Juniors

by Kaui Hart Hemmings

  “What about you?” I say. “What are you going to do the rest of break?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Eat. Just kidding. I’ve been eating like a frickin’ . . .” She can’t seem to think of a simile.

  “Whale shark,” I say because I hate unfinished sentences.

  We get to the entrance of Kailua town, and again I’m warmed by its familiarity, the way I feel an ownership over it, despite not having lived here that long. But my grandparents did, so that counts. Even though I didn’t grow up here, I feel I’ve grown from them, like I’m something indigenous and not a Norfolk pine.

  “Oooh, can we hit up Mu’umu’u Heaven on the way back?” Whitney asks as we pass the store.

  “Shoots,” I say. We turn at the banyan tree, and Whitney sees more shops she wants to stop at on our way back, which sounds fun. We’ll make a day of it, hanging in my sweet hometown.

  • • •

  The surf is, indeed, epic. Glassy and fun. Whitney follows me wherever I paddle, and when I catch a wave and paddle back out, she always looks a bit lost. She’s out of her element, shy; I can still feel that way surfing—intimidated, embarrassed to be seen falling—but maybe since she looks nervous, it takes that all away. She’s holding it for me. I know exactly how she feels—like a tourist and like a girl.

  But I’m not a hostess. I can tell she wants to go in, but I paddle past her to get farther out and closer to the island. I sit in the lineup with the boys, nodding at a few I recognize and even those I don’t. Some people ride standup boards, some are on one-man canoes. From Lanikai, a four-man yellow canoe points toward us, a few kids hanging off the ama.

  It’s one of those crowded days when you don’t mind the number of people—it’s like everyone here came alone but is now in on something together, bonded by these hours, by one of the choices they made today that happened to be the same choice as everyone here.

  When my arms can’t take another paddle back out and my ribs hurt from the board, I go for one more, then paddle to Whitney.

  “Grab lunch?” I ask.

  “Yes!” she says, looking burnt and weak.

  I catch a wave in for as long as I can, then paddle the rest of the way to the boat ramp. When I look back, Whitney is far behind.

  • • •

  We’re giddy eating hamburgers at Kalapawai. Sun-soaked sore bodies, salty skin, and huge plates of food. “This is some bomb-ass shit,” I say with a full mouth, and she laughs—honk!—which makes us both laugh. She honks again, then takes a sip of her soda.

  “Bomb-ass shit,” she says and we both nod. “Nom nom.”

  We finish the rest in silence, and when we walk to the car, she burps and we rub our stomachs.

  • • •

  Before we hit the shops, she asks to stop at Lanikai to take a picture of the Mokuluas. It takes forever to find parking—there are rental cars everywhere.

  “So many tourists,” I say, as we walk down the beach path. “So annoying.”

  “I know, and what’s up with the kayaks?”

  “Rides of shame.”

  She’s puts on her oversized cap with bright flowers on the face. I’m wearing my favorite—a Mike Field design that I haven’t seen on anyone else yet. The beach is so packed that it resembles Waikiki. When Target is built, this will all get worse.

  We’re both still in our bikinis, but have pareos tied around our waists.

  “Let’s just take the pic, then ditch.” She stands in the ocean so she’s situated between the two distant islands. Everyone takes their picture between them, and at least for me, it never gets old. It creates a perfect symmetry and is always exotic and captivating. The subject is between two everlasting things.

  She poses, and I snap the picture with her phone. She laughs while she smiles, that uncomfortable laugh everyone uses when waiting for a picture to be taken.

  “’Kay, come,” she says.

  I walk to her, and she takes the phone and holds it out in front of us. “Selfish,” she says through her teeth. I like selfies. You can really pose because you’re not being looked at.

  “Cheese,” she says.

  “Cheesy,” I say.

  “Fromage!” she says.

  “Aw,” I say. “You’re learning!”

  • • •

  First we go to San Lorenzo to look at bathing suits. We both try on countless tops and the teeniest bottoms I have ever worn.

  “Come out,” she says from the room next door.

  “I am not coming out,” I say, looking at my ass in the bright light.

  She slides my curtain open. She’s wearing bottoms with a thick, low white band and about an inch of purple fabric covering the essentials. I guess that’s why she waxes it all off: mere safety precautions.

  “Oh my God, that looks so dope on you,” she says.

  I grabbed it from the back of the shop. The sides of the bottoms are strings that connect the block-print fabric. The bandeau top is pulled together in the middle by a set of strings.

  “Your body is, like, banging,” she says. “Is that Acacia?”

  “What?” I turn and look at my ass in the mirror, the fabric riding up then out.

  “Acacia,” she says. “The brand.”

  I look at the tag to see the brand and notice the price. One hundred and twenty, which I’ve come to realize is kind of standard for a suit, but then in the mirror, I see a tag coming out of the top too. I try to lift it a bit and read: $110.

  “Holy shizz,” I say. “Not happening.”

  “I know. They’re super cher. You could buy just the bottoms.”

  “I’m not spending that much on just bottoms. And, dude, good job with your French.”

  “Do you like mine?” she asks.

  She turns around and does what I just did—looks at her ass. Bikinis and jeans—the way the ass looks determines everything.

