Haole Wood

by DeTarsio, Dee

  “Exactly, when you stop talking, and stop thinking, like you do when . . .”

  “La la la!” I covered my ears.

  “Very good. I knew you would understand. It is one of the purest forms of meditation. The not thinking, not worrying, not planning, not remembering.”

  “How about those San Diego Padres?” I said, trying to change the subject.

  “Did you know it means you’re welcome?” he continued.

  “It does not.”

  “No, it does not.” He laughed. I could see the outline of his belly undulating. “But you have to admit, it should.”

  “What are you trying to tell me? Shouldn’t you be teaching me some lesson, helping me through my tough times? I don’t mean to complain, but ‘Can come at a moment’s notice’ on a resume will only get a girl so far. Please. I’m begging you.” I even had my hands folded in his direction. “Can you help me?”

  He nodded his head in what looked like what he thought was a gracious manner. “I have been helping you all along. And I cannot begin to tell you how much I am enjoying this rare phenomenon,” he motioned his hand back and forth between us. “I thank you.”

  I shook my head. “You’re welcome.” I was not being gracious. I slid back under my sheets.

  He was gone, but I could hear him laugh. Oh, right. He pretends “you’re welcome” means something else. Which gave me an idea. Maybe I did need to meditate.

  The next morning, I got dressed with a smile on my face and a picture of Jac dancing in my brain. He wasn’t dancing, just the thought of him was. Even though I hand washed my sundress that Jac had seen me in twice already, I knew I needed to get some new clothes. But new clothes cost money I didn’t have, and were the least of my worries right about then. Jac picked me up the following morning, and we headed north through Lahaina up the coast to the resort area of Ka’anapali.

  The winding road hugged the rocky coast. The crashing waves were so close I could have actually tossed a kukui nut right into the ocean from the passenger seat of his Range Rover. Wind-swept scraggly trees clung to small, scrubby beaches in a swirling van Gogh landscape. Locals had their favorite private spots, small beaches interrupted by rocky crests. Surfers, swimmers, sunbathers and fisherman dotted the uneven coastline up toward the resort area.

  “Did you know Ka’anapali used to be part of a large sugar plantation?” Jac asked me.

  “No. But did you ever take the Sugar Cane Train in Lahaina?”

  “No.” he said. “Please tell me you haven’t either.”

  I laughed. “My sister and I made our parents let us ride it when we were kids. I was only about seven years old.”

  He laughed. “Good for you.”

  “How did Ka’anapali develop out of sugar cane fields? It’s such a lush, gorgeous area. Those green mountains look like they swoop all the way down to sandy beaches.”

  “It was the first master planned resort destination. Sugar is a thirsty crop and the industry started to dry up as pineapple fields cropped up,” Jac explained. “In the early 1960s, six ritzy resorts set up shop and invited the rest of the world to come and spend money. This part of Maui’s shoreline has some of the world’s best beaches.”

  “I love it here,” I said, looking out the window. “There are still some sugar cane fields in the center of the island, right?”

  “Yes. About forty thousand acres.”

  “My dad told me it takes something like a ton of water to make one pound of sugar. Therefore, eating candy bars must be inherently good for you.”

  “Brilliant reasoning,” Jac said.

  Oh boy, did he have a great smile. “I guess the best things in life take the most time and trouble,” I added. I slapped my forehead. “I don’t know why I just said that.” Damn guardian angel was starting to rub off on me.

  “Sweet and smart,” Jac said, teasing me. “I like that.” He turned left onto the resort grounds, and left again to head down to the Hyatt at the resort’s southern-most end.

  I stared out the window at the ocean waves, hoping for inspiration but instead, drowning in worries. I didn’t have time to flirt.

  “Cheer up,” Jac said. “We’ll get something to eat and things won’t look quite so bad. You’re in Maui.”

  “Thanks,” I said. We parked and he took my hand as we walked into the huge open-air lobby of the Hyatt.

  “I didn’t mean to go so commercial because I usually prefer the local restaurants,” he said, “but they have one of the best breakfast buffets on the island, and I have to check on a patient who is staying in the hotel. Just load up your plate, let’s have some Kona coffee, and sit back and relax.” He led me to an outdoor table, shaded by an umbrella, serenaded by a waterfall. He excused himself to go see his patient, while I made out with the Kona coffee.

  “Slow down,” Jac said a few minutes later.

  “That was fast,” I said. “Or maybe this coffee just makes the world spin at a higher speed.”

  “That it does,” he said, pouring me even more to top off my cup.

  “This is gorgeous. Thanks, Jac. I needed this.” We toasted each other, then enjoyed our giant plates of crispy bacon, eggs, and Belgian waffles. I tried to settle down. Swans floated by in their private lagoon without a care in the world, modeling for us in front of the backdrop of the Pacific Ocean.

  “Tell me, Jaswinder. How did all of this start?” Jac asked me.

  “How much time do you have?” I took a big bite of my fluffy waffle before beginning. Since I self-edited how exactly I got fired from my weather girl job back in San Diego and deleted anything about visions of my so-called guardian angel, I managed to keep it pretty short. Jac was a good listener and even better to look at.

  I excused myself to go freshen up in the bathroom, and to make sure there wasn’t a slab of bacon stuck in my teeth. As I cut through the lobby and stopped to talk to one of the magnificently plumed birds, a wall of eye-watering perfume hit me first, followed by a tap on my shoulder. I jumped and slightly turned to see a pretty blonde woman in her early fifties, smiling at me. “Pardon me, but where on earth did you get that beautiful shawl?”

  I smiled at her. “It’s my sunshmina, and my grandmother made it.” I looked at her fair skin and nodded. “It really keeps the sun off of me.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “I love Maui but this sun is a killer for us light-skinned gals. I’d love to have one. Will she make one for me?”

  I started to shake my head no, but, she added, “I’ll pay her.”

  My head reversed direction and began nodding up and down. Halmoni had a ton of fabric left in her closet, and, I was sure she had more of the kukui nut concoction that she steeped it in. “I think I could arrange that,” I told her.

  “How much?”

  I paused. I had no idea what price tag to hang on the sunshmina. Let me think, attorney fees, an airplane ticket home, my current bank balance . . . “Go high, go high,” I swear the bird squawked at me.

  “It’s handmade, and very unique. It has a special sun protection formulated in it, too. I’m afraid we’d have to charge you quite a bit.”

  “Well? What’s quite a bit?” the woman drawled, allowing her diamond rings to wink at me in the sunlight. “And I’ll pay extra for rush charges.”

  “My grandmother was thinking about charging $300.” I couldn’t believe I said that.

  “Fabulous,” the woman said. “I’ll take two. My daughter will need one as well. Do you have any other colors, or other clothes?”

  “Well,” I said. “We’re just starting our line and working on several designs.”

  The woman clapped her hands. “Perfect! I love discovering new designers. I’ll be here for two weeks, let me give you my name and number. How long do you think it will take to make them? I’d love to have them by this weekend, we’re going sailing.”

  “I think we can do that,” I said, crossing my fingers under the material of my own sunshmina.

  The woman gave me her info, thanke
d me and started to walk away. “By the way, what’s the name of your clothing line?” she called back.

  A delicious swirl of caffeine kicked in, flooding my brain with a wave of giddiness. I fiddled with my sunglasses, remembering what the surfers called me at the memorial service. It wasn’t original or very exciting, but maybe it would suggest an element of celebrity pizzazz to help justify the price. “Hollywood Haute,” I said, not able to bring myself to add the word couture.

  I ran to the bathroom and couldn’t wait to get back to tell Jac. As I approached our table, I saw him in a mauling embrace with a beautiful Hawaiian girl who wore a tightly fitted pink flowered sarong and a lei. I watched him kiss her fingers as the woman, the nymph, the super-model, gracefully began to hula away.

  Jac noticed me and motioned me over. “Lana,” I heard him say. “Hang on a sec. I want you to meet Jaswinder. Jaswinder Park, Lana Ho, our island’s favorite entertainer. You’ll have to hear her sing, she’s amazing.”

  “Aloha,” Lana said, tossing back her froth of wavy dark hair.

