Christy Miller Collection Vol 2 Part 29

"Sure. I'll be fine."

"Christy!" Paula sounded panicked again. "A better question would be, can he drive?"

"Sure. I'll be fine." Todd raised himself up on his elbows, blinked his eyes a few times, and shook his head. "If you guys carry my stuff, I think I can make it to the car."

They took it slowly. Todd tried to hop on his left foot. A painful grimace distorted his face.

"I've got an idea," Christy said. "Paula, go around on his other side. Here, Todd. Put your arms around us. We'll be your crutches."

They made it to the Jeep, and Todd wedged his tender foot into place on the gas pedal. David raced to conquer the front seat, leaving Christy and Paula sentenced to share the back one.

At this point, Christy didn't care where she sat. She could tell by Todd's expression that even though he said he would be fine, he really wasn't. He tried hard to sound normal.

"Everybody in? Let's. .h.i.t it!" He aggressively pressed his bare foot on the gas, and the Jeep sailed over the b.u.mps in the parking lot and onto the narrow road. Right before the bridge, Todd swung into a small turnout. He looped his arms over the top of the steering wheel as if holding on to it for support and sucked in a deep breath.

"It hurts too much, huh?" Paula asked anxiously, leaning between the two front seats. "You can't drive, can you? What are we going to do? You guys, I think he's going to pa.s.s out!"

"I'm not going to pa.s.s out. I need to elevate my foot for a few more minutes. Maybe we should hang out here another half hour or so."

"But it's getting dark!" Paula said frantically. "We have to get over the really rough road while it's still light. Isn't that what you said?"

Todd stretched out his still red and swollen foot, propping it on the slim dashboard. "We've still got another few hours before the sun sets."

"Then why is it getting so dark?" Paula moaned.

"What's that?" David asked, looking up. "Hey, I think it's starting to rain!"

"Eeeeee!" Christy and Paula both wailed as a sudden attack of rain pellets hammered them.

"Didn't this Jeep come with a cover?" Christy asked, rummaging through her bag for her sweats.h.i.+rt.

"Use your beach towels," Todd instructed, grabbing one off the floor board and draping it over David. "It'll probably last only a few minutes."

"Ahhhhh!" Paula cried. "I'm getting drenched!"

Christy pulled her towel over her head and hunched over so that the torrent of rain hit the middle of her back and flowed into puddles on the seat. She thought the whole situation was kind of adventurous and exciting, like a movie she had seen about a woman from New York who got lost in a Colombian jungle and had to hike through the rain and mud with her hero.

Then as instantly as it began, the warm rain turned off, and the not-so-happy adventurers peered out of their beach-towel tents.

"Look at me! I'm soaked!" Paula fussed. "Everything is soaked!"

Todd was especially wet, since he had given his towel to David and braved the gush with only his T-s.h.i.+rt. He roughed up his short hair, sending out a sprinkle of raindrops. Pixie-like rays of returning sunlight danced through the jungle-growth overhead and teased their way into the Jeep, kissing Christy's damp bare legs with their warmth.

"It smells like, um, like a..." Christy tried to find the right word as she wrung out her towel over the edge of the Jeep. "It smells like..."

"Like Hana after it rains," Todd finished for her, taking in a deep breath. "Once you smell a tropical forest after the rain, you never forget it."

"It smells like mildew, you guys!" Paula was now standing up, toweling down her legs, which turned out to be pointless because the towel was wetter than her legs. "We'd better get out of here before another bucket falls on us! Can you drive yet, Todd?"

One look at his foot gave them all the obvious answer. The swelling was not going down, and the redness seemed to be spreading. Todd didn't answer. They all remained silent, waiting for his conclusion.

Christy broke the silence. "I'll drive."

Todd turned and met her clear eyes and sincere smile.

"She can't drive!" David protested. "She doesn't know how. You'll get us all killed! Can't you drive, Paula?"

"I don't know how to drive a stick s.h.i.+ft!" Paula spouted. "Besides, I can't see more than three feet in front of me without my gla.s.ses, and I didn't bring them."

"Christy," David warned, "you can't do it."

Todd kept looking at her. "You don't have to, you know."

Christy leaned forward, as if she were talking only to Todd, and said, "I want to. This is my decision. I'm not doing it for you or my dad or anybody else. I'm doing this for me."

A knowing smile lit up Todd's face. "This is your bridge, huh?"

