10 Days in Paradise (Tropical Nights)

by Haymore, J.

  I gamely took up a forkful…and realized it was actually pretty good. Delicious, really. I ate until I was too full to take another bite. Then I paid and grabbed a tourist magazine from the rack at the entrance as I walked out.

  Just outside the restaurant, I reeled to a halt. A two-inch-long cockroach was sitting in the middle of the wet sidewalk outside Kimo’s, staring at me with little beady eyes, just like the cockroach I’d seen in the Kona hotel room.

  My heart surged, feeling like it was going to pound straight out of my chest. I considered my options. I could turn around and go back inside Kimo’s, but once there, what would I do? I could try to dash around it, but it was effectively blocking my way out of the diner.

  Or I could face it head-on. Staring at the bug, I swallowed. I could do this. I was much bigger than this thing. A little bug couldn’t hurt me. All I had to do was step forward confidently. Slowly, I rolled the magazine. The roach’s antennae quivered.

  I took a moment to steel myself, then lunged forward. The roach started skittering away, but I was faster. I whacked the magazine hard on the cement path, flattening it.

  Breathing heavily, I dropped the magazine in a nearby trashcan and sagged against a pillar.

  I’d done it. I hadn’t frozen up. I hadn’t envisioned it eating me alive. I’d been afraid, but I hadn’t let fear take over. Instead, I’d conquered it.

  Well, I was about to hyperventilate, but it was a start anyway.

  Taking deep, slow breaths, I turned away from Kimo’s and strolled along King Kamehameha Avenue. After a block or so, my breathing calmed down and I felt good—no great. Lighter than I had in a long time. The rain had taken a short hiatus, and sunlight glinted off raindrops everywhere. So beautiful. Green and sparkling. Even the rust-stained buildings looked cheerful and pleasant.

  A bell rang when I opened the door beneath the sign reading Shave Ice, Azuki Beans and Crack Seed. I’d come here on Kanoe’s recommendation, and he’d given me a list of things to try.

  One side of the store was stocked with a long row of glass buckets filled with different types of seeds and unidentifiable items, some slimy wet, some suspended in bright red liquid, others dry and chalky. Opposite the glass jars, a long countertop ran the length of the store. The two women behind the counter glanced up when I walked in. One was older, with graying hair and a weary expression. The other one was young and exotic, with thick black hair falling past her waist, wide hips, and a generous smile.

  “Can I help you with something?”

  “Yes. Er…I think I want a…shaved ice. And some crack seed.”

  The big smile turned soft around the edges, as if the woman knew I had no idea what I was talking about but didn’t want to embarrass me by laughing. The older woman turned and walked away, disappearing into a back room.

  “What kind would you like?” The young woman motioned to the chalkboard menu suspended from the ceiling behind her, which listed about a hundred different flavors. It took me a few seconds to realize these were the flavor choices for shaved ice.

  “Um…I’ll have the Hawaiian Rainbow.”

  “With azuki beans and ice cream, yeah?”

  “Sure.”

  The woman produced a paper cone, into which she scooped a spoonful of what looked to be vanilla ice cream. Then she added some beans, which looked like the black beans I ordered in my burritos at home.

  Home. You’re leaving Kanoe tomorrow…

  I swallowed and blinked, watching the woman work the snow cone—shaved ice—machine, scooping the fluffy ice flakes and patting them down into the cone. She kept going and going, creating a giant mound of ice, so enormous I wondered how it all could possibly balance atop that tiny paper cone. Finally, carefully balancing the creation, she poured generous amounts of flavoring on top of the ice, creating red, yellow, green, blue and purple stripes.

  “There you go.” The woman stuck a flat wooden spoon and a straw into the ice and handed it to me. “Anything else?”

  “Yes…some crack seed, please.”

  The woman gestured to the row of glass jars. “It’s self-serve. Would you like some help?”

  It would be impossible to bag my own crack seed, read Kanoe’s suggestions, and eat shaved ice all at the same time, so I nodded. “Thanks.”

  The woman came around the counter as I started tackling the gigantic ball of packed ice flakes. It was sweet. Each flavor was strong, discernable. Right now, I tasted strawberry.

