Maile shook her head. “The local train is a train ride. This is something else,” she said, a smile in her voice. “I can’t imagine what Uncle Koji would think.”

Daniel laughed, having thought the exact same thing. “He’d hate it. He wouldn’t think this was a train at all, more like someone’s fancy dining room. He’d also think I was trying to impress you.”

“Are you?”

“Maybe a little,” he confessed, and smiled. “Let’s eat the soup before it gets cold.”

Daniel watched Maile sip the broth, then look up at him and nod. He tasted it next, warm and salty on his tongue. The consommé was followed by roast beef with potatoes and carrots, fresh fruit, and a piece of pineapple cake. The train rocked them gently from side to side as the lush green mountainsides slid past the window like a moving picture show.

Not long after, the train slowed, the wheels grinding against the tracks as the car lurched, glasses clinking against one another. When they rolled to a complete stop, Daniel saw the confusion on Maile’s face as the other passengers began to stand, mumbling excitedly as they looked out the window to see that the car was perched atop one of the steel trestles built over a canyon below.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” he reassured her. Daniel stood and reached for Maile’s hand. “Come with me,” he said. “It’s part of the surprise.”

Maile hesitated and then reached out.

They followed the other passengers to the front of the car, where Daniel helped her to step down onto a walkway built to the side of the trestle, bordered by an iron railing. They stood more than 150 feet above the valley below, surrounded by the massive cliffs, lush green trees, and tangles of overgrown tropical vegetation untouched by civilization. A waterfall cascaded down the mountainside in the distance. The air felt cooler, lighter, as if they were standing in the midst of another world, suspended in midair, trusting the steel trestle that ran across the enormous gulch below. The passengers stood clutching the railing, marveling excitedly at the sight from so high up. Daniel stepped back as eager voices filled the air around them. The wind suddenly picked up, quickly followed by the surprised squeal of a passenger as her straw hat blew away and glided down toward the valley floor like a pale bird.