Juniors

by Kaui Hart Hemmings

  3

  ONE WEEK LATER, AND WE’VE PACKED UP OUR LITTLE lives just like that. On Saturday we take our first load over in my mom’s car, going the long way through Waimanalo so we can stop by Danny’s. It would have been more efficient to have brought my car too, but I didn’t want to make the first trip alone.

  The day is so clean and clear. The ocean glimmers along the coast. We get to see things here that people pay to see on their honeymoons. I automatically hear “Waimanalo Blues” in my head, a song Danny’s dad, Toby, taught me on the ukulele. He’s an attorney, but he performs sometimes at the resorts with his band.

  “Do you see Danny at school?” my mom asks.

  “Not that much,” I say. “Sometimes we have lunch.”

  Since he’s a childhood/summer-break/family friend, it’s weird existing with him at school and in the real world. I’m seeing him in a new light and sometimes have an odd sensation of pride, as if seeing my kid all grown up. He’s like a man now, this boy. Our mothers went to Punahou together and were close a long time ago, but not so much anymore. Auntie Stephanie. She moved to Maui after the divorce from Uncle Toby. When I visited in the summers, she’d take us to the crack seed store, and Danny and I would load up on li hing mui, kakimochi, tamarind wafers, and candy wrapped in rice paper that would dissolve in our mouths. I always remember this and also the summer we were twelve and would practice kissing on each other. We both pretend this has never happened, or maybe he has truly forgotten.

  “I can’t believe he’s going to Berkeley,” she says. “You’re going to miss him.”

  Her smile is teasing and maddeningly infectious.

  “What? Stop it.” I hold down my grin.

  “So cute,” she says and looks at me like I’m heading off to prom.

  “Oh my God, calm down.”

  We trail a truck with a bunch of shirtless kids in back. The truck is stenciled with a sexy woman and a tribute to a dead musician. The bulk of the land in Waimanalo belongs to Hawaiian homeland, so most of the residents are Hawaiian. It is definitely not the same here as it is in Kahala, though the landscape—its vibrant colors and defiant mountains—make it so much more beautiful and complex. That ocean is the most beautiful blue, like jewels underwater.

  “Does he have a girlfriend?” my mom asks.

  The thought makes me a little ill. It’s like discussing a sibling or someone you don’t really want to imagine being intimate with anyone. Danny and I have similar coloring, though I’m not as Hawaiian as he is, since my mom’s only a quarter. I always imagine a nickel and a dime’s worth of blood pinging through my body like a pinball. Danny’s hapa—a bit of everything. His skin is the color of monkey pod tree bark. He has cheeks like mountain apples and brows that look almost penciled on. His body is something my mainland friends would freak out about. He’s tan and sculpted but not in a gym-fit way. He looks like he could swim across a great channel.

  “Ask him yourself,” I say. I want to hear him answer no. I don’t think we’d hang out if he had a girlfriend and wonder what this says about our friendship.

  We stop in front of their house, which is always cheery, the yard in bloom with tiare and puakenikeni, and Toby’s garden is loaded with vegetables.

  “Look at that eggplant,” my mom says.

  “Look at that eyesore,” I say.

  Their next-door neighbors fly a Hawaiian flag and a sign that says DEFEND HAWAII. There’s a skeleton of a Toyota in their yard that’s been there for as long as I can remember, as well as a pop-up tent and rusted baby toys.

  Danny comes out the kitchen door with my ukulele.

  “Hey, Danny boy,” my mom says when he leans down and rests his arms on my windowsill. He smells like salt water and BO.

  “Hi, Auntie Ali. You leaving the windward side? Town bound? Lame.”

  “Moving on out,” she says.

  “Hey, Little Donkey,” he says.

  “Seriously, stop calling me that. Especially in public.” I take a glance at myself in the side mirror. There’s nothing worse than feeling like you look pretty good and being called an ass.

  He passes my uke through the window.

  “I’ll see you Thursday?” he says. “I’m still tripped out you’re moving in with Whitney West.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” I say.

