A festival story. The characters are imagined; the clothes are real.
The sun slid into the Pacific, and the black sand below the bluff turned to copper.
Walt stood at the top of the path with one hand on a coconut palm, admiring the view. It was his fourth view in two hundred yards. Below him the trail wound over old lava, ropy and black, cooled into coils like poured batter, down to a cove where someone had strung paper lanterns through the ironwoods. Two speakers sat on a tarp. A kick drum rolled out of them, soft and round, a palm laid flat on a door.
Deep house, the young man with the speakers called it. Walt called it the heartbeat of a whale.
His left hip turned over in its socket like a shovel in gravel.
"Pretty," said Loretta.
"Very pretty."
"That's what you said at the last palm tree."
She went on ahead, quick and sure on the rock, a towel over her shoulder and a swim cap in her fist, and Walt waited until she'd rounded the bend before he trusted the left leg again.
In October, a surgeon in Milwaukee had tapped the X-ray with a pen. Bone on bone, Mr. Lindqvist. Walt booked April ninth and wrote DENTIST on the fridge calendar, because if Loretta saw the word HIP she'd cancel Hawaii, and he had canceled Hawaii once already.
In 1976.
Beside that calendar, under the same pineapple magnet for fifty years, hung a page torn from a magazine: a fountain of lava at night, gold against black. On the back, in his twenty-six-year-old capitals: WALT OWES LORETTA ONE LAVA DANCE. He'd written it the week of their wedding, waltzing her around a kitchen the size of a phone booth, the honeymoon money gone to a transmission.
Tonight was the last night of the trip. Their flight left at noon.
And for four nights straight, the mountain had stayed dark.
✦
Loretta had swum at 5:45 every morning for forty-one years, teaching four thousand Milwaukee children to float, and her body didn't care which ocean it was in.
The cove was warm as bathwater. She came out of it in the bodysuit she'd ordered in January, sleeveless and high at the neck like the suit she'd worn the summer she met Walt, marbled gold and plum and orange, streaming silver.
Keoni met her at the tide line with her kimono over his arm. It was his family's land, his gathering, his speakers. He'd roped off a wide ring of sand around a sea turtle asleep by the rocks and lettered the sign himself.
"Auntie. Your husband stopped three times on my path."
"Four," Loretta said. "He counts views."
Keoni tipped his chin inland, where the mountain sat under a lid of cloud. "Observatory says the next fountain is close. Tonight, maybe. Maybe Thursday." He shrugged. "The mountain keeps its own calendar."
She belted the kimono, long chiffon in the same poured colors, its sleeves lifting in the trade wind, and watched Walt come down the last switchback, smiling at nothing, one hand trailing along the rock.
Slow, slow, quick-quick, she counted under her breath.
She had a secret too. Hers had taken twenty-two Tuesday nights to learn.
✦
Walt had worn the same navy polo to every graduation, wedding and funeral since 1988. Loretta had replaced it with crushed velvet marbled purple and gold and orange, like the inside of a campfire, and he had called it the loudest shirt in Wisconsin. On this beach, the velvet caught the lanterns, and three young men in a row stopped dancing to ask where he got it.
He danced the way he'd driven the 15 bus for thirty-one years: steady, on time, never braking hard. Loretta danced with her eyes closed and her arms up, sleeves floating. Someone's aunt passed around musubi wrapped in foil. The kick kept rolling.
Midnight. Walt looked at the mountain. Cloud.
Two o'clock. A young dancer with glitter on her cheekbones taught him a shoulder move. Cloud.
Three. The stars wheeled. The lanterns burned down to embers in their paper. Cloud.
At 3:40 he stepped back to give Loretta room, and the left leg didn't come with him. It locked, hot and sudden, and Walt sat down on a driftwood log harder than any man would choose to.
Loretta's eyes opened.
He could still say sand in my shoe. He'd had five months of practice.
"April ninth," Walt said instead, "isn't the dentist."
✦
"I know," Loretta said.
She sat beside him on the log. Her kimono sleeve settled over his knee.
"October. The appointment card went through the wash in your jacket. I ironed it flat and put it back."
"You'd have canceled the trip."
"I would have." The bass rolled under them both. "So I didn't say anything either."
"About what?"
"Tuesdays." She stood and held out her hands. "It wasn't water aerobics, Walter. It was ballroom, at the Y. I told the teacher I needed to learn to lead."
He looked at her hands. Fifty years of his palm at the small of her back.
"I practiced in the basement," she said, "with a fifty-pound bag of water-softener salt."
Walt laughed out loud, a big rusty bark that turned heads by the speakers. Then he gave her his hands.
She took his weight the way she'd practiced. Left hand on her shoulder. Her frame firm, her feet planted in the packed sand. Slow, slow, quick-quick. A small box step to a long, warm chord, Loretta steering, Walt following for the first time since Gerald Ford was president.
He was heavier than the salt. She didn't let go.
Over her shoulder, the underside of the clouds turned the color of a stove coil.
"Lor."
She turned them both, leading, so she could see. Far off, past the dark slope, a gold thread was climbing into the night, and the clouds above it glowed like coals.
