“Yes, I have to, because no one thinks of me,” he said. “It’s a mistake to think that anyone cares, or gives a shit about your welfare. People think only of themselves. You have to do the same.”

Olive had a what-about-me? frown on her face, but exaggerated and self-mocking.

She said, “That party where I first met you, I saw a stonking big geezer get down on his knees when he saw you. That got my attention.”

“So you noticed he was old.”

“Yes, but he truly respected you as a surfer. And so did that popsy he was with.”

He had known English Olive for a month. You meet a new person and become lovers and, talking in bed, you become someone special again, interesting in your vividness, as your life is reviewed, and all your stories are fresh and indisputable. Olive still did not know him, but there was time.

“Big-wave surfing at night, by moonlight. The magic mushroom story. Surfing from Maui to Molokai in a storm. The exotic travel—all the hype,” he said. “Too bad they don’t know the truth.”

“They’d be disappointed?”

He shook his head. “No. The truth is better—what really happened is messier but matters more.”

“They wish they had your confidence.”

“You have confidence. You came here alone—you got a job at the hospital. You did it all yourself. You’re akamai.”

“Pardon?”

“Super-smart,” he said. “We have the word here, but we don’t have much of the real thing.”

Her akamai story had impressed him as proof of her power and conviction. She had come to Hawaii from London with her boyfriend, Rupert, for a visit, just ten days in Waikiki. He’d stayed in town and she’d taken the bus to Hale‘iwa, had lunch—an avocado-topped mahi burger and lemonade, sitting in sunshine—then boarded another bus, intending to travel around the island. But approaching Waimea Bay, looking down from the bus, she was dazzled by her first sight of the waves, wide and glittering, walled by cliffs of lava rocks; the green valley behind it lush, like the gateway to Eden. Getting off the bus, she stepped into air perfumed by blossoms and walked to the beach, where she sat on the slope of sand under a pale blue heat-bleached sky, sadly watching the waves breaking, the waves seeming to speak a language she believed she could learn—almost tearful, because she knew she’d be leaving in a few days.