My dress does have a few stains, now that I can see it in the light, but I hope it’s salvageable. Our housekeeper, Gerdie, has a gift for getting dirt out of designer dresses. I want to keep this dress to remember a very memorable night.
As I’m reading the maintenance rules tacked to a wall, suddenly I remember my father, the prom, and my friends. I don’t even know what happened to Katherine. Caleb’s presence creates a time warp when I forget about everything else.
“Caleb?” I call down the hallway.
A door creaks open. “Yeah?”
“Is there a telephone? I better let my dad know where I am. They may have a search party out after me by now.”
“There’s a phone on my dad’s desk. I’ll be right back.”
A moment later the sound of shower water echoes from the bathroom. I hear a loud thud and a loud ouch.
“Are you okay?” Need some help? I smile to myself for that joke, but am glad I don’t say it.
“Just wrestling with my jeans,” he calls back.
I find the office and turn on the light. Mr. Kalani’s desk is neat and organized with all kinds of framed pictures, figurines, and souvenirs lined up along the edge.
A surfboard hangs from huge hooks on the wall. The framed photos depict a large family of smiling Hawaiian faces. A few show a younger Mr. Kalani surfing. One includes an adorable little boy standing in front of him as they ride a wave together. The boy studies the water seriously while Mr. Kalani is waving at the camera. That face—it must be Caleb.
The water switches off. “Which island are you from?”
“Oahu and Hawaii. My family is originally from Hawaii— most people call that the Big Island. My grandfather moved to Oahu before Pearl Harbor was invaded.”
“Did he fight in the war?”
“Yes,” Caleb calls, but doesn’t offer any more.
“My grandfather was there during the Pearl Harbor invasion. Did they know each other there?”
“They were best friends throughout the war. Have you been to any of the islands?”
Another subject diversion. “I’ve only been to Maui.”
“Maui’s nice. Every island is pretty unique.” Caleb walks into the office wearing board shorts with Hawaiian flowers and a black T-shirt with a surf shop logo. His black hair glistens with water. “Is this fitting for the prom? It’s all I have here.”
Something about him sends a shiver of fear and intrigue through my heart and into my stomach. I’ve never actually felt a physical ache over a person before. It’s strange and frightening. Does that mean this guy shouldn’t be trusted?
“I have my cell phone too,” Caleb says.
“That’s right. I was calling my father.” Strange how things are just slipping my mind like that. I pick up the office phone.
“Dad’s, it’s me,” I say when Dad picks up.
“Kate, where are you? We were about to start looking for you.”
“It’s a long story. I’m down at—”
Dad cuts me off.
“Just meet me in the lobby. Ms. Liberty is here and the prom’s been shut down.”
“Because of me?” I say, and wonder just how long I’ve been gone.
“No, no, sweetie,” Dad says, his voice calming an octave. “The Katherine incident and several of the seniors were vomiting in the bushes. We have parents and taxis on the way.”
We say our good-byes, and I hang up. “I have to go.”
Caleb nods, looking up from where he’s been texting on his phone. “I’ll drive you back in the work truck. Finn is picking me up. Guess he never left.”
We leave the maintenance building and Caleb drives me in a truck that smells like fertilizer. He keeps glancing over with a slight smile to where I’m stuffed in the seat, my dress puffed up around me. With every minute, we get closer to saying good-bye.
Oliver and I sit with our feet dangling in the pool. I’ve changed into sweats and a V-neck shirt.
“They weren’t my favorite of your shoes anyway,” Oliver says. When I finally remembered I was missing my shoes, the tide had moved in across the area where I’d tossed them. They were nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t speak ill of the dead. I loved them. Bought them in London.”
From the stories, it seems the prom disintegrated while I was gone; only a few scattered students are left. Dad and Ms. Liberty allowed those whose parents couldn’t be reached and who couldn’t drive home to stay here . . . about eight juniors are lounging around in my suite. But neither the prom nor my shoes are on my mind.
