“Where are you going?”
“Who’s going to do the laundry?”
“Is she going to California?”
“Why now, Dolores?”
Dolores didn’t know who to answer or what to say. Kanoa answered, “Dolores has taken a position in the Gabler household.”
Kaipo and Koa looked at each other, confused. Nui turned toward her. “Maria and Peter?”
She appreciated that he looked at her instead of checking each answer with Noelani. “Their first child will be born later this year, and they’ve asked me to come live with them and help out.”
Nui smiled encouragement, but Kaipo choked on his food. “She needs help with one pregnancy? Crybaby haole!”
Nui’s smile disappeared and he turned on Kaipo. “Pau, Kaipo. You’ve sniped at Dolores for too long. Leave her to enjoy her last week with us in peace.”
Silence fell over the table. Dolores wasn’t sure if she liked this uncertain calm or not. It was too unusual. When her plate was empty, she escaped the table and went to the back porch. The sky lit up with impending night, producing another stunning Honolulu sunset. Dolores heard someone coming and tensed until she realized it was Nui.
“I know how it is with you,” he said. Dolores waited. “You are young and deserve to be happy. Can you be happy with Maria and Peter?”
“‘Ae, I can. They’re good to me. At first the work will be lighter.” Dolores smiled. “It’ll be like a vacation. Once the baby is born, it’ll be busier. Not just baby work, either. I’ll help with the dairy and in the house. I’ll be part of the family.”
“You’re family here,” Nui said. Dolores didn’t respond. “You work hard. I’m sure you will be an asset.”
Dolores beamed at his words. For the first time, she felt pride in the new muscles her work had produced. She would be an asset. Confidence flooded her. “Mahalo, Nui. I will miss you the most.”
“The most?” He snorted. “You mean the only!”
They laughed together. To her surprise, he wrapped her in a warm hug. “Pōmaika‘i, little sister.”
“Mahalo,” Dolores whispered as she savored his good luck wishes.
He patted her head like a big brother would, and then went back into the house.
On Saturday morning, Dolores smiled as she pulled her packed suitcase out from under the bed. Kali and Meli slept in a tumble, strands of their dark hair snaking across each other. Leia was already up. Dolores dressed quickly and headed for the kitchen with her suitcase.
Noelani and Kanoa sat at the table. The house was quiet, so Makaha and Polunu must have gone out to plan some mischief. Nui, Kaipo, and Koa were absent. Dolores set her suitcase by the door and ignored the fluttering in her stomach.
“Aloha, keiki. Have some breakfast,” Kanoa said.
“Aloha, good morning. How is your back?”
He grimaced and gave her a so-so hand gesture.
Noelani said nothing but pushed plates of food toward Dolores. The normal breakfast of bacon, rice, poi, and eggs was there, but she’d also made Portuguese sausage and coconut pancakes. Liliko‘i syrup, made from passion fruit, and pineapple orange juice, completed the offerings.
The gesture touched Dolores. Noelani had made an effort to prepare a special breakfast. Dolores smiled and heaped Portuguese sausage and pancakes on her plate, dousing it all with the sweet liliko‘i syrup. “Mahalo, Noelani. This is ‘ono.” It was delicious.
Kanoa smiled at her use of the Hawaiian words. “Stay another year and we’ll have you speaking Hawaiian like a kanaka.”
“Pau, ku‘uipo. Dolores made her decision, ya?” Noelani said.
Dolores stared at her plate so her shock wouldn’t show. She’d never heard Noelani call her husband “sweetheart” before.
“‘Ae, I know,” he said. “I’ll help with the laundry today.”
“‘A‘ole!” Dolores protested. “Leia and the boys have been doing it all summer. They’ll be fine.”
An awkward silence fell, and Dolores ate quickly. Noelani returned to the kitchen to do the dishes, and Kanoa disappeared behind the Honolulu Bulletin. He was looking at the job postings, maybe hoping for some work he could do until his back healed enough for him to return to the cane fields. Dolores had seen injured men before. If they couldn’t work, they had to leave the plantation house. Where would Kanoa go with his large ‘ohana? Maybe it would be enough that Kui, Noa, and Kaipo worked in the fields.
