I couldn’t look away. I nodded at him and whispered. “Why don’t you? Go on.”
“Because I know what is going to happen!” His eyes widened and he clamped his hands over his mouth. And then he was gone.
Chapter 28
DIY
The rickety roller coaster, with the so-so safety record on which I rode, careened around yet another downhill curve. Centrifugal force hurled my stomach toward Japan as my innards clawed their way up my esophagus, clinging for dear life. What did he mean by that? What was going to happen? Whatever it was, judging by my guardian angel’s reaction, I was not going to like it. Oh, Supreme Being, the only thing worse than rock bottom is that last step falling into it.
I sat on the edge of my bed and held my own hands. I may have rocked back and forth a time or two. I stared at the space where he had been. A hummingbird’s heart beats fourteen hundred times a minute and mine fluttered faster. Goosebumps were present and accounted for, on high alert.
I heard a bird chirp and smelled a waft of jasmine carried on the salty breeze. I sniffed for the final trace of his name. A strand of hair fluttered against my face, which tightened at the start of a grim smile. My tears finally dried on my cheeks.
Warning received. It was time to find out what I was made of. Though I did eat a ton of sugar and spice, I had to admit, my ambitions had never been very nice. Like Dumbo holding tightly to a magic feather, I clung to the idea that at least I had a guardian angel on my side.
Against looming doom, I felt a gush of gratitude as hope flooded through me, a warm, humid embrace from Maui. I knew what I had to do. I had to deal with the two fighting turtles inside of me. I had to feed my integrity and stay and help my grandmother, no matter what was going to happen. It was time to start starving my fear.
Armed with resolve, I rekindled my belief that the sunshminas were great and geared up to give it another go. I would sell these sunshminas or try dying, as my sister always said.
The next day, I set up shop again. The sun shot columns of bright orange between the shadows. I set up again in the lobby and tried to look friendly and inviting. I pushed back my cuticles. I cleaned out my purse. Good thing I didn’t have dental floss or nail clippers on me.
Sitting up straight, I beamed at two middle-aged sisters who were on a special getaway from Seattle. “Darling, just darling,” they both agreed, without forking over any cash.
I commiserated with a sunburnt mother of three vacationing from Arizona. “Maybe later,” she told me, her sweaty toddler nearly sliding off her hip.
I congratulated the unbelievably good-looking couple on their honeymoon, whose “love would protect them from the sun,” gag, “because we haven’t really left our room.” Vomit.
Another guy slumped gratefully onto a bench and wiggled his toes in his flip-flops. He slipped his right bare foot into his lap and began rubbing. He picked up his sandal and smelled it. I hid my smile back in my magazine.
“Aloha,” came a voice, startling me out of what I had been reading. My cheeks blushed even though I knew no one could possibly know it was a DIY article on curling your own toes. Since I didn’t have STDIFM, Someone To Do It For Me, it was as close as I was going to get. I dropped the magazine under the table.
“Lana. Hello. Aloha. How are you?”
“Good,” sang Lana, her voice lilting with the exact right amount of accent to make her seem adorably exotic. “What are you doing?”
I waved my hand over the table. “I’m selling sunshminas, resort wear wraps for sensitive skin.” I watched Lana pick one up, the blue one, and toss it over her shoulders. I could smell the scent of her shampoo, or perfume, or probably that’s the way she always smells, as the wrap wafted over her golden shoulders. Her long slender fingers seemed to have a minuscule tilt at the end and moved in a graceful dance. With her symmetrical nails that were a matched set of opal gems, tinted pink like the insides of seashells, she tied the ends of the wrap under her bikini top. She spread her arms and twirled. “How do I look?”
She was a Hawaiian princess, a goddess. “Lovely,” I whispered. I cleared my throat. “It even provides great sun protection.”