“You know I don’t believe in love,” I tell Oliver with a shake of my head. What is wrong with me tonight?
Oliver yawns and lies back staring up at the stars. “Of course you do.”
“I believe in love, but not fairy-tale love. Not true love.” My heart has had a telltale ache ever since Caleb left; the night lost all its luster once he was gone.
“I’ve never seen you like I saw you on that dance floor. I couldn’t get my eyes off you two. Well, except for when I was looking at Ursula.” Oliver rises back to his elbows and reaches for a cigarette.
I don’t even protest or remind him that this is a no-smoking area. My mind is caught going over and over the night—the dance, the beach, the walk, the fall over the fence, the maintenance building, the drive home, and our quick, anticlimactic good-bye.
I shake my head. “It’s not like that.”
“I know what I saw. It’s not the usual thing.”
“Really?” A couple walks by, and I know Monica is waiting on me. But Oliver will tell me the truth. “Is something wrong with me? Monica will say it’s because I’m inexperienced when it comes to guys.”
He touches my cheek and looks terribly sad. “You’re in deep, Katie. I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“This one is going to hurt you.”
“Caleb is going to hurt me?”
Oliver shakes his head. “Not him. He’s going to hurt as much as you. This kind of thing only turns out bad, love. And it’s already too late to stop it.”
No words come to me. Before I can formulate more questions or denials, I hear Monica call to us from the balcony.
“Hey! Get your butts up to the room. Pronto! Katherine’s drunk and babbling, and Blake’s been calling every five minutes to check on her.”
Monica is bewildered about my experience with Caleb. She wavers between anger, a smug “I told you this would happen,” and laughter. “That guy has danger written all over him.” She chuckles. “But maybe he can get you to let down your hair, or better yet, your pants.”
“I want to go home,” I say to Oliver and a weight of sadness falls on me that replaces every bit of the wonder of the night.
“Go home then. I’ll take care of Monica.”
“Thanks.”
An hour later I’m in my second story room, unable to sleep. I open up windows that I haven’t opened in a long time and stand staring into the night sky. Caleb, Caleb. Where are you, Caleb?
I wonder if he’s thinking of me?
CALEB
“Ridiculous,” Finn says, following that with a slew of profanities. “My fault.
“Drop me off at home, will you?”
“I should force you into a strip club or find some girl to distract you.”
I grip the dashboard as Finn takes a turn too fast. “Like you could.”
That unleashes another round of Finn’s favorite words with his choice F-bombs used in every possible way.
“Drop the jeep off in the morning. I get it for a month,” I say to remind him. His old jeep is his favorite vehicle and now my prize for winning the dare. That’ll teach him to challenge me. It also solves my need for a car until the Camaro is fixed.
He drops me off at home, peeling out as he drives away. If we weren’t cousins, Finn and I would probably have killed each other by now. We’ve exchanged a few rounds of punches over the years, but we love each other too.
The house is silent and
all the lights are turned off. I unlock the door and go straight to my small room off the side of the living room, setting Kate’s shoes on my bed. I just might keep them. As I sit on the twin-sized bed, the walls start pressing in around me. I grab my sleeping bag from the closet and fling it over my shoulder.
My sister’s night-light shines from her open door. Dad’s door is cracked, but both sleep soundly as I walk carefully out the back door.
I breathe in the moist air filled with the scent of pine trees and jasmine. After following the road about a half mile, I turn down a beach access trail that descends quickly from the thick pines and scrubs to gentle grassy slopes and finally out to a long, deserted beach. The tide is coming in, and it roars loudly across the sand and against the rocks at the beachhead.
On a sandy hill safe from the approaching waves, I stretch out my sleeping bag. I sit for a long time, sinking my toes through the cool sand down to the cold. It’s surprisingly warm for this time of year in northern Oregon. A few clumps of grass bounce on a breeze.
She won’t leave my head. The way she looked dancing with her eyes closed, the feel of her skin, the smallness of her hands.