  “I like the pattern,” I say. “But honestly that band bottom thing I see everywhere. It’s not the most flattering.”

  “I know,” she says. “Kinda played. ’Kay, I’m going to go with the bunched one. You know the ones that bunch in the butt?”

  We both laugh. “That sounds so wrong,” I say.

  She goes to her room, and we change back into our own suits. When we come out, she asks if I’m going to get anything.

  I tried on four sets of suits. “Nothing really worked,” I say. “Except the one.”

  She looks forlorn or pantomimes the look of it. “Let me get it for you,” she says. “It was so cute. And you drove today.”

  “No!” I say. “It wouldn’t cost me two thirty to fill a quarter of a tank.”

  “Come on,” she says. “We had the best day ever.”

  I shake my head.

  “Yes,” she says, using a businesslike decisive tone. “I’ll get one too. We can be twins.”

  I notice in her pack of suits she has also tried on an Acacia, though the pattern is different, and the style is slightly different too. I guess I can now officially recognize the brand.

  I’m touched and follow her to the counter, part of me dragging, part of me feeling like I do when my mom brings home swag—getting to have something I’d never buy for myself. We did have the best day ever, and it’s still going strong, yet it’s the recognition of this that makes me say, “No. I’m not letting you get it for me.”

  “Aww,” she says, “boo.” But I wonder if she’s partly relieved.

  She goes to the counter and hands over her suits to the young, dark-haired woman who has a friendly plumeria tucked behind her ear but a not-so-friendly face.

  I wander around the clothes section of the store, looking at airy dresses and their accompanying price tags. I said no because I don’t want to be—or worse, feel—indebted, but also because I don’t want to set a standard. Like how the s
not bubble came out of her nose the first day we talked—it set a tone for us, and this would set a tone too, but the wrong one. I like that we’re different but can still be ourselves. I didn’t hold her hand surfing, and she’s not going to hold my hand now. I think about her seventh-grade birthday party, how she became known for providing a good time. I’m sure she’s set herself up for this with her other friends, that they expect her to cover things for them.

  I walk back over to the register and see she’s buying just one suit. She has put the Acacia to the side and I wonder—no, I know—that she’s not buying it out of respect for me.

  Transaction complete. We walk out of the store to a cheerful ding and the bright sunshine and music coming from Island Snow next door.

  She holds the little plastic bag with her finger and makes it spin.

  “Butt buncher,” I say. “Let’s get shave ice.”

  • • •

  Lilikoi, li hing mui, guava for me. Vanilla, coconut, li hing mui for her. Before we head back, we go to Fighting Eel, HIC, Twin Islands, then finally Mu’umu’u Heaven on our way out of town. I try things on along with her and buy a Samudra clutch at Fighting Eel. I don’t want her to feel guilty about buying things in front of me. I tell her when things look good and when they look bad, and she does the same for me. She buys something at every store except Mu’umu’u Heaven, a store I loved and that had tons of Japanese tourists saying “Kawaii!” after every dress they touched.

  On the way to the car, she tells me she thought the dresses were way too expensive and they looked like cut-up muumuus.

  “That’s what they are, genius!” I laugh.

  “Oh!” she says.

  “They’re like, old-school, vintage muumuus cut up, then redesigned.”

  We get into my car and drive out of town, and she looks deep in thought.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “It’s just kind of sad,” she says.

  “What’s sad?”

  “To cut up old Hawaiian dresses. My grandma had the prettiest muumuus.”

  “So did mine,” I say, and we’re quiet for a while, both thinking about our grandmas, perhaps, or thinking about each other, having never really considered each other’s roots or lives as little girls.

  “But they’re using the past and making it . . . I don’t . . . something we’d wear. Young, you know? New school.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “That’s true.”

  We drive back over the Pali, listening to music and looking out, alone with our thoughts together.

  25

  IT FEELS A BIT AWKWARD WHEN WE GET BACK, LIKE we don’t know how to part. I drive up to the main house, realizing that I’ve completely forgotten about the possibility of Danny being in her room, and I’ve forgotten about Will. What happened with Will had just recently consumed me, entertained me, but today all thoughts of him vanished. The whole event seems like it happened long ago, or even to a different person. And what now? I just wait until he comes around again? And when he does? I hate that I can’t talk about this with Whitney.

  I park near her room, but keep the car running as she gathers her stuff.

  “Fun,” she says. “Thanks for today. For driving.” She opens the door and gets out. “Oh, my board,” she says. “How do I—” She looks up at the racks.

  “I’ll get it,” I say.

  I turn the engine off and get out, then stand up on my car to undo the straps. She gets up on her side, and I edge the board to her.

  “Can you carry all that?” I ask.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she says.

  “I’m going to go rest,” I say.

  “I know,” she says. “I’m beat.”

