“Kate,” Dad says as we pull up to the valet parking. “It wouldn’t be a good idea to get too close to Caleb. This thing between our families, it’s not all the way over. Even though I trust Ben Kalani and respect him, we aren’t friends. That’s just how some things should be.”
CALEB
My head is clear and uncluttered again as I return home. Last night I prayed until I fell asleep on the beach, and I feel like I’ve successfully disciplined my thoughts. My senses are invigorated by the freshness of predawn light. I make the walk home with a renewed strength.
Before Dad and Gabriella wake up, I make coffee in the old Mr. Coffee machine, cut up some strawberries and a poor excuse of a papaya, pour rice and water into the rice cooker, and then fry up hamburger patties and some eggs.
The scent of my cooking wakes Dad and Gabe. Before long, we’re at the table and I realize this is the first breakfast I’ve cooked for them since Mom was sick.
“You made loco-moco? My favorite!” Dad says when he sees the rice, burger patty, and eggs. “Who taught you how to cook like this?”
I pour coffee into his mug, and half a cup for Gabe, my tomboy sister, who says, “It wasn’t you who taught him, Dad, that’s for sure.”
“Mom did,” I say and it’s not a sadness that grips us like usual, but a rather nice comfort. We’re here together, and she’d be happy to see this moment.
Gabe eats almost as much as me and talks nonstop about a new sci-fi movie she and Dad watched the night before.
I sit with them in plastic chairs at the round Formica table. A small sprig of flowers decorates the center of the table in a chipped coffee mug instead of a vase. I belong here. Every day, I remember to be grateful for this. I shouldn’t have waited so long to join them.
Dad and I head in for work after dropping Gabe off for the day with Aunt Gigi and our cousins.
The night crew has already started in on the prom cleanup. Luis and I clean random places on the property and make discoveries of empty bottles and beer cans, scatterings of cigarette butts, a few piles of vomit, and a few even more vile remnants of last night’s activities in the dark.
Luis holds up a pair of girl’s silk underwear with a stick and laughs. “You find who lost these, send my way, si, amigo?
I shake my head at him. “I doubt you’d really want whoever left those.”
“You not know me,” he says and laughs at his own joke.
A few hours later Luis deems our work done and takes off for home. He’s become a Seattle Redhawks fan and they’re playing against a California team this afternoon. I was already on the schedule this Sunday, so I head back to the maintenance building to get the small Kubota tractor and a little apple tree I’m going to plant where Dad says an old one fell over last winter.
For a moment, I remember Kate being here last night, looking over the pictures in Dad’s office. I brush away thoughts of her. Not thinking about her takes a lot of work, I realize. But when I do think about her, it’s like a wrestling match with my thoughts and emotions. Maybe Finn slipped me something in my Coke last night, some drug that made me feel like I was falling in love. I wonder if Ecstasy would do something like that.
I pull on work gloves and carefully put the apple tree in the bucket of the Kubota. The engine rumbles to life, then I put it in gear and drive the tractor along a gravel road. Spring’s in full swing all over the property. When I reach the row of apple trees, they are white with blossoms. It looks like it’ll be a good year, and I remember Mom saying how it would be nice to be here during the local apple festival in the fall. Mom always wished we lived in the Pacific Northwest so we could experience the four seasons. In Hawaii, we had three: the hot season, rainy season, and tourist season.
I pull the apple tree out of the bucket and hop back in, turning the seat around to the scoop side. Within a few minutes I have the roots of the old tree removed, and a nice place for the new tree.
When I turn off the engine, a voice makes me jump.
“Hi.”
It’s Kate. She looks up at me and her hair shines in the sunlight with strands of gold. She’s wearing jeans and a blouse, and she looks way better than she did in her fancy dress from last night. My peace is immediately shaken.
“How did you find me? I’m half a mile from the hotel.”
“I followed the sound of the tractor. Did I almost give you a heart attack?”
“Of course not, I have the reflexes of a ninja warrior,” I say as if offended. I notice the golf cart parked by the road.
“That’s why you almost jumped out of your seat?” She laughs. Maybe we could be friends. Nothing more, of course, but friends would be fine.
“I don’t have your number,” she continues. “I would have called.”
“Is there a problem?”
“No. I just thought I’d say hello. And”—she twists her foot back and forth, looking down—“and thanks for saving Katherine last night, and for everything. You know.”
She’s nervous and doing that lower lip-biting thing that unhinges me.
“Any time.”
“So why did you transfer with school almost out?”
I hop out of the tractor and pick up the small tree. The roots are bundled in a gunnysack. Dad gave me strict instructions on how to plant it. “It’s complicated. Long story.”
“I have time,” she says.
“It’s not that interesting.”
“Can I help?” she asks from close behind me, and on reflex— maybe also to keep some distance between us—I hand her the tree without thinking how heavy it is.
She nearly drops it, and dirt is smudged across the front of her light yellow blouse.
“Sorry,” we both say.
I brush off her arm but stop before helping with the dirt across the front of the shirt.
