“I think Nixon was crying,” Fluff said later in the break room.
“I doubt it.”
“No really, his eyes were all watery.”
He knew a thing or two about loss. “Maybe this will soften him up,” Daisy said.
Still no word about Walker, and the pit in her stomach had turned into a deep well. To confuse matters, today was Peg’s day off, and Thelma had switched shifts with Ella Wong. Ella had no idea why. Try as Daisy might, focusing on plotting was nearly impossible.
“Now would be a good time to ask Nixon about Walker,” Fluff suggested over a cold Coke and leftover manapua.
“Nixon is the last person I would ask.”
“Want me to ask him for you?”
“You would do that?”
“I have nothing to lose. That man will never take me seriously. At least you have a chance to impress him with all those speedy calculations that are always 100 percent accurate. He seems to almost like you,” Fluff said with a shrug.
“He does not.”
“Oh yes he does.”
Back in the control room, Fluff marched right up to Nixon and said, “Excuse me, Colonel, we’re worried about Peg’s brother, Walker Montgomery, and wonder if you could tell us if he made it back in one piece.”
He paused for a moment, then said, “From what I hear, his whole squadron is intact.”
Fluff clapped her hands together and did a little jig. “This is wonderful news. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Nixon actually came close to smiling, then turned his attention back to his notebook. A few of the other girls had been listening in, and when Fluff passed Daisy with a look of glee, she felt self-conscious. Nevertheless, a whole garden of flowers had taken bloom under her rib cage.
Walker was alive!
16
THE GUESTS
Peg came to work the following day looking as though someone had taken an oiled horse brush to her hair—flat and greasy, no curls. Clearly something was up. Daisy broke into a sweat. She was dying to ask after Walker, but knew it would be pointless. A part of her wished she could go back to life before Walker Montgomery. The other wanted to walk out the door and hitch a ride to Mokul¯e‘ia. Or the barracks at the navy yard. Wherever he was. Tomorrow she could find him.
The four of them had planned on driving out to the country and staying the two nights off at Daisy’s beach house, but plans changed.
Fluff had said, “I ought to stay with Betty. I hate to leave her alone, but you and Lei go.”
“Maybe we should all stay together,” Daisy said.
“No, you go on home, see if you can talk to Walker. We’ll be fine.”
Daisy was thankful that Fluff understood. Early the next morning, Lei showed up with a bagful of bananas, freshly baked bread with guava butter and a neatly packed lunch basket. Daisy envied Lei’s lifestyle, with Asuka providing all those wonderful treats. Food in the mess hall was hit or miss, but at least it was free.
They passed Pearl Harbor and the minute they started winding down Kaukonahua Road, with a deep ravine on one side and sugarcane fields on the other, Daisy picked up the scent of salt in the air. Regardless of whether she saw Walker or not, it would be nice to be home. If only for a night.
“It sure is lovely. I wish I could stay and enjoy it,” Lei said.
“What do you mean?”
A heaviness came over her. “Some things happened this week that I have to deal with at home.”
“What kind of things?” Daisy asked.
Lei had seemed out of sorts for the past couple of weeks now, so Daisy wasn’t entirely surprised. She wanted to help if she could. But Lei was the type who was always concerned about others and never about herself. Daisy was coming to see that everyone wore their problems differently. Fluff laid everything out on the table. No guessing needed. Betty suffered in silence most of the time, while a good portion of her hair went down the drain. Lucky thing she was blessed with such an abundance.
“You really want to know?” Lei asked, keeping her eyes on the road ahead.
“I do.”
“My dear husband has a gambling problem. Over the past few years, he’s gone up and down. Losing money, then winning it back. Card games, horse races, even cockfights. The other day, I opened a letter by mistake and it looks like he took a loan out on our house and now is late on payments and the bank is threatening to foreclose. He never said a word. Can you believe that?” Lei said, with a shake of her head.
Married people kept secrets from each other. Daisy did know that.
“People lie.”
“I feel so stupid. Here I was, going about my life with absolutely no idea of any of this. Sure, he’d come home sauced and smelling like a smokestack. I even got to sleeping in the other room on nights he went out. But he never let on that he’d lost more than a few hundred bucks here or there,” Lei said.
“What does he have to say for himself?”
“He’s ashamed, trying to rationalize it, but the worst part is, he twisted it around and last night he blamed me. Said it was my fault because of the way I’m accustomed to living. Maids, the latest automobiles, fancy dinners. Which is absolute hogwash. I don’t need any of that.”
The dark smudges under her eyes now made sense. The thought infuriated Daisy. “Someone needs to put him in his place, then. Do you want me to talk to him?”
A sad laugh. “Thank you, dear, but no. I’m meeting with our banker today to see how bad it is and what can be done.”
It seemed a fact of life that people who loved each other inevitably hurt one another. Maybe love was not the answer after all. Maybe sticking with horses would be a smarter move.
At the house, overgrown grass, flowering dandelion and the bittersweet smell of burnt sugarcane greeted them. An albatross soared high out front. Lei stayed long enough for a cup of coffee and a quick look around and then she left Daisy with a whole basket of food and a bottle of wine.