  “What kind would you like?” asked the woman, snapping open a plastic bag.

  “Um, let me see here…” I fished the piece of paper from my pocket. Kanoe had written the list on Royal Hawaiian Helicopter Tours stationery, and I’d folded it several times to fit it in my pocket.

  When I’d finished unfolding the paper, the woman gasped. “Are you Celeste?”

  All right. This was odd.

  “Yes,” I said guardedly. “How…?”

  The woman smiled again, showing big, white teeth. “I’m Hiwa, a friend of Kanoe’s. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Have you?” A friend? Right. I felt myself drawing inward, shutting off. Through hazy eyes, I stared at Hiwa. Curvy body, thick hair, sparkling dark eyes, smooth, tanned skin. I swallowed and looked away, staring at Kanoe’s list.

  “Yeah. I was hoping he’d bring you to meet me, but he said you didn’t have much time left.”

  I didn’t understand. Why would Kanoe send me here knowing I’d meet Hiwa? “Well, he knew I was coming here today,” I murmured, “so I guess he had it all planned out.”

  Hiwa shrugged. “This is usually my day off. But I got promoted, so I have new hours. I don’t think he knows. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days.”

  Well, that was a relief. Still, the situation was horribly awkward. I needed to get out of here as soon as possible. “Well then, he says…um”—I fiddled with the paper—“li hing mui is a good one to try.”

  “Yeah, li hing mui.” When Hiwa said it, it sounded like “lee hee mwy.” “Did he say wet or dry?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, I think he’d probably want you to try it dry. How much would you like?”

  “A quarter of a pound.”

  Hiwa transferred a large spoonful of dry, ash-colored wrinkled seeds into the bag. “What’s it made of?” I asked, eyeing it warily.

  “Dried plum and salt.”

  “Interesting.” I took a bite of the shaved ice, which was already melting, dripping down the sides of the paper cone. “How do you eat it?”

  “Depends on how much salt you can take at once.” Hiwa smiled. “Some people pop the whole thing into their mouths, suck off the meat and spit out the seed. Others take tiny bites until the meat is all gone.”

  I stared dubiously at the little bag of li hing mui. Hiwa didn’t make it sound nearly as good as Kanoe had.

  “What’s next?”

  “Oh, sorry.” I studied the paper. “The next one on the list is lemon peel.”

  Hiwa wrinkled her nose. “He likes that one. Too bitter for me.”

  On the bright side, though, lemon peel didn’t seem to have any actual seeds involved. Hiwa scooped some into a second bag.

  We continued in this fashion for the next three items on the list: pickled mango, candied ginger, and crack seed. Then Hiwa went back behind the counter to tally it all up for me as I sampled the bizarre but delicious taste of vanilla ice cream mixed with the sweet azuki beans mixed with the shaved ice flavoring.

  I paid, giving an inner sigh of relief. Meeting with Kanoe’s ex could have been much, much worse.

  As she handed me my change, Hiwa asked, “Can I walk with you outside for a minute?”

  “Um, sure.”

  Hiwa called to the woman in the back room, speaking in such thick pidgin English, I didn’t understand a word.

  She opened the door to let me out. I was grateful, since my hands were full of a melting concoction of ice and my shopping bag of crack seed.

  Hi
wa reached for the bag. “Can I carry that for you?”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Where are you parked?”

  “A ways away, actually. About half a mile down the road, past Kimo’s Drive-In.”

  “Oh, Kanoe took you to Kimo’s? They have the best loco mocos on the island over there.”

  “I took myself, actually. I tried the loco moco.”

  “Oh.”

  We walked in silence for a while, and then Hiwa said, “Kanoe tells me you’re from Los Angeles.”

  “That’s right.”

  More silence. I finished as much as I could of the shaved ice and tossed the sodden paper cup in a curbside trash bin, feeling jittery from all the sugar.

  Hiwa tried again. “Did Kanoe tell you about me?”

  “No. I heard about you from his mom and his brother.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, Kanoe and me…we’re like brother and sister. We grew up together. They call us calabash cousins—we’re not really related, but we might as well be.”