I step back awkwardly then try covering it with a joke. “I’d buy you another one, but let me guess, it’s from somewhere exotic?”
“Yeah, Macy’s—real exotic. You aren’t buying me a shirt.” She shakes her head. “Stain Stick will take care of it.”
I raise a doubtful eyebrow. “And you know this from years of laundry experience?”
“Okay, I’ve been told Stain Stick takes care of it. I have done laundry a few times, but yes, we have a housekeeper who will make this blouse pristine clean once again. She’s a miracle worker.”
“I might have to send her over some shirts then.”
Kate puts a hand on her hip. “So you don’t like personal questions?”
I smile. “Are you going to help me plant this apple tree or not?”
“It’s an apple tree?” She unbuttons her blouse, and I quickly turn to the gaping hole I’ve dug with the tractor. The poor tree will be swallowed up.
“Presto, I’m ready to work.” She’s down to a tank top, and I shake my head in consternation. It’s almost comical how good she looks.
I reach for a shovel from inside the tractor bucket.
“I talked to my father about our family differences.”
This interests me. Dad never discusses it, but Grandfather had plenty to say. After forty-something years, he’s still determined to get the hotel back.
“What did he say?’
“Well,” she hesitates. “Just that our grandfathers were friends and they had a falling out. It was over a woman or over the land, something like that.”
To put it mildly. I start filling the hole back up with soil, chopping it up so that it’s well aerated.
“There was a legal battle, which left the two families bitter toward each other.” She sits on the edge of the tractor.
“I think one family is a little more bitter than the other.”
She opens her mouth in surprise, understanding the implication.
“Why did you move here?”
“My grandfather and I had a disagreement. He’s a difficult man. I can understand some of why your grandfather didn’t see eye-to-eye with him. He expected a lot from my father— that di
dn’t work out so well. Now he expects a lot from me. I needed some time away from him, and I missed my father and sister.”
Before she processes that and seeks her next question, I say, “Are you ready to plant your first tree?”
She puts her hands on her hips, and I catch the scent of that perfume of hers again. “This isn’t the first tree that I’ve planted.” “Really?” I don’t believe it.
She tosses her hair back over her shoulder. “Talk about me being judgmental. I did a charity tree planting event a few years ago.”
“For Arbor Day, perhaps?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, for Arbor Day.”
“And you dug the hole and planted the tree completely?”
Her mouth opens and then shuts with a frown, both pouty and sweet. “I tossed in a few shovels of dirt for the photographer.”
“Like I said, ready to plant your first tree?”
“Give me that shovel,” she says.
Friendship with Kate Monrovi isn’t a good idea. Something more than friendship would be disastrous. No longer do I resort to disparaging thoughts about her to keep my distance. That’s not the right way to keep my feelings at bay. It’s the easiest way, but not the right way. We plant the tree together, and I’m fighting with this energy that ignites between us. It’s like being possessed. How can this girl get into my head and emotions so quickly? If she were anyone else on the planet, I’d believe she was exactly what I’m looking for—though I wasn’t planning to find this “her” for another ten years at least.
After loading up the tractor, she says, “I have more questions. Can we talk? Maybe after work?”
There is something about her that sinks me in, like quicksand.
Temptation. Diversion. Kate could get me off track. I should stay far away. For so many reasons.
“I’m going into the city after work.”
“Oh.”
“Church,” I say, guessing she’ll find that strange—and suddenly hoping she does. It would help me immensely if she were a Christian hater.
She frowns. “You’re going to church tonight?”
I nod. “Why, want to come?”
The expression on her face is classic deer in the headlights. I almost laugh. Kate Monrovi at church—at my church—would be even more humorous.
“Okay.”
She said okay? I act like this isn’t shocking.
“Should I drive?” she asks.
Several hours later, I’m driving Finn’s old jeep up to the employee entrance of the inn. I text Kate—we now have one another’s numbers—and she comes out a few minutes later. Her feet pause when she sees the jeep that is minus doors and a top. There’s a worried look on her face as she pulls herself up.
Kate’s been game for pretty much everything so far. I wonder if she’s always like this. After buckling her seat belt, she pulls out a rubber band from inside her purse and ties her hair into a thick ponytail.
“Let’s just hope it doesn’t rain,” I say, trying to soothe the awkwardness that I feel every time I first see her.
“So next question. My dad said you and your family came here on vacations.”
I nod. I don’t want to go down this path.
“Have we ever met before?”
“It’s going to get loud on the freeway, we won’t be able to talk.”
“Okay.” But there’s disappointment in her tone.
I can see she isn’t one to be distracted from her Q&A. Do I lie when she asks again? Or do I tell her about my eight-year-old crush on her? We were here for two months that summer. I saw Kate often from a distance. She didn’t play with the guests.
One day at the beach, Mom brought a pack of buckets and shovels for me to build a sand castle until Dad came down with the wet suits and boards.
My castle was partway built and a masterpiece in my eight-year-old mind. Then I noticed a little girl about my age with a wild mane breezing behind her as she ran for the beach. She kicked off her shoes and raced for the waves, screaming when the first one hit her toes. I was fascinated by her long blonde hair and perfect white skin.
Kate’s older sister looked like a movie star; she had an entourage carrying her lounge chair, an umbrella, and delivering drinks to her. She shouted for someone to get Kate and put sunscreen on her—that was how I learned her name.
While I was watching her, a wave grabbed my green shovel. I didn’t notice until I watched Kate race into the water, trying to reach it. Her sister screamed and hotel staff went running. Kate sank into a wave at the same time someone scooped her up. I remember people standing up to make sure the little girl was okay.
She sputtered and cried for a moment, and I saw the green shovel in her hand. After a scolding from her sister, Kate ran over and handed me the shovel.
“Mahalo. Thanks,” I said. “Want to build a castle with me?” Her sister called her and looked at me like I was a grubby little boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
“Stay over here, don’t play with him,” she said to Kate.
“But he said I can help with his sand castle.”
“I said to stay here.”
We played separately the rest of the day casting occasional glances at each other. When I went out on my board, I wanted to impress her. She waved good-bye when her sister took her up the stairs.
Over the years, I would sometimes see her when we came for a visit. Once we walked by one another and she gave me the polite friendly smile she probably gave every hotel guest. There was no light of recognition that we were the children who’d almost built a sand castle together.
What would Kate say if I told her this story? I decide that I won’t tell her. She’d feel badly that her sister treated me like that. If she’d remembered me, she wouldn’t have asked if we’d met before. Such connections are best kept to ourselves.
In trying to get out of a mess, I quickly get myself in deeper. But wasn’t it the good Christian thing to bring people to church? Yeah, the best intentions always sank with excuses like that.
KATE
If he’d asked me to smoke meth with him, I would have been less shocked than I am that Caleb has invited me to church. Church?
I’ve only known the guy one day—not even an entire day— but I felt I had him pretty well pegged. Bad boy, fighter, trouble, hero, flirt, surfer guy—which added up to him most likely being a player. He’s even successfully avoided answering if he was seeing someone. He’s good.
I did not expect church.
For one, it totally shocks me that Caleb goes to church at all, let alone that he was going tonight on his own. Then we arrive at his church, and it makes more sense. The congregation looks like a mixture of people from a music festival and a beach party. There are quite a number of people with tattoos, piercings, and motorcycle helmets under their seats. The pastor’s arms are tattooed, which proves a bit of a distraction, I must admit.
Perhaps I’m a church prude, because I’m not sure what I think of all this. It’s one thing to be around Monica or Oliver or various friends of mine who do whatever they want but don’t attend church. Monica came to Sunday school with my family as a kid and sometimes claims to be a backsliding Christian, and Oliver says he’s an obnoxious. I thought he meant agnostic, but he said, no, he’s obnoxious to all forms of religion and spiritual enlightenment.
But these people here tonight are Christians. Not everyone is dressed like a biker; there’s a number of hippie and rocker Christians, a group that appear to be rehab Christians, and finally one older couple who look like the Christians from my church. It’s quite a mixture of ethnicity, style, and income.
Caleb introduces me to several people.
The music starts, and my skepticism fades. The mixture of people dissipates until they are united for this time, many with raised hands and some wiping tears from their eyes. I recognize a few songs from Third Day, POD, Jeremy Camp, and then Rich Mullens’s “Awesome God.”
Our church attempts a few contemporary songs, but they
inevitably turn out organ-based and churchy-sounding, with notes held too long and the tempo reduced to a snail’s pace.
Caleb looks surprised when I know the words to many of the songs. He actually frowns when I turn to Colossians in the Bible—I brought a Bible from Dad’s office, which Caleb stared at when I took it from my purse.
As we’re standing in front of a couch—a frumpy, overstuffed couch—toward the front of the stage, suddenly Caleb hops up between songs and walks onto the stage. He hasn’t warned me. He takes up a guitar on the stand and joins in the next worship song. I can’t stop staring. At his fingers, at the way he looks with that guitar in his hands. He looks up at me and he’s playing and staring and I think something in me just melted away into nothingness.
After the worship is over, Caleb returns and we say nothing to each other, we don’t even look at each other.
The message—which is quite difficult to concentrate on because of Caleb beside me—is about the love of God. How God’s love is greater than we can conceive. How we put limits on his grace and love, wanting everything to be safe by having rules to live by, works to measure our successes.
It’s not exactly a new message. But the bits I hear strike me in a unique way. My parents have taken my sister, brother, and me to church since we were born. Our sermons are directly from the Bible, and everyone dresses in respectable attire. We grew up going to Sunday school and weekday Awana clubs. My sister never cared to explore a relationship with God, to even consider it possible. My brother was the Jesus boy for years, but lately, I see him tugged more into secular life. I know my faith withered considerably when one of our pastors had an affair, and I realize that it was about the same time I decided true love didn’t exist. Perhaps there was some correlation there.
The tattooed pastor says, “The root of love is God. It doesn’t matter who we are or what we believe. This is the core of life itself, whether we choose to believe it or not.”
Caleb + Kate Page 8