  “I haven’t cooked with you in a while,” my mom says. “Bring me some of that eggplant, and we’ll Iron Chef it up.”

  I cringe.

  “Sounds good,” Danny says. He puts his hand out for our farewell shake, which is more like a slap than a grip, then he walks out to the busy road and puts his hand out to stop traffic so my mom can back out. Only Danny could stop traffic so quickly.

  We wave good-bye and get back on the road.

  “You guys are so cute,” my mom says.

  “Stop it,” I say. I force down a smile. I’ll always be a little donkey in his eyes.

  • • •

  We drive in silence to Kahala, listening to music turned up loud. We have the same tastes: Gillian Welch, the Roots, Gabby and Cyril Pahinui, Graham Nash, plus random pop songs on the radio. She’s okay like that.

  She turns on Hunakai, the beginning of our new neighborhood, and I pretend not to look, but I see everything. The landscaping, the mailboxes, the lack of people walking their dogs or doing their own lawns or washing their cars. Some homes are laughably hideous, gold gates with blue metal dolphin fixtures, block-long driveway entrances; they make statements I can’t quite decipher, yet they all seem to say, Look at me, but don’t come close. I don’t have an angry, simplistic distaste for people with money—I like it, want it, need it—but some people sure spend it in weird ways.

  “Grandigross,” I say.

  “No kidding,” she says.

  We move into a nicer section. Some of the large homes sit next to old and small ones that haven’t been torn down and resurrected. While these little ones are perfectly nice, in comparison to their fellow remodels, they look neglected. I guess it’s like those shots showing the before and after, the after automatically making the before a failure.

  It’s not as though I haven’t been to Kahala, even though I’m looking around like a total gaper. I surf at Diamond Head with Danny, but it’s different this time. I’m nervous, and this nervousness is tinged with excitement and undue pride, like I’m a better person for living here.

  “You’re a good sport,” my mom says.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I’ll live.”

  She turns on Aukai, which is wide and quiet, hushed—it’s almost like no one is here. Where is everyone?

  “I’m serious,” she says. “You’ve always been ready to go.” She pats my leg.

  It’s true. The house in Topanga Canyon for her dystopian thriller, the apartment on Stanyan for the utopian (never released) comedy. I was happy to leave both times. Even moving here, she gave me a choice. I could finish up school while she flew back and forth, or we could move together. I chose the adventure, chose to leave the comforts of Storey, of the neighborhood, friends, and routines. I’m realizing that at some point, I should try to make a life I’m not so eager to leave.

  “Tennis courts down that way,” my mom says, nodding to the left, where I see a little kid straddling a bike, zoned out and picking his nose. “They’re members of Waialae. Melanie said she could sign you up for lessons if you wanted.”

  “Why would I want tennis lessons? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  My mom clears her throat. I hate when she pushes things on me or tries to guide me to something I may have done on my own. It’s annoying—like when she sees someone she knows, and before I get the words out, she tells me to say hello.

  “Grandpa used to say Waialae Country Club had no haoles,” I say. “And the Outrigger has no Asians. Keeping it even, I guess.”

  �
�That’s not true,” my mom says. “Well, maybe. Anyway, you’re welcome to use Waialae and the Outrigger.”

  I put my window down and let my arm hang out and surf the breeze. “I can’t just go in there anytime,” I say. “And it’s not like I want to.”

  “You could go with Whitney.”

  “Why are you pushing her on me? You’re like a friend dealer.”

  “I’m not pushing her,” my mom says. “Never mind. Everything I say you argue against.”

  She turns the air up.

  “Not everything,” I say.

  “You just did it again.”

  “That doesn’t count. I’m just saying, not everything.”

  “You’re still doing it.”

  I throw my hands up. “God!”

  She puts my window back up. There’s nothing worse than fighting in a car, trapped and on display, and I hate when a good moment turns in an instant and my mood is squashed. Maybe I should take tennis lessons—right now I would love to whack a ball across a court. Whop! I love that sound.

