The Goddess Effect Act III, part six

The one inspired by Lāna'i

Hawaii. The mere name of the island chain brings to mind balmy breezes, crashing surf, and swaying palms.

It’s inspired poets, artists, and writers of all stripes, including Jack London (The Call of the Wild), Mike White (The White Lotus), and Kawai Strong Washburn, whose novel, Sharks in the Time of Saviors, paints an evocative picture of life and death on an island compromised by rampant tourism and industrialization.

That sounds like a book report. Let me just say that I plowed through Sharks in the Time of Saviors when I first read it in 2020, and I look forward to reading it again ahead of my next trip to our nation’s 50th state (not yet booked but surely, we’ll find a way).

Chapter 23 of the heretofore unpublished Director’s Cut of The Goddess Effect finds Anita and Max arriving on the island of Lāna'i for the Evolve conference. I wrote this shortly after my first visit to Lāna'i, in 2018, where I stayed at a Four Seasons that inspired the fictional resort where Evolve takes place. Talk about a resort. It’s impossible not to let your shoulders drop, stepping into this lobby, a vision of polished teak and perpendicular angles that frame the Pacific just so.

There’s also a Nobu. Need I say more?

I’ll add that the barely concealed disdain for green juice and flower crown adherents expressed in the paragraphs below is kind of harsh considering that, even at the time I wrote this, I was consuming green juice and wearing flower crowns (not every day, and not at an airport, but still). Clearly, I had some ✨*~issues~*✨.

If you’re catching up, might I suggest:

The Goddess Effect

Act III, part one

Act III, part two

Act III, part three

Act III, part four

Act III, part five

23

The propeller plane touched down on the runway with a jolt. Max reflexively braced himself against the seat in front of him. He was fine with 747s, but small planes made him jittery, all rattling plastic and no screens in the seat backs for distraction. He glanced over at Anita, was relieved to see her peering out the window. He didn’t want her thinking that he was a wimp.

Things had started to flow between them. They had spent the days since the day rave mostly together, fleshing out a spreadsheet of events to cover, people to interview, and sponsors to associate with each. They had developed a shorthand — “We’ll push this drop live after the Optic White one crosses 10K” — and even a few inside jokes, mainly at the expense of Emilia. They had spent the past seven hours sitting next to each other, and during their layover at Honolulu International, had shared a bag of banana chips and clinked together frosty beers at the airport bar. It felt, to Max, like the start of something. His early annoyance at Anita, her water-logged herb garden, his jealousy at the edge she seemed to have over him, all of it had faded into the background, and he found himself captivated by the woman he had gotten to know, an ambitious and capable individual with a sense of humor who carried herself with an ease that was impossible to not find alluring. He had to admit it: she did have an edge over him, though not for the reasons he initially thought.

He turned to her: “Ready to rock?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said, folding her headphones into her backpack. Max hauled their carry ons down from the overhead compartment before Anita could ask (it was the gentlemanly thing to do). As they exited the plane, a warm, humid rush of air hit his face. It’s not like he was starved for T-shirt weather in L.A., but there was something about being on a Hawaiian island that made everything feel like vacation, even work. 

“This is the airport? I’ve seen bus stops bigger than this,” Anita remarked as they rolled their bags across the tiled floor. Until recently, most visitors to Lāna'i were in the business of planting pineapples or buying them, and were happy to ferry to and from the 140 square mile speck of land from nearby Maui. The airport came when the software billionaire bought the dilapidated resort at Lāna'i’s southern tip and allocated $10 million to the construction of a quicker way to get on and off the island because he got seasick and, as he put it, “Who the hell has time for ferries, anyway?”

Owing to the island’s lack of activity, Lāna'i Regional was generally pretty sleepy, but thanks to Evolve, the place was packed, and Anita grabbed her phone to shoot a group of women in flower crowns hauling Louis Vuitton trunks off the baggage carousel. Flower crowns. At an airport.

“You’d think their crowns would’ve fit in the trunks,” she remarked to Max.

“Oh, those have homing signals. If one of their owners gets lost, it directs them to the nearest green juice bar.” 

The grin Anita flashed back could have thawed the poles.

Emilia hadn’t given them much of a rubric before sending them on their way, just a lot of bloviated guidelines. “You know how NBC had Must See TV? Make this Must See Streaming. Must Stream TV! Except it’s not TV. You know what I mean. Appointment viewing, stuff that will keep people from going into the subway because their service might cut out.”

“So, post at regularly scheduled intervals and let followers know when the next drop will happen,” Max said, pen flying across notepad.

“I mean, whatever!” Emilia said. “There are no rules, this is Gonzo, remember? Reinvent the wheel. Take the wheels off. Show me something new. We’re not one of those ancient broadcast networks.”

Max and Anita decided to err on the side of posting more content than less. They would track what got the most views and post more videos in the same vein, within reason. Anita had no intention of creating a social media version of Girls Gone Wild and felt compelled to string together some sort of narrative about who was going to these conferences and what they got out of them. While she rolled her eyes at the practice of pointing the camera at one’s face and narrating the jerky footage that hovered behind, she also knew that that was the kind of thing that viewers expected from their roving correspondents these days, so she trained the lens on herself and started talking. “Hi guys, we just landed in Lāna'i and we’re about to —”

“Wait, Anita,” Max interrupted. Thank God she wasn’t live. He knew a thing or two about art direction from his days at S#M [Ed. note: a branding agency he used to run] and, thanks to the past few weeks of infatuated observation, knew Anita’s best angles. Pointing the camera downwards so that her forehead took up half the frame was not one of them. His eyes darted around the terminal. “Lean against that brick wall over there, the lighting’s much better,” he said. “Maybe put a hand on the handle of your suitcase. Perfect. Look super natural. Okay, three, two,” he pressed record, and found himself riveted by Anita’s description of what they were about to dive into, even though he knew what was ahead and would himself be diving in, too.

His pulse quickened when she leaned over his shoulder to assess the video. “Nice, let’s drop it,” she said. “Thank you for your help, this is a cute little thing we’ve got going.” She toggled her pointer finger from him back to her. His heart warmed, another log thrown on the fire.

They boarded a white shuttle bus that had the Evolve logo painted on the back. Sans serif, gray, it was very minimal, like the rest of Evolve’s messaging. While some conferences still handed out dopey accoutrements — folders thick with pamphlets and schedules, lanyards with plastic sleeves for name tags and business cards — three days ago, Evolve had texted every attendee instructing them to download a proprietary app. It contained a calendar of events, a directory of everyone attending (with photos and social media handles), and a map of the resort. Based on your location, it would ping you with suggestions — “Hungry? Turn right for free Mahi-mahi tacos at the Fish Shack,” “On the hunt for an investor? Kacy Samuelson, of Duality Ventures, is at the pool, 20 feet to your left.” It took on demand networking to a new level, but for now, as the bus wound its way down from the hilltop airport to the beachfront resort, the home screen flashed the same message to everyone: 

A Conference

Like No Conference

Before