“Help me, God,” I say aloud, staring up at the sky. “I’ve got a serious problem here.”
Chapter Six
Having nothing, nothing can he lose.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry VI, part 3, (Act 3, Scene 3)
KATE
I ride with Dad back to the inn the next morning while Mom and Jake go to church. Dad has been working a lot more in the last year, usually going to his office at the hotel on weekends instead of the corporate headquarters in downtown Portland.
Dad listens to either classical music or Willie Nelson when he drives. Today, thankfully, Bach plays over his iPod and through the speakers. I’m not in the mood for “Whiskey River” and “Good Hearted Woman.” My father can be a contradiction, that’s for sure.
I’m hopeful that the coffee I’m sipping will wake me up soon. I woke in my window seat, neck kinked and reeling from strange, convoluted dreams about Caleb.
In one, I was running, both away and toward the same face.
“Everyone says to stay away from you,” I yelled to him.
“Whatever you want.” And then he jumped off a cliff in a perfect swan dive, disappearing between massive rocks into a pitch-black sea.
In another, he turned toward me, taking hold of my hands.
I looked terrible, my hair all messed up, no makeup; and his stare was unnerving. “What are you looking at?” I asked.
For a moment he held a deep, thoughtful expression, then turned away.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“The way you are staring—it isn’t like you think I’m beautiful.”
He smiled. “That’s true. But do you really want to know what I think about you?”
That dream jumped to me standing barefooted on a crowded street. Everyone passed me by, brushing me off when I grabbed hold of their sleeves and asked to borrow a cell phone. Caleb sat on the back of a bench, his feet on the seat, with a wry smile on his face.
“How come you can see me? No one else can see me.”
He shrugged. “But I don’t know you at all.”
I tried falling back asleep to resurrect the dreams, because it felt like he was about to reveal something.
The dreams linger even now, annoying me as I try deciphering their meaning.
Between concertos, Dad turns down the music.
“Jerry called this morning and the hotel officially survived prom.”
“That’s good. And you survived it too.”
“Barely,” Dad says with an arch of his eyebrow. “I guess it was naïve of me to not expect it to get a little rowdy. It’s been a long time since I was your age.”
“Not that long ago. But it was a challenging night, that’s for sure.”
“Thanks for coming out to help today.”
“It’s the least I could do.” That brings a sting of guilt since helping isn’t exactly my real motive. “Dad, did you know Caleb Kalani is a student at Gaitlin?”
Dad thinks for a moment. “Ben Kalani’s son? He’s at Gaitlin?”
“Yes.”
Dad acts more thoughtful than surprised. He mutters, “That’s . . . good,” and resumes his finger taps to the rhythm of the concerto.
“He seems really nice.”
Dad nods as if thinking of something else. “If he’s anything like his father, he’ll do very well in life.”
“What do you mean? His dad does maintenance for us.”
Dad glances at me. “Yes, but . . . he’s a man of integrity.”
This is strange. Dad admires great figures in history, in business, or someone who does a great feat for God. He has a row of biographies at his offices, at the hotel, and at corporate headquarters—sometimes a copy of the same book is at both places. Sir Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Sun Tzu, Brother Andrew, and Steve Jobs are among the many. Why such respect for his head maintenance worker?
“Are you and Mr. Kalani close friends?” I don’t recall Dad mentioning anything personal about Mr. Kalani.
Dad’s index finger stops orchestrating and wraps around the steering wheel. “He’s one of the best employees I’ve ever had. I trust him completely.”
“Why does he live here but Caleb lived in Hawaii?”
Dad hesitates. He doesn’t want to talk about this. “It had something to do with his wife’s death.”
“Caleb’s mom died?”
Dad glances at me curiously then his eyes return to the road. “Cancer, I believe. They came to a cancer center in Portland. Then she passed away and Ben didn’t want to be in Hawaii anymore. Too many memories, he said.”
“That’s so sad.” We ride in silence for a few minutes. “Why didn’t Caleb come with him?”
