Juniors

by Kaui Hart Hemmings

  “What? Now, that wouldn’t be as special.” He disarms me with his eyes green like ferns.

  “I can always walk around for a while,” I say.

  “You really want to get rid of me, huh?” he asks. He glances over, coy and amused, and my first thought is, No. Never.

  “I just don’t want you to feel obligated to hang out with me,” I say, hoping that doesn’t sound too pathetic.

  “Look, I’ll just show you the neighborhood. We’ll turn back, and I’ll bring you to the club. I’ll let you know when I can’t take it anymore, okay? Now, be quiet about it already.”

  “Okay,” I say, holding down a smile.

  He turns at the end of the road that skirts the edge of the neighborhood.

  “I can’t take it anymore,” he says, and I laugh, relaxing my legs.

  “Sorry—my mom . . . ,” he says. “She gets things in her head. When I was younger, all of my playdates were highly organized. Had to be with the right kids, doing the right activities. I’m used to it.”

  “So I’m a playdate?” I ask, and immediately a heat runs through my arms and chest from feeling bold and at ease.

  “I guess so. But a much better one than Rodney Nash. That kid was torture.”

  We drive up toward Diamond Head lookout, and he turns left and heads down a narrow road, which leads to a circular driveway. We stop in front of what looks to be an entrance to a fortress on the ocean.

  “Doris Duke’s place,” he says, circling the driveway before coming to a stop. “Shangri La. It’s pretty awesome inside. There’s all this Islamic art and furniture. Every detail of the house she worked on.”

  “Why Islamic?” I ask, feeling I need to say something.

  “She traveled a lot, saw things she liked, picked them up, buying as she went.”

  “Must be nice.”

  He looks over at me, and I sense disappointment, like I’m not getting something.

  “She was the daughter of this tycoon, and still she was this adventurous person, didn’t want to be defined . . .” He trails off. Maybe he’s trying to sell her to me, along with aspects of himself. He’s more than the son of someone big.

  “That’s cool,” I say.

  “In back, there’s this pool area—it was a dock made for her yacht,” Will says. “People jump off the wall.”

  “Fun,” I say, thinking of Danny and how he’s shown me a place near Makapu’u to jump from. A wooden plank hovering above clear blue water. I feel like I know the island by the jumps—Point in Hawaii Kai, far off the coast, black hot rocks, deep sea. The Mokuluas, little islands off Lanikai, high cliffs into roiling ocean. Maunawili Falls, slippery hike, cold mountain water.

  “I want to do that,” I say.

  He laughs. “I’ve only done it once a long time ago. It’s kind of a local thing, if you know what I mean.”

  Funny how people use that word here—local. It doesn’t always refer to the people who live here, because then we’d all be locals. Sometimes it means people who talk pidgin. People who don’t go to private schools, people who live in Waimanalo.

  He drives back to the wide expanse of Diamond Head Road, and I wonder if Shangri La was just a part of the show-her-around tour. We follow a trolley filled with people holding their phones toward the ocean, catching shots of the surfers and people at the lookout holding their phones out too. The thing with tourists—you can’t blame them. This view is beautiful, and no matter how long you’ve been here—the ocean and sunsets, the light at six A.M., the light at six P.M.—it never gets old. The thought gives me patience as we trail the trolley down the hill past the lighthouse.

  “So how long are you living in the cottage for?” he asks.

  It’s like he’s asking me how long I’m going to be using something of his.

  “This sort of got sprung on me,” I say, wanting to apologize.

  “Oh, I’m sure it got sprung on your mom too.” He smiles in a way that feels like pity. We drive past the fountain, then loop around and drive into the Outrigger, its O sign with the paddle across it, like a heart pierced by an arrow. He stops in the roundabout.

  “Did you want to check things out in there?”

  “Um, okay,” I say, nervous and somewhat excited to be seen with him.

  “Yeah, grab something to eat, get some sun, hang for a while? Or I can take you back.”

  “I’ll hang out,” I say.