  My mom turns on Koloa and then onto Kahala Avenue, which is loud, not with traffic, but with leaf blowers and weed whackers. She turns on her blinker, and I sit up straighter, trying to get a glimpse of what we’re heading into. A long rock wall, a sleek wooden gate.

  “This is it?” I ask, stating the obvious.

  “This is it.” She waits for an underfed woman jogger, slick with sweat, who is looking incredibly focused and unhappy.

  “Eat a chicken,” I say, then my mom makes the left into the Wests’ driveway and stops before the gate.

  “Do they know we’re coming?” I ask.

  “I told Melanie we’d be in and out all weekend. Who knows if we’ll see anyone.” She reaches up to a gate opener on the visor.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Melanie gave me one,” she says and points it at the gate.

  “When?”

  “When I saw her yesterday.”

  “You were working.”

  She looks over at me. “Jeez, Lea, attack much? I had lunch with her yesterday. She came on set.”

  “First of all, gross that she came on set. Second of all, do not say ‘attack much.’ That is so lame.”

  She smiles and presses the button on the clicker again. “And here we are,” she says in her cheerleader voice.

  The gate hums and opens slowly. I realize I’m holding my breath. My mom drives in at a crawl, and I look at the long driveway that extends across the lot. I can see a rectangle of glimmering ocean through the glass doors in the middle of the home.

  Soaring coconut trees are scattered around the grounds. Everything is perfectly manicured. Yardmen are clipping, mowing, blowing, weeding.

  “This is us over here,” my mom says. She veers off to the right, to the front edge of the lot where our new home, our cottage, sits above its own garage. The garage has a shiny wood door with black hardware.

  “You must be happy,” my mom says to me, referring to the garage. I’ve always wanted a garage, an odd wish, but I like having a place to put things, and after living in San Francisco, I cherish and deeply appreciate parking spots. When I worked at American Apparel on Haight I swear I spent more money on gas trying to find parking than I actually made at the store. I shrug, hiding my happiness.

  She turns off the engine outside of the garage. “It’s a stint. An adventure.” I look over at the main house, and she follows my gaze. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “I feel like Sabrina,” I say.

  “Who’s Sabrina?”

  “You know—the movie,” I say.

  “Oh,” she says. “That Sabrina.” She looks serene, recalling the movie. Audrey Hepburn, living in the servants’ quarters with her dad, the chauffeur for the rich family.

  “Remember, she falls in love with one of the sons,” I say, reaching down for my backpack. “He treats her like shit. And the other brother treats her like shit too, but he’s more responsible and good in the end. I forget what happens. I just remember she’d watch their lavish parties from a tree.” I look at the coconut trees. Too tall and nowhere to hide.

  My mom laughs. She has the widest smile—it spans her face, practically to her ears. She looks like she should be splashing in the surf for a J.Crew ad.

  “What?” I say and open the door, but stay seated.

  “Nothing, it’s just . . . you’re so articulate. So when you talk like a teenager—or swear—it makes me happy.”

  “That’s funny,” I say. “What a lark.”

  She pats me on the head, then keeps her hand there. “This, too, shall surpass.”

  “I don’t like that saying either,” I say, moving away. “You need new sayings.”

  “It’s from the script,” she says.

  “Oh God,” I say, getting out. “No wonder we’re here.”

  “Come on,” she says. “Let’s look around!”

  I don’t mimic her optimism. Expressing acceptance seems risky somehow. Naive. I know there will be a cost to this. Still, I’m infected and am trying to tamp my enthusiasm down.

  My mom pops the trunk and takes out her rolling suitcase. I take my backpack and bags of groceries from our emptied-out fridge and follow her up the stone steps and into our new home.

  4

  I HAVE A STRANGE RESPONSE WHEN I FIRST WALK IN. The place feels affectionate. Like it welcomes and wants me there. Maybe it’s the flowers that someone left on the dining table, but it’s other things too. The light, the view, the colors, even the bright material of the furniture. The walls are a soft yellow, like butter pecan ice cream; the air is crisp and quiet. It’s air-conditioning, I realize, which we didn’t have in the condo. At our Kailua place, I was always on the verge of a sneeze—the mildew, the mold, the humidity. Everything here is pure. It makes me feel like I’ve done something right.

