by Edie Claire
Wait. Or was that Moloka'i?
Ri wasn’t sure. She knew that Maui was the biggest in this particular cluster of Hawaiian islands, and that the bi-lobed, lopsided land mass was made up of two volcanoes, the small West Maui mountain, and the much larger East Maui mountain, better known as Haleakala. She had learned that the names of the smaller, older volcanic islands that dotted the ocean nearby were Moloka'i, Lana'i, and Kaho'olawe, but although she could point them out on a map, she couldn’t tell which was which from the air when she didn’t know which way North was. She also had no idea how to pronounce them, particularly the last one. But she would figure it all out, with time. She had four months.
She sucked in a breath and held it behind her smile. She was as excited as she was terrified. Hopefully, no one would realize the latter. Her apprehension would be difficult to explain. She was twenty-five years old and past due for a grand adventure. She’d spent her entire life in New England, growing up in southern Maine, attending the University of New Hampshire in nearby Durham, and then working her first real job at a small aquarium on the Massachusetts coast. Although she couldn’t imagine ever being parted from the ocean, she had never intended to plant herself permanently in the North Atlantic, either. Everyone always said she was the dreamer in the family — the born explorer who would grow up to scale Mount Everest or hike the Sahara or take the first step on Mars. She didn’t really care about any of those things anymore, but exploring the other six of the seven seas had been her heart’s ambition for as long as she could remember.
She hadn’t considered, as a child, that she would have to put thousands of miles between herself and everyone she loved in order to do it. But she was here now. And everything would be fine.
Ri felt the plane drop in altitude, and as she peered out the window, blue sky began to show through the cottony wisps of cloud. She bent her sore neck and looked down, and her eyes widened in wonder. Bright green peaks of mountain. Scalloped, chiseled cliffs. Sandy-brown shores meeting cerulean-blue waters. Long streaks of white where waves broke over underwater reefs. The vivid tableau was so surreal she felt as if she were watching a movie trailer.
The plane turned. It dipped further. Ri’s gaze remained glued to the window as the jet neared the airport, which lay in the land bridge between Maui’s two mountains. From the shape of the land below, she reasoned out that the peaks she had seen first must be those of the smaller western mountain. She tried to make out more landmarks, but as the plane made its final approach into the city of Kahului, her view was obscured by clouds again.
Ri sat back in her seat with a bounce. No matter. She would have plenty of time to see everything there was to see on the island, even without an airplane. Haleakala was 10,000 feet tall. She’d read that from near the top of it, you could look out towards the other volcano and see the ocean on both sides of the land bridge at once.
She’d definitely be doing that.
Her spirits remained high as the plane touched down and taxied. Her view out the window in the low-lying valley was less dramatic, but if she gazed out over the asphalt and past the bland airport buildings she could see the West Maui Mountain in the distance.
Despite her excitement, her exhaustion caught up with her again as she waited an eternity to deplane, dumped the worthless inflatable pillow in the nearest trashcan, and followed the signs to baggage claim. At some point as she moved through the disappointingly generic airport she must have slipped into autopilot, because as she stood by the luggage carousel sizing up a nearby bench for a nap, she suddenly realized she could remember nothing since leaving the jetway. For a brief moment, she even forgot which airport she was in. Sheesh, she was tired!
Hauling her bag off the carousel caused an unexpected wrench in her back, and she stretched her spine and rotated her shoulders with a grimace. She was in excellent shape physically, and she wasn’t used to such bodily protests. Then again, her body wasn’t used to spending thirty-six hours straight in airplanes and airports, including trying to sleep with her knees drawn up on a two-seater bench overnight at LAX after her first flight to Maui was cancelled yesterday.
Ignore it. You’re in Hawaii!
She pulled up the handle on her bag and headed off toward the pickup curb. A cluster of transport people stood near the doors, holding signs. She scanned them, but saw nothing relevant, then jumped when she realized that a person standing not four feet away was looking at her and waving. The woman was about her own age, had a blond ponytail, and wore an aqua-colored polo shirt emblazoned with the Foundation for Ocean Mammals logo, a breaching humpback whale.