  “Cool. I need to get going, but my number’s seven, eight, one, two—feel free to order whatever and put it on my tab.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I get out, because what else can I do but show him I didn’t think he was going to come in with me? I won’t let him think that I was looking forward to walking in there with him, getting something to eat with him. That would be crazy.

  “Thanks for the tour,” I say, making my voice sound joyful and carefree.

  “You’re welcome,” he says. “See you around.”

  He drives off, and I wave, mumbling to myself, “What the shitshow was that?”

  • • •

  I don’t know where to go. I’ve been to the Outrigger a few times, but always with my mom. I walk down a set of stairs. Some women are in the basement of the parking garage, paddling in a stationary canoe—a two-seater hull placed in a vat of water that the paddlers use to focus on technique or something. It’s a treadmill version of a canoe; they paddle furiously, but don’t go anywhere. I look down at myself as if my non-belonging is something detectable, though it’s probably the only exclusive club in the world where you look misplaced if you’re overdressed versus underdressed. The women here, maybe around sixty years old, are barefoot and in bathing suits, practical, sporty ones, though one wears a bikini. She has wild frizzy curls and a plumeria tucked behind her ear. She gives me a friendly look, and I pretend I should be here.

  In the hallway that leads out to the club, a group of guys walk from the other end. I recognize them from school and, without thinking, duck into the locker room so I don’t have to pass them in the narrow hall. I can’t just stand in front of the room attendant, a Filipino woman whose eyes light up as though she recognized me, so I go into the girls’ locker room, hoping no one from my school will be there, but it’s pretty empty—just a few six- or seven-year-old kids. They stand in front of the mirrors, striking funny poses. Their bikinis are so cute, just like the ones teenagers wear, but smaller. On the mainland people would probably freak out, think them too sexy, but here, it’s just how it goes.

  Where are their mothers? Kids are so free here. It makes them seem older, more capable, coordinated, but wild.

  The little girl in the magenta bikini and trucker hat tells the other girl to put the shampoo back where it belongs. The friend obliges, and when she walks past me, I catch a scent of something familiar. It’s the smell of Whitney’s hair and her friends’—and even Will’s—the scent I associated with privilege and popularity, beauty, ease, and laughter. Really, it’s just the club’s Costco brand shampoo.

  8

  IT’S THURSDAY, SO I’M GOING SURFING WITH DANNY after his tennis practice. He’s the only guy I know who does varsity football in the fall and tennis in the spring. Even though the courts are way up by the kindergarten, I always park down by the academy so he can stop by his locker. On this campus, you start at the top, then descend to high school at the bottom.

  I watch people going into Montague with their instruments—cellos, violins, and guitars—and then I see Danny walking and I honk. A group of seniors sitting in front of the Mamiya building look my way, and I’m sort of glad to have them witness Danny getting into my car, lending me some cool. His brown hair has a gold tint from the sun. He seems above everyone, so tall that he doesn’t notice all the girls looking up at him.

  “What’s up, Little Donkey?” he says, getting in. He pats me on the head.

  “What’s up?” I
say back. Ironically, if we weren’t good friends, we’d probably hug or kiss—everyone seems to do a lot of that here, this effortless affection between people who aren’t going out. They hug when they come and go, girls and girls, girls and boys. They walk with their arms over one another. They sit on each other’s laps. It’s an intimacy I envy and that I look away from, in case the envy is apparent.

  I hit him on the leg.

  That’s as intimate as it gets.

  I head out of school, past the science center and theater, then slow at the Wo International Center until security waves me on.

  “Tonggs or Diamond Head?” I ask when we’ve made it to the road.

  “Why don’t we just go to your new house?” he says. “Paddle out from there.”

  I never considered doing that. Could I have people over on just my sixth day living there? I drive up the hill toward UH, then wait in the long line to merge onto the highway.

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Of course you can,” Danny says. “It’s where you live, right? You have your own access now. It’s killer. This is going to be so much easier.”

  “But I don’t know if I’m allowed to have people over.” I reach across him to the glove compartment for my gum and hit his knees. His body seems to take up the entire car. “I can’t walk up by the house. Yeah. I don’t think I can do that.”