She left the table and perched on the edge of a large rattan chair near her suitcase. Peter would be here soon. Outside the palm trees swayed in the plumeria-scented breeze. Behind her, Noelani bustled in the kitchen without her usual humming. Kanoa stayed at the table for another cup of Kona coffee.
When Peter pulled up in front, it was Dolores’s moment. She savored it, watching him get out of the truck. In her head, she imagined herself calling good-bye as she flounced out the door. Instead, Noelani came over to her.
“You do good work, Dolores. Maria lucky have you. The younger girls look up to you. They will miss you, ya?”
“Umm, hiki nō,” Dolores said. She stood and pushed past Noelani. Peter had almost reached the door.
“Pōmaika‘i!” Kanoa called. He raised his coffee cup.
“Mahalo,” Dolores said, thanking him for the surprising good luck wishes.
She picked up her suitcase and opened the front door. Peter was waiting halfway down the walk. Dolores frowned. She wanted to walk the whole way to the street as she’d always imagined. She looked back at Noelani. The large woman stood alone in the center of the room. Lazy fan blades rotated above her. Her shoulders slumped, and the look on her face was bereft. Dolores hesitated, one hand on the door, shocked. Noelani had always been full of booming laughter. Now she shrank in on herself. Dolores swallowed and pursed her lips. It didn’t matter. She was leaving, and Noelani would find someone else to do the work.
Kanoa crossed the room and put his arm around his wife. “Aloha,” he said with a smile. He, at least, seemed happy for Dolores.
“Aloha,” Noelani echoed.
“Mahalo,” Dolores told them as pulled the screen door shut with a bang. Then Peter was there, taking her suitcase, and her heart flew free.
“Ready, Dolores?” he asked.
“Oh, yes.” Dolores climbed into the truck. She never looked back, only forward to her future. She had anticipated this leaving, picturing it as glorious revenge against her papa, against Noelani, even against Kaipo.
EIGHT
Maunalua 1924
She’d never been alone in the truck with Peter before. Shyness captured her tongue.
“Glad to be leaving?” Peter asked as he started the engine. Dolores just nodded. She tucked an errant brown curl behind her ear and bit the inside of her lip.
“Maria is glad you’re able to come early. She has a room ready for you.”
“I’ve never had my own room.”
“It’s about time that changed.” He grinned at her.
They chatted about the weather, about Maria’s health, about Dolores starting fourth grade in the fall. After about twenty minutes of driving out toward Diamond Head, Peter approached Maunaloa. “We have ten acres,” he told Dolores, “and we supply milk for several local stores.”
He pulled into a dirt lane that led to an attractive small house surrounded by a white picket fence. Cheery windows, open to the breeze, flanked the door. The roof peaked above the door and sloped sharply to the eaves. Beyond the house, Dolores could see buildings, the cow barn, and whatever else a dairy needed. Peter helped her out of the truck and grabbed her suitcase out of the back. “Let’s go. Maria is eager to see you!”
Maria waited on the porch for Dolores and hugged her close. “I’m so glad you’re here! I’ve been waiting forever for this day!”
Dolores couldn’t answer. Tears clogged her throat. Instead, she hugged Maria and then stepped back in horror. “I didn’t hurt the baby, did I?”
“No, silly, my tummy protects i
t.” She rubbed the small of her back.
Maria led Dolores into the house. The large front room boasted two comfortable couches, a coffee table, and a table with a radio on it. To the left was a large kitchen, but Dolores only glimpsed it before Maria dragged her down the hall to her new room. She stood back, excited to watch Dolores enter.
Dolores stepped into the room and froze. A wooden bed covered with a pretty quilt was pushed against the wall, with a low dresser across from it. Curtains billowed around an open window. A jar with fresh wildflowers sat on the dresser, and a round rag rug lay near the bed. Dolores took it all in. This whole space was hers alone. She turned to Maria with shining eyes. “Oh, it’s beautiful!”
Maria clapped her hands. “I’m so glad you like it! Peter built the bed, and the dresser is an old one he refinished for you. I made the quilt and the rug. We want you to feel at home.”
