Two To Mango

by Jill Marie Landis

  Slowly, he reached toward her. Em held her breath.

  Roland slipped his hand beneath her coffee cup, tipped it upright and stepped back again. “You were about to spill that on your lap.”

  “Thanks.” She cleared her throat, stared down into the coffee mug to hide her embarrassment. “So what do I do?”

  “First you have to convince Kiki to enter the women in the kupuna division of the Kukui Nut Festival Competition.”

  “Kupuna?”

  “Senior division. She’ll probably jump at the chance.”

  “And then?”

  “Get them signed up, and we’ll go from there.”

  “I’m on a need to know basis, is that it?” She wished he’d move back. She was starting to sweat, and it wasn’t from the humidity.

  “All you need to know right now is that you’re about to spill that coffee again.”

  3

  Convincing Kiki

  Em walked Roland out to his car and then cut across the parking lot to the Goddess. Kiki and the Maidens’ cars were still there. Sophie looked up when Em walked into the bar from the back office.

  “How’s it going?” Em glanced over at the Maidens.

  Kiki was talking. No one was listening. Flora was crocheting, Suzi was texting, Big Estelle was glaring at her mother, who was draining a Shark’s Tooth Frenzy, and Lillian was blowing her nose. Even Trish was there, but the photographer was fiddling with a long telephoto lens.

  “High drama as usual. You want anything? Orange juice?” Sophie asked.

  “No thanks. I’m fine.” Em headed over to the table where Kiki was frantically making notes on a clipboard. Kiki paused the minute she saw Em. Her cheeks were flushed—from either too much bronzer or too many drinks—Em couldn’t tell.

  “Have you heard?” Kiki glanced out the window alerted by the crunch of Roland’s car tires on the gravel drive as he left.

  Em nodded. “You mean about the dead kumu? Roland just told me. Sounds like a great loss to the hula community.”

  “It’s terrible.” Kiki glanced down at her clipboard. “We’re planning to dance at the funeral.”

  “Wow. You were invited already?” Em knew the coconut wireless worked fast, but this was warp speed. She also knew the Maidens hadn’t made many friends when they’d showed up uninvited to dance at opening day of the Annual Goat Hunting Tournament.

  “Not yet, but we will be. Prior planning prevents poor performance.”

  “If only that were true in our case,” Big Estelle mumbled.

  Kiki shot her a dark glance.

  “Are you entering Mitchell’s competition?” Em hoped she sounded casual.

  At the far end of the row of tables, Flora immediately dropped her knitting and took a swig out of her Gatorade bottle. Big Estelle gasped. Trish winced and shook her head at Em with a don’t-go-there look on her face. Suzi stopped texting. Little Estelle let out a bark of laughter and frantically began to toot the Gad-About horn.

  “Enter the competition?” Kiki set down the clipboard. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why not?” Em glanced at the faces gathered around the cocktail tables. Only Lillian seemed to be as in the dark as she was. “You all love to dance.”

  “We entered that Kukui Nut Festival competition two years ago and got the worst scores ever given,” Trish confessed.

  “You danced too?” Em tried to imagine. Trish usually never appeared anywhere with them except at the Goddess.

  “Those scores weren’t my fault.” The photographer shrugged.

  “Nobody’s fault really,” Suzi said softly.

  “We are not ever competing again and that’s that.” Kiki drained her wine glass and held it in the direction of the bar. Sophie came to collect it for a refill.

  “We were pretty lousy dancers back then,” Big Estelle volunteered.

  “As opposed to now? None of you has a clue what you’re doing.” Little Estelle never let them forget she’d danced as a Rockette. She was a trooper. A real professional.

  “But now we have our Sophie,” Lillian chirped.

  Sophie handed Kiki another Chablis then held up her hand.

  “Hold it right there. I only volunteered to teach you a new dance for the Slug Festival. That’s it. What you need is a real kumu hula.”

  Flora burped and shook her head. “Tried already. Nobody wants us.”

  “Well, you need someone strong enough to keep you all from wasting time arguing over minutia.”