  “It’s not like we’ll be rummaging through their fridge.” I hand him the gum; he takes a piece and puts the pack away. “We’ll just walk, walk, walk—” He uses his fingers on the console between us to imitate us walking. “We won’t make noise. We won’t litter or poop on the lawn—”

  “Poop on the lawn?”

  “We won’t do anything. We will be upstanding citizens. The West home will not become a Genshiro Kawamoto property on our clock.”

  I laugh at the reference to the Japanese billionaire who bought more than two dozen properties along Kahala Avenue and invited native Hawaiian families to move in free of charge. Walls have been tagged with spray paint, pools filled with garbage, beer cans, even needles. Tennis courts are cracked and crumbling. He put marble statues around the properties and landscaped with rows of loud and busy plants and flowers. The homes look apocalyptic, like the remains of a once-grand society.

  “It’s almost like performance art,” I say.

  “No, I’ve told you already,” Danny says. “It’s a social experiment. Watch these Hawaiians ruin their riches. Embarrassing.”

  “I think he’s just nuts.” I pull my skirt down because it’s creeping up. Danny looks down, then quickly the other way, out the window, chewing his gum.

  “You should totally invite him over. You’re his neighbor now! These are your peeps.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

  We cruise down H-1 quickly. The traffic’s going the other way. I don’t think I’ve ever driven here without tons of traffic going in one direction or the other, usually both. It’s like Hawaii is stuffed to the gills, bringing in but not putting out, like a hoarder. I take the Waialae exit, still not quite used to my new route home.

  “It’s not my neighborhood. And I’m not inviting anyone over. I still don’t think we should surf there.” I try to stay immune to his charm.

  “Don’t overthink, overthinker. Seriously.” He does a drumroll on my leg, and I bounce his hands off.

  “It’s better than underthinking,” I say. “And stop distracting me. I’m driving. Your life is in my hands.” I mimic his wiggly eyebrow, purposefully doing it in a way that looks hideous. I don’t tell him about Will, since I don’t know if my experience was good or bad. Was he just doing what his mom told him to do? Did he enjoy it? It was weird, and yet I prefer that it happened versus nothing happening at all.

  “We’re going to your house,” Danny says. “That’s it.”

  “My house,” I say. “My house on Kahala Avenue.”

  “Yup. Your house on Kahala Avenue. Get used to the way that sounds. Own it, baby. You just need to trade this shit car in for a Mercedes, and you’ll fit right in.”

  “I’ll need to do a lot more than that,” I say, though I couldn’t say what that would be. “And it’s not a shit car. I love my li’l Hyundai.”

  “Hurry,” Danny says. “Cut in front of the bus. Go, li’l Hyundai donkey.”

  “I don’t want to cut in front of the bus.”

  “Cut in front of da bus!” He scoots toward the dash and bounces in his seat.

  I zoom ahead, cutting in front of the bus and the cars turning into the mall in time to turn right.

  “Nice pidgin,” I say. “‘Da bus.’ What’s next, saying ‘goden’ instead of ‘golden’?”

  “And ‘jewry’ instead of ‘jewelry,’” he says. “I can swing bot’ ways, la dat.” He finds a mellow song and sits back, relaxed. He can get so amped up and then just slump into chillness. It’s funny.

  “So do you like Whitney?” he asks. “You girls going to be friends?”

  “Doubt it,” I say. “She’s probably all set.” And yet, who knows? She did seem friendly; she asked me to come over and lay out. “She’s okay,” I say. “She doesn’t phrase everything as a question?”

  “Does she post daily bikini shots on Insta?” Danny says.

  “I hope not. That is so icky.”

  “Insta icky,” he says with a funny, girly voice. “I’m not discouraging it, though.” I look over at him grinning. His legs take up so much room. He drums his hands against his stomach in time to the beat. How does one look so much like a little boy and a grown man at the same time? I glance briefly at myself, my breasts, my legs, and wonder if he feels the same way about me.