“This is much better than any real home I’ve ever had,” Dolores said.
THE dairy reminded Dolores of her father, who’d worked as a dairyman on Kaua‘i a thousand years earlier when she was a child. The soft lowing of the cows and the pungent odor of animals felt more like coming home than anything Dolores had yet experienced in Honolulu. Dolores loved the cows’ big brown eyes and the sound of milk streams shooting into metal buckets. She remembered how her father used to let her and Paul help—even though they must have slowed his work more than helped.
She sent Papa a letter with her new address and received one letter in response, with vague encouragement. Nothing since, but it didn’t matter. At Maria’s, even the work was fun since friendship and laughter lightened her heart every day. She remembered thinking about becoming a laundress and earning money for her own passage to California. Since then she’d learned to cook and sew. She could earn her way but was no longer sure she wanted to.
One Sunday, Maria and Dolores had just changed out of their church dresses and were about to begin preparations for supper. Happier than she had ever been at Noelani’s, Dolores tied an apron around her own waist. Hard work alone had never brought her aloha. Love of family, working for family, did. She pretended to struggle with tying the sash of Maria’s apron around her belly.
“There, I think I’ve got it secured,” she told Maria. Maria turned to face her. Something in her friend’s expression dimmed Dolores’s joy. “Maria? What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot. About the baby, of course, but also the dairy. Peter’s working hard, but he’s going to have to hire someone to manage the dairy while he’s on duty at the fort. I know he doesn’t want to.”
Dolores waited. Nothing so far was news to her. She, too, thought it was too much for Peter to run the dairy in addition to playing saxophone in the regimental band at Fort Kamehameha.
“While I was downtown shopping last week I went by the Moana. The Hawaiian women there still need help making leis.”
“Oh, Maria, don’t be silly! You can’t sit out there and make leis in your condition. Or with a baby. Peter will never approve.”
“You’re right. I can’t. He won’t. But I have an idea. When school starts, I’ll drive you in the morning. I can stop by the Moana and pick up fresh flowers. I’ll make the leis at home in the kitchen and deliver them to the ladies at the Moana when I pick you up after school.”
“But how will you convince Peter to let you drive me?”
“You two worry too much. This baby’s not due until the end of the year. I can make this work well into fall. The extra income will be nice. Don’t tell Peter.”
Dolores wasn’t convinced. Families didn’t secretly take on jobs. Families should be open and honest with each other. It was part of the love, part of aloha. “I won’t tell,” she said.
PETER hovered over Maria. He had followed the Olympic Games in Paris that summer very closely. Maria caught Dolores up with the news. “Warren Kealoha took a gold medal in the hundred-meter backstroke, and the Kahanamoku brothers both medaled in the hundred-meter freestyle. Duke took silver and Sam got the bronze.”
“That’s great,” Dolores said. “Way to represent Hawai‘i!” She turned back to the tiny shirt she was hemming.
Maria had her own pile of tiny baby clothes to sew, and they chatted as they stitched. Peter had painted a small room in green and built a solid wooden crib. The crib and wooden rocking chair they’d painted white, along with a dresser that could be used as a changing table. Dolores used every minute of the days as she prepared for Maria’s baby and worried about making leis in the kitchen.
Peter loved to share news of the outside world with them. The dredging of the Ala Wai Canal fascinated him. It would run parallel to Waikiki and drain the wetlands between downtown and Diamond Head. “It will extend the usable beach area of Waikiki. They’ll build more hotels and tourists will flock to Hawai‘i,” he told them.
“And this is a good thing?” Dolores asked. She thought of Maria making leis with the Hawaiian women at the Moana Hotel.
“Can’t stop progress,” he said with a grin.
“Speaking of progress,” Maria said, “I’ll drive Dolores to school. That will free you to spend more time in the morning at the dairy before going to the fort.”
“Oh, no,” Peter began.
“Think about it,” Maria interrupted. “I’m not a fragile orchid. I can drive back and forth to Honolulu without hurting the baby.”
“You’re the strongest woman I know.” Peter’s eyes filled with love.