"Yep," Christy answered bravely. "And I'm ready to jump."

"What are you guys talking about?" Paula asked.

Without answering, Christy scooted around the side of the Jeep and opened the door for Todd.

"Mind if I sit there, dude?" Todd said to David as he hopped around.

David climbed into the backseat, still protesting that Christy would crash the Jeep if Todd let her drive.

Paula started in too, about how they should try to call for help at a phone somewhere, wherever they might possibly find a phone in this remote spot, and maybe if they called 911, someone would send a helicopter to rescue them.

Todd positioned his foot on the dashboard and began to explain the gears to Christy.

"Hey," he suddenly said, turning to face the two complainers in the backseat, "could you guys cool it?"

They instantly hushed, and Christy listened carefully to Todd's instructions on operating a gears.h.i.+ft, remembering fairly clearly what they had practiced in driver's training.

The engine started on her first try, and Todd pressed down on the gears.h.i.+ft and popped it into reverse for her. "Let up slowly on the clutch, and don't worry about trying to go fast."

Flas.h.i.+ng back to her day in the church parking lot with her dad, she giggled. "Don't worry. Slow is what I do best."

Swallowing her giggles and all her nervousness so they landed in her stomach like a big fizzing antacid tablet, she looked over her shoulder. Cautiously letting up on the clutch, Christy pressed slightly on the gas to back up onto the road. The Jeep slipped through the muddy gravel as it powered backward, and Christy slammed on the brakes.

Paula screamed, and David started to plead that they call 911.

Todd ignored them, and placing his hand on top of Christy's as she held the gears.h.i.+ft, he calmly said, "Good. Now this is first gear, right here. Go ahead and give it some gas."

She did, and the Jeep lurched forward, spinning mud and spraying all of them with reddish-black mud freckles.

"You've got it, Christy!" Todd praised over the sound of Paula's squawks. "Now put it into second gear, right here."

He moved her hand down and her Forever bracelet lightly tapped against the metal gears.h.i.+ft.

They rumbled over the bridge, and Todd squeezed her hand, rubbing the chain on the bracelet with his thumb. He didn't have to say a word. She knew he must be thinking the same thing she was thinking. This was their bridge.

Today they both had changed on this bridge. Todd, for jumping off it, and Christy, for driving over it. It would always be a forever moment for them.

Todd let go, and she placed both hands on the steering wheel in the ten and two positions.

"Should I keep it in second gear?" Christy asked as they bounced over the muddy road.

"Yeah, and don't try to go any faster. The curves come up quicker than you think."

Todd was right. The curves kept curving, and the b.u.mps kept b.u.mping. Christy's jaw began to send out shooting pains because she had clenched her teeth so long. With every breath, she drew in the fragrance that the tropical rain had scattered all around them, and even though she was nervous, she felt happier than she had ever felt before.

The shadows grew, and Christy squinted to see the road, which never seemed to stay in one place. It rose and fell and turned and in some places narrowed so that there was room for only one car. In other places, the pa.s.senger side dropped off hundreds of feet down a slide of angry, paralyzed lava that had been forced to stop there years ago by the strong hand of the cool ocean.

For nearly an hour, Christy used every bit of her courage and skill to conquer the Hana road. It was nearly dark when, without warning, the tires. .h.i.t smooth, straight pavement. They all perked up, knowing they had reached Hana.

"Turn up that way." Todd pointed to a long driveway by a sign that said Hana Ranch Market. "If they're still open, we can get some supplies for the ride home."

"I'll take anything chocolate," Paula said. "I feel like I desperately need some chocolate now!"

Todd directed Christy where to turn and where to park, and as soon as she stopped, David and Paula jumped out of the Jeep and ran into the store like released prisoners.

Christy flopped against the back of her seat and let out a gigantic sigh of relief.

"You did it!" Todd straightened his cramped knee and stretched his greatly improved bee-stung foot. "You never stop surprising me, Christy." He said it firmly and softly while trying to get his stiff legs out the open door. Once he was up on his good leg, he said, "I'm going to call your uncle. I'll meet you inside."

Christy relaxed her tensed legs and repeated Todd's words: "You never stop surprising me, Christy." From Todd, that was a compliment. Maybe he would never compare her eyes to the Blue Grotto. Maybe he would never take her to a fancy restaurant. But today they had shared an adventure, and Christy knew she would never be the same because of it.