  I squirmed inside but tried to remain outwardly noncommittal. “Uh-huh.”

  “Anyway,” continued Hiwa, totally oblivious to my discomfort, “they always thought we would…well, that we would get married, have kids together, do all that kind of stuff. We tried to make everyone happy for a while, but it just wasn’t the right thing for us. We have a lot in common, but Kanoe…he’s different. He’s really connected to the kānaka maoli—that means ‘native Hawaiians’—but in a lot of ways, he’s different than most kānaka maoli. He thinks about things differently.”

  I gazed at Hiwa. She was taller than me, a beautiful woman with a smile that showed her bottom teeth as well as her top. She seemed like a genuinely happy person. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of friendliness toward her. “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, he grew up really poor. His dad died when he was little, and sometimes his mom didn’t have enough money to buy gas for her car, so he walked or hitched rides everywhere. Sometimes kids in that situation grow up to be drug addicts or dropouts, but not Kanoe, you know? He graduated top in his class while working at the airport and learning how to fly. Now he’s got his own business, bought oceanfront property, built his own house. Nobody knows where all his ambition comes from.”

  Interesting. Where did it all come from? I had a similar drive, but it had been ground into me from infancy.

  “Anyway, it’s no surprise he ended up with someone like you,” Hiwa said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean, you know, someone who will surf with him, fly with him, respect the land, but someone who will also stand up to him, who’s as smart as him—someone who’s his…equal, I guess.”

  “How could you know anything about all that? I mean, you don’t even know me.”

  Hiwa shrugged. “Nobody knows Kanoe like me. We’re close. He never thought he’d end up with someone with no connection to Hawaii. He’s more surprised than I am. It’s hard for him, you know? Realizing that he’s falling in love with you, but that you have to leave—it opened a whole new door to him that he kept hammered closed for his entire life.”

  I stopped in my tracks. It felt like the world was shrinking around me, squeezing my body. I couldn’t breathe. I felt the blood draining from my face. Forcing the words out of my closed throat, I said, “Did you say, ‘falling in love’ with me?”

  Hiwa frowned. “What? He didn’t tell you?”

  The sudden onslaught of emotion inside me made me wobbly-kneed and nauseated. My vision swirled as I stared at Hiwa. What was this? All these strange, foreign feelings were too hard to decipher. I couldn’t understand, couldn’t break them down, not in the middle of the sidewalk, talking to Kanoe’s ex-fiancée.

  You’re leaving tomorrow. You’re leaving tomorrow, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Let it go.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” I whispered.

  Hiwa reached toward me but then dropped her hand. “Oh,” she said, the expression on her face as softly compassionate as her voice. “Yeah, he told me. That’s going to be hard.”

  *****

  I wanted our last night together to be special. I was pretty sure I was going to be celibate for the rest of my life, because after Kanoe, nobody else would do. That was fine. I’d plunge into my career headfirst and make partner. A few years after that, I’d start my own firm to rival Lowenstein, Barrett, and Galindo. Or maybe I’d stay and they’d add my name to the title. Lowenstein, Barrett, Galindo, and McMillan.

  That sounded awful.

  I gazed at him across the candlelit kitchen table. At first we’d planned to go out, but then we decided it’d be more intimate to have dinner at his house. We’d gone surfing at dusk, then closed up Aunty Nanette’s house for the last time, leaving the key in the rusty lockbox. All my luggage was here, packed and ready to go. I’d drive the rental convertible—what a totally impractical car to have in Hilo—to the airport in the morning, and Kanoe would follow behind in his truck to see me off.

  I’d prepared my specialty—actually one of the only things I knew how to make well: California rolls with fresh crab. I knew he’d like them, since they contained rice, fish, egg, and seaweed—ingredients he’d shown a fondness for in the past several days. He wolfed them down, even though I’d made them without my bamboo roller or sushi slicer and they were falling apart.

  “I never got to make you my chicken katsu,” he said between mouthfuls.

  I smiled. “Oooh, another Hawaiian dish. I learned about Spam musubi today, you know.”

  “Did you try it?”

  “Couldn’t bring myself to do it. Tried a loco moco instead.”