  “Do you always have to be drumming something?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Let me drum up some answers and get back to you.”

  I imitate an idiot laughing. “Dork,” I say.

  The homes are getting bigger as we approach the ocean.

  “What do you think of Will?” I ask.

  “You already crushing?” He smiles, yet his eyes look wary.

  “No, I’m not crushing. I’m just wondering what to think.”

  “I don’t know him that well,” Danny says. “Different crowd.”

  “He showed me around yesterday,” I say. Now that I think about it, it was kind of nice of him to give me his club number, even though I didn’t use it. “It was cool. He took me to the Outrigger.”

  “Rad,” Danny says, looking out the window.

  “He showed me Doris Duke’s. Have you jumped from there? Will said it was kind of sketchy.”

  “The jump? Not at all.”

  “No, like it’s kind of local.”

  Danny rolls his eyes. “Please, are you serious? That is the most tool thing to say.”

  That seems aggressive for Danny. I rarely hear him speak badly about anyone, and I wonder if he’s jealous that I could have another guy friend who’s nothing like him.

  I drive down Kahala Avenue and recognize that lady from paddling in the basement. She’s jogging in a bikini. I wonder if she ever wears clothes. I slow down when we near the house, and then we arrive.

  “This is it,” I say.

  I use my opener, and the gates part slowly.

  Danny takes off his seat belt. “I can’t imagine being like, “‘Dad, I’m home. Can you make me a Hot Pocket?’”

  “I can’t imagine your dad having Hot Pockets in his house,” I say.

  “He has laulaus,” Danny says. “The original Hot Pocket.”

  I drive in, scoping things out. The Wests’ house always seems deserted to me, and you can’t see their garage, so I never know who’s here.

  “Welcome to my lovely home,” I say. “Can I offer you a Hot Pocket?”

  “This is frickin’ lovely,” Danny says.

  I park in front of our garage. Danny gets out and
looks up at our cottage. “You’re so stoked.”

  “I know,” I say. For the first time, I feel a sense of ownership, and because of that, I almost want to downplay the coolness of being here. I start to get the boards out of the car while Danny looks around. It’s not that we haven’t seen versions of this before. That’s the thing with private schools—which we’ve both gone to since kindergarten—we’re all bumped up next to each other. In Hawaii it seems to be even more so.

  In film and literature class, I’m in a group of five for presentations, and last week we all went to Kayla’s house after school to watch one of the movies. Kayla is in that group of girls who hang out with Whitney. She’s tall, Chinese, a little ditzy. I went over, prepared for a fancy house, but hers was a bland concrete box in Kaimuki, and her parents were gambling with old people in their carport.

  I strip down to my suit—green top, purple bottoms; girls here don’t wear matching sets—and Danny takes off his shirt, showing his lean, muscled torso.

  “This way,” I say, then walk like I know where I’m going.

  Danny walks alongside me, waddling a bit.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I ask.

  “I’m, uh, kind of chafed.”

  “Oh,” I say. I look over at the V muscle running down into his shorts, then look away. “Use Vaseline.”

  “Any other girl would have been, like, eew.”

  “I’m saying that on the inside.” We walk side by side across the lawn. When a breeze hits the palms and the hedge alongside us, it sounds like it’s raining.

  “How do you know to use Vaseline?” he asks. “I didn’t realize you had experience with this matter.”

  “It just makes sense,” I say.

  “Balls and Vaseline—”

  “They go hand in hand.” I bite my lower lip.

  Danny laughs, something that always makes me proud—cracking a boy up. I don’t know why it matters to me, or pleases me, maybe because I rarely see girls do it. They’re always the laughers, and sometimes it’s so frequent, it’s not even laughter anymore—just space filler.

  We’re closer to the main house. When we pass the yardmen, they turn off their weed whackers and look down, waiting for us to go by. I try to look at the home without looking, not wanting to get caught caring. I can see right through it—there’s a wide entry with glass doors between us and the ocean. I can see the pool on the other side, extending toward the whitecapped sea, making it seem like the ocean has an inlet to the house.