Inside the small store, David turned to Christy. "I want to get this, Christy!"

He held up a T-s.h.i.+rt with a cartoon drawing of a frantic-looking character driving on a road filled with obstacles. Across the top were the words "I Survived the Road to Hana."

"Will you get it for me?" he asked.

Christy laughed. "Sure, David. I think we all should get one."

They all did and wore them home. The T-s.h.i.+rts were the first thing Marti made a fuss over when they stumbled into the condo at almost midnight-cold, tired, dirty, and hungry. All chattering at once, they told the details of their wild adventure.

"And you actually drove, Christy?" Mom looked shocked.

"Only the first hour back. When we stopped in Hana, when Todd called you guys, his foot was a lot better. So he drove the rest of the way. We were all wet from the rain, and it got so cold from the wind in that open Jeep!"

"I'll get some hot water going." Marti headed for the kitchen, nearly tripping over the ice chest they had brought in. "We've got hot chocolate here somewhere."

Suddenly, Marti shrieked, grabbed the broom, and began to pound the floor by the opened ice chest. They all ran into the kitchen just in time to see a lifeless Sydney squished on the floor.

"Aunt Marti," David wailed, "that was my shrimp!"

"Oh David, don't cry. You uncle will take you out tomorrow night and buy you a shrimp dinner, won't you, Bob?"

David broke into a bleating-calf cry and ran from the room.

"What did I say?" Marti asked.

They were too busy laughing to answer.

The final few days of their vacation breezed by as refres.h.i.+ng and fragrant as the summer trade winds. They lounged by the pool, walked along the beach at sunset, shopped, and dined at fancy restaurants. Christy and Paula got along much better than at the trip's beginning.

Their last night in Hawaii, Bob took them all on a sunset-dinner sail on a catamaran. About twenty-five tourists like them took the cruise.

One of them was a university student from Denmark named Alex. Paula had set her sights on him the minute he came onboard, and within five minutes she had started up a conversation with him.

The two of them talked nonstop the entire trip. It seemed to Christy that Alex was captivated by Paula's Paula-ness.

After they had eaten, Christy left the group and, with rocking steps, made her way to the front of the catamaran. She sat on the webbed tarp spread across the boat's front.

The sun had just been devoured in three swift bites by the volcano that rose out of the center of the island of Molokai. All that was left was a halo of red-orange-yellow-pink fuzzy clouds that looked like a huge party napkin, wiping the upturned lips of the greedy, sun-swallowing volcano. The ocean, so blue and clear and inviting, rocked her gently with its never-ending lullaby.

Todd quietly joined her and stretched out on his stomach.

"Hey, look!" He pointed to Molokai. "There are the two lights again."

"So, have you decided?" Christy asked, feeling a little coy.

From the way the last few days had gone, Christy figured he had evaluated her and Paula and had made Christy his choice.

"No, I haven't," Todd answered slowly. "I still can't decide if I should go to college in the fall or try to get in on the pro surfing tour."

"That's what you're trying to decide?" Christy asked.

Todd looked surprised. "Yeah. What did you think?"

To avoid answering, she quickly asked, "You want to be a pro surfer then?"

"No. I want to be a Bible translator." In the twilight, his eyes looked as starry as the darkening sky above them. "My dream is to go to some remote tropical island where the natives have never heard the gospel. I want to live there, learn their language, and translate the Bible into their native tongue."

"You want to be a missionary?" Christy said the word reverently, with the same sense of awe and admiration she felt for the early missionaries to Hawaii.

"Yes." Todd said it like a true island dreamer. "I want to be a missionary."

It all became clear to Christy. She understood Todd better at this moment than ever before. Todd had the same never-stop-trying spirit the missionaries must have had when they kept rebuilding their church. Todd had the same G.o.d-fearing heart that prompted the Baldwins to pray for rather than retaliate against the sailors who infested their home and their island with mosquitoes.

As far as making his home in the jungle-yeah, that fit too. Last summer when they went to Disneyland, Todd's favorite attraction turned out to be the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. Christy could see that Todd would make an outrageous jungle missionary.

"You know, when we were in Hana," Todd continued, "I started dreaming even more about being a missionary. Swimming in freshwater pools, living off the land, the smell of the air after it rains..."

"You'd better make sure you take along a lifetime supply of bee-sting antidote!" Christy warned.