty trivial by comparison.

Darby crossed her arms and closed her eyes, pretending to be her teenage mom. Ellen was good at acting. The school paper and her teachers had agreed on that. So she'd resented being kept away from it.

But would she leave home over it? Hold it against Jonah for over a decade?

No way.

Unless—Darby sat up straighter and opened her eyes—it had been her dream.
What if Hoku, the horse of my heart, was just a few miles away and I wasn't allowed to be with her? What if I had to stay home and wash dishes and mow lawns instead of riding? What if every day my dream dangled just out of reach?

That would make me hold a grudge,
Darby thought.

“Do you want to go back?” her mom asked.

They were stopped at the highway. Once they crossed it, they'd be at Sugar Sands Cove Resort.

“No, I want to hang out with you,” Darby said.

Her mom exhaled and her shoulders sank a few inches as she said, “We'll have fun, you know. Babe's given us a suite and promised us the run of the place, for free!” She pretended to adjust her sunglasses. “This celebrity stuff might just pay off. What do you want for dinner, Hotshot?”

When Darby was a little girl learning to roller-skate, her father had called her Hotshot. He still called her by the nickname sometimes, but hearing it from her mom was a rare occasion.

Darby wound her index finger through her pony-
tail and hoped that the nickname was a hint that the next few days with her mother would be more than a Hawaiian slumber party.

 

Staying at Aunt Babe's resort was a lot different from riding on the beach next to it.

Every window had a view of the ocean, palm trees, or both.

Outside, the resort sparkled pure white, but inside it glowed with color—gold trim, bright flowers, and ceiling fans made of honey-colored wood.

Darby spotted a small sign pointing guests toward the Cultural Corner and wondered if it was like a little Hawaiian museum. She wanted to investigate, but she agreed to do it later.

Since Aunt Babe wasn't around, Darby and her mother told the front desk they'd find their suite on their own, even if it was the one farthest from the front desk.

It took a while.

“Is it still Saturday?” her mom asked, stifling a yawn when they were still searching for their suite twenty minutes later.

“I think so,” Darby said. She had no idea why she'd left her riding boots on, but she was ready to take them off.

She shot a sidelong glance at her mother. Although she was still smiling, her mom had to be tired. On her “day off” she'd taken a plane at dawn, arrived at the
award reception in time to impress Aunt Babe's guests, fought with her father, ridden a bucking horse—and now this.

“How many gardens does this place have?” Ellen moaned, tilting the map they'd been given.

Darby laughed. They'd crossed a shady meditation garden, a sunny massage garden, a brass sculpture garden, even a rake-the-sand garden studded with black rocks.

When they finally found their room, they didn't want to leave it, even for dinner.

Darby had never been in a place like this. Carrying her boots, she let her toes sink into a carpet that looked like a golden beach, then stood on the lanai overlooking the ocean.

When she spotted the lava-rock shower with a big window open to the sea and sky, she claimed it and left her mother to call for room service.

Lifting her arms to shampoo her hair reminded Darby of the yank against the lead rope she'd wrapped around her hand. She let warm water knead muscles that ached from her palm to her shoulder.

“I ordered a pizza sampler,” her mom said as Darby appeared with a towel wrapped around her wet hair. “A bunch of mini pizzas—all your favorites, plus goat cheese and porcini mushrooms for me.”

Ellen made a whirlwind trip to the shower next, and even before the pizza arrived she and Darby began catching up on what they'd missed while being
apart. Both sat cross-legged on their beds as Darby described a typical day on ‘Iolani Ranch.

Darby told her mother about her chores, her new favorite foods, and when Ellen asked about her new friends, Darby described people she talked to in each of her classes and, of course, Ann.

“Ann sounds great,” Ellen said. “What does Jonah think of her?”

“He calls her Wild Ann,” Darby began.

“
Jonah
calls her wild?” her mother asked with a quick intake of breath.

Reflexively Darby's spine straightened, and her mother must have noticed.

“Ann's the red-haired girl you introduced me to, right? From Nevada.” She waited for Darby to nod. “I'm eager to get to know her better.” Ellen made a gesture that seemed to brush away her worries. “And Megan?”

Darby explained that she and Megan were the best of friends, too, and even confided the misunderstanding that had lasted between Megan and Cade for years.

“Tutu told me I was a natural at conducting
ho'oponopono
when she found out I got them talking.” Darby stumbled over the Hawaiian term that meant an ancient problem-solving process, kind of like something a counselor would use, but she still felt proud.

Answering the soft knock at the door, her mother
smiled over her shoulder and said, “Let me give you a tip: Don't try practicing your
ho'oponopono
skills on me.”

The aroma of oregano and cheese puffed into the room as Ellen removed a silver dome from the tray of treats, and Darby could only listen and eat as her mother told her about her working life in Tahiti.

“I've never spent so much time with the same cast and crew,” her mother said. She sipped her diet cola thoughtfully. “At the risk of sounding sappy, I have to tell you, it really is like a big family.”

Just as her mother had bitten back her views on Ann, Darby didn't point out that her mother already had a great family she should get to know better.

“What about your cousin Duxelles?” Ellen asked suddenly.

Darby groaned.

“She's a striking girl, but she looks unhappy,” Ellen said.

“Funny you should use the word
striking
.” Darby didn't choke back her sarcasm, but she did explain that her cousin's bullying didn't stop short of shoves and stinging finger flicks. “The nicest thing I can say about her is she's a strong swimmer. The one time I actually liked Duckie—”

“Duckie?”

“—was when she helped rescue the foals from the churned-up water after the tsunami.”

Ellen's eyes widened, grew angry, then worried, and finally shone with laughter as Darby explained
how Duckie had gotten her nickname.

Satisfied and drowsy with dinner and gossip, Darby turned down her mother's offer of watching an in-room movie.