  “We are not entering the competition,” Kiki reminded them. “Let’s get back to the funeral plans.”

  “You couldn’t have been that bad.” Em had seen them when they were “on” and were halfway decent. Those times were few and far between.

  “Oh, yeah. We were bad.” Flora nodded so hard her jowls bounced.

  “Why not enter this year and redeem yourselves?” Em suggested.

  “It wasn’t just the dancing,” Suzi sighed. “They hated our costumes. We wore strapless holoku.” At Em’s puzzled expression she added, “Long muumuus, like ball gowns with six foot ruffled trains. We draped the trains over our wrists but everyone kept tripping. Flora got tangled up like a mummy and fell over.”

  “Broke our number one rule,” Big Estelle said. “Never fall down.”

  “At least my top stayed up,” Flora noted. A pitiful little moan escaped Lillian.

  “I think the judges objected to the fruit baskets on our heads more than the gowns,” Trish added.

  “Fruit baskets?” Em tried to picture it.

  “Real fruit. A pineapple, some bananas, lychee.” Little Estelle chuckled. “And mangos.”

  “Killer mangos,” Trish mumbled.

  “All glue gunned to a rattan paper plate holder and tied to our heads with long strands of raffia.” Suzi sighed. “Chiquita Banana style.”

  Flora picked up her knitting needle. “Took hours to make ’em,” she grumbled. “We barely started dancing when a mango fell off Trish’s head and hit the Defector smack on the toe. She limped off stage in the middle of the dance.”

  “So much for the show must go on.” Little Estelle snorted. “I once had to dance with a broken toe. Had to cut my shoe open to get the thing on my swollen foot, but did I let that stop me?”

  “You’re kidding,” Em said.

  “No, I’m not kidding. Why would I?” Little Estelle’s face fell into a frown.

  “I meant the part about Marilyn. I can’t imagine her with a fruit basket tied to her head or hobbling off stage after a mango maiming.”

  “It was one of the reasons she quit.” Suzi tucked her iPhone into her purse and stood up. “I’ve got to show a property. Are we about finished, Kiki?”

  “I’ll email you the funeral details soon as I get them. Flora, don’t forget to call and get us on that program.”

  The Maidens got to their feet and started digging in their purses for money for their drinks. Em noticed Lillian’s eyes were swollen and her makeup smudged but knew it best not to ask why.

  One by one the women paid for their drinks and edged out from behind the tables, gathered up their oversized purses and tote bags with their hula notebooks and left the bar. Little Estelle, trailing along behind on her electric scooter expressed her impatience by revving the motor and honking the horn.

  Once the room was quiet, Em tried encouraging Kiki again.

  “What if I help?” She volunteered. “Would you enter?”

  “You can’t hula.” As if she smelled a rat, Kiki watched her with a critical eye. “Why is this so important to you?”

  Em shrugged. She was convinced she’d have to tell Roland Kiki had outright refused to enter the gals in the competition.

  “You’re all so much better now. Wouldn’t it be great
to vindicate yourselves? Besides, I’m sure you can find someone to coach you.” She glanced at Sophie who mouthed no way. “It’s a shame not to try again,” Em added.

  “We’d only have three weeks to prepare.” Kiki had a far off look in her eye.

  Em took the expression as a good sign.

  “We don’t do well under pressure.” Kiki seemed to be talking to herself more than Em. “Competition brings out the worst in us. We don’t play nice with each other as it is.”

  “Maybe if you learned a very simple dance, executed it perfectly, and didn’t overdo the costumes?” Em suggested.

  “You think?”

  “Better than giving up all together.”

  Kiki’s shoulders slumped. She let go a long suffering sigh. “I guess we couldn’t do any worse than last time.”

  “Or you could do so much better.”

  Em watched Kiki gather her purse and notes and slip her purse straps over her shoulder. As usual she was decked out in aloha wear, a floral print tank top and matching wide legged capris. Fuchsia was her signature color of the month, and she’d pinned an artificial spray of fuchsia flowers along her left temple. Though she was on the far side of her mid-sixties, she wore her long salt and pepper hair to her waist.

