Haole Wood

by DeTarsio, Dee

  “She’s great and I can’t really blame her for not wanting to sell. How’s her herb business going?”

  I squinted my eyes at him, wondering how much he knew about my grandmother’s herbs.

  He just opened his eyes wider and waited for me to answer.

  “Good. Fine. She’s doing great. Anyway, I love her house. Besides, where would she go if she ever sold it?”

  Just then, Mike’s cell phone went off. “Excuse me,” he said, his teeth breaking like white caps on the shore. He turned aside and spoke in a quiet voice into his cell before snapping it closed.

  “Jaswinder,” he said, brushing my hair back over the pink umbrella still behind my ear. “I am so sorry, but business calls. How long are you staying and can I call you?”

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll be here,” I said. That didn’t stop me from giving him my phone number. I watched his thick fingers punch the numbers in on his cell. The only thing better for the soul than flirting was being flirted with. He turned to leave and people parted to get out of his way.

  After another glass of water, I decided to finish up with a pina colada. I ate the pineapple wedge, licked the straw and tilted it to the side to take a big gulp. Just then some guy bumped into my elbow sloshing a frothy mustache on my upper lip. “Oof.” I tried to help my fingers as I licked it off.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  Wow. Cute Guy Night at The Coconut Shack. This one wasn’t Hawaiian, but something about his unhurried swagger and smile that seemed to take a few seconds to get where it was going, made me believe he lived here, too. His worn cotton t-shirt brushed against my upper arm. “That’s okay,” I said.

  I reached up and dabbed at the creamy outline that must have still been smeared on my face. I licked my lips. Flirting with a hot dumb surfer, just what the rum, tequila and pina colada ordered, primed by my conversation with King Kamehameha.

  “How were the waves today?” I asked him.

  “Awesome.”

  I laughed at that. “You just said awesome.”

  “You automatically assumed I was a surfer.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I just felt like you probably went surfing today. I apologize. I meant it as a good thing.”

  “Apology accepted. Especially since you are right, I did go surfing today. And the waves were awesome. Can I buy you a beer?”

  I nodded. Is it wine on beer, feeling queer? It didn’t matter since I didn’t have any wine. Maybe it was beer on wine, feeling fine. Feed a cold, starve a fever. Beer on tequila, “Pleased to meetcha!” I said holding out my hand. A beer did sound good since the temperature outside hovered in the 80s and the warm bodies milling around inside made it even cozier.

  We clinked glasses and introduced ourselves.

  “Hello, Jac,” I said. “I’m Jaswinder.”

  “That’s not exactly on the top ten list of popular names. Although, it’s very pretty . . . and suits you.”

  “Why, thank you,” I said, without going into the usual song and dance about my name. Jac lifted his beer and I never even got the chance to tell him that it could have been worse, at least it wasn’t Josephine. “So, what do you do?”

  “I’m a doctor,” Jac said, taking another drink.

  Okay, then, I thought. If we are making up cool jobs in a bar, that would make me . . . “I’m an anchor in San Diego for the NBC affiliate.” Funny how alcohol and cute boys could do wonders for a heavy heart. I adore muscle-y guys. He had messy brown hair and blue eyes with the thickest, curliest, longest eyelashes that I had ever seen. Even if I applied ten coats of Triple XXX-tra mascara I couldn’t come anywhere near that lush lash extravaganza he had going on. “Lush lash, lush lash, lush lash,” I said. “Say that three times fast.”

  We talked and drank, bumping shoulders and accidentally-on-purpose touching thighs until the crowded bar started to thin. Jac grabbed my hand, slapped a fifty on the bar and pulled me outside behind him.

  I took a deep breath. “I love Maui.”

  “And Maui loves you,” Jac said. “Come on, I’ll give you a lift home.”

  “Okie-dokie, Dr. Jac. That’s probably a good idea.” I agreed but I felt my lower lip pouting that he didn’t, you know, invite me back to his place or something. He held my hand tightly and walked me down several blocks before we turned off Front Street to his car parked right near the deserted park.

  My hand was practically having an orgasm at the pressure of his palm. As we walked, his bicep kept rubbing my breast, which sent out an SOS for more contact. I floated in a suspended state of animation, a vacuum of well-being. I could hear the waves, smell a hint of jasmine in the air, and the moon spotlighted just the two of us.

  We reached his car and as he opened the door for me, my body twirled into his. I grabbed his shoulders and pulled hard. He bent his head for my kiss and then took over. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to touch and feel and taste . . . and bite and squeeze. Scratch and suck. I couldn’t believe my own hands were reaching down and pulling up his t-shirt, over and off his head. Hubba hubba. What a body. I couldn’t even remember his name but he remembered mine because he whispered it in my ear. He stopped kissing me for a second as he reached into the car for a beach towel and spread it atop the soft grass under the large banyan tree. I wouldn’t let him go and twined myself around his arm. The warm, tangy atmosphere embraced us in a perfect caress as he unzipped my sundress that certainly did its job. Poof. I felt my bra and underwear disappear. Mmm. I melted into him. Between the sound of the Pacific Ocean egging us on and the spiraling whirlpools tickling deep, deep inside my ear canals, I imagined this must feel a lot like surfing.

  Awesome.

  How could I have known sand in my stilettos would be the least of my problems?

  Chapter 6

  Shit Creek

  I woke up the next morning to a song stuck in my head. It took only a few moments to figure out exactly why a long-lost jump rope rhyme skipped around the swollen membranes formerly know as my brain.

  “Ooh, ahh, I forgot my bra. I left it in my boyfriend’s car.” The cheery sunlight barged through my bedroom window as loud as a laugh track. I searched under my crumpled dress, which hid my shoes. Nope. Rats. I loved that bra and it was the only one I brought with me. It was my BraVo, designed by a friend of mine who’s a fashion designer back in San Diego.

  That’s what a slut like me gets for having sex with some random hunk. In the park. In the dark. In the grass. He had a great ass. I shook my head carefully because it was throbbing. I pulled on my bathing suit. In the mirror, through my puffy slit eyes, my cheeks turned red. I couldn’t even look at myself.

  I went to the linen closet at the end of the hall, just like I used to when I had been a little girl. I didn’t inherit much from my grandmother, not her coloring, almond shaped eyes, smooth brown skin, but I did receive the towel and sheet-folding gene. My grandmother was an amazing folder. Sure enough, I opened the closet to four sets of immaculately folded linens, looking like they could slip right back into the plastic bag from the factory. On the shelf above them, colorful cotton towels, bath towels on the left, beach towels on the right, all stacked precisely the same way, folded in half, then one-third folded in, one-third folded in, then folded in half again. I got tears in my eyes as I grabbed the retro blue beach towel with faded bubbles on it that used to be a favorite of mine.

  Maybe a day at the beach would do me good. I could think about my future and what do to do next. I slipped on some flip-flops and went downstairs. Tea and toast with my grandmother didn’t do much to settle my churning stomach.

  “So, Halmoni,” I said. “I met someone you know last night. Mike Hokama.”

  “Not that,” my grandmother said. She jumped up from the table and went and began sorting some herbs on the counter, turning her back to me.

  “He said he wanted to buy your house. I can’t believe how much Maui has changed. I’m glad you don’t want to sell.” I sighed and drank more tea. I got up a
nd took my cup over to the sink. I raised my hand to squeeze my grandmother’s arm, but took a step back instead. Though I could have used a hug, we weren’t a touchy-feely kind of family. “I’m going to the beach for a while,” I told her. I didn’t know if she understood me.

  I went out the back screen door and through the kukui nut trees and found the well-worn path that guided me to the beach, less than a mile away. Outside, the harsh lumens of the sun made my teeth hurt. A powerful master, I could easily imagine worshipping (i.e. fearing) its magical heat and energy. My feet remembered their way down the sandy path toward the ocean. Though it wasn’t one of the most popular beaches in Maui, there really wasn’t a bad beach around.

  I unfurled my blue towel and set up shop. I peeled off my t-shirt and slathered on SPF 45 sunscreen and plunked on a really goofy straw hat that got totally smashed in my backpack. Along with wishing I could sing or paint, looking good in a hat was also right up there. What secret do celebrities know that allows them to plop potato sacks on their head and still look like a million bucks, while I could spend a small fortune on a specially woven guaranteed-not-to-fold/bend/mutilate-in-your-luggage hat and look like I could get a part time job scaring crows. I sat there watching the waves, catching the negative ions in the air, and waited for them to hurry up and do their job and cheer me up.

  I stood up, adjusted my bathing suit and laughed out loud as I remembered a dance my sister and I made up after watching tourists at the beach. A more suggestive version of the Macarena, it involved shifting, tucking and shaking of body parts. I walked to the waves and let the warm water greet me. It had been a long time. Dragging my feet against the shallow waves, I used the water to churn up my heartbeat. It was so soft and soothing, each incoming wave seemed to pull off a stress bubble barnacled to my neck and take it back out to sea. I could feed a pod of Humpback whales with my worries, I thought. I leaned my head back, my face to the sun as a wave crashed into me, and splashed up my body.

  I walked back to my towel and sank down, my feet and legs all sandy. I dug my toes in the sand and smiled. Anticipating a shower was my favorite highlight of enjoying a good day at the beach. I hoped my grandmother had some potato chips. My stomach growled and my hangover would be needing some salty junk food and caffeine pretty soon. The crowds began to gather. Round, white, yellow, brown—tourists from all over the world, happy at the good fortune that led them to this beach on this island. Well, hello, Mr. Speedo. No beach was complete without that guy with the shrink-wrapped packaging. Nestling back on my towel, I propped up on my elbows to enjoy the show. I heard everything from French, to Spanish to Midwestern, “Larrrrrryy, I thought you paaaaacked the sunscreen.”

  The woman’s voice reminded me of my mom. She had been pretty harsh insisting I come to Maui. “She’s your grandmother,” my mom told me, using that voice, the one that makes her bottom teeth jut out. “Your dad and I are back here in Ohio and we aren’t up for the trip. Your dad just had his knee replacement last month and has to go through physical therapy.” She had even more ammo, as I knew full well. “And, I,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “am still recovering from my hysterectomy. I can’t even drive yet.”

  There’s no real way to call bullshit on your mom, as much as I wanted to. I used up my last week of vacation and flew back to take care of her after she got out of the hospital. What a week. My mother, who gave me half of a generic aspirin when I had my wisdom teeth pulled and told me to “Offer up my Pain and Suffering for the Greater Honor and Glory of God,” yes, she spoke in capital letters, turned out to be the world’s worst patient. She took to enjoying her meals served in bed, by me, and one time, even made me go back and cut up her meat. Last I checked she was down a uterus, not opposable thumbs.

  The wheels were really falling off my parents’ bus, but I had my own life to live. I sort of believed her though, that bad things alway come in threes. I wish I had stuck to my guns and refused to come. The power of saying no is amazing. Saying no to your mom, priceless. Unfortunately, there was a greater power involved. I even knew it coming. I could picture my mother swiping her right index finger down the entire length of her left one. “Shame on you,” she said.

  Shame on me, I echoed. I dug in my heels to make footrests in the sand. Now look where I was. No job. No career. No idea. How did I get up this creek, and where is my paddle?

  I cupped my hand over my eyes. Next time, I would have to bring an umbrella, but for now, the sun was benevolent. Its rays melted over my arms like forgiveness from the universe for my transgressions. I settled back on my towel and started to read, some old paperback I snagged from my grandmother’s shelf, called The Weird One, about a family of five sisters who each thought one of the others was the oddball. Dig that. My sister, Josephine was definitely the weird one in our family—but it really chapped my hide that most people didn’t see it that way. It also chapped my hide that I still had an arsenal of Midwestern, hide-chapping cliches at hand.

  My eyes felt scratchy and that, combined with the hypnotic crash of waves and the magic wand of the sun’s rays, gently closed my lids behind my sunglasses. I shimmied my body into my towel, feeling the crisp prickle of sweat begin at my temples. Small, salty beads dripped into my hair and more formed in the crook of my elbows and behind my knees. I squinted, enjoying the sweat as it glistened on my skin like the glaze of a Krispy Kreme donut. I inhaled the salty breeze, pungent with the smell of coconut oil. I wiggled some more, and shifted my body into the sand, letting it mold the perfect cradle for my weary soul.

  I knew I only had about fifteen minutes or so and I’d need to turn over, and then seek shade. My skin, even with sunblock was always a favorite target, especially in Maui. The sun gods went on a fast, waiting, just for me, and erupted with joy to feast on my lily-white epidermis. I was the morning’s Wonder Bread offered up to the great toaster in the sky.

  I sighed on a hum. Life didn’t seem so bad after all, lying there in the sand, embraced by the sun, courted by the spray of the Pacific, remembering the guilty pleasure of last night’s tsunami sex. Playing doctor with Jac had been fun. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

  The harmonic swirl of voices with disjointed accents, kids screaming, mothers laughing, dads boogie-boarding, wafted along the breeze of all that smells good. The waves retreated. Matching alpha waves deep in my psyche meditated on the stillness of the earth holding its breath. I may have snored.

  A quick shadow darted beneath the wide brim of my hat. I started, as if a timer hit the end of its metronome. I sat up and stretched, and pulled my hat forward on my head, impressed as always with the aquamarine hue of the water meeting an ethereal blue sky. There were even more people celebrating in the sand. I reached for my water bottle and gasped.

  Oh no. I snatched my arm back in disbelief. I lightly rubbed at the fine golden hairs. How long had I been out there? My skin started to feel prickly. I grabbed my T-shirt, and stretched it wide, wrestling with my hat and sunglasses as I struggled to take cover. My shoulders hurt, already. That was not good, not good at all. I jumped up, grabbed my towel, book and water and headed for the path back to my grandmother’s house. I had to stop for a second and wait for a wave of dizziness to pass. I had to get out of the sun, and even before I stopped seeing spots, I trotted on down the lane.

  “Halmoni,” I called as the screen door slammed behind me. “Halmoni, where are you? I need you.”

  Halmoni slipped up behind me and poked my shoulder. I jumped. “Ouch. Halmoni. There you are. Look.” I pulled off my T-shirt. “I got burned.”

  Halmoni shook her head and pushed me onto the couch while she hurried into the kitchen.

  I shivered as my traumatized skin tingled. My grandmother came back into the room and scooted next to me on the couch. I turned so Halmoni could rub the cool, greenish-smelling oil over my shoulders and arms. Her fingers were so gentle as they smoothed my skin.

  “Is that kukui nut oil, Halmoni?” She grunted and started on my other side. “I bet y
ou can brush your teeth with that stuff, remove nail polish, grow hair and cure the common cold,” I said. Kukui nuts were everywhere in Hawaii. Their bright black polished hulls were made into bracelets and necklaces. The oil was used for just about everything. If only it could be the magic solution for all my problems.

  How naive I had been. If anything, kukui nut oil became the catalyst for disaster.

  Chapter 7

  Let It Burn

  I held my breath and arched my back as Halmoni dabbed over a sensitive spot on my shoulder, then pushed my T-shirt back into place. I resumed my favorite position on the couch. As the afternoon wore on, I could feel my sunburn tightening the skin on my arms and cheeks. It hurt to move. I would feel chilled, then achy. My grandmother kept pouring more foul-tasting tea down my throat, in between taking phone calls and receiving visitors and doling out herbs.

  “Not that,” I would sometimes hear her tell one of her, what? Clients? Patients? Customers? I gingerly repositioned myself on the sofa, surfing channels, and feeling sorry for myself while I listened to my grandmother peeling off a stream of sentences, “da-di-da, da-di-da.”

  I dozed on and off, and finally whooped it up to drag myself into the kitchen. I was a little hungry, and, hearing voices, curious about what my grandmother was up to. “Hello . . .” I said to the group of surfers standing around her table. Outside the screen door there were a few more guys, waiting around. “What’s going on?” I couldn’t figure out what my grandmother, who sat in a chair, was doing. I pushed my hair over my ears. “Halmoni?”

  “Hey,” said the surfer, kneeling at my grandmother’s feet. Even in that position, he looked really tall, his beach-blond head of tangled curls resting in her lap.

  “What are you doing?” I asked both of them.

  “Not that.”

  The surfer turned his head to the other side. I watched as Halmoni used what looked like a hairpin to begin digging in the guy’s ear. My hand covered my mouth.