“I’m not positive, but I think Caleb was doing competitive surfing and attending a school there. Ben asked to work for me for a few months to get away. He ended up staying and moving his daughter over.”
“Caleb has a sister?”
“A younger sister, Gabrielle. Caleb stayed with his grandfather until coming here.”
“Ms. Liberty asked me to be Caleb’s school escort.”
Dad continues to stare forward. “Why you?”
I don’t want to stir up any trouble for Ms. Liberty. With my luck, I’ll end up doing further penance. Plus the woman does mean well.
“I think because of the inn. Since we have a connection there already.”
Dad nods. “He’ll probably be working today. Mr. Kalani called in the crew to help clean up.” Dad glances at me. I act as if I don’t care one way or another.
“It’s interesting that he’d transfer this close to the end of the school year.”
“Yes, it is.” Then dad picks up his iPod and a moment later Willie Nelson is crooning through the speakers. “Willie Nelson makes me think of your grandmother. She was such a fan. She attended his concert on every tour. Your grandfather didn’t like that much—his New York wife in love with a longhaired, pot-smoking hillbilly—that’s what he called Willie.” Dad tells me some version of this story nearly every time he turns on the music.
“Dad, do we have some old family feud with the Kalani family?” I blurt out before we get too far off track.
A dark expression clouds his features.
“It was a long time ago,” he says.
“Why haven’t I heard anything about it before?”
Dad turns Willie off in the middle of a long twangy note. “It’s not something that comes up at dinner. It was decades ago.”
“But there’s still bad feelings between our families?”
Dad pulls up to a stoplight and suddenly appears tired. Lately I’ve noticed Dad looking older. His usual quick steps have slowed. Jake and I have teased him a few times, but an edge of worry nags at me. He’s blamed the long hours on the recession, but is there something more seri
ous going on?
“Sweetie, it’s complicated, and it’s in the past.”
“Just give your general overview and then I’ll leave it alone.”
Dad smiles at this. “Using my words against me, I see? Okay. Ben’s father owned the land where your grandfather built the Monrovi.”
“Oh, okay?”
“They were partners at one time. Caleb’s grandfather paid a priest or something to perform a traditional Hawaiian ceremony of cleansing and blessing on the property—that’s why the cove is called Aloha Cove. But some things happened that caused a rift in their friendship. In the end, they had a legal battle over the land. Your grandfather started building the resort while they fought over it in court. It’s obvious how it ended.”
“Was Grandpa wrong?”
“No, but he wasn’t fully right, either.”
“And that caused a family feud?”
“Well, the land was pretty important to the Kalani family. It was deeded to the family in some old grant or bet or something. It was the first piece of property on the mainland they owned. Most full-blooded Hawaiians weren’t thrilled to become U.S. citizens. They are very proud of their heritage and many feel the Americans stole their rights. Your grandfather and Mr. Kalani had been best friends during the war and afterward. I think there was a woman involved in their fall out. It’s complicated. But it mostly comes down to pride and the inability to forgive and move on. I don’t think your grandfather ever stopped hating his old best friend.”
This was a lot to process.
“Why would Mr. Kalani want to work here then?”
“After your grandfather died, I extended an open invitation to the Kalani family to stay here whenever they wished. Ben brought his family here to vacation every year. After Ben’s wife passed away, he contacted me about working the land.”
“He brought Caleb? Here?”
Dad nods. “When they did the blessing, a guy cemented a symbol on top of Seal Rock that belonged to the Kalani family. The land means something to them. But Ben doesn’t speak with his father now either. A number of his family members live in the area already, and to abbreviate this long story, I hired him and he moved here.”
“Interesting,” I say and realize we’re pulling up to the entrance of the hotel. This entirely new world is created around my thoughts about Caleb. It’s stunning just to think that over the years he vacationed at the Monrovi Inn. We’ve walked and played on the same ground since childhood. I try remembering any time that we might have met before, and suddenly I think I remember some. That was Caleb?
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