Page 2 of This Could be Love

“A coffee would be great.”

“You got it,” he said, another one of those relaxed smiles breaking across his face.

For the next fifteen minutes we didn’t talk much. The traffic around the airport was heavy, and Gabe had to concentrate. Bit by bit, the skyline of Honolulu disappeared in the rearview mirror, and the landscape opened up like a storybook. Suddenly I saw a line of gigantic mountains of such a dense green—it was like they’d been covered with green velvet—towering into the sky. Waterfalls cascaded down the rock faces in swirling threads, and lush rainforest stretched out on either side of the road, steaming in the morning light. Fascinated, I pushed my nose to the window.

“First time on Oahu?”

I nodded, and he smiled knowingly.

“Most beautiful place on earth.”

After driving inland for a while, Gabe stopped on the side of the road at a rainbow-colored food truck advertising coffee and doughnuts. He exchanged a few words with the owner and returned with two paper cups and a paper bag. The scent of chocolate filled the Jeep.

“Dig in!” He handed me the bag.

“Thanks, but coffee is fine for the moment,” I replied, smiling politely. My stomach wouldn’t have had anything against a bit of fat and sugar, but my nutrition plan did not provide for cheating on my first day. And so I contented myself with a gulp of coffee. It was hot and strong, just how I liked it.

“How’re your folks?” Gabe asked as we drove on. “I met thembriefly the last time they were here,” he added, noting the surprised look on my face. “My wife, Julie, was a huge fan of your mom. She even had a pair of her shoes. The ones with the crown.”

The trademark of the Adidas Duchess, a white tennis shoe with three gold stripes and a glittering crown that Adidas, taking their cue from my mom’s nickname, had brought onto the market following her second Wimbledon win. It took me a second to realize he’d used the past tense and that there had been a sad undertone to his voice. Something in my stomach tightened.

“I’m sorry about your wife,” I said quietly.

“Oh, Julie isn’t… She’s just…gone.”

The last words were barely audible, but the pain that had caused them was all too loud. I tried to remember how long it had been since my parents’ vacation here to visit Kay in her adopted country. Two years? Gabe couldn’t have been divorced for all that long yet. I mean, he still referred to the woman as hiswife.

“My parents are good,” I answered in the hopes of steering the conversation back into harmless territory. “My mother is enjoying her life beyond all the tennis hype, and Dad travels a lot for ESPN.” An idea shot through my head. “I should write to tell them that I got here okay.” I quickly pulled out my phone, and after sending the message, I looked up to see an old-school wooden sign with a surfer riding a wave announcing the town of Haleiwa. We drove down Main Street with its pastel-colored wooden houses, soft gusts of wind waving through the tops of the palms along the sides of the road. Tourists were streaming out of the souvenir shops withshopping bags in their hands or standing in line for ice cream or having breakfast. Tanned surfers were taking their boards off trailers while a few people zipped by on skates and bicycles, their wet hair air-drying.

“There’s always something going on here at night, if you ever start to get a little stir-crazy over at Kay’s.”

I smiled, though I couldn’t imagine being interested in doing anything but falling onto my mattress, dead tired, after my daily training sessions.

The road between Haleiwa and Pupukea led past blindingly white beaches and a shimmering, turquoise ocean that was already full of surfers awaiting the perfect wave. To my left at regular intervals luxurious beach villas hid behind garden gates, while to my right thick, deep-green tropical forests bled into the mountains.

Eventually Gabe turned on his blinker and stopped in front of a gate with a tropical floral motif. He rolled the window down, leaned out, and typed in a code. There was a beep, and the gate opened onto a well-kept driveway. Palm trees, blooming bushes, and a patch of grass that would have been the envy of any gardener lined the way to the house—a two-story construction of dusty-blue painted wood. The doors and window frames were white, and the flat roof was made of some kind of palmlike material. Next to the house there was a garage, which was just like a copy of the house in miniature. Thanks to my mother showing me pictures, I knew that out back there was a terrace and a pool looking out onto theocean, and a series of stairs that led straight down to the beach. Beautiful as it was, I was still unsure that it would be a good idea to spend the six weeks before my comeback training at Kay’s tennis school in Oahu.

“This would be us,” Gabe said, stopping right in front of the staircase.

While I sat watching the gate close in the rearview mirror, he was already out of the car to get my bags.

“You don’t have to carry my things,” I said in vain as he swung my tennis bag over his shoulder and carried my suitcase up the stairs. For the first time, I noticed that his calf was tattooed as well. A black pattern that looked like waves. He put my suitcase down before the front door and typed in another code. For a second, I couldn’t help but wonder how close he and Kay really were. As far as I knew, there wasn’t any man in her life, but maybe that had changed? In any event, the matter-of-fact way he typed in the codes and his knowing them all by heart suggested that he was a regular guest at least.

He edged his sunglasses up into his hair. “Kay should be back soon, but I can come in and show you everything.”

My suspicions hardened.

“That’s not necessary,” I answered, being sure that Gabe had better things to do than play babysitter. “I’ll just start unpacking.”

“You know where the guest room is?”

An embarrassed grin crossed my face. “No.”

“First floor. Last room on the right.”

The little detective inside me felt unambiguously vindicated.

“Got it.”