“What am I going to do with this?” Daisy asked.
“Save it for our next trip out here.”
The first order of business was jumping in the ocean and washing off all the layers of war from her skin. When she was finished, she lay on her stomach in the warm sand, watching crabs dig holes and scurry about. Every time the water washed up, a few of them disappeared, only to pop up again a minute later. Sun toasted her back and thighs, and she could have stayed there all day long. For lunch, she ate rice balls with flecks of seaweed and dried fish and chased them down with a lukewarm Coke. The solitude felt as refreshing as the deep blue sea.
In order to avoid thinking about Walker, she kept busy. For a good portion of the afternoon, she mowed the lawn, dug up weeds and set about washing the salt from all the windows. Another floorboard of the deck had rotted through, and she replaced it with a piece from under the house. The last one. Though now that she had a little extra money, she could afford to buy more.
When she was finished outside, she went into her mother’s room. The walls had absorbed the sweet smell of rosewater, which hit Daisy hard with memories. So much had gone on in here. Love and sorrow and the disintegration of a once-vibrant life. As a girl, Daisy had loved to lie on the green-and-yellow Hawaiian quilt while her mother read to her, but later, a knot formed in her stomach whenever she entered. Now, she ran her hand along the dusty books on the shelf, sat on the squeaky bed and took it all in. Would Louise ever return? A loud voice inside said no.
* * *
As soon as the sun dipped behind the mountains, the air cooled. Daisy was tempted to go for a skinny-dip to the reef, but thought the better of it in case a beach patrol came by. Twenty minutes later, she was glad she hadn’t. Two horses trotted down the beach. The sound of laughter carried in the wind. Not Walker, but Johnny Boy and Dex. No sooner had she retreated into the house, when they pulled up to the berm.
“Hey, Wilder!”
Daisy was in no mood to talk to these guys, or anyone for that matter. She remained in the kitchen, out of sight. The screen door banged in the wind.
“Got any more of that ono kine fish?” Johnny Boy called.
If she ignored them, and they knew she was in here, it would probably just rile them up. She stepped to the screen door. “I’m all out. Go see Mr. Sasaki. I bet he has some.”
“Why don’t you come out and say hi?” Dex said, like a whiny boy.
Johnny Boy jumped off his horse and onto the berm. She saw that he had a dark brown bottle in his hand. “Bumbye, I sure miss you at the stables. And those long legs of yours.”
Dex laughed. “Don’t be shy.”
As if either of them had ever given her the time of day. These two were her least favorite men at the ranch, always a crude comment on the tip of their tongues, and careless with the horses. Her skin bristled with fear, as she suddenly wondered what the two men might be capable of. She remembered Johnny Boy’s words from the last time: you be careful out here on your own. The shotgun was still leaning against the tree outside. Should she run? But there was no back door to the house, and Johnny Boy was suddenly at the bottom of the porch steps.
He held up the bottle. “Come have a drink with us, pretty lady.”
Daisy went to the screen door and stepped outside. At least this way she wouldn’t be cornered if it came to that. “I don’t drink, so you two can be on your way.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
He moved onto the first step, wisps of liquor on his breath. Everyone knew that Johnny Boy was an ugly drunk. Daisy had heard stories, but never seen him under the influence. Now, she understood. The way he was looking at her, like she was a big, juicy piece of steak and he was going to take his time slicing it up into tiny pieces and savor every bite, gave her the chills.
She called out to Dex. “Please take your friend here, and leave me alone. What do you think Montgomery will do when he hears about you two coming over here uninvited?”
Johnny Boy came up another step, laughing. “So, invite us.”
Daisy moved back, glancing toward the tree with the gun, metal on bark. Could she make it? Doubtful. Panic began to coil up her arms and legs. “I asked you nicely to please leave. And now I’m telling you. Get off my property!”
One more step.
He reached a hand out. Daisy shrunk back. And that’s when she kicked the cane knife. She had been using it to hack down the sugarcane sprouting up in the backyard, and left it leaning up against the porch wall. With a duck and a swipe, she had it in her hand. “Don’t make me use this. Now go,” she said.
Johnny Boy stopped cold. “Whoa, easy there.”
“You know I’m good with this thing. Now back the hell off.”
“You always were a feisty one.” He stared her down for a moment, mumbled something to himself, then spit on the step. “Just trying to be neighborly. You never know what a woman might need.”
Daisy pressed herself up against the screen and watched him retreat down the steps. His jeans had slid halfway down his ass, and he yanked up one side. On the beach, another horse appeared, coming to a fast halt in the sand. Daisy hadn’t even heard it coming.
Walker.
“What’s this all about?” he said, hopping off and hurrying into the yard, hat askew and breathing hard.
“Just sayin’ hi,” Johnny Boy said.
“That true?” Walker asked Daisy.
Johnny Boy gave her a hard look.
If either of them lost their jobs because of her, they might try to retaliate. But Walker needed to know what kind of scoundrels they were. “If either of these guys sets foot on my land again, I’ll shoot them. How’s that?” she said.
