Mele Kalikimaka

by Noah Willoughby

  “Hey, Mom!” he yelled out. “Are we gonna have enough silverware?”

  “I got some plastic ones,” she yelled back. “In the grocery bag!”

  There was more than one, but Micah found what he was looking for soon enough and reached in and pulled out a small bag of plastic cutlery, as well as some paper plates and Styrofoam cups. He handed them off to Chandler.

  Chandler looked at it for the longest time. Plastic? For Christmas dinner? And Styrofoam cups? For drinking an adult beverage? Would he have to drink the wine he’d brought to share out of Styrofoam? He didn’t want to be snobby. In fact, the last few weeks living around lots of people who would never have a clue what growing up a Buckingham was like had been quite sobering. But wine? In Styrofoam? It would taste horrible!

  “You don’t mind, do you, sweetie?” Micah asked Chandler. “I’m gonna make everyone some Blue Hawaiis.” He winked and went back to the kitchen.

  Chandler blushed and returned outside with the cheap tableware. He started arranging it as neatly as he could on the tables.

  “So, talk to me, Chandler,” Kathleen said. “I could tell right away that this is your first time to Hawaii.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not from Hawaii myself. But I met my husband out here while on vacation. I fell in love with him and Hawaii and never left.”

  That brought a smile to Chandler’s face.

  “So where are you from?”

  “Kansas City,” he said. “Missouri.”

  She nodded as if she knew. So many people assumed Kansas City was in Kansas. “You came to Hawaii at the right time, huh? Doesn’t it get pretty cold there during this time of year?”

  “It does. I am really fu—I mean, glad to get away from the snow!” Somehow he didn’t want to say “fucking glad” in front of her.

  She nodded again knowingly. “I understand just what you mean. I’m actually from Michigan. Detroit.” She shuddered. “I don’t miss the cold winters there, that’s for sure.”

  Chandler chuckled.

  “Are you going back anytime soon?”

  Chandler didn’t know how to answer. He realized he really didn’t know.

  “When you do, please take Micah with you,” she said. “At least for a while? He needs to get off this rock and see the rest of the world.”

  Chandler was a little taken aback by that comment. Did she just call paradise a rock?

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Hawaii is my home. My heart is here now. But I’ve explored the world, more or less. Seen many different places and experienced many different things. My Micah hasn’t even been off the islands.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” he said. What else could he say? Take Micah with him? He turned, looked behind him, and saw Micah through the window, and damned if his heart didn’t skip a beat. How could he possibly leave without him?

  It was a stunning thought.

  Something had happened.

  Something beyond the surprise that he wanted to spend more than a night or a week with a man. He hadn’t “gone out” with anyone in any serious way since Tim in college. And for a while he’d simply been thinking he was spending so much time with Micah because he didn’t know anyone else.

  But as he watched Micah laughing with his family, he knew it was something more. Much more.

  It turned out the twins were better, since Isaac and his wife and two darling kids arrived just moments after that. Everyone acted as if the president and his family had arrived. There was so much laughter and hugging and kissing. It made his heart swell to watch—and get sad thinking it was never this way at home. If this had been a Buckingham Christmas and his sister, Chelsey, had arrived with her husband and their son, everyone would simply have nodded and hugged each other stiffly and then found their places at the table.

  So different.

  So this was family.

  And they were including him.

  A warmth spread up and through him, and it radiated up and out of him and into the gorgeous night.

  So this was family.

  Chandler was startled when his phone rang. He’d gotten so few calls, and he still hadn’t bothered to get something beyond the simple flip-top. But he got a shock when he recognized the number.

  Dear God. Did he answer?

  But what else could he do? It was obvious he’d been tracked down. By at least one person.

  He stepped away from the noise, flipped the phone open, and answered. “Hey, Sis,” he said.

  “Chandler! Thank God. I was sure you’d say fuck off and not answer.”

  “Mele Kalikimaka,” he said.

  “What?” came the response.

  “It’s a thing to say,” he slightly paraphrased from the song, “on a bright Christmas day.”

  Our song, he thought. I’ve got a song with someone. And it’s a Christmas song!

  “Whatever, Chandler. Now you’ve got to get home. Mother has had twelves strokes. The big dinner is in two days. I’ve got you a ticket. You leave tomorrow.”

  Chandler shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said automatically. The very idea was horrible.

  “No bullshit, brother. You’ve frolicked in the sunshine long enough. You’ve never pulled one of your runaways this long before. Time to stop. You’ve got a speech to make.”

  “No, Chelsey. You do it. You’re the one who should be doing it in the first place.” And the words were no sooner out of his mouth than he knew it was true. It wasn’t an alien idea for him. Yes! She was the one who should be running the show, and not just the gala. The whole Buckingham extravaganza. She was born to it.

  “Me?” There was a pause. Then, “No. The world isn’t ready.”

  “Mom isn’t ready,” he said. “Fuck Mom.”

  Chelsey gave a startled gasp, followed by uncomfortable laughter. “I don’t think so,” she replied. He could almost hear her shudder.

  “Chelsey, I’m serious. You really should be the one.”

  Another pause. “I think Mom would cancel before that happens.”

  “Bullshit,” Chandler said. “She would die before cancelling.”

  Yet another pause. Finally, “I would be lying if I said the idea didn’t appeal to me.”

  Chandler laughed. “I know you’ve thought about it,” he said. “I bet you’ve practiced.”

  Another slight and tiny gasp.

  “In front of the mirror?” Chandler asked. “When you’re alone in the car?”

  “Are you making fun of me, Chandler?”

  He realized something else. He wasn’t. “No, Sis. I’m not.” Suddenly he was feeling very warm. Good. Almost giddy. “You were born to it. We both know I wasn’t.”

  “I….”

  “I don’t want any part of it,” he continued. “I mean, as part of the family I guess I have to do something more than frolic in the sunshine. But I don’t have a clue how to do what Mom and Dad wanted. Want. I’d run the empire into flames.”

  “Well….”

  “It’s true and you know it,” he stated.

  After yet another pause, she said, “You would.”

  “So just count me out,” Chandler said.

  “Who’s that?” Micah said, and then his sister echoed. Micah had come out of nowhere, almost making him jump.

  “It’s my boyfriend,” he replied without thinking. And was stunned that he said it.

  But of course it was true.

  My God!

  “I’m your boyfriend?” Micah said, his face beatific.

  “You have a boyfriend?” his sister asked.

  “Yes,” he answered them both. “And he’s wonderful.”

  Micah pulled him close.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Chelsey said. “That’s really wonderful.”

  For some reason it wasn’t the reaction Chandler was expecting. “You mean that?”

  “Of course I do,” she answered. “I’ve worried about you for a long time, Brother. B
ut not for Mom and Dad’s reasons. You’re almost thirty. I don’t like seeing you alone.”

  Chandler’s voice seized up, and he thought he might cry. Wow.

  “Thanks, Sis.”

  Once again they went quiet, and it was Micah who broke the silence.

  “Count you out of what?”

  “My family’s big Christmas thing. She’s telling me I need to go, and I told her no. I told her she needed to do it. She said the Buckingham empire isn’t ready.”

  Micah looked at him intensely and then said with a smile, “Then maybe you should help it get ready,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” he and his sister said at the same time. Apparently she could hear Micah just fine, despite the cheap phone.

  “You go. You go to that thing.”

  And then Micah said something else.

  The idea was astonishing. Yet exactly the kind of thing Chandler would do. Why hadn’t he thought of it himself?

  So he told Micah he would do it, by God.

  But there was a condition.

  He was thrilled when Micah agreed.

  “Chelsey?” he said back in the phone.

  “I thought we had been disconnected!”

  “Can you get me two tickets?” he asked.

  After a moment she said that she thought she could.

  Well, naturally she could. She was a Buckingham.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE EVENT was spectacular, of course. How could it be anything less? Anything put together by even one of the families would be. But a Christmas gala by Buckingham-Hicks-Woodgate Charity?

  And when Chandler showed up in the green room, his mother came to him, that sly knowing look in her eyes. She was elegant as usual. And she said, “I knew you would be here. Look at you!”

  She held out her arms, and he went to her. Hugged her like a Buckingham. Quick. Perfunctory. He almost decided to give her a little start and hang on. Hug her like a Keolu.

  But no. Nothing like that.

  Not yet.

  She stepped back and gave him a quick nod. A double-eyed wink. There was fire in those eyes. The fire of righteousness. The knowledge that she had won once again.

  Then she looked beyond him, and the light dimmed and she nodded again and said, “Chelsey.”

  Chandler turned and there she was. “Hey, Sis.”

  She smiled and moved her fingers through her strawberry-blonde hair to push the perfection of it from her face. She was wearing white, and she looked gorgeous. Stunning.

  “Mother. Chandler.”

  She came to him and she hugged him, and to his astonishment it wasn’t the Buckingham perfunctory embrace. She hugged him. Pressed her heart to his. “So glad to see you, little brother.” She stepped back. Locked eyes with him. “You look amazing.” It was barely above a whisper. “Love suits you.”

  Chandler smiled. He couldn’t help it.

  “What?” their mother said. “What?”

  They turned to her, and Chelsey said, “I was just telling Chandler how good he looks tonight.”

  Mother crossed her arms over her broad chest. “Of course he does.” She took a step. “Armani?”

  Chandler nodded and touched the shining lapel.

  “I knew you would be back,” she said and brushed some surely imaginary something from his jacket. “You’re a Buckingham.”

  Chandler nodded.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied. He took a very deep breath. “I am.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  AND HERE he was.

  Micah sitting next to him.

  There had been a woman sitting where Micah was sitting now, looking wide-eyed out at the room from the raised area where they were eating dinner. Chandler had seen her there as they came in the back of the packed room amid a scattering of greetings. Kansas City knew the Buckinghams. Kansas City knew his father. The man had cut way too many red ribbons for them not to know who he was. Kansas City didn’t know a twenty-nine-year-old man who had gotten on the board of directors of Buckingham Industries.

  But the lady—Chandler thought he recognized her as some local celebrity, some version of Miss Merry Christmas—was gone now. Halfway across the room and wondering how he was going to get her out of her seat, he saw Chelsey step up behind her and whisper in her ear. A shocked expression came over her face, and she jumped up and left.

  “At least she warmed my seat,” Micah whispered in Chandler’s ear.

  No one even noticed that Miss Christmas was gone and had been replaced by a man. It wasn’t like they were holding hands or kissing or anything like that. Chandler was taking his cues from the people around them. None of them were kissing.

  So Chandler decided the time for swimming in public fountains and streaking sporting events was over. It was time to grow up.

  Which was why he ignored the glares from his mother.

  It was only at the last instant, when he knew it was time to give his Christmas speech, that he saw what she was planning. She was getting out of her seat and heading to the podium. She was usurping his speech! Because of Micah? Really?

  What did he do?

  Tackle her?

  He looked at Micah.

  Micah looked at him.

  Micah shrugged.

  And then… Chelsey was there. She slipped in front of their mother and hugged her and sent a laser beam–like message to Chandler through her eyes.

  “Go!” said Micah.

  He went.

  When he stepped in front of the podium before hundreds of people and their expensive dinner plates and a room gorgeous in red and green and gold, he froze.

  God. Full circle.

  Standing where his father had so many times stood before a group—whether it was a board or hundreds of people—with ease and with command.

  But he was not his father. He never would be.

  He wouldn’t try.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Happy holidays!”

  The crowd responded in kind.

  “I come tonight before you with great pride as a Buckingham and a part of a long-standing tradition of the Buckingham-Hicks-Woodgate Charity Christmas Gala to pass on some small part of what we have been given to those in need.”

  The audience applauded.

  “I only wish my father were here today. He was so proud of this event. He lived for it. It brought him pride.”

  “Hear, hear!” came cries from across the room.

  “But alas, he is not. Instead it is my job to stand here and say how grateful I am for all that God has given me and my family. My job to acknowledge that there are so many out there in the dark, so many in need tonight. Do you realize there are people on this cold snowy night who are sleeping in alleys? That are literally living in cardboard boxes? While we live in our towers of gold?”

  Murmuring.

  “I recently got to do something that those homeless people will only ever dream of. I got to spend time in Hawaii. A paradise!

  “Christmas is a little different there. For instance, Santa Claus doesn’t ride in a sleigh and there aren’t any reindeer. Instead he arrives in an outrigger canoe, and he wears a red Hawaiian shirt and sandals instead of the red-and-white suit. And instead of saying, ‘Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,’ he says, ‘Mele Kalikimaka!’ That means… you guessed it… Merry Christmas!

  “But to my surprise I found out—naïve man that I am—that there are just as many homeless people in paradise as there are here. Their only advantage is that the days are warm and sunny, the nights maybe seventy degrees. They don’t have to worry about snow.

  “You know, I met someone while I was there. He’s not homeless, although his home is a very small studio apartment. He works two full-time jobs just to stay afloat, one of them in a restaurant. I might add, by the way, that he’s a terrific chef, although he doesn’t charge quite as much per plate as we have tonight.”

  Laughter. Thank God. That one had been risky.

&n
bsp; Don’t look at Mom! Whatever you do, don’t look at Mom!

  “You know what my friend does? Several times a week when he gets off work, he packs up some leftovers from the kitchen and takes a bike ride down along the Ala Wai Canal—because he can’t afford a car—and feeds this old homeless man and his dog.”

  Smiles. More murmuring.

  “Why, just the other night, I joined him. But we took him leftovers from his family dinner instead. Kalbi ribs, macaroni salad, grilled mahi-mahi, fried rice, fruit salad with pineapple, papaya, and passion fruit, and pineapple upside-down cake. It was absolutely delicious! It wasn’t exactly ‘Christmassy,’ but he wasn’t complaining. He got a good meal. A really good meal. Everyone should be so lucky.

  “And of course we have to remember this time of year isn’t just about Christmas, is it? It’s about Chanukah and Kwanza and the Winter Solstice. But more than anything, it’s about love. It’s about the holiday spirit.

  “I look around this room and that is what I see.”

  This last was almost a lie, but he stuck with it.

  “I see love. I see people who paid a lot of money for a pork chop and some asparagus because it was about helping others, and that makes me so proud of Kansas City.”

  A burst of applause. This one not so light.

  “I see love.”

  More clapping.

  “But I’m not going to say anything more. Because I’m the wrong person to be up here. There is someone else who can say it so much better. Someone who is dedicated not only to Buckingham Industries, not only to our fair city, but to the Buckingham-Hicks-Woodgate Charity Christmas Gala, and dreams of seeing it go on for not only this year, but for the next generation to come. Everyone? My sister, Chelsey Buckingham!”

  There was one shocked second, and then someone—it turned out to be Micah—began to clap. Someone else picked it up, and as Chelsey took the stage, the room filled with applause.

  Her speech left his in the dust.

  TWENTY-THREE

  HE DANCED with Micah, and no one seemed to care. In fact, several gay and lesbian couples danced after they did, and several people thanked them for the lead.