  Kiki picked up her glass and downed the remaining half of the wine. “You might be right,” she nodded. “Maybe we should enter. In Mitchell’s memory.”

  Worried she would get the Maidens in over their heads, Em didn’t feel as relieved as she would have liked. Roland was going to owe her big time for this. She felt even worse when Kiki paused on her way out.

  “Did I ever tell you how glad I am that you answered our distress call and moved to Kauai, Em?”

  “Not officially, but I know.” Em did know how thankful the Maidens were, especially Kiki. They’d sent Em a one way ticket to Kauai at one of the lowest points in her life because they needed her help. The idea that the Maidens would lose their beloved Tiki Goddess because of Uncle Louie’s poor management had inspired them to track down his only living relative.

  “Well, officially, thank you. Now I’ve got to run. I’m sure there’s a deadline for contest registration, so I’ll get right home and check online. What with Mitchell unexpectedly ending up dead, they might extend it.”

  Kiki hurried out, and Sophie started collecting empty glasses and wiping condensation off the tables. A rental car full of tourists pulled into the parking lot, a sign that the lunch crowd was rolling in.

  “So what’s up with that?” Sophie wanted to know.

  “What do you mean?”

  Sophie clicked a stud pierced through her tongue against her front teeth and held up her finger. “Okay, let’s see. First your no-nonsense detective shows up.”

  “He’s not my detective.”

  “Whatever.” She held up a second finger. “Then you casually stroll in and start pushing Kiki to enter a competition that’s being held by the same halau whose kumu just so happened to fall over and go maki. You were shoving so hard Kiki’s actually considering it. Something is definitely not right here, and it has something to do with Roland Sharpe.”

  “I know there’s still some animosity between you and Roland but . . .”

  “Some? Being arrested on murder and kidnapping charges will put girl off for a while.”

  “But you were vindicated,” Em reminded her.

  “Thanks to the Hula Maidens.”

  Sophie still hadn’t budged and was waiting for an explanation.

  “Let’s just say we may be in for a bumpy ride.” Em fell silent and indicated the front door with a nod.

  A family of tourists piled out of a minivan and two sedans and began to file in. Lobster red, still in swimsuits, tank tops, and flip flops, they left a trail of sand behind them as they walked in and looked around the empty bar with trepidation.

  One of the mothers was dragging a five-year-old along through the door by his wrist while he screamed through a snorkel, his tears trapped behind his swim mask. If not for his mom’s iron grip on his wrist and a hearty yank he would have tripped over his flopping fins and landed on his mask.

  “Brentwood, I don’t care if you scream until you’re blue in the face. Everyone is starving, and we are through snorkeling for the day.”

  His swim fins slapped the floor as he snuffled along behind her. The group of fifteen claimed chairs as Em welcomed them with an aloha and went to collect menus from the bar.

  A second later, one of the older boys lost a coin toss and had to take snorkel-boy to the bathroom, while Brentwood’s harried mother collapsed into a chair. One of the men, apparently the leader of the pack, walked up to Em. His gaze flicked over the liquor bottles lined up behind the bar.

  “Do you serve kids in here?”

  “Of course, but not alcohol.” Em smiled and handed him a stack of menus. “We’re a bar and a restaurant. Kids can only be inside until nine p.m. when Chef Kimo stops cooking.”

  After that the lights went down, the music got louder, the crowd got younger and the place morphed into a full-fledged bar complete with an occasional brawls and bottle throwing—but only on the worst of nights.

  “Why do I get the feeling I should be worried about this hula competition thing?” Sophie was behind the bar looking for a pen. She had her order pad in hand.

  “I’ll tell you later when things slow down,” Em promised.

  Before Sophie walked away the older boy ran back in from the restroom.

  “Mom! Brentwood’s snorkeling!” He hollered.

  “What?” His mother jumped up, frantic. “How did he get out? He’s not supposed to be in the water by himself.”

  The teenager yelled back. “He’s not. He’s in the bathroom with his head in the toilet bowl!”

