Ammalie looked at her feet, who suddenly felt like they wanted to run. This sounded like a conversation she wasn’t ready to have. “Um, what?”
“That older women are the most beautiful creatures on earth. When I see a twenty-year-old woman, I’m happy for her. Like Apolena. She’s got that cute youthful beauty. When I notice an older woman who is strong and living well, I find her beautiful. We have become stronger individuals, more collaborative spirits. And more disciplined, and yet, simultaneously, more free.”
Ammalie found herself smiling in a rueful way. “Hmm, well, I think that’s gorgeous, but that perspective might be unique to you. My guess is that very few men see women that way.”
Aroha grunted and rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t know. Not attracted to them. Don’t know much about them. Seem rather incompetent and endlessly violent. But I do think women appreciate women. Whether they are lesbian or not, which, luckily, I happen to be.” Then she added, “In the movie, I just kept wanting the main character to fall in love with a woman. She’d have been much happier.”
This last bit was said with so much emphasis that Ammalie couldn’t help but laugh, sincerely this time. “Believe me, I’ve often mourned the fact I wasn’t attracted to women. They are, well, superior creatures. I have often grieved the fact that I’m not gay. But I’m not. Sadly.”
At that, Aroha scowled, but in a friendly way. “Well, it’s a crescive moon tonight, and that too will be beautiful, and remind us that things change.”
“I’m just learning this about you. That you’re a poet. And also, yes, at night I study the sky. It’s a whole different starlight show down here.”
Aroha smiled, a bit shyly this time, and with a blush. “That is my great endeavor in life.”
“To be a poet?”
“To speak poetically about my life and my people and this place.” Aroha handed her the last of the plates to be washed. “Crescive, by the way, is a new word for me. As in the crescent, waxing moon. One that is growing, increasing, or developing. Like love. Or fondness. How it can be crescive. Do you think I can use it that way? Where was he from, your husband?”
“Empyreal, that’s my favorite new word. The highest heaven. Vincent and I met in Chicago, in college.” She stared at the water running over the soapy plates and told herself, as she had so often, Don’t share too much, don’t share yourself, be invisible. “But oddly, we’d both grown up in Nebraska. Middle of America. As white-bread America as you can get.”
“White-bread. That is very American.” Aroha stood near her shoulder, as if also mesmerized by the water. “Well, I’m sorry he’s gone. The Māori believe that souls fly up right near here, to the north of us, to Cape Reinga, the top of the North Island. Empyreal.”
Ammalie opened her mouth to say something, but another customer came in and Aroha left with a “Ka kite, see you in a jiffy,” and Ammalie breathed out, relieved. She finished the dishes quickly, thinking of the name in the guest book—Apolena. Just an odd coincidence, she thought. Maybe there were more Apolenas than she thought. Internationally, anyway. Vincent’s grandmother had been Czech, though the rest of the family had roots in Italy and Spain. Family genealogy had been one of his many pursuits, a hobby that obsessed him until some other interest took hold. The reason Apolena had stuck in his mind—and therefore hers—was that she had been the one to come to America, speaking only Czech, and settling into a Czech-filled town in Nebraska. She felt a swell of gratitude for all those who had walked the earth before her, for the Czech-speaking Apolena, who had come to America, learned English, made a life on a farm in Nebraska. Yet another regular, amazing female explorer.
—
The kauri trees were particularly stunning and therefore their demise was was particularly heartbreaking. This was the only area on the planet with some left—and what kind of explorer would she be if she didn’t see these giants? Plus, she’d never hitchhiked in her life, and New Zealand was famously safe for it.
She’d been on the side of the road with her thumb out for just a few minutes when a white travel van slowed and pulled over. Her delight was replaced by annoyance the moment she recognized the driver—the guy from the beach. He was the only other person in this small town who had seen her out walking, and she didn’t want to deceive anyone else other than Aroha, which was bad enough. Had it been a tourist or someone from the other side of the cove, where most of the houses were, she’d simply say she was traveling around in the area. But he knew she was around-around.
And yet, there he was, waiting patiently in his idling van for her to approach. She zipped up her raincoat—it looked like it would be another blustery day—and pretended to fidget with something in her bag in the hopes he’d change his mind and drive off. What had Aroha said his name was? Richard. In his trademark cream-colored shirt. Her first thought was, How many off-white tops can a person own? and her second was, Me and my stupid ideas.
She couldn’t just turn around and run, and her lies had worked in every location thus far, so she braced herself as she walked over and leaned in the open window with a bright smile. “I’m heading to the kauri tree preserve.”
