And it all hits me in the same amount of time it takes Kai to clasp the front of my board and swing me around so that I face Waikiki and the hotels with their colorful beach umbrellas and parked catamarans and the green velvet mountains behind. Clouds hang low on some of the mountains. In other places, the sky is just enormous blue.

Kai says something to me, and I look at him in this strange dreamworld as I push sticky wet hair from my face. He’s smiling, his eyes are smiling, and water clings to his skin, sparkles on his darkly tan skin, his eyes the exact same shade as the water, his teeth white like the foam.

I could love him, I think, and I know it’s not just him, but this whole dream of life, this sense of timelessness and hopefulness, the languid warmth and intense colors of the tropics.

I think I could be happy to be someone else, living somewhere else, making different choices. Living a life I’ve never lived before.

“Look straight forward,” I hear him say, his voice far off in this movie-world set I’ve stumbled onto. “Start paddling now, Jackie.”

Paddling? Oh, yes, paddling. I begin clawing at the water—it’s what it feels like, terror and urgency as well as utter bewilderment, because I still haven’t a clue what I’m doing in the water on a surfboard in my swimsuit. This is so not me, so not anything I would ever have done.

But Kai either doesn’t care or doesn’t notice. Instead he’s launching me forward, giving the board a hard push, and the wave does the rest, grabbing the board and taking me along. I’m traveling with the wave, and I don’t know what to do. I’m moving fast, and this speed and long board and water isn’t my world. I am not the kind of woman who surfs. I am not the kind of woman who tries new things. I am not—

“Get up. On your feet, girl,” Kai shouts.

I don’t move.

“On your feet, Jackie.” It’s not a request this time. It’s an order.

My heart pounds and the water is sloshing and the wave keeps taking me, pulling me, sending me fast to nowhere. Numbly I struggle to my knees and then stagger up.

I am going to fall. I can’t get my balance. Wobbling left, wobbling right, I’m about to tip the board over again when suddenly I just stop fighting and stand there. I stand, arms up like a tightrope walker. But it works. I stick. I don’t fall.

I go and go, knees bent, body leaning stiffly forward, no grace or style in my stance, but I’m riding a wave. I’m riding a surfboard.