The Aloha Spirit

by Linda Ulleseit

Noelani just stared. A heavy silence fell over the table.

  “You won’t be losing income since I won’t be leaving any laundry undone. I’ll make the beds before I leave. We’re going to Hanauma Bay. Peter will pick us both up and have us home before dark,” Dolores said. She looked at Noelani and refused to break eye contact.

  Noelani had already approved Maria’s day with her beau. She turned to Maria. “Dis be true, ya?”

  Maria nodded.

  “‘A‘ole pilikia. No problem. I approve.” Kanoa went back to his newspaper as if his word settled matters. Not sure, Dolores waited for Noelani to speak.

  “Nevvah saw keiki so maha‘oi,” Noelani muttered. “You take big advantage, Dolores.”

  Dolores’s heart sang. She didn’t care if Noelani thought she was rude. She was going to the beach with Maria and Peter!

  “Don’t think you be goin’ to the beach every day now,” Noelani said.

  Kanoa lowered the paper long enough to wink at Dolores, taking the sting out of Noelani’s scolding.

  “Get your things,” Maria said with a wide smile.

  It didn’t matter that she’d only had a few bites of breakfast. Dolores hurried, as if being chased by the fiery goddess Pele herself, to gather the towel and bathing suit that Maria had lent her. When they left the house, Dolores urged Maria down the street a few houses so they’d be out of range if anyone should remember a task for her to do. The sun warmed Dolores’s skin, but it couldn’t shine brighter than her smile.

  Soon Peter pulled up, driving a battered black farm truck. Maria waved and climbed into the front seat. “Oh, I’m so glad you could get away, Dolores!” Peter called. “Climb in!”

  Dolores squeezed into the front seat. Maria giggled as she pressed closer to Peter, who looked more relaxed without his uniform. Dolores spotted bundles of food, towels, folded-up beach chairs, and an umbrella in the back of the truck.

  “Beach Express at your ladies’ service,” Peter intoned. They laughed at him.

  “Why aren’t we going to Waikiki?” Dolores asked him, “It’s closer.”

  “Too many tourists,” Peter said. “They’re taking over the beach! At Hanauma we’ll be among locals.”

  Dolores settled back to enjoy the ride. It didn’t matter where they went as long as they made a day of it. Peter told them of his little brother’s antics, and they all laughed as they bounced along the dirt roads to Hanauma, east of Honolulu near the Koko Head Crater.

  Peter parked just off the road and unloaded the truck. They carried everything down the steep rock-lined path to the sand. Swimmers dotted the lagoons, and bathing beauties reclined on the sand. In the turquoise shallows, a couple of boys played with a large beach ball. Peter shoved the umbrella pole into the sand while Maria unfolded the wooden beach chairs and brushed off the striped canvas.

  Maria held up a towel and Dolores changed into the borrowed tank swimsuit. Peter then held the towel for Maria, pretending to peek at her and laughing at Dolores’s blush. Peter was already wearing his swim trunks and just had to remove his shirt before racing into the surf.

  Most of the people Dolores saw were teenagers. Conscious of being younger, Dolores tried to stand up straight and not embarrass Maria. Peter teased both of them. Dolores never felt inadequate or too young when she was with them.

  Maria and Dolores waded into the shallows. Warm water kissed Dolores’s ankles, and the glorious sun embraced her body. Peter ran by them and dove into the breaking waves. He came up and shook the saltwater from his eyes. “Come on in, sissies!” He grabbed Maria’s hand, ignored her squeals, and dragged her into the water. When she was thoroughly dunked, he came for Dolores.

  “No, no! Don’t get my hair wet!” She tried to run back to the beach, but it was no use.

  He laughed as he dunked her next to Maria. “You can’t come to the beach and not go in the water, ladies!”

  Maria’s hair hung in drowned strands. Dolores’s looked the same. They laughed and splashed Peter until he begged for mercy. Down the beach, a group of teenage boys yelled back and forth as they bodysurfed.

  “The Medeiros boys,” Peter said, his tone rich with disapproval. “They’re wild.”

  Dolores thought it looked like they were having fun.