“Maybe tomorrow night,” Ellen said. She tucked Darby into bed as if she were a child, but Darby didn't protest.

Sometime her mother slipped into the bed next to her. Sometime she turned out the bedside lamp. And sometime, just before her eyes closed for the night, Darby said, “I loved watching you ride, Mama,” but she was asleep before Ellen answered.

 

The next day, Darby's mother and Aunt Babe taught her what it meant to be pampered.

For breakfast, she ate taro and mango pancakes with toasted coconut sprinkles. Next, she snorkeled in a pool surrounded by lava rocks and filled with native fish. After that, her mother let her drive a golf cart on their spin around the resort grounds.

Lunch was ti leaf–wrapped fish. It was delicious, but a little weird. She didn't know if she was supposed to eat the ti leaf, and the fish looked just like one she'd swum next to an hour before.

The hotel's Cultural Corner turned out to be a gift shop. It had a wall of portraits and replicas of artifacts that reminded her of the ancient necklace that had attached itself to her on the pali, but when her mom offered to buy her a souvenir, Darby didn't see
anything she wanted. She didn't need a trinket to keep her smiling, because Ellen looked more content every moment, and that made Darby happy, too.

When they were having an afternoon snack of passion fruit, pineapple, and papaya ice cream with lavender sauce at an outside table, Ellen lowered the sunglasses covering her eyes and looked at Darby.

“If we did stay, you'd have to attend a private school,” Ellen said, “and that takes a lot of money.”

Darby sat back in her chair. Her impulse was to bounce around crowing with delight, but she thought of Megan's advice to hang back.

Taking a deep breath, Darby said, “I wouldn't have to. I like my school.”

“The public schools here aren't that good, honey. Everyone knows that.”

“But wait, the Potters—you know, Ann's family—well, not to be impolite, but her family has tons of money and Ann goes to Lehua High School. And Mom,
you
went to Lehua! What better endorsement could they get than that?”

“Come on, sweet talker,” her mom said, pushing her sunglasses back into position. Then she stood and adjusted her straw hat to protect her complexion. “Let's change into dry swimsuits and go back to the beach.”

 

The next morning, Ellen let Darby oversleep on purpose and called her school to say Darby was out on family business.

Is this bribery?
Darby wanted to ask, but instead she raced her mom up the resort's climbing wall, wearing the cute little skirt Aunt Babe had given her to play tennis in—which she did badly—and swam some more before lunch.

It wasn't until Flight's neigh stopped Darby from chewing a macadamia-crusted prawn and she stared into the air, thinking of Hoku, that Ellen said, “You're not enjoying this, are you?”

“Are you kidding? Of course I am!” Darby said, and she meant it.

Why would Ellen say such a thing?

“But you'd rather be with your horse than your mother.”

“No. No way.” Darby shook her head so hard, her wet ponytail slapped her cheeks.

“Go ahead, honey, be honest.”

“Mom, don't you think you're being kind of paranoid?” Darby asked, but Ellen just sat back, studying her, waiting for her daughter to give the question more thought. “Okay. It's true that if I had to choose between ‘Iolani Ranch's green grass and that golf course for the rest of my life, I'd pick the ranch. And if I had to pick Sugar Sands' lava lagoon or the ocean, I'd pick the ocean. But this is totally fun, like a vacation.”

Darby didn't flinch away, but she was curious when her mother reached for her ponytail.

“This confirms it,” her mother said. “See the reddish tips on your black ponytail? They're sunburnt.
You've turned into an outdoor girl.”

“Of course,” Darby said, thinking of her mom riding headlong into the rain forest. “It's in my blood. I was born into the Explorers Club.”

“I don't know.” Her mom stretched like a cat. “I could get used to this. Your aunt Babe has offered to let us live here rent free, with maid service.”

Darby froze.

She thought of a mouse in the owl's shadow.

Stay still, stay very still,
she told herself.

She wanted to stay in Hawaii, but not here.

“You can breathe,” her mom said. “I told her we'd have to think about it.”

“It's an incredible offer,” Darby admitted.

“And I haven't said no.”

Darby nodded. Looking at the offer from Ellen's point of view, she must be flattered that Aunt Babe wanted her here for her star power.

“I don't have to go back to work until Wednesday morning,” her mom said, “but it's important you get back to school—part of this decision is going to be based on your grades, young lady…”

“Good,” Darby said, and she meant it. The only class she'd fallen below an A in was Ecology, and Mr. Silva was acknowledged to be a real warlock when it came to makeup work. She'd better remember that.

But her mom was still talking.

“…and Cathy said she'd like to pick you up after Megan's soccer practice today and take you back to
the ranch. Hoku's making a nuisance of herself.”

“Hoku? What's wrong?” Darby asked.

“She's fine, but she's neighing incessantly. For you, probably.”

“Aw, poor Hoku,” Darby said, and she knew how the filly felt. “But, what will you do—”

“Without you?” Ellen kissed Darby's cheek. “I'll console myself with a massage in the massage garden, maybe have breakfast in bed….”

Darby smiled. After living in a bunch of low-rent apartments, working low-paying jobs while she polished her acting skills and took care of her daughter, Ellen was enjoying this taste of luxury.

“Okay,” Darby said. “But before you leave, can we go ride together once more?”

And since I've been the most patient human on earth, can you tell me then whether we can stay in Hawaii?

“Absolutely. Tuesday afternoon. It's a date!” Ellen said, and then she dumped the contents of a sterling-silver sugar bowl into a cloth napkin, knotted the top, and handed it to Darby. “Until then, tell the horses I said aloha.”

 

Megan looked longingly over her shoulder as the white hotel grew smaller out the SUV's back window. “Restaurant meals, maids, and massages? What a drag, yeah?”