  “Nice,” I say, relenting. I run my hand over the back of the sofa just beyond the dining table. The kitchen, eating area, and living room are all one great room.

  “Oh my God,” my mom says, taking it in. “Isn’t this awesome?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It is.”

  The furnishings are all unique. Nothing matches—there’s a light green couch and bold, floral-printed love seats, and the dark wood dining table and the glass coffee table aren’t from the same set. Still, everything goes together. This makes each thing seem valuable, like it’s been collected over the years, or mulled over and chosen just for this room. It feels like our San Francisco apartment. I eye the flat-screen and the stereo. Music! My mom is inspecting the appliances in the kitchen. This doesn’t feel like a place where the leftovers are stored. It also doesn’t feel like something out of a catalogue, though it’s beautiful enough that it could be. It’s a home.

  “Look at all this fruit,” my mom says. I bring the groceries to the kitchen, where there’s an array of fruit in a basket. I wash an apple and bite into it.

  “Melanie’s so thoughtful,” my mom says. “Isn’t this amazing?”

  “The fruit basket?”

  “Everything.” She spreads one arm out like a model on a game show.

  “Amazing,” I say.

  “God, Lea.” Her face falls.

  “What?” I take another bite. “Whenever I don’t match your pep levels, you freak out. It’s great! It’s insane, okay? It surpasses. Oh ma haw, catchphrase.”

  “I’ll go unload some more,” she says.

  She walks out like a disappointed puppy. What an actress. I’m quite the actress too, because as soon as she leaves, I practically run through our new place as if I’m on a timed shopping spree. I open every drawer and cupboard in the kitchen to find that we’re fully equipped with matching pots and pans, coffeemaker, and utensils, all better versions of what we have. The kitchen has a bay window that overlooks some of the law
n and the driveway. I look down at my mom unloading a box, and my heart breaks for her a bit.

  I rummage through the kitchen box she brought up, locating our magnets, one for each home we’ve lived in—a HarleyDavidson, an orange tabby cat, a banana, a Buddha, and from Kailua: Da Kine Plumbing and Heating. Now we’ll need another. I put them on our new fridge. There. Home. I’ve marked my territory.

  I open more kitchen drawers. There’s even cleaning supplies and paper towels and napkins—it’s like going to a vacation house, which is exactly what this is, I guess. I notice a bottle of red wine and another bouquet of flowers by the microwave, along with a note—Everyone could use some Flowers! Welcome home. xoxo Mels. The bottle says Flowers Pinot Noir.

  My mom comes back in, and I show her the bottle.

  “Yum,” she says. “That’s a good one.”

  I read something else in her expression, something like weariness, like she’s about to go to work. She puts a box marked kitchen on the counter, and I tell her about all the things already here.

  “Should we bother unpacking our kitchen stuff?” I ask.

  “I guess we could leave our things in the garage.” She follows my path, opening drawers, then looks around with her hands on her hips, surveying the place.

  “Have you looked in the rooms yet?” she asks.

  “Was just about to,” I say.

  “Take a look. I’ll leave some stuff in the garage and bring up the rest. There’s probably towels and sheets here. I didn’t think about that.”

  “Maybe we’ll get full wardrobes too,” I say, but she doesn’t register my joke. She never does—says I’m always getting stuck in Joke Town.

  She takes the box she just brought up, and when she leaves, I open every closet I see around the main room before looking into each of the three bedrooms. The two bedrooms on the beach side share a bathroom, and each has a walk-in closet. The bedroom nearest the avenue is clearly the master because of its size, yet the smaller rooms have the best views of the ocean. I guess the arrangement is so the master bedroom doesn’t overlook the main house, which would lessen its mastery.

  My liking of the whole package—the decorations, the layout, the possibility of a life here—soon turns into entitlement, like of course I should have all this. I deserve no less. For a moment, I even inwardly balk at the fact that the laundry room is all the way downstairs in the garage. I guess it’s pretty easy to adapt to better surroundings.