Lana laughed. “Not that I need it,” her glance skimmed and condemned my pink skin in a flicker. “This is gorgeous, though.” She unknotted the wrap and slid her fingers down the seam, as though looking for the price tag. She picked up the end to see the label. Had it not been directed at me, her laughter could have been sold to noise machines to help people calm down at night so they could drift off to sleep, right along with the recorded sounds of babbling brooks, chirping birds and cooing babies. Lana laughed again. “Haole Wood. That’s perfect.” She laughed some more before asking how much. Her perfect eyebrows curlicued when I told her.
Lana raised her hand. “You know what? I think that price is in the right ballpark. This is luxurious, and the pricing helps keep it exclusive. Women are going to love these. You just need help marketing them.” Lana kept smoothing the fabric between her fingers. “I’ll help you. Here’s what I’m going to do.” She put the sunshmina back on, flipping her long hair over the back. She shook her head and shimmied her shoulders. If that had been in slow motion it would have qualified as soft porn.
“I’ll wear this and when people ask me where I got it, I’ll send them to you.” She smiled at me, flashing her “got milk” poster smile and smoothed down the edges of her sunshmina. I found myself nodding along.
“OK. Sure. Thanks. I wanted to say how sorry I was about Mike Hokama.”
Lana’s look halted the rest of what I wanted to say. I continued. I fiddled with my fingers. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I wanted to ask you who you think could have,” I swallowed, “would have,” I stopped. I tried to use my news reporter skill of the sound of silence to hopefully nudge Lana into speaking. Apparently, Lana’s skill was superior because I caved first.
“My grandmother did not kill him,” I said, filling the dead air. “I’m trying to help find who did. I know we’ll all feel a lot better when the real killer is arrested.”
“As I’ve told the police, I don’t know who would have done this. I wasn’t there. I was singing. If only I had been there, maybe I could have saved him.” Lana’s graceful swallow signaled the end of our conversation. One tear glistened on the crest of her cheek. I felt so bad for her, trying to hold it together like that.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said.
Lana nodded, hulaed her hips and tossed an “Aloha” over her shoulder. As she sashayed away, her mesmerizing body swayed, beckoning players from both teams as men and women alike watched her from their lounge chairs.
What just happened? I can’t believe I let her walk away like that, with a free sunshmina. Now I have a negative sale.
A lot of guests stopped by to feel the fabric and admire the sunshminas, but no takers. Late in the afternoon as the sun began its dip toward the ocean, I noticed a woman’s white skin before the red hair it was under.
“Aloha,” I smiled and stood up.
The pale-skinned woman with large turquoise eyes and titian hair twanged out an “Aloha” in return.
“I’m a big fan of yours,” I said. I just couldn’t remember her name, though I had seen her on TV plenty of times.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say,” the woman said as she tossed her red hair, posing like a celebrity on a red carpet. With one hand on her hip, her right foot angled out from her left instep, she looked at the sunshminas spread on the table and started snapping her fingers. “So, what have you got going on here?”
I gave her my spiel. “Try one on.”
“I’m lovin’ the pink,” she said, launching it over her shoulders. She modeled in front of the mirror I had at the end of the table, sucking in her checks and then lifting her lip in a snarl. She petted the material. “This fabric is fab. My gays will go gaga. Not that they would understand why anyone would want to stay out of the sun, since they’re all about the man-tan. Haven’t yo
u heard, tanorexia is the new cause célèbre? So, what is this material?”
“It’s a silk-gauze blend from Thailand. My grandmother—”
“Honk shoo.” She interrupted me with a snore.
“Sorry.” I said. “It will protect your skin from the sun, especially here in Hawaii and in LA.” I tried to sell it even though I still couldn’t remember her name. She had her own reality show and had been in some scandal or something in Hollywood.
The woman flapped the ends of the wrap and twisted in the mirror. “Pretty. I look gorgeous.” She honed her gaze on me. “Us whiteys need to stick together. Tell ya what I’m gonna do.”
Oh no. Here we go again. Still, word of mouth was powerful advertising. I reached for tissue paper to wrap it up.
“I’ll just wear it, thanks!” In a pouf of red hair, she turned to leave. I did manage to shove a handful of Haole Wood business cards at her. “Ta ta, aloha,” I heard her say as she marched through the lobby like an empress, waving the queen’s wave to all the tourists who thought they knew her from somewhere.
