From the Heart

by Eva Shaw

  What happened in the next stopped all of this maudlin reflection. Fear can do this to you. Bet you knew that.

  Chapter 8

  My mind was fully focused on gaining entry into Mr. Quinn’s office to read Babes’s file and while there was no plan, as of yet, I knew one would come. That was what was on my mind turning the corner toward Ala Moana Boulevard.

  I thought about driving around the city for old time’s sake, but it was a good day for a walk, so I left my car in the lot and headed toward the big mall. I’d get something cool and tropical to drink, have lunch maybe, and then enjoy retail therapy at Neiman Marcus and DKNY. Hey, I had to wear something band-ish, even if I planned to hide behind the keyboard as I filled in for their ailing keyboard player.

  Thinking about the event, I tried to block their fans out of my mind. I’d faced down serial killers, stood with SWAT teams before raiding a hedge fund office, been a hostage in a high-end home invasion, and told countless people that their loved ones had met with some terrible end. In college, I’d played at a few supper clubs and for weddings. “A group of clapping Baby Boomers—heck, it’ll be nothing.” Okay, the truth? To say the idea of being in a rock band on stage seeing all those people made me go weak at the knees was the understatement of the century.

  I really should take Jane’s advice, I thought, and fortify myself with chocolate. I knew I’d seen a café and bakery on that block and I was halfway there when something skittered up my spine. It wasn’t an insect.

  A survival instinct told me to stop. Across the street was a man, dressed in a silk shirt the color of a tropical lagoon, black slacks, neat haircut. Nothing odd. He chatted on a phone, leaning on the planter not far from where I’d turned the corner. He looked like everyone on the street, coming from or going to lunch. Yet, he had looked directly at me and I’d seen that connect. If he was police, he wouldn’t have made eye contact and he glanced down. If he was an everyday nut-job stalker, he wouldn’t have cared. I stopped in the shade of a royal palm and pretended to make a phone call, but I didn’t have any backup. I didn’t have anyone to call. Jane? At nine months and counting with her pregnancy, she was actually slowing down a bit and also fighting with city hall about having the church services on the beach. And Tom and Harmony were on Maui snorkeling near Molokini. Henry? He was off visiting with soon-to-be famous Alana Yu, sister of the infamous Payton of course, and whose last name was plastered everywhere since she was running for governor. Max? I didn’t know the guy well enough to share a laugh. So much for a safety net; I was on my own.

  From where I stood, I could see him. I thought about the gristly description of Jimmy March lying in a pool of his own blood which Babes had detailed and tried to attribute my creeps to that. Horrific things did happen in broad daylight, don’t ever forget.

  As I moved up the block, slowing to peer in the shop windows, he kept pace, walking close to the buildings. I slowed, he slowed. I stopped. He stopped. Always looking away and keeping the cell to his ear.

  Then I did something brave, or supremely stupid. I turned and walked straight toward the man. He turned completely and moved away. I walked into a shop with forty zillion t-shirts, trying to be interested in one that shouted, “Surf’s Up, Dude,” as I tried to shake off the spooks. I’d been pretending to be back on top of my game as a consultant, and the truth was: Now I was nothing. Except as a rider on an emotional rollercoaster. Where was that always-in-control person? Fear was a whole new sensation. One I didn’t like.

  “Keep walking,” I told the New Me, knowing with enough right turns I’d get back to the parking lot. No matter how fast I walked, the creepy feelings didn’t stop. I was on the brink of getting panicky. “You’re never afraid,” I told myself, hearing the false bravado in that declaration, but new self just clutched her purse closer to her body. Stopping in front of a window displaying pearls, diamonds, and sapphires, I tried to calm the terror. I didn’t need to turn around. I knew. He was there on the cell phone. Still.

  I tried to memorize what he looked like. Nothing special. He was medium height, with spiking jet black hair, flashy diamond in his ear glittering in the morning sun. The wind ruffled the collar of his shirt and he fixed it while still looking at me.

  I straightened my shoulders. “Nica, knock it off and get a grip,” I ordered and then disobeyed that order. To my right was the little café and bakery I’d seen earlier and I dashed inside, thinking, “I’ll call the police if he’s still there in five minutes.” Somehow that slowed my breathing enough to get a few dozen cookies to take to the rehearsal, but moments later, now loaded down with a pink box, I stepped through the bakery’s door. Lots of people, many with packages, briefcases, and more cell phones crisscrossed in front of the shop. A few well-dressed children were being dragged along on a buying trip and one little redhead was stamping his feet and yelling, “No!” I knew just how he felt.

  I slipped on my sunglasses and looked to where the man had been standing. Gone. Finally, he was gone. My cheeks puffed out in a sigh. “Okay—just an over-active imagination.” Except that discomforting feeling would not go away.

  The sidewalk was busy and in the distance I saw him watching me.

  I balanced the bakery box, fumbling in my purse for the car keys. Then for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I ran smack into Payton Yu. Plunk.

  This time, he grabbed my shoulders, but not before handing me the bakery box that was about to tumble to the sidewalk. “We’ve got to stop this. One of us is going to get hurt and as a tough law enforcement expert or agent or whatever you are, I have a sinking feeling it’ll probably be me.”

  “Oh, Payton, I don’t care if you get hurt, but I’m really thankful to see you,” spilled out and once out, the New Me was glad his hands were holding me up. Every ounce of courage disappeared. The counselors in my cancer support group said personality changes were normal after everything I’d gone through, but becoming the Cowardly Lioness was a total shock.

  “Nica, come on, honey, what happened? You look like you need to sit. Okay, come on this way. