"Thanks for coming," I said politely. "I hope you enjoyed the show."
I kept my body language casual and made sure I was smiling. Lots of girls in the club meant lots of guys. And more importantly for Pete, lots of bar sales. He hadn't said it out loud, but we both knew that me playing there was conditional on showing my face after the set and keeping the girls happy. And I hated it.
The short one slid her hand up my arm until she gripped my bicep, scratching my skin lightly with her nails. What was it with women and vacations?
"Sorry to disappoint you," I said, as I grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand out from under the sleeve of my shirt. "But I'm not going to be the big Hawaiian kāne you sleep with on your holiday and then talk about once you get back to the office. If you're looking for that, try that guy over there." I placed my hands on her shoulders and spun her around so that she faced the dance floor. Like always, Nick was already waiting.
"Can I buy you a drink?" Pete asked me when I passed him. A small scuffle was breaking out near the doors where one of my uncles was trying to escort the British girls outside. I rested my guitar against a stool and sat down.
"So you're actually paying for drinks now?"
He glanced at me sideways and we both laughed. "What's your problem, brah? That short girl over there is hot."
"I wasn't interested," I said as I leaned my elbows on the bar. "And she was drunk."
"Come on, man. You're exactly what all the haoles want when they come here. A nice, sexy Hawaiian with tattoos and a big - "
"Shut up, Pete."
He laughed. "Seriously, man. You could have a different one every night if you wanted to. Why not? You're single."
"You wouldn't understand." I yawned and picked up my guitar. "And I'm beat, so I'm heading home. You up for a surf in the morning?"
"Sure. Don't be late again, though."
I was never late. Pete was always late. Pete was famous for being late.
"Yeah, okay, funny guy, I'll try my best. And Pete?" I said, yawning again and stretching my arms above my head. "I'm not interested in any of the girls because those girls aren't interesting. It's as simple as that, brah. See you in the morning."
Chapter Three
The car park was full of tourists waiting for a ride back to their resorts. The girls huddled in groups, some bored and checking their phones, others drunk and falling over their feet as they screamed stuff like, "Fucking Aloha!" into the night air. The guys were either circling the girls or getting ready to head to the next bar. I threw my guitar strap over my shoulder and made my way past them as fast as I could.
Once away from the bar, I walked home slowly, enjoying the sound of the ocean and the silence of the night air. After a shower and some food I went to bed, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. I always tried, though. I was stubborn about that. Even when I knew I was going to lie there until morning, I still went to bed at roughly the same time. I wasn’t going to let it win. I lay there for an hour watching the ceiling fan spin on its axis, counting the seconds it took to make one rotation, five, twenty. The sheets were knotted around my legs and a car at the beach across the road had their headlights on, casting a bright, yellow glow up the wall. I tugged the pillow over my face and tried for another ten minutes before giving up and pulling on my trainers.
I stepped out into the night, taking my usual route, up the main street then past a row of houses that were dotted up the hill as the road inclined. There were a few people out. A couple of teenage boys I didn’t recognize were walking toward the beach and an old friend of my father’s was walking his beagle, Orla. I dragged myself up the road, then ran down a narrow lane with trees so dense they obscured the moon. There were the usual sounds; my heart pounding in my ears, my feet on the asphalt, crickets singing in the long grass and the distant hush of the ocean. But as I made my way further down the street, there was another sound, high and fine, weaving its way through the night air. It grew louder and I found myself searching for it in the trees, in the houses, but it was quiet and then loud, fast then slow, dancing away from me the moment I thought I knew where it was coming from. As I made my way around the last bend in the road, the sound was suddenly clear. It was a violin. It was being played furiously, I could almost feel the vibrations it made rattling my chest bones. I picked up my feet and ran faster, making it up the last hill with no effort at all.
There were only two houses this far down the street. One of them belonged to Mrs. Lee, an elderly Chinese woman who I knew would be long asleep by now. The other belonged to Garrett Lincoln, an ex-pat from Texas, who I had trouble picturing on the end of a violin. I slowed to a walk and made my way to two cottages nestled side by side, set back from the street. They were built in the 1920s by a woman and her companion. A communal garden linked the two. Now there was a little fence separating them, but I knew that Mrs. Lee was often on Garrett's side of the property, and he was often on hers. As I suspected, Mrs. Lee's windows were black, but Garrett's house was lit up from the inside, the yellow glow of it spilling across the street. Two shadowy figures were out on his covered verandah. One of them was playing the violin.
She was small, I saw that much, but it was difficult to make out any of her features in the dark. She had stopped playing almost as soon as I approached and I saw her take a drink from a glass before bursting into surprised laughter. I could make out Garrett, he was sitting in his armchair and his low, gruff voice carried through the air.
"Just play me a damn song, will you?"
The girl pretended to curtsy and my cheeks lifted in a smile. I watched, stepping back into the shadows as she lifted her violin and settled it on her shoulder as Garrett passed her the bow. There was a hush over the street, I was sure that even the crickets were silenced and the waves had paused, suspended, before breaking on the shore. The air was charged and I found myself holding my breath, waiting for her to start.
What followed next was strange and melancholy, it was like nothing I had ever heard before. Even as I was taken aback at the sound, my musical ear searched for the secret, the key that would unlock it for me so that I could understand it. The music started soft and quiet, but built and built until I had to resist the urge to press my hands to my ears the way my brother had as a little boy. It reminded me suddenly of the day my grandfather died. We had arrived at the house before my grandmother was ready for us and had found her crying. Not crying. Keening. The sound the violin made was like that, like grief and loss and pain. I watched, knowing I should have called out or slipped away but completely unable to move.
A fat black cat ran across the path, setting off the sensor light and illuminating the front of the house in a white glow. The girl stopped playing and put her hand over her eyes and I froze. If she looked across the road, there was nowhere for me to hide. I raced to find a plausible explanation for lurking in the darkness that didn't make me sound like a serial killer. But then the light switched off again and I was saved. I muttered a prayer of thanks and slipped out of the shadows and down the street.
My shoes dragged along the asphalt and my shoulders ached, but I wasn’t tired. My mind was racing. I already knew I wasn't going home to sleep. Listening to live music had made me feel jumpy and excited ever since I was a boy, but the violin I’d heard was something different. She was clearly talented, if not some kind of musical prodigy, but that wasn’t it. I walked slower, trying to figure it out. There was something about it that reminded me of Hawaiian music, even though they didn’t sound alike. By the time I stood under the bright street light on the corner of the main road, I had it. She told stories with her music, just like we did.
I walked past my cottage, continuing to the path to the beach instead. I was alone on the sand but the thump of music and the high tinkle of glassware and laughter carried over the breeze from the bars. I took off my shoes, tying the laces and hanging them over one shoulder so that I could walk through the surf. When the sand gave way to rock, I turned up the long, rough track tha
t five generations of my family had used to get to the sea. At the top, I pulled my flashlight out of my pocket and used it to guide me through the trees to where the land opened up and the plantation began.
The house lay just beyond the orchard. No matter how many times I saw it from there, its smallness always surprised me. When I was a kid, the house felt like a palace. But that night all my adult eyes saw were the boards that needed replacing, the paint that peeled away and the roof that wouldn't last another year. I waited for a minute, looking at it. And then I saw the kitchen light switch on.
"Aloha ahiahi," he said from the table when he heard the door open.
"Hi, Pa."
"You play at Pete's tonight?"
"Yeah. It's crazy down there," I said, kicking off my shoes and ducking my head as I stepped inside. "People everywhere."
He nodded and glanced at my guitar like maybe he wanted to play it. I was about to offer when he said, "That's Saturday night for you. See anyone you liked?"
I smiled and shook my head. "I don't think any of the girls at Pete's are daughter-in-law material, Dad."