  “Yeah? You like it?”

  “You know, I kind of did.”

  He chuckled and took a bite out of his sushi roll.

  Despite the light conversation, a strange sort of heaviness had hung in the air between us all afternoon. I didn’t want to make it worse or more awkward by telling him about my meeting with Hiwa. I felt as if a clock, no, a time bomb was ticking. Soon I’d be far away from this slice of heaven, from this place and this man who’d surprised me in so many ways, who’d shown me so much and opened me up like nobody in my life ever had.

  I took a piece of candied ginger—which had proven to be my favorite of the items I’d bought this afternoon—and sucked on it. In twenty-four hours, I’d be home in the land of gridlock and smog, drowning in stress, moving fast, avoiding Mike and Manning. Fun.

  “Don’t think about it,” Kanoe said.

  “About what?”

  “Don’t think about tomorrow. Let’s live in the moment, like we’ve been doing.”

  “All right.” But what if I couldn’t keep those thoughts at bay? I had a few more hours with him, we’d sleep, then when we woke up in the morning, it was off to the airport.

  “Stop,” he said gently.

  “Am I so easy to read?”

  “Yeah.” He rose and came to me, kissing my forehead before taking our plates into the kitchen. As he rinsed the dishes, I went to his big front window. Spotlights sparkled over the inky depths of the ocean. The surf had been low today, and I could hear the difference now—the waves breaking over the rocks made smooth rolling sounds rather than their typical harsh crashing noises.

  He was suddenly behind me, his hands moving from my shoulders to my upper arms.

  “I want to touch you all night,” he said into my ear. “Every part of you. I want to burn you into my memory.”

  “Yes,” I whispered. I wanted to do the same with him. Even better if it took all night. I could sleep on the plane. On the plane, as I flew away from him, toward L.A. and work, toward my life, away from this treacherous, beautiful, heartbreaking fantasy.

  “Ipo, how can I make you stop thinking about tomorrow?” He pushed my hair aside, and his mouth traveled from my jaw to my neck, planting gentle kisses on my skin.

  I shuddered, feeling like I was going to cry. How was it possible? How had this man tur
ned me into an emotional train wreck in ten days? I was a different person around him. A person who felt things strongly. And the feelings at this moment were so intense, I could hardly think, hardly function.

  I turned and wrapped my arms around him, resting my forehead on his shoulder. He ran his hands down my back, then tangled them in my hair. “You smell like saltwater,” he said. “And sun. Let’s take a shower. I want to wash it all off so I can smell the real you underneath.”

  “What does the real me smell like?”

  He smiled, dimples carving into his cheeks. “Vanilla. And sugar. Mmm.”

  “But saltwater and sun—that’s your smell. Before surfing, after surfing, even after showering. Maybe you’ve rubbed off on me. I want to go home with your scent on me. I never want it to wash away.”

  I felt the change in him, the sudden tension, the quickening of his pulse.

  “Come.” His voice was gruff. “We’ll see if it washes off. If it does…” He didn’t finish the thought. Instead, he led the way into his bathroom. It was a huge room, nearly as large as his bedroom, and I loved it despite the overtly masculine black tiling everywhere. The shower was the best part of the room—I’d spent so long lounging in it last night, Kanoe finally had to come in and drag me off to bed.

  It was as if he’d designed it with me in mind. The showerhead had a strong flow—it wasn’t one of those dribbly water-conservation showerheads like in my apartment in California. Instead, it was powerful enough to rinse shampoo out of my hair in seconds. A chest-height window looked from the shower out to Kanoe’s lawn, and a tiled bench ran the length of the shower beneath it, perfect for shaving legs, or other things. We hadn’t made love in the shower, but my newfound dirty mind had thought up several naughty scenarios for that bench.

  Kanoe turned to me, cupped my face in his hands, kissed me, and I tasted his sea-salt flavor right away. He began to unbutton my shirt one button at a time, stroking the skin of my collarbone, my chest, and my stomach. His fingers felt unnaturally hot—every touch seemed to leave smoldering embers on my skin. After spreading my shirt wide open, he tugged it down over my arms and put it on the counter.