“Going right by it,” he said. He had a weathered face and charming eye crinkles that deepened with his smile. He waved her in. “Glad you’re going. It’s really a must-see. Pure magic. To miss it would be to miss one of the most important things about New Zealand. Come on now. I’ll drop you off.”
As soon as she was seated and the van was moving, the question she feared came. “I’ve seen you walking the beach,” he said. “You’re staying at the residency?”
“Yep, yep. A jeweler.” She trailed off and looked out the window at the jungle zipping by and touched her necklace, then turned around to face him with renewed bravery. “Sea glass.”
“You don’t like to be out when others are. You walk in strange places and at strange times.”
“I keep strange hours, I admit.”
“I had a friend who couldn’t walk in the daylight because of a cancer treatment. I thought the same might be true for you.”
“No, no, it’s just my habits. I am a shy person who prefers solitude.” Then she added more solemnly, “I’m very sorry about your friend, though.”
“Ah, he’s fine now.”
Not only was this lying situation terrifying, but so was his driving, and she could not hide her wince as he took a corner fast. “Wow, these roads,” she ventured. “They can really make a person carsick, plus them being so narrow and you drivers on the wrong side and all.” This had the intended effect of his decreasing his speed, though having any more time with him than necessary didn’t seem wise. On the other hand, she wasn’t yet ready for the grave.
He chuckled. “It’s you Americans who drive on the wrong side of the road.”
She laughed too, and then because she feared he’d ask another question, she blurted, “And you? What do you do?”
“Citizenship.” He looked over at her, and she wished he’d put his brown eyes back on the road. “Surveyor. Explorer. Geologist. Spent the first half of my career working for mining companies, spent the second half fighting them.” He took in a loud breath. “I’ll be honest. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I saw you out walking and thought you might be a scout or a surveyor. But you don’t look the type. And Aroha said you’re a jeweler, arrived early.”
“Oh!” She felt her heart do a skip. “I don’t understand. What kind of scout would I be?”
“Real estate developer. A year or so ago, the community fought off a proposed development, in the jungle above the houses on the other side of the cove, which is where I live. But they’d love Nan’s property too. It’s even better, being so remote and all. Indeed, it’s prime location. One big stretch of private lands, right in the best location possible. They’re eager to talk a woman, or her heirs”—he made a tsking sound—“into selling their heritage.”
“Oh, that’s sad,” she said.
“It’s more than sad. It’s evil. They’re sharks.”
She relaxed. The road was less curvy now that they’d crested the first mountain. “I feel sorry for actual sharks, being always used to represent the bad guys,” she said, and to again prevent any questions about herself or her work, she rambled on. “I’ve been thinking about how there’s two kinds of adventurers. The let’s-discover-and-change-this-place kind. The colonialists, for example. They find places with the intention of ‘improving’ them, or extracting from them, or taking them over. Then there’s the second kind. The let’s-go-see-what’s-out-there, just-to-appreciate-it kind.”
He smiled broadly. “You’re the second type of explorer.”
“I hope so.”
“That’s why you don’t look like a surveyor.”
“And how do surveyors look, anyway? Well-dressed and rich?”
“No, like they want something from the place.”
“Well, I do want something,” she ventured. “But not to change it. To have a place change me.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said with an inflection that indicated he really meant it, and again, he looked over at her to catch her eye and she internally winced again. “It’s true, what you say. There are two types of people in this world. The kind who want to create and add something, and the kind who want to take.”
Then his blinker was on and he was pulling into a park of sorts with astonishingly enormous trees towering into the sky like wild skyscrapers. She could not help but gasp. He said, “Right? Thrilling, those buggers. And those are only about seven hundred years old! Which makes them teenagers! These are not only some of the largest trees on earth, they’re also the longest-living.”
“Astonishing, really. And thank you sincerely for the ride,” she stammered, stepping out. “I enjoyed it. I’ll enjoy this too.”
Before she turned, he leaned toward her and spoke through the open window. “My pleasure. But first, I never asked your name, and second, I want to confess something. I often fly my drone to find and map the big kauri trees. They’re not all in this reserve—there’s some hidden up high on Nan’s land. I’m mapping the forest to document ecological values for any legal fight we have ahead of us. I saw you walking up some little-used trails.”
Her heart fluttered. “You saw me with a drone?”
He shrugged. “I followed you—”
“With your drone?”
“Sure. To see if you had any surveying equipment or some such thing.”
“I didn’t see any drone!”