  We both stand there. I’m going to ask her about the hotel. “I’m just going to watch a movie or something tonight if you want to—and—”

  “That sounds so good,” she says. “But I told Mari and the girls—”

  “Cool. See you later, then!” I say. I enthuse. I can feel myself enthusing all over the place. Mari, the very person she was complaining about over hamburgers. All her friends, in fact, who she can’t be herself with—she’s always playing a role. Quote, unquote. Is that why she didn’t invite me? ’Cause I fit with her, but I don’t fit with them? I’m not sure what’s more insulting. The fact that her friends won’t accept me or that Whitney’s not making any efforts to include me. Is it like my mom and Melanie? I’m only allowed to hang with the others when I’ve done something right?

  Whitney shrugs the board up onto her hip, then makes a sound of enthusiasm, a half woot, to sum things up. She closes her door with her foot, and I drive back to my house, seeing her in the mirror struggling with her board and the bags.

  I was having so much fun, but now the whole day feels crossed out. I wasn’t a friend, I was a tour guide, a frickin’ sherpa or something. These West kids are making me go up and down, up and down, and it hurts.

  • • •

  That night I pace and I snack, all while enduring the blaze of headlights that indicate people leaving, going somewhere, doing something with friends, having destinations on this Saturday night. One flash must be Whitney, one flash must be Will, one belongs to the parents who have taken my parent with them. The cast of my mom’s show is attending an event for the Hawaii International Film Festival, and of course the Wests are also going to the very same event, so Melanie exclaimed, “Why don’t we just go in the same car?” I imagine Melanie there now, edging close to my mom whenever the photographers come around.

  After such a long day, I’m still wired, as if waiting for guests to arrive at my long-planned party. I’m even dressed cute, in a long, low-riding cotton skirt that hugs my thighs and a tight top that tucks into the skirt, fitting like a one-piece bathing suit. All dressed up and nowhere to go. All dressed up and hoping (though not admitting to hoping) that someone will come over. I wait for Will while telling myself I’m not waiting for him.

  And then I think of Danny, how I haven’t really hung out with him in so long. I want to tell him that we can all be friends even if he’s hooking up with or likes Whitney. There’s room.

  I call him, and he actually answers. “Yo,” he says.

  “Yo,” I say.

  “Where you at?”

  “I’m at home,” I say. “Like a rock star.” I look in the fridge at the same things I saw when I looked in the fridge just moments ago. That’s what tonight feels like. Like I’m expecting something to change, for some kind of treat to suddenly appear.

  “Did you have a good day?” I ask. “We haven’t hung out forever.”

  “Stellar day,” he says. “You?”

  “Same,” I say, picturing him standing there, running his hand through the tips of his hair.

  “Let’s cruise soon,” he says, and I hear some guys in the background and know he’s drinking and having fun like every other kid in the whole wide world. I liked picturing him alone. Aha! I think, and pour some wine into a cup from my mom’s open bottle in the fridge. I take a big sip.

  “Yes, I want to,” I say. “When?” I ask after I take a huge sip and then another. “When should we cruise?” I’d like to think that the drink is loosening me up, making me assertive.

  “Whenever!” he says. I hear the music in the background, and I walk to the stereo to put something on. Ideas all over the place. I’m virtually partying.

  “Or I’ll see you at the hotel,” he says, then sings, “Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn, say what?”

  Before I can say, Um. Yeah. Not invited ’cause I’m a rock star, Danny says, “Whit said you’re coming. I just talked to her.”

  “I haven’t heard a thing about it,” I say.

  “I’m sure you’ll get the four-one-one.” Why am I even hearing this from Danny? Why does she tell him things? I was just with her.

  “When did you talk to her?” I walk li
ke a toy soldier across the room.

  He shouts to someone, “One for me too, ’kay shoots!” then says, “Like just now. Downstairs. We’re at Mari’s house.”

  I take a sip of the wine, then another. Why wasn’t I invited to Mari’s house?

  “’Kay, it’s too loud,” he says. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Were you at Whitney’s last night?” I ask, moving my hips side to side.

  “Say what?” he says, but since I can’t see him, I can’t read him.

  “Are you guys going out, or what?” I ask.

  “No, we’re not going out. Aren’t you with ill Will, anyway?”

  The question is phrased weirdly. Anyway, meaning if I weren’t, then . . . Anyway, meaning why should I care about Danny?

  “Where’d you hear that?” I ask, glad he can’t see me smiling.

  “I don’t know,” he says, sounding annoyed. “Around. The coconut wireless. Watch out, though, Little Donkey. Lissa’s bigger than you.”

  “Whatever,” I say. “They’re not together.”

  “Yeah, when you’re with him, they’re not together. That’s true.”

  My heart beats something fast and ugly. I want to talk, milk all the details. Do people know about me and Will? And am I totally embarrassed or totally proud? Proud. Happy. I love the idea of him talking about me.

  “What else?” I ask. I do a pirouette.

  “What else about what?”

  “Like exactly who—” The music goes up on his end, and I hear guys yell in unison as if someone scored a goal. I want Danny to be here so we can talk about the things we’re experiencing without each other, and so we don’t have to talk in riddles. We’ve never spoken to each other this way before.

  “Are you there?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he says and I’m surprised how near he is, like he’s been just listening to the phone and nothing else, thinking and waiting just as I had been. I hear someone call his name. I’ll let him go.

  “Hey, what’s the song you were just singing?” I ask. “The hotel motel one.”