  MUCH later, tired and sunburned, they shook sand out of their towels and loaded the truck. The sky flared orange and purple and red, throwing the palm trees into silhouette as the sun set over the ocean. The beauty of O‘ahu spilled aloha from her heart. Feeling happier than she had since her father’s letter that fall, Dolores imagined natives in their canoes paddling mail to the mainland. In January, unprecedented rain had drenched Honolulu. Dolores had tried to believe the rain impeded the mail, but she knew better. She had received a short note from him in late February, dashed off as if something to check off a list, thanking her for her letter and saying he was glad she was happy. In her response to him, Dolores asked about whether Paul was attending school and repeated her request to join them even though she was beginning to believe her life now was here in Honolulu. She’d get through the worst days by thinking about the best ones.

  Peter pulled up in front of Noelani’s house. Dolores thanked him and hopped out of the truck, leaving the engaged couple to say their good-byes in private. Inside, Kanoa sat in his cane chair near the radio. Wild noises from the boys’ room identified their location. Leia was in the kitchen doing dishes. Noelani’s sewing machine whirred as she shouted instructions to her youngest daughter.

  “Did you have fun, Dolores?” Kanoa asked.

  “Yes, sir, I did. Thank you for letting me go.”

  “That leftover kālua pork smells amazing,” Maria said, coming inside with shining eyes. “If we clean up, can we eat now?”

  Noelani nodded. “Work in the mornin’,” she reminded the girls. Her tone seemed gentler than usual, but maybe it was Dolores’s relaxed mood. Noelani hummed a Hawaiian melody as she sewed. “Kine nice have ‘ohana home,” she said. Dolores smiled, but Noelani had already turned back to the machine.

  The happiness from the day at the beach didn’t last long. Dolores was up to her elbows in laundry before the next day’s sun could warm Hanauma’s sand. At least Maria helped her today.

  Dolores said, “The beach was so lovely. Time to get back to work, though.” She grimaced. “Hard work builds aloha.” Her mimicry echoed Noelani.

  “You know,” Maria said, “Noelani may be hard on you, but she never turns away anyone who needs ‘ohana. Everyone is welcome in her home. That’s the aloha spirit.”

  “More welcome if they can do laundry,” Dolores said in a snippy tone, but guilt made her stomach clench. Maria was right. She had food, a place to sleep, and everything she needed. Only a spoiled girl wanted more, and Dolores had never been spoiled.

  “Noelani comes from a big old Hawaiian family and wanted many children,” said Maria. “Four of her babies died. I don’t think she can have any more. That’s why she adopts so many. Remember you can love someone yet not love everything they do or say.”

  “Oh,” Dolores said, guilt reducing the word to the tiniest breath.

  “That doesn’t mean you have to cower before her, though,” Maria said sternly. “Stick up for yourself, or she’ll always order you around. To achieve aloha, you need to love yourself first. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t help.”

  Stung, Dolores gave the shirt she was scrubbing extra attention. When Maria didn’t say any more, she peeked at her friend. Maria waited. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself!” Dolores said. “Just thinking about what you said.”

  Even after Maria’s lecture, it took Dolores a few days to muster the courage to ask about going to Maria’s wedding. “Will I be allowed to attend, Noelani?”

  The big Hawaiian woman’s eyes narrowed. “Pretty cheeky you ask me dis.”

  Dolores remembered Maria’s words and kept her chin up.

  “You deserve free time, ya? I never get free time. Make a body lazy.”

  “I
’m not lazy.”

  Noelani shook her head back and forth, but her eyes lit up. “Weddings important part of young wahine’s life. All friends be dere. You go have good time. Laundry, she will wait, ya? We all have de big lū‘au after.”

  Dolores refused to let her jaw drop open. Everyone would go? When Noelani hurried out of the room on an errand, Dolores turned to Kaipo, who had heard the whole exchange. “Who was that woman?” she joked.

  “You’ve made your place,” he said. “Passed a test, so to speak. You work hard and Mama appreciates that. Don’t expect special favors every day though. The work does have to get done.”

  Still dumbfounded, Dolores headed to the laundry tubs on the back lana‘i where she immersed herself in soap, water, and fabric. Had Noelani been getting nicer, or was it just that Dolores knew her job now?