I closed up shop and carried my stuff to the jeep when my phone rang.
“Not only didn’t I sell any, I somehow gave two away!” I complained to Jac. “Including one to your girlfriend, Lana.”
“Ah, come on. Let me take you out to dinner.”
Damn the pitter-patter of my heart.
Chapter 29
Humuhumunukunukuapua’a
Jac picked me up right on time. His eyelashes looked extra curly and his muscles rippled right through his T-shirt, leading a girl to believe he had been surfing earlier, frolicking with the dolphins in an other-worldly metaphysical seafaring adventure us lesser mortals could only dream of. I giggled, curled the ends of my hair around my finger and annoyed the snot out of myself.
“I’m going to take you to the resort tonight in Wailea,” he told me. “Lana’s singing there and I thought you might like some live music. She really is very good.”
“Great.” I said. Lyrics by the lovely Lana. Dinner to be jealous by. I’ll have the envy entrée followed by a side of self-esteem, burnt to a crisp.
“The restaurant is amazing,” he explained. “Humuhumunukunukuapua’a.”
“Bless you,” I said, laughing. “I know, it’s the name of the state fish. I never did learn how to say it, but I’m very impressed with people who can. Wocka Wocka,” I added, for some reason impersonating Fozzie Bear.
Amazingly, Jac looked over and smiled at me.
“Say, humu humu.”
“Humu humu,” I answered back.
“Nuku nuku.”
“Nuku nuku.”
“A pu a’a.”
“A pu a’a.” I smiled at him.
“See? Simple.”
More giggling from me. Knock it off, I warned myself.
“It’s a pretty nice place,” he said as we drove south, through Kihei, a fun, beachy town right on the water with some of the world’s best windsurfing. I counted hundreds of windsurfers catching the afternoon waves, flipping and frolicking like dolphins with kites.
We pulled up to the majestic resort. “Pretty nice?” I said, punching his arm. My knuckles tweeted my fingertips that Jac’s biceps, solid sinews of sexy, should be massaged, not punched. My fingers actually fluttered in response before I could grab my own hand and squeeze it in my lap.
“Just wait,” he told me. We walked through the lobby and headed for the restaurant, just in time to catch the most amazing sunset. But he turned me around and nodded his head at the waitress, gesturing to the other side of the restaurant.
“Sometimes I like watching the moonrise,” he told me.
I want to bear his children. The Polynesian thatch-roofed restaurant floated on a saltwater lagoon. It’s thick hand-carved wooden design made me feel like I was entering the home of one of Kamehameha the Great’s twenty-one wives—his favorite wife, at that.
We started out with a royal ruby Cabernet and searched the serenity of the gray blue periwinkling sky for the crescent moon. “Just gorgeous,” I said.
“I know,” Jac said, sipping his wine but looking at me.
I broke off our gaze first. “I’m not very adventurous when it comes to seafood, I’m kind of a creature of havit.”
“Havit?”
“That’s what I always thought my mom was saying, seriously, until I was probably twelve. It makes sense, though, don’t you think? Sucking my thumb? I had to havit! Sneaking gum out of her purse?”
“Surfing?” He said. “Have to havit!”
“I went surfing the other day,” I bragged.
“How was it?” He looked suitably impressed.
“It was the funnest thing I have ever done in my life.” Funnest? Why did I say that? There’s no such word. I babbled on hoping he wouldn’t notice. “I went with my grandmother’s ear wax surf boys.”
“Which ones?”
“Zev, Bronco and Kenny took me to their favorite spot, pretty close to her house.”
“I know where that is. How did you do?”
“After scaling down Mr. Rushmore, drowning didn’t seem that bad by comparison. But, I did it! I got up! I surfed and it was awesome.”
“Details. Is it a new havit of yours?”
“In spite of the most tortuous amount of struggle and being sacrificed to Neptune time and time again,” I took a sip of my wine. “I will try it again.”