Dolores felt sick at the deception. Later she asked Maria, “Why don’t you tell Peter what you plan to do?”
“No, he likes to be in charge. The man of the house, you know? He wants to support his family. I don’t want him killing himself when I can help.”
Dolores nodded. Peter did look more tired these days.
ON the first day of school, Dolores climbed into the truck and waved back at Peter, who had to clean the barn before a buddy picked him up for work. Peter leaned on his hay rake and watched them with a stern face.
“Bye, hon!” Maria called. “Have a great day!”
“You send someone for me if there’s a problem,” he warned.
“Yes, yes, I’ll be fine.” With a big smile and a jaunty wave, she pulled out of the yard.
“Do the ladies know you’re coming today?” Dolores asked.
“It’s all set up.”
The worry didn’t leave Dolores as she reentered the routine of school. Fourth grade didn’t look like it would be any different from third, except the math would be harder. After school, Maria was waiting in the truck. Dolores climbed in, taking a deep breath. “Oh, it smells wonderful in here.” She turned to look at the boxes of purple and white orchid leis in the back. “How did it go?”
“I’m a little rusty, but my fingers remembered how to thread them onto the needle.” She grinned at Dolores, obviously thrilled with her success.
They drove to the Moana. Dolores helped carry the boxes to the stand where the Hawaiian women sold leis, flower hairpieces, and shell necklaces. They greeted Maria warmly. Dolores returned to the truck while they completed their business. All the way home, Maria chattered happily as Dolores imagined scenes where Peter discovered them buried in orchids.
FALL in Honolulu often slipped by without notice. The sun still shone, the trade winds still blew, and there were no pretty fall leaves. Dolores marked the season watching Maria’s belly increase. Peter pretended to fear his wife would explode like the volcano, but every day he laid a gentle hand on her belly. When he finally felt a kick, his face glowed with joy. Peter hired a foreman to oversee the day-to-day dairy business. Maria, of course, kept making leis.
“Has Peter asked you about the extra money?” Dolores asked one day on the way to school.
“I’m lucky he doesn’t know how much things cost. He thinks I’m being frugal.” Maria grinned.
Dolores looked at the belly that already barely fit behind the steering wheel. “It won’t work for much longer. Then what will you do?”<
br />
“I’ll figure something out. Maybe we can find a secret place for you to make leis.”
She sounded like she was only half-teasing. Dolores imagined sneaking piles of orchids into some secret shed on the property. “I’ll do anything to help. Familia es todo.”
Maria darted a quizzical glance at her. “Spanish?”
“Something my father always used to say.” As they neared the school, Dolores said, “I’m doing better in fourth grade. Rose and Kimiko sit with me at recess again.”
“Do you girls jump rope or something?”
“No, Maria! We are much too old for that.” She grinned. “We talk about boys.”
“Boys!” Maria pretended outrage. “No boys for you! Not for lots and lots of years!”
She pulled up in front of the school. “Look,” Dolores said, “There’s Rose with Johnny. Isn’t he cute?” She leaped out and shut the truck door before Maria could answer.
Walking up the yard to join Rose, Dolores scanned the groups of students for Makaha and Polunu. They weren’t there. Again. They skipped school more often now, and when they attended, they ignored her as they had when she’d lived with them. Leia must have started school, too, but Dolores never saw her.
MARIA always picked Dolores up promptly after school. Today while Maria took her leis to the stand, Dolores got out of the truck and walked along Kalakaua Avenue parallel to Waikiki Beach. A group of boys were playing in the surf. They yelled and shoved each other. She squinted to see if she recognized any of them.
“They’re out of control, aren’t they?”
Dolores whirled to see a well-dressed boy, a few years older than she. His round eyeglasses made him look even older, as did the hat he wore at a jaunty angle. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “Do I know you?”
He laughed. “Nope, I’m Manolo—one of them—one of the Medeiros boys.” He leaned toward her and put a hand up to the side of his mouth. “Don’t tell anyone.”
She nodded. “Okay.” More secrets. The lei money secret weighed on her more every day. She watched the boy step into the sand and walk toward the group. They accosted him with a flood of Portuguese.
The Aloha Spirit Page 7