  I don’t remember what I said, but I do recall being nearly struck dumb. This woman was gorgeous. Forget girl crush, I could have spent a lifetime just staring at her. What must it be like to wake up in the morning, and look in the mirror at that? I knew I was staring, but I couldn’t help it. Her patient smile merely accepted it as her just due.

  I curled my hair behind my ears, and tugged my sunshmina over my shoulders, embarrassed by my pinkened arms. I know I managed a “so nice to meet you.” I tried to catalogue her features, were her eyes exactly the same size? Is that what made her so mesmerizing? Did the greenish, brown sparkling magic crystals zooming in on me cast some spell? And were her eyes more green or brown? Her eyebrows were merely the perfect outline for those orbs, oh dear Lord, I called her eyes orbs, not that there was a chance in my guardian angel’s hotspot of anyone not noticing those. I played with my spoon to prevent myself from spouting poetry. Her skin, her smooth, not brown, not white, not a hint of pink, skin, was simply the best color of skin ever invented.

  Be cool, I warned myself. “I love your lip gloss.”

  “Thank you,” she said, followed by the fluting laugh of a pied piper. “I’m not wearing any.”

  Of course she wasn’t. Before I could stop myself, I repeated her laugh back at her. Like a bird in some Disney movie. “Ha ha hee hee ho.” Whereas her laugh tinkled, mine merely made me want to. I sounded nothing like the lovely Lana. I wanted to hate her. But I was too busy wanting to be her. My tongue licked my lips as again I warned myself to get a grip, and not start rhyming things. Which immediately made me conjure up, “There once was a girl from Lahaina . . .” Even master wordsmith Eminem, the only person in the world to successfully rhyme orange (door hinge) would have been hard pressed to find something that rhymes with the “ina” sound in Lahaina. Oh my gosh, Kona coffee should really come with a warning. Nothing could be finah . . . I gave a shake of my head before I started waxing poetic about her hiney, or something. Why not? That was magnificent, too. If guys had any idea how thoroughly girls check out other girls, I probably think they’d quite like that, a lot.

  “So nice to meet you, Jaswinder.”

  She remembered my name!

  “See you later, Jac.” Her scent lingered for a few seconds, wafting in her wake.

  “Who was that?” I asked, fearing I sounded like a jealous, unstable girlfriend.

  “Lana is a good friend of mine. Seriously, if you are here long enough, I will take you to one of her shows. She has an amazing voice. She’s great, and a real sweetie.”

  “If I looked like that, I’d be a real sweetie, too,” I told him.

  “You are very sweet.”

  An image of my tub-o-lard guardian angel popped into my head. I could practically hear him laughing at me.

  “I was not digging for a compliment,” I protested. I waved my hands to change the subject. Even though some of the bubbles of excitement burst about my new sunshmina adventure, I told him all about it. “I’ll probably be stuck here for another week, so I’m sure I can put together two more of these things and get paid for it,” I said, pulling my wrap tighter.

  “Oh, do you sew?”

  “No, but how hard can it be? I watched what my grandmother did. I’ll figure it out. Besides, I love this fabric. I swear, it makes me feel cooler.”

  Jac reached across the table and rubbed the fabric between his hands. “What is this, anyway?”

  “Who knows?” I answered. “My grandmother has a closet full of this stuff. It’s like a crazy mixture of gauze and silk. It’s so lightweight and pretty.” I lifted my arms. “See how it kind of shimmers?”

  “You know, Jaswinder, if your grandmother treated it specifically to protect you from the sun with her secret kukui nut formulation, this might really have some sun protection factors. Do you want me to test it for you?”

  “Wow. Sure.” I sipped my coffee, sneaked a look at my surfer dermatologist and sniffed the ocean breeze of all that is good. “Jac. I really do want to apologize to you.”

  “For what?” He grinned at me as if he knew exactly what I was going to say.

  “You haven’t exactly seen me at my best.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Ha ha.” My sunburn prickled. “About that night. I don’t,” I stopped. How can I put this without being tarred with the me-thinks-she-protesteth-too-much brush? “I don’t usually A. drink that much, or B. have sex with strange men in the park.”

  He laughed and reached for my hand across the table. “Jaswinder. I respected you in the morning. Well, at least in the afternoon when you came into my office. The pleasure was all mine.”