A flush of anger crossed Walker’s face. “You boys leave these horses with me, and get on home. We can talk about it later.”
“But—”
“No buts, just go,” Walker said.
Johnny Boy kicked the bush and sauntered off down the driveway. But by the way he moved, you could tell he felt no remorse. Like Walker had just inconvenienced the hell out of him and that was it. Dex followed without a word.
Walker came up and stood in front of Daisy. Their eyes met. Unable to stop herself, she crumpled to the top step. A quaking started up in her center and moved through her whole body, then rippling out limbs and discharging gallons of fear and anger. Walker sat down next to her. Gently placed an arm around her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What are you sorry for? Those two dimwits are the ones who should be sorry.”
“Tell me what happened.”
She did.
When she was finished, Walker said, “No woman should have to endure such treatment, and God only knows how far JB would have gone. I knew those two were trouble from day one. But you know my dad, he doesn’t listen to anyone.”
No, he didn’t.
“I’m glad you came,” Daisy said.
He leaned into her. “Me, too.”
She felt a current where his skin touched against hers, a warm humming. Not wanting to ruin the moment with words, she leaned back into him. Safety and warmth and the faint smell of peppermint. He felt so natural. The onshore winds had subsided, and the water out front was slick as oil. She tried to push Johnny Boy from her mind. Nothing happened, let it go. Now, she knew she had to be better prepared. For an invasion of any kind—from home or abroad.
Walker reached behind him and produced a wilted clump of dandelions. “These are for you. Sorry, there was nothing else in bloom on the way here. And now they seem kind of inadequate.”
No one had ever brought her flowers. She took them and promptly broke down. The kind of tears that came from a lifetime of hurts with no one to share them with, all bottled up. The crying wasn’t about the cowboys, Louise, the war or even Walker. It was about crossing over into a place of vulnerability. About having people in her life now who mattered. Talk about bad timing. Poor Walker did not deserve this, but she couldn’t stop.
He let her go for a while, then said, “Should I have gotten roses instead?”
Her laugh came out as a cough, as she wiped her face on her sleeve. “I’m sorry, I think this whole war business is catching up to me, you know? All day long, every day, there’s this undercurrent of fear. Sometimes I don’t even know it’s there, but it’s bubbling just below the surface. Sometimes just the smallest things make it spill over.”
And I missed you.
“That wasn’t a small thing,” he said.
And I was worried.
“No, I guess it wasn’t.”
He nodded. “I wanted to find you when we docked, but I got knocked in the head pretty hard—a concussion—and doc ordered bed rest. Can you imagine that? Me, on bed rest?”
Daisy could have sat like this forever. His arm still holding her tight, staring out to sea. “Bed rest is not the worst that could happen. Tell me about it.”
“A few more feet and I would have landed in the ocean and not on the deck,” he said, pausing for a few moments. “But I didn’t come to whine about my problems, it’s just that I was hoping to go riding with you again soon. Funny how being out there in the middle of the Pacific—not knowing if you’re going to live or die—really narrows what’s important, you know?” He turned her way. They were treading on the edge, that narrow space between friends and something more. A place she had never been before, but recognized nonetheless.
She met his gaze. “How long are you supposed to take it easy?”
There she went again, blowing opportunities left and right. A big part of her found it hard to believe that she was sitting on her steps with Walker Montgomery, and surely this was some kind of misunderstanding on his part. Yet, here he was.
“I should be cleared in a few more days. Look, I promised my mom I was just going out for a short walk to get my blood flowing. If I’m not back soon, she’ll send out a search party, but I had to see you. When do you go back to town?” he asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon. Lei is supposed to come get me.”
“Let me take you in.”
“Can you drive?”
“I can do whatever I want. Would it be all right if I came by earlier?”
“I have a lot to do,” she said. The words belonged to that guarded part of her, still unable to make sense of what was happening, of what he wanted from her. She smiled to lessen the blow.
Walker stood and pulled her up. “For what it’s worth, I thought about you a lot while we were away.”
His expression was dead serious. Daisy found she could look anywhere but in his eyes. Suddenly, she was that skittish horse, ready to bolt at the first sign of intimacy. Invite him over, a voice inside screamed.
“Come at noon, and I’ll feed you lunch. You could use some fattening up,” she offered.
It was true. The bones on his face stood out more prominently. While Daisy had been plumping up on regular mess hall meals, poor Walker had been growing thinner by the week. War had that effect on participants.
After watching him lead the two horses down her driveway, Daisy brought the shotgun indoors and lay on the pune‘e. The only thing on her mind were his words: I had to see you.
17
THE PICNIC
Daisy took to the water the minute the sun came up. Dense clouds on the horizon and a mournful stillness meant another storm would be kicking in soon. At first, the water chilled her bare skin, but as her body worked against the current, she soon warmed. Straight out to the reef and then west along its inner edge, passing schools of ‘omilu and manini, an iridescent cuttlefish family and a turtle grazing on seaweed growing out of a crack in the coral. If only she could become one of them. Forget about all this human nonsense. Nature knew better.
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