A hint of amusement twitched at the corner of his mouth as he collected his papers and sorted them into a tidy pile. "Well, you know I was married with a son by the time I was your age. It's good for a man to be settled."
He was dangerously close to the topic we never talked out, and my heart leaped as I desperately tried to think of something to say to keep the conversation going. But I was too late.
"There's no work tomorrow, son," he said, "the hotel has some fancy guests arriving and they don't want the landscapers working out front when they arrive." He kept his eyes on his hands where they rested on the table and I pulled out a chair and sat down, hoping it would make him look at me.
"Do you want me to come up here instead? I can help fix the fencing or plant out the new trees?"
He leaned back in his chair, lifting his face. Our eyes met and I felt the air freeze in my lungs. "Take the day off, Kai." He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. "You look like shit."
I watched him leave. "Night, Pa."
And so do you.
I was about to get up myself when he called out from the end of the hallway, "Kailano? Go to sleep. Tomorrow, we'll talk." And then his door clicked shut and I was alone, sitting in a kitchen thick with old memories.
I went to my room but I didn't sleep. I lay in my old childhood bed, my feet hanging over the end and my shoulders brushing the sides and I thought about the way I always seemed to end up back here, no matter how hard I tried to drive a wedge between my father's life and my own. And I wondered why I kept expecting things to be different when nothing ever was. No matter how often I walked up there, we were never in the same room for more than a few minutes. He always said, Tomorrow, we'll talk. But when tomorrow arrived, the night's promises were forgotten and the talking never came.
Chapter Four
Pete walked up the path to my house and leaned his board against the wall. "You coming in?"
"Why are you even asking me?" I said. "I live here."
"Whatever, brah.” He kicked off his flip flops and shook out his long hair, covering me with a spray of seawater and sand.
I whipped him with my towel and placed my board next to his. "When are you going to move out of home anyway?"
"I don't live at home."
"Oh, right," I said, "you have your own apartment, I forgot."
He narrowed his eyes. "It is an apartment."
"Garage."
"Shut up."
"Go in," I said, "use my shower, eat my food, watch my TV. I'm going to shower out here and head into town."
He pushed open the door and we both walked in. I grabbed some clean clothes and headed outside, and minutes later I heard the shower running and Pete's smooth, warm voice belting out Maroon 5's One More Night. He was committed to getting the opening "Ooooh Ooh Ooh" parts right, except he was saying 'Kai' instead, just to annoy me.
"You're a fool!" I yelled at the bathroom window. He cracked it open and sang even louder through the gap.
The outdoor bathroom was one of my favorite things about the house. It wasn't much, just a pipe connected to the rainwater tank that I used as a shower and an old bathtub I set up down the back. Back there, I let the garden do what it wanted, and eventually, it became so overgrown that I showered outdoors without being seen by anyone. After a quick rinse, I changed and thumped on the wall of the house with my fist to let Pete know that I was leaving. He was still in the shower wasting all of my water.
The main street in town only had a few shops and restaurants, but there was everything I needed. Even though the island had been heavily developed in the time since I was a kid, the main street had managed to stay exactly the same. Three years before, a new shopping mall had been built near the resorts and it kept most of the tourists out of this part of town.
I walked down the sidewalk, hugging the store fronts so that I stayed in the shade. It was going to be another hot day and even though it was early, the sun prickled my scalp through my baseball hat. A few people waved and said hello but no one stopped to talk. Everyone on the island knew I was quiet, and it was a belief I actively encouraged. I still didn’t like talking to people.
As I got closer to the corner, I felt a warm glow of contentment. Going to Lulu's Cafe felt comforting and familiar. I imagined it was what arriving home was like for most people, and my steps slowed as I tried to remember the last time going home had felt that way for me.