  I grabbed my hand back. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Calm down. I am agreeing with you. We maybe started off on the wrong foot.”

  I folded my arms across my chest.

  “I enjoyed very much meeting you the other night, and I hoped to see you again. I just wasn’t sure how long you were going to be in Maui.

  I nodded.

  “But, happily, sometimes fate intervenes.”

  I looked at him. “Or a guardian angel?” I smiled.

  His blue eyes twinkled under his messy brown hair, making me itch to tug on a curl that looked like one of those tubular waves surfers always liked to brag about. “You are a funny girl, Jaswinder Park.” He paid the check and came around and helped my out of my chair. “I’m very glad I met you and I’m sorry for your troubles. If there’s anything I can do to help you get your grandmother out of jail, I’ll do it. I’ve been keeping my ears open and I’ll let you know if I hear anything. This island is a small place and gossip spreads like . . .” he paused and looked down at me.

  When he didn’t continue I started to get worried. What did he think gossip spreads like, my legs? I tried to help him fill in a different blank. “Wildfire?”

  He pulled me into a friendly hug and kissed the top of my head. “Sorry. I lost my train of thought. I was going to say it spreads like gossip spreads everywhere—quickly and usually inaccurately. Want something more poetic? It spreads like that blush creeping over your cheeks that you try to hide under your sunburn.”

  I knew he saw me swallow.

  “Actually,” he said. “There is a saying, pipi holo kaa’ao, which means a well-told tale travels. So, you know people are talking about the murder, but no one seems to know who did it.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “Come on. Let me drop you back home. Go work on your sun wraps and bring me a piece of the treated fabric if you can spare it. I’ll have a research buddy of mine take a look at it to try to determine if it has any SPF. It should only take a day or so.” He peeked under the fabric to look at my shoulders. “Healing nicely. The flaking should commence soon. Just keep your skin moisturized and stay out of the sun.”

  Later that afternoon, I stopped by the police station to visit my grandmother. Business must have been slow because they actually let me sit with her in the din
gy lobby. “Oh, Halmoni,” I said, hugging her tightly, “how are you?”

  Halmoni smiled and leaned back as if she were admiring the sunshmina.

  “It’s so perfect,” I said. “And guess what?” The words spilled out of me though I knew my grandmother probably wouldn’t have any idea what I was talking about. “A tourist wants to buy two of these wraps,” I told her. I tugged on the fabric and held up two fingers. “Since you’re still in here, do you think I can make them?”

  “Not that,” Halmoni said.

  “Oh, and I went to the memorial service for Mike Hokama.” Halmoni frowned. I took a deep breath and pushed my hair back behind my ears. “It was alright, except for the part about being beaten up by his mother.”

  My grandmother turned away from me.

  “I’m okay, though. See, somehow there was a picture of me in the paper and she thought I—”

  I stopped as my grandmother held up a copy of the newspaper. “Not that.”

  I groaned. “I’m so sorry, Halmoni. The whole island has seen that picture. Anyway, I talked to your ear wax surfer boys and they’re going to let me know if they hear anything. And Jac, Dr. Case, showed up.”

  Halmoni’s eyebrows soared high up on her forehead. Just like my Dad’s used to do during interrogation sessions back home when I was a teenager. “I don’t know how that car got a flat tire.” My sister and I swore we could hear our father’s nerve endings ratchet his brows up higher and higher. “I thought for sure I had a B in history.” Creak, creak. “I only tried it once.” My father’s eyebrows, just like his mother’s, could practically become part of his hairline.

  I shooed those memories away and smiled down on my grandmother. “Put those eyebrows back where they belong. As soon as I get you out of here,” I put my arm over her tiny bony shoulders, “and back on the path of righteousness, you and I both know I have to go back home. Dr. Jac tried to hook me up with a part time job at an optometrist office, but that didn’t quite work out.” I flicked my fingers to brush away that memory, too.

  “So, Halmoni. I think I can follow your pattern to sew this,” I fluffed my wrap. “But what about the kukui nut oil? I swear, whatever you did made this thing not only block out the sun’s rays, it makes me feel cooler with it on than without it. It has to be the kukui nut oil. Please understand what I’m saying. How do I do it?”