“Sriha?” the woman asked tentatively.
Ri tensed a bit. Then she smiled. “It’s Ri. But yes, that’s me.”
“Nice to meet you!” the woman enthused, shaking her hand. “I’m Kaley. I’m the HR Assistant working with Trish. Did she tell you what the plan is for today?”
Ri’s head spun a little. Kaley’s voice was high-pitched and she talked at light-speed. A flurry of emails had occurred in the hours since Ri’s flight cancellation had kept her from showing up at orientation on time, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember their content. One sleepless night in an airport her brain might be able to tolerate, but she hadn’t slept the night before either, thanks to a fun-filled family going away party that had seemed like a great idea at the time.
She greeted Kaley with a smile, hoping to remember “the plan” in the process. But she needn’t have worried, as the chatty HR assistant was happy to supply it.
“Can I carry anything for you? Oh, you just have the one suitcase and the backpack? Okay! Well, follow me, then! Trish said for you to just leave your stuff in the van, that I should take you straight to the marina as soon as we get to Ma'alaea. This morning’s orientation was all classroom stuff, I guess, but this afternoon all the interns are going out on the boat, and they’re going to wait until you get there, so we don’t want to hold them up. Oh, no!” Kaley stopped abruptly, and so did Ri. “I forgot! I brought your shirt and everything. You’re supposed to go ahead and get changed.”
Kaley reversed course and led Ri toward a restroom, then handed her a canvas tote bag which also bore the Foundation for Ocean Mammals logo. “This has a shirt and your nametag,” she explained. “You can go ahead and change into shorts and sandals if you want. You’ll be going right out onto the boat, Trish said.”
Ri blinked. Right out onto the boat. Onto the Pacific Ocean.
Her heart pounded with excitement. She had waited forever. Now it was happening so fast! No matter. She took the tote, wheeled her suitcase into the restroom, and changed. It was not until she emerged from the stall and examined herself in the mirror that she noticed the name on her engraved plastic nametag, which had already been attached to her shirt.
Sriha Sullivan. Research Intern.
Sriha.
A sinking feeling hit her square in her gut. No! Oh, no. She had specifically asked them to put “Ri” on her nametag. She had asked them more than once.
She closed her eyes. Let her breath out slowly. She wished it didn’t matter. She’d been trying to make it not matter for nearly two years now. But it did.
She opened her eyes. The face that looked back at her in the mirror was sad, exhilarated, and exhausted all at the same time. It was the face of Sriha Mirini Sullivan, daughter of Julie and Tom Sullivan, sister of Mei Lin Sullivan. Holder of a bachelor’s degree in marine biology and a minor in psychology. It was a face with light-brown skin, tightly curled dark-brown hair, and big brown eyes. A face that confused people. A face that frequently brought on lingering, quizzical second looks. Where was she from? Hmm. She had a high forehead and cheek bones, perhaps from her Russian mother, but for whatever reason, most people seemed to think on first glance that she was Indian. But her lips were full, which didn’t quite fit. And she didn’t really look African, either, because her hair wasn’t right. Then again, her hair wasn’t right for anything — it was funky curly, but silky in texture,
with such a strange combination of reddish highlights and black lowlights that the color looked fake. Was she Middle Eastern, maybe? Her nose was no help; it looked stereotypical of nothing and was just kind of there. In fact, she had no preponderance of features that pointed to any particular ethnicity. So how to explain her?
How to explain, indeed.
The question of her life.
When she was a child, Ri had reveled in that mystery — the mystery of herself. She had reveled and reveled good, most often at other people’s expense. Impudent questions such as “where are you from?” were answered with made-up tales of ever-increasing inanity, featuring foreign royalty, international spy rings, and the occasional injection of magical unicorns. Ri was different, she was special, and she was good with that.
No problem.