"Aloha," Lulu said when she heard the bell over the door. She leaned around the hot pink coffee machine she'd installed recently and smiled. Lulu was one of my favorite people. When I was a boy, I loved leaning into her soft, squishy body as she read me stories or showed me how to weave with hala leaves. Sometime in her early forties, she'd gone on a health bender that eliminated just about every food group known to man, and as a result, she'd lost over half her body weight. These days her devotion to nutrition bordered on the religious. She was trim, tanned and taut with a closely shaved head and a tattoo of a pineapple on her right bicep. But she was still Lulu.
"Same as usual, Kai?"
"Yes please, Aunty."
"How about a Dandelion Coffee?"
"What? No."
"Yerba Mate' tea?" she teased, reaching for a takeaway coffee cup and disappearing back behind the machine. "No work today?"
I leaned my elbows on the counter and watched her make the coffee. "No. I've got a day off."
"Nice one," she said, keeping her eyes on the two ribbons of dark liquid that were snaking their way into the cup. "Going up to see your dad?"
"Nah. I stayed there last night, snuck out early this morning. He told me I looked like shit."
She laughed and shook her head. "He's an asshole."
"Yeah."
She handed me my cup and waved my hand away when I tried to pay her for it. "Kailano?"
"Yes?"
"Do something nice with your day. Don't waste it."
I raised my cup in a salute and she put her hands on the counter, pushing herself up and leaning across to give me a kiss.
"Aloha, Aunty."
"Aloha."
I rarely got a day off, so I didn't get to do it often. But I loved it when I could. I reached the front of the shop and waited out front for a minute or two while I pretended to look at a couple of surfboards they had on display. But really, I was looking at him. He was behind the counter with his back turned, arranging sunglasses on shelves. He straightened them, then used his finger as a measuring stick to make sure the gap between each pair was even before going back to the first row and starting again.
I walked through the door of Makai Surf and waited for him to turn around at the sound of the bell. "Hey, buddy!"
"Kai!" he shouted as he barreled toward me, narrowly avoiding a rack full of t-shirts as he went. "Kai is here! Garrett! Kai is here!"
Garrett's short, wiry body briefly popped out from the storeroom an
d he lifted a hand, before disappearing again. The shop was old and weather-beaten, just like Garrett was. The floorboards were soft and smooth and the wooden planks on the walls had been left unpainted. It was a bit like the boatshed I used to play in once, but bigger, with tall vaulted ceilings.
Akamu put his hands on my shoulders. He wore a freshly ironed shirt and clip-on tie. I couldn't stop myself. I wrapped my arms around him and he indulged me for about four seconds before stepping away to formally shake my hand. "Welcome to Makai Surf, Kai. Can I help you today?"
"I'm not here to shop," I smiled. "I came to see you."
He leaned in to whisper in my ear. "But I'm training a new person today, Kai. She just came this morning." I looked to where he pointed.
And I just about jumped out of my skin. Because she was there, the girl with the violin. Despite only seeing her for a few minutes in the dark, I recognized her immediately. She was unforgettable like that. Hair that was almost white and perfectly straight, hanging to her hips. Narrow shoulders and legs that were a little too long and lanky for her height. She sat cross-legged on the floor pulling bikinis out of a cardboard box and carefully placing them into piles.
"Let's go and see Dipper," Akamu said, grabbing my hand. He pulled me along behind him until we were standing over the girl. She glanced up when we approached and her eyes grew wide. "Hello," she said as she stood and awkwardly tugged at the bottom of her t-shirt.
"This is Dipper and Garrett told me she doesn't know anything about surfboards," he said, "and that's a problem because we mostly sell surfboards." I saw Garrett give him a reassuring nod.
"Do you think you could teach me?" she asked. She was so small that she had to tip her head backward just to look at his face.
"I don't know if I can teach you," he said carefully, "because it's very important and I don't know if you're good at paying attention because we just met. You have to know all of the surfboards. If you don't know them, you might give someone the wrong one, and they could have an accident."
The 'Ohana Tree Page 2