Down by the water, a few dancers turned and pointed. Keoni eased the next record in slower.
They kept dancing.
✦
The sun came up behind them, and the glow faded into an ordinary blue morning.
Keoni drove them up the bluff in a farm cart. At the rental cottage the ceiling fan was already turning. Loretta stood in the doorway with salt in her hair, the belt of the kimono loose, and the first light laid a stripe across the floor.
"Walter Lindqvist," she said, "will you come to bed with your wife?"
"Fifty years," he said, "and you've never had to ask."
"I'm asking now. Fifty years in, a woman likes to hear it."
He crossed the room on his own two feet, slowly. "Yes. Loretta. Yes, please."
She undid the top button of the velvet. He drew the end of her belt, and the chiffon slid open like a sail coming loose. The trade wind swung the screen door shut behind them, and overhead the ceiling fan kept the count: slow, slow, quick-quick.
✦
They made the flight. Barely.
In Milwaukee the April slush froze every night and melted every noon. On the fridge, under the pineapple magnet, the magazine page carried a new line in Walt's capitals: PAID IN FULL. FIFTY YEARS. Under it, in Loretta's neat cursive: She leads now.
The calendar said HIP on April ninth, in her handwriting.
The kimono hung on the hook by the back door, where her winter coat used to live.
And on Tuesday nights at the Y, in a ballroom that smells of floor wax and chlorine, a man with a brand-new hip and a velvet polo the color of a campfire is learning to follow. On the walk there, he still stops to admire every view.
Now he means it.
Dressed for the lava dance
Walt's loudest shirt in Wisconsin is the Liquid Fire crushed velvet polo shirt ($65), poured purple, cobalt, gold, orange and red, a collar for the grown-up in you and velvet for the dance floor. Loretta swims the sunset in the Liquid Fire sleeveless bodysuit ($55), with its half-high collar, then belts the Liquid Fire chiffon kimono ($75) over it and dances until the mountain lights up.
- Polo: crushed velvet · collar, button placket and short sleeves · S–5XL.
- Sleeveless bodysuit: sleeveless with a half-high collar · stretch fit · XS–2XL.
- Kimono: chiffon · long, full sleeves and a tie belt · S–5XL.
- All three: dye-sublimated, so the colors won't fade and the image won't crack, and made to order, like everything we sell.
More for the sunset set: crushed velvet polos · bodysuits · kimonos
What do you wear to a beach party in Hawaii?
Wear light, breathable layers for a Hawaii beach party: a swimsuit or bodysuit for the sunset swim, a flowing kimono or open shirt over it, and sandals that handle sand and rock. Coastal nights in March usually stay in the mid-60s to low 70s °F, so one light layer covers the trade wind before sunrise.
- The deep house dress code: groove over glam. An open shirt or a polo by day, a kimono for golden hour, velvet once the sun drops, and bare feet or sandals for the sand. House crowds dance in loose circles, so wear something that looks good from every side.
- Respect the place: give resting sea turtles plenty of room, leave lava rocks and sand where you find them, and step onto private or family land only with a welcome.
- Sun and reef: pack a mineral, reef-friendly sunscreen (the FAQ below explains Hawaiʻi's rules) and reapply after every swim.
- Lava-rock paths: old flows are sharp and uneven, so pick shoes with grip and carry a flashlight for the walk back at dawn.
- Festival lifers at any age: a low beach chair, earplugs and a water bottle turn an all-night party into a comfortable one.
For real beach and coastal house events, Ondalinda x Careyes brings organic and melodic house to the beach, jungle and cliffs of Jalisco's Pacific coast in early November, on 70s °F nights, and Love Burn, a house-heavy independent burn, takes over Virginia Key Beach Park in Miami each February, with 60–68°F nights and a sea breeze.
Frequently asked questions
Is it cold in Hawaii at night in March?
Not on the coast. Hawaii's beach towns usually see March nights in the mid-60s to low 70s °F, with a steady trade wind that makes 3 a.m. feel cooler on wet skin. Upcountry and on the volcano slopes it's far cooler, often in the 40s or 50s. For an all-night beach party, pack one light layer.
Is it safe to see lava in Hawaii?
Yes, when you view it the official way. During eruptions, Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park opens designated viewing areas, and rangers close sections whenever volcanic gas, ground cracks or shifting wind call for it. Stay on marked trails and behind barriers, check the park's alerts before you go, and bring a flashlight and warm layers at night.
What sunscreen is banned in Hawaii?
Since January 1, 2021, Hawaiʻi law has banned the sale of sunscreens containing oxybenzone or octinoxate without a prescription, because both chemicals are linked to coral reef harm. Hawaiʻi County, home to the Big Island, and Maui County went further in 2022, allowing only mineral sunscreens with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. Pack a mineral formula and reapply after swimming.
Written by Magus & Lylyth Fawn, the Los Angeles artists behind Magus Fawn. Magus makes VR and digital visionary art and produces Psy EDM. Lylyth makes fractal digital art and runs design and customer care. We've been selling wearable art since 2020 on Etsy (4.7★ from 144 reviews as of October 2026) and here at magusfawn.com. Come say hi on Instagram @magusfawn.
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