Adolescence had been rockier. By the time Ri headed off to middle school, knowing the truth about her birthparents and her ethnic origins had become more important to her. But despite her parents’ unwavering support, including their willingness to hire a private detective in Russia, the truth she sought could not be found. So, like most muddled tweens, she had simply followed the path of least resistance. Her first name sounded Indian. She looked like she could be half Indian.
Ergo, she was Indian.
Liar.
“You ready?” Kaley called into the restroom.
“Just a sec!” Ri swiped at her eyes with a tissue. They were rheumy from lack of sleep, that was all. What way was that to meet her fellow interns? The next four months were going to be fantastic. Most fledgling marine biologists would give their left arm to spend the summer working with the research team at the FOM, but spots were highly competitive and unpaid besides, and living expenses on Maui were killer. She’d had to save for years at her aquarium job to fund this venture and still stay on track for grad school next year, and she was damn well going to enjoy every moment of it.
“Ready!” she announced, popping out of the restroom with a smile. She would ask the HR director, Trish, to make her a new nametag. Problem solved.
They got as far as the exit to the airport parking lot before it started.
“I love your name. It’s so pretty! Is it Indian?” Kaley chirped.
Ri steeled herself. The words came out by rote. “Yes, it is. My middle name is Mirini, which is Swahili. You could say my parents are imaginative types.”
“Oh, both names are so pretty!” Kaley cooed, as people generally did.
“Thanks,” Ri replied with a smile. She didn’t disagree. She’d always loved both her names. Not only the sound of them, but the unique heritage each one implied.
Too bad she could no longer claim them.
Kaley opened her mouth to say something else, but Ri was ready to cut off the inevitable next question. She had lots of practice at that. “I prefer to go by Ri, though. Can you tell me something about the other interns? I hate that I’m coming in so late, when they’ve already had most of a day to get to know each other.”
Kaley the speed-talker was easily diverted. As she rattled on about Shelby, Will, and Bryant, Ri found her own attention unexpectedly diverted also. She could not stop looking at the many people who were out and about enjoying the balmy weather in the modernly generic outskirts of Kahului. The local residents looked much like the people in the airport, but what was strange about them hadn’t dawned on Ri’s foggy brain until now.
She wasn’t entirely sure what their ethnicity was either.
“What are the demographics here?” she asked, realizing too late that she had interrupted Kaley’s current story, which was something about a past intern and a shark in Australia. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I thought Maui was mostly white, except for the native Hawaiians… I guess I didn’t really think about it.” Which was stupid of me, she recognized. She had studied the area’s geography and natural history, but she knew next to nothing about its people or politics.
Kaley chuckled. “Oh, no. None of Hawaii’s mostly white. Maui’s about half white. The rest is Asian and Hawaiian. But it’s all mixed.”
Ri felt butterflies in her stomach. “Asian? What kind of Asian?”
Kaley shrugged. “Oh, people are from a lot of different countries originally. You’ll see Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, Korean. But most people aren’t just one thing, you know? Like I’m from Indiana and I’m German and Scandinavian and Irish and who knows what else? Well, Hawaii’s a melting pot for, like, all the Asian countries and the Polynesian islands and then pretty much anything else you’ve ever heard of, too.”
Ri stared back out the window at the spectrum of skin colors and wide variety of physical features on display. She could walk down any of these streets, right now, and no one would pay her a shred of attention.
Now that would be bizarre.
“So, what nationality are you?” Kaley asked brightly.
Ri tried not to wince. She had walked right into that one. She could tell the truth, and most likely Kaley would be fine with it. Too bad she herself was not. “I’m Russian, Indian, and African,” she answered.
You are such a damn liar.
“Oh, that is so cool!” Kaley gushed. “Wow, well, it looks gorgeous on you! I love your eyes.”
“Thanks,” Ri returned, feeling miserable as usual. “The Germans and Scandinavians and Irish didn’t do so bad either.”
