Free Here Today, Gone to Maui by Carol Snow Page A

the tote. Even with the wetsuit, he’d be cold when he got out.
    Bag in hand, I scooted under a tree with low branches and settled myself on an exposed root. My cell phone was at the bottom of my bag. According to the screen, it was 1:43 P.M. in California, which meant it was 10:43 here in Maui.
    The tree provided some small protection from the wind. Shade wasn’t a factor since the murky clouds had obliterated the sun. Would that affect Jimmy’s visibility? And if so, would he cut his dive short? I doubted it, somehow. Jimmy had a tendency to get caught up in the moment. I pictured him in the depths, gliding past coral, staring at a puffer fish, hovering over a moray eel.
    When my bathing suit went from soaking wet to merely clammy, I pulled on my terry cover-up, wishing I’d brought something warmer. Jimmy’s T-shirt was in the car, but I didn’t want to risk being away from the beach when he came out of the water. With surf this rough, he might need help getting out.
    Above me, the dense clouds darkened. The remaining blue sky, to the left of the beach, seemed far away. Farther down the sand, the last of the beachgoers packed up their gear and disappeared up the path.
    I thought about dinner, about what I might make in that dinky little kitchen. Fish, certainly—Mary told me the best stuff came from Safeway. Lemon. Bagged salad. A loaf of nice bread. A crisp Chardonnay. Sometimes simple meals are the best. We could eat out on the lounge chairs again, assuming it didn’t rain. Or I could do something cold, crab salad maybe, which we could take someplace idyllic and quintessentially Hawaiian, one of those spots that I’d dreamed about from California.
    Like: the Hyatt lobby.
    It began to rain. I said a bad word. When that didn’t make me feel any better, I said a worse one. That helped, but only a little.
    According to my cell phone, it was 1:56 in California, which made it 10:56 in Maui. What time had Jimmy gone under? I wished I’d checked before snorkeling. He’d have a timer and an air gauge with him, but knowing Jimmy, he’d stay under as long as he could, till he was almost, but not quite, out of air. You never want your air to run out completely. You need to keep some in reserve to get you back to the surface. But even if Jimmy’s air did run out, he’d be okay. His dive was so shallow, he could shoot up without risking decompression sickness, otherwise known as “the bends.”
    I tried to remember how long a tank would last. A lot depended on the depth of the dive; the deeper you went, the faster the air ran out. But Jimmy was an experienced diver, and slow, measured breaths could make his air last longer.
    I needed to distract myself. Had it been a weekday, I would have called Lena because she always made me laugh. Instead, I called my sister, Beth, in New Jersey.
    After three rings, a girl’s voice said, “Hullo?”
    “Hi . . . Samantha? This is Aunt Jane.”
    “This is Savannah.”
    “Savannah! Wow. You’re starting to sound so grown-up.” Savannah, Beth’s second girl, was twelve. Or maybe thirteen? I’d lost track.
    When Savannah didn’t reply, I said, “It was nice seeing you at Christmas.”
    After a pause, she said, “Yeah.”
    “Did you use the Gap certificate I gave you?”
    There was a bit of static, and then, “No.” I tried to think of something else to ask her, but she saved me. “You want to talk to my mom?”
    “Hello?” Beth sounded harried. Beth always sounded harried.
    “I’m on the beach in Hawaii,” I said.
    “Isn’t that a Ziggy Marley song?”
    “It’s raining,” I said.
    “You’re looking for pity?”
    “And the hotel lost our reservation, so we’re in a crappy condo.” I heard the sound of running water, dishes clinking. “Did I interrupt your dinner? What time is it there?”
    “It’s almost dinnertime, but no one’s eating. Sierra and Sindy have the stomach flu. Eleven times they’ve thrown up today. Samantha was home all week with a sinus