  4

  The Defector Begs

  “Big crowd tonight.” Kiki’s husband, Kimo Godwin glanced out of the door between the bar and the kitchen. The hefty hapa-Hawaiian wandered back to the stove and drizzled shoyu over a huge wok full of fried rice.

  “Your Saturday shrimp and rice special always brings them in, honey.” The fact that the Goddess was choke with patrons delighted Kiki. “I’m so excited to make my big announcement tonight.”

  Kimo paused, wooden rice paddle in the air. His usually smiling brown face was marred by a worried frown.

  “You sure this is a good idea, Keek?”

  Kiki took Kimo’s place in the open doorway, surveyed the crowd again. Then she took a deep breath and nodded. “I do. We’re ready. The girls will never be more ready than this.” She paused and then gasped. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh no, what?” Kimo left the stove to look over her shoulder.

  “The Defector just walked in. Why does she always have to ruin everything?”

  “Ruin how?”

  “Look at Louie. He starts grinning like an idiot whenever that woman is around.”

  “You keep saying he’s losing it. Maybe that accounts for the grin.”

  “We only told Em that to get her to move over here and help him out.” They’d taken a chance sending Em a one-way ticket and a plea for her to take over for her “senile” uncle—who wasn’t senile at all—not officially anyway. No more than the rest of them anyway.

  But falling for a gold digger like Marilyn Lockhart certainly qualified him.

  “I’ve got my own pupu platter full of worries tonight,” Kiki mumbled. “No need to add her to it.” The Maidens had made such a poor showing at the Kukui Nut Competition before that Kiki had no reason to think they’d do any better this time. Not unless she could get Sophie or someone else to coach them.

  “Looks like Danny’s ready to get things started,” Kimo nodded toward the stage where Danny Cook, the guitarist, and his sidekicks were tuning up.

  “I
’ll go give the girls the high sign.”

  She was headed toward the ladies’ room that the Maidens commandeered as their dressing room when her nemesis, Marilyn Lockhart, slipped away from Louie’s side and came prancing over.

  In her silk Mandarin cut gown, gold designer sandals and armload of heirloom bangle bracelets, Marilyn was as out of place in the Goddess as a vegetarian at a pig hunt.

  “Kiki, you’re looking lovely tonight.”

  When Marilyn fairly cooed, Kiki knew the Defector was up to something. It was hard to tell by the woman’s expression how sincere she really was because she’d had so many Botox injections that only her lips moved. Her smile never reached her eyes.

  “Excuse me, but I’ve got to get the dancers . . .” Kiki tried to walk past but Marilyn took a step to effectively block the way.

  “I’ve never seen anyone combine that shade of neon green with purple and orange before,” she told Kiki. “Who knew it would actually work with your complexion?”

  “Thanks.” Kiki tried a head fake but couldn’t get around her. “I think.”

  Marilyn reached up and straightened the huge spray of artificial flowers artfully attached to the right side of Kiki’s head.

  “Your flowers were slipping.”

  “The Maidens are waiting for their cue.” Kiki looked everywhere but at the Defector. When the woman failed to move, Kiki finally met her gaze and was shocked.

  Marilyn’s eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

  As Kiki stared in awe, Marilyn slowly wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with a perfect crimson acrylic nail.

  “I’ve been thinking about dancing again.” Marilyn spoke so softly Kiki had to strain to hear her in the crowded barroom.

  “I thought you were dancing . . .” Then Kiki suddenly remembered. “Oh! You were in Mitchell’s halau last, weren’t you?”

  Marilyn’s face took on a sorrowful expression, at least Kiki thought she was trying to. It was hard to tell.

  “Oh, I quit that halau a while ago,” Marilyn admitted.

  “Oh really? I never heard.” Kiki realized her jaw was hanging open and snapped it shut. In a town without secrets the news had the effect of a nuclear bomb. Something wasn’t quite right. Kiki knew Marilyn never started a conversation unless she wanted something. The woman wanted something now, and she wanted it bad.