He laughed and tilted his glass of wine at me.
“I stood on top of the world, on top of a wave, watching life go by. This giant curl of water hurled me forward so fast and with so much power it has to be magic. I felt invincible.” I held my shoulders back. “For a split second.”
Jac laughed again. “That’s the addiction.” He reached across the table and touched my hand with the tip of his finger. “But sometimes, the best part of surfing is the gap between the waves.”
Sign me up for this guy’s cult. I’m in. My fingers, who were itching to start a thumb war with Jac’s, refrained.
“You’ll have to come with me sometime. I have a really good spot and you don’t have to climb down any treacherous cliffs.”
Mmm. Plans with Jac, wearing a bathing suit. “Ggg.” I took another drink and started coughing.
Jac leaned in. “You okay?”
Never better. I set my wineglass down and played with the stem. “Do you believe in guardian angels?”
He sipped his own wine before answering. “I don’t disbelieve. I was surfing a couple of winters ago, at Honolua Bay. Have you heard of it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s not far. The waves were up to about 15 feet, it was rolling.” His eyes were so shiny I couldn’t stop staring. “I was out at Coconut Point, riding a barrel like you wouldn’t believe. I felt like I could have gone forever. It was really crowded with locals, who, let’s just say some are very territorial. I held my own, but this tall, muscle-bound Hawaiian guy, about my height, swooped out of nowhere. I never saw him coming and I just reacted, with a quick jerk.” He lifted his elbows. “We were going to crash.” His hands made an x. “There was no way out, we were on a collision course. We both tried to correct and veer out of each other’s way. I remember bracing for the impact, knowing this big boy was going to hit me.”
“What happened?”
“I remember hoping he didn’t knock my head and conk me unconscious, because once I was hurled under the waves down onto the coral below, I was doomed.”
He sipped his wine and shook his head. “We didn’t crash. We finished our ride, like magic, ending up not too far from each other. He swam over to me and we hugged. This guy was solid muscle, probably surfed since before he could walk, and he started crying like a baby. According to the laws of physics, there is no way we shouldn’t have crashed. It was as if we became invisible, or transparent and just swished right through each other. Crazy, huh?” he laughed. “I don’t have a hard time believing in guardian angels.”
“That’s a great story,” I
said.
“I haven’t thought about it in awhile. How’s your guardian angel been treating you?
I nearly sprayed a mouthful of red wine all over the white tablecloth. “What do you mean?”
“Just making small talk. What’s going on? It’s part of my charming date repartee, I guess it’s not working?”
“No. It’s working. Trust me,” I said. “I’m kind of on the outs with my guardian angel right about now,” I said.
The waiter appeared with our meals. I ordered the mahi mahi encrusted with macadamia nuts and crabmeat. Jac had the sea bass with black beans, ginger rice and bamboo shoots. We shared a papaya salad with chopped tomato, garlic, mint, cilantro and chili sauce. It was all so beautiful, right down to the orchids decorating our dishes. I was starving, and feeling very adventurous.
“Thanks,” I smiled at the waiter. “Could I have some ketchup, please?” His mouth dropped open and he pretended he had no idea what I was talking about.
“I just like a little ketchup on my fish, please?”
“Ketchup,” the waiter said, fluttering his hands as if I had asked him to go harpoon a whale or something. He backed away, nearly knocking into the water boy, before turning and beating feet back into the kitchen.
“He’s going to tell on you,” Jac said.
“Am I embarrassing you?”
“Not at all. So you like ketchup. I might even take a taste.”
“I’m a condiment girl,” I told him.
“Good to know,” he said, pushing the salt, pepper, mango salsa and whipped garlic butter close to my plate.
“Excuse me,” a booming voice interrupted. It was the chef, a handsome Hawaiian man, spurting sweat beads off his forehead. Our waiter was behind him, dancing like he had to pee.
“You want to put ketchup on my crab-encrusted mahi mahi?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?” The other diners were staring at us. “This mahi mahi is delicious, the best I’ve ever tasted.”
Haole Wood Page 18