  Dolores expected the day of Maria’s wedding to be special, but the sun rose as usual. There were no extra bird songs or blooming flowers. It was an ordinary day. It didn’t matter. She knew it would always be special in Maria and Peter’s hearts. The priest celebrated Mass at Our Lady of Peace with the usual people in attendance. Afterward, as the parishioners trickled out, Peter and Maria made their way to the altar.

  Peter and Maria stood before the priest, lost in each other’s eyes, as he performed a simple service. God would bless this union, he told them, but Dolores knew God had blessed her friends some time ago.

  She rode the streetcar with the newlyweds back to Noelani’s for a lū‘au feast. Dolores remembered how shocked she had been by the number of people who attended Noelani’s Sunday dinners. That number paled compared to the wedding celebration. An ukulele played, and the musician sang a Hawaiian song whose melody flowed around them like the tide.

  In the kitchen, Noelani prepared poi, rice, poke, lomi, and saimin. “This dish be like Hawai‘i,” Noelani told Dolores, pointing to the saimin. “It be all mixed up—Chinee noodles and Japanee broth and Portugee sausage. Cabbage from Koreans.”

  “What do the Hawaiians add?” Dolores asked.

  “Eggs!” Noelani laughed.

  Dolores had never seen such a light in the older woman’s eye. This was what she lived for, a celebration of life with all the people she held dear. Dolores took the big bowl of saimin out of Noelani’s hands and put it on the table that was already groaning with food. She said, “Go. It’s your daughter’s wedding.”

  Noelani grasped Dolores in her work-roughened hands and squeezed. As Noelani untied her apron and hurried into the yard, though, Dolores saw her wipe her eyes.

  Dolores joined the crowd in the yard to watch Kali, Meli, and Leia perform a hula dance in grass skirts and leis. They moved their feet gracefully, skirts rustling as they moved their hips. Dolores had to admit they were adorable. Kaipo led Polunu and Makaha in a tribal dance to a pounding drumbeat. The younger boys needed more practice, but they stamped their feet with youthful enthusiasm. When Koa and Nui unlayered the banana leaves and hauled the kālua pig out of the imu, the underground oven, steam curled into the air with a scent to make stomachs growl. Hundreds of guests, most of them Hawaiian, filed past the laden tables both inside and outside. They settled wherever they could sit or lean and dug into plates piled high with good food.

  At the end of a long and joyous celebration, Maria and Peter left by carriage for three days at the Moana Hotel on Waikiki. Dolores knew Maria would pretend to be a tourist and let others do the work.

  The next day Dolores picked up her work at Noelani’s with the lightest heart she’d had since their day at Hanauma. If she expected any long-lasting changes in her relationship with her hānai mother, though, she was soon corrected. Toppled stacks of dirty sheets and stained towels hid her usual laundry baskets. The family’s piles of grass-stained short pants, food-stained shirts, and who-knows-what-stained underthings towered over the baskets.

  “Have you taken on the laundry for the entire Moana Hotel?” Dolores asked, visualizing sheets and towels showing up from Maria and Peter’s honeymoon room.

  “None of the smart lip,” Noelani said. “You take day off and you make up for it, ya?”

  Dolores stayed out of school that day to catch up with the laundry.

  One day that week, Meli came onto the lana‘i. Dolores smiled, pushed a stray auburn curl out of her eyes, and bent to pick up another wet shirt. Without a word, Meli held out a letter, dark eyes wide. “Mahalo, sweetheart,” Dolores said. Meli smiled and ran back into the house, the screen door slamming behind her.

  Dolores turned the letter over. Postmarked California. This letter might be the summons that rescued her from drudgery. It might not. Dolores’s corner of the world consisted of the two metal laundry tubs, the washing machine, and the wicker chair in the laundry corner of the screened lana‘i. The misshapen seat of the chair molded itself to her as she sat. She tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter.

  Dear Dolores,

  I am becoming quite the prune farmer! I work at a small orchard in Sunnyvale owned by Granville Savage. Isn’t that a curious name? He came by wagon train from Canada when he was just a boy. Now he sells prunes to the California Prune and Apricot Growers, more commonly known as Sunsweet. Much better name, right? They sell all manner of prune goods—canned, dried, juice—they even sell apricot pit oil. Sunsweet is a cooperative of small orchardists like the one I work for. Your brother works pitting apricots. We are staying at a small place in Mountain View. California is a beautiful place, sunny and warm most of the year. Its beaches aren’t as nice as Hawai‘i, but it does have flowers and palm trees. I think we can be happy here.