Kaley laughed. She went on to tell a story about some grandmother of hers who had a strange eye color, but Ri’s sleep-deprived brain was unable to concentrate. As the car drove out of the city and on through the old sugarcane fields nestled between the mountains, her conscience continued to bait her.
Why do you keep lying to everyone? What is it you’re so ashamed of?
Ri squirmed in her seat. She had no good answers for those questions. No way to explain herself, to heal the raw edge of pain and embarrassment that had nagged at her soul ever since the day the fated envelope had arrived.
“Ri! Ri!” her sister Mei Lin had screamed, running in from the mailbox like a third grader instead of a twenty-two-year-old who had just received her nursing diploma two days before. “It did come today! Oh, I can’t wait! Open it!”
Ri had been just as excited, even though she herself was twenty-three and should have known better than to think that a commercial DNA test would bring clarity and resolution to her life.
Clarity and resolution.
Right.
Ri the tween hadn’t been happy when all efforts to find more information about her birthparents had failed, but she had eventually made peace with it. If she couldn’t know whether her paternal half was Indian or African, she would simply claim them both. After all, she didn’t know she wasn’t both, did she? So for years she had answered the question the same way she had just answered Kaley, and everyone was content. Friends who knew her better might hear the “or” story later, after the risk of awkwardness was gone. No one else needed any more explanation.
Ri’s parents had let her know about autosomal DNA testing as soon as it was available, and she could have gone through with it earlier. But by high school, Ri’s feelings on the issue had shifted. As an older teen and a college student her focus was squarely on her present life and her future, and any concerns related to parental units — whether birth or adoptive — were secondary. It was only after she graduated from college and had lived on her own for a while that the nagging insecurity began to resurface again.
Who are you? Who are your people?
“We’re almost there,” Kaley chirped. “Whatever you don’t want to haul around with you on the boat, just leave in the van. As soon as they cut you guys loose, come up to Trish’s office and she’ll run you out to the house.”
Ri nodded. “Thanks.” Officially, interns were responsible for finding their own lodgings. Unofficially, they rented rooms on the cheap from an FOM patron who owned a house fifteen minutes away on the bus line.
“You’ve never been to Hawaii before, have you?” Kaley asked.
Ri s
hook her head. “Until yesterday, I’ve never been farther west than Colorado.” She leaned forward to get a better view out the windshield. The landscape was opening up. They were nearing the ocean. The Pacific Ocean!
“I have cousins in Colorado,” Kaley chatted. “Do you have family there, or were you just sightseeing?”
Ri fought the urge to tense up again. These were perfectly normal, friendly questions. “My sister and I used to go to summer camp out there. It was fabulous. Beautiful scenery. But the view from the plane just now… I mean, wow.”
No need to talk about camps. Specifically, heritage camps. They truly were a fabulous thing for international and transracial adoptees, and she and her sister had been both. Their parents had been all over the heritage thing from day one, so for her and Mei Lin, talking openly about their birth countries and cultures had been as natural as breathing. The Chinese family camps were a staple of the Sullivans’ existence, and Ri had as many friends among the regular attendees as did Mei Lin, even if none of the girls believed that young Ri was Chinese, despite her wild assertions that she and Mei Lin were conjoined twins born attached at the pinky toe.
Ri was less enamored of the Russian camps, where despite her legitimate ticket to entry, she had been viewed with suspicion by the children and staff alike, her parents once being asked by a check-in counselor if they had not accidentally registered their daughter for the wrong week. But she had always enjoyed the African and Indian camps, where she could tell people whatever she wanted — which she did, with much dramatic flair — and no one bothered to argue with her. Back then, she could claim either heritage with pride.
Since the damn DNA test, she couldn’t claim either.
“I know, it’s like, ridiculously gorgeous here, isn’t it?” Kaley responded to Ri’s flattery of the island. “But it’s too expensive to live unless you know somebody. I’m only here because my aunt and uncle retired and bought a little house in Kihei, and I rent a room from them. I swear it’s the exact same size as my closet in Indiana. But it’s worth it. Here we are!”
