Gardenia

Telly wakes up and thinks of food. Whether she had too much last night, whether she should have donuts for breakfast, or just skip breakfast entirely. Whether the cake was as good as she remembered the night before. Whether when she thinks she is hungry she is really hungry or just thinks she is. Whether she will ever be touched.

Telly decides today, because she is on vacation, to skip breakfast. She goes out and jogs five miles, which is not her record. She comes home, thinks about finishing the cake and bag of Doritos, but because she is on a vacation from her life, puts on her snorkeling gear and jumps into the pool. It’s not particularly interesting snorkeling in a swimming pool, so she takes off the gear and practices holding her breath. She rolls up in a fetal position, to conserve energy, and holds her breath for a full minute, which seems like five minutes to her sister, who is sitting by the pool.

Telly and her sister drive to the entrance of Waipio Valley. At the gate, a sign reads that they must use four-wheel drive because the grade down is too steep. A man in sunglasses and long shaggy hair, parked there, looks over with a smile. He drives tourists down to the valley all day at twenty dollars a trip. Get in, he says, so they do.

Telly sits it the passenger seat and her sister sits in the back. The man in sunglasses smiles at Telly. He drives with his left arm out the window, his hand making S shapes over imaginary waves. They soon enter a thicket of branches, scraping the roof of the truck like a dry car wash. The light through the leaves has the effect of a mirror ball, each piece of light independent yet in perfect unison. Then the valley opens up and a huge V made by two mountains crops the sky. Telly can hear waterfalls but cannot count how many. She imagines two waterfalls, next to each other for life. The man in sunglasses slows down the truck, finds a perfect one and says perfect.

Telly holds out her hands and says thank you. She keeps it in an open palm with her fingers slightly curled to protect it. Her thank you is cordial and respectful, not tainted with the heave of an exasperated heart. At the hotel, when her sister is in the shower, Telly stares at it, at how perfectly nature is designed. She brings it to her nose, smells it with her eyes closed. Because she does not want to be there when it dies, she decides to throw it away. Without dropping it, she places it at the bottom of the trash bin. She walks over to the mirror to look at her body. Wonders why nature is not always perfectly designed. Her face begins to turn red. In the mirror, her eyes look like coals. The shower stops. Before her sister can come out and ask her about the man in sunglasses who handed her a flower and said you are lovely, Telly walks to the trash bin and retrieves the flower. She opens the sliding door to the balcony, walks out onto the balcony, leans over the rail, letting go of the flower, where it falls, where it belongs.