  Love,

  Your Papa

  Dolores wondered if his “we” would ever include her. When the laundry was finished, she borrowed a pen and blank paper from Kanoa to write an immediate answer.

  Aloha mai e Papa,

  Prunes are disgusting although I do like apricots. My favorite, of course, is pineapple. Honolulu becomes more popular with tourists every day. Maria sells leis to them, and the older boys teach surfing. I help around the house and go to school. I read well, sew, and do laundry now. Recently I attended Maria and Peter’s wedding.

  Me ka aloha,

  Dolores

  If he wouldn’t ask about her, and instead went on about his life that didn’t include her, then she could do the same. On her way to school, she stopped at the plantation store to get a two-cent stamp and put her letter in the mailbox. Dolores realized with a start that she no longer pined for Papa and Paul. She could be happy in a real family, even if it wasn’t hers. It wasn’t hard work she detested, it was the stern Hawaiian woman who stubbornly clung to her pidgin, who had somehow convinced Papa to leave, who created her own family by destroying other families.

  SIX

  Luna 1924

  On January 15, 1924, Dolores turned nine years old. Her father had deemed Paul to be useful at that age. She compared herself to her memories of her brother and was satisfied. It had been eighteen months since Papa left. She no longer hoped for him to call her to California. If she didn’t care, no one could break her heart again.

  Dolores often pictured the day she would walk away from Noelani’s with all her belongings in her old suitcase, walk away forever of her own volition and head for a future she controlled. That future still wasn’t clear, but it included family and home. She might live with Noelani now, but it wasn’t a family, no matter how hard Noelani tried to pretend it was.

  One morning at breakfast, Noelani turned from the kitchen sink to face Dolores. Her dark braid fell down the left side of her head and garnished at the top with a plumeria flower. She always wore flowers above her left ear because that told people she was married. To Dolores she said, “You be helping in the kitchen today.”

  Dolores’s fork froze halfway to her mouth. “What about the laundry?”

  “When we done making the dinner, you show Leia the laundry.”

  Dolores’s mouth dropped open, and her eyes shot to Leia, who looked equally shock
ed, her eyes wide and white against her dark skin. Leia was six now, and Dolores had started doing laundry at seven. She shook her head.

  “Whassa matter, keiki? You no like?”

  “No, no, that’s fine.” Dolores set her fork on her plate and cleared her dishes to the sink. Makaha washed the kitchen dishes, and Polunu cleared the counter to prepare the evening meal. Then they muttered something about homework and escaped to their room.

  Noelani took a chicken out of the ice box and set it on the counter. “We make chicken. Soy, pineapple, ginger on top, ya?”

  Dolores nodded. Noelani showed her how to chop up the chicken. Dolores got a bowl from the cupboard and put the chicken in it while Noelani gathered more ingredients. Together they made a sauce of ginger, garlic, onion, paprika, and vinegar. “Smells ‘ono, Noelani,” Dolores said with a smile.

  Noelani mixed the sauce to cover the chicken. “Delicious, ya.” She told Dolores how to make another sauce of soy sauce, pineapple, and brown sugar. “You make now, ya? Put on top after he cooking.”

  Dolores mixed the sauce and put it in the fridge with the chicken. She would pull it all out when it was time to make dinner.

  “Now the laundry.” Noelani shooed Dolores out of the kitchen onto the back lana‘i. Leia sat curled up on the wicker chair, looking nervous.

  “Ready to learn about laundry?” Dolores asked. Leia rolled her eyes. Dolores muttered to herself, “This is going to be a long day.”

  She didn’t make Leia start with a sheet like Maria had done to her. Instead, they started with an easy load of shirts. To Leia’s credit, she didn’t complain until after the first rinse.

  “Now we have to move them into the washer itself,” Dolores said.

  “But they’re so heavy. So wet.” Leia’s tone was not quite a whine but going that direction fast.

  Remembering her own learning process, Dolores said, “Look, it wasn’t my idea to teach you. I was a year older than you when I started, and it was hard then.”

  Leia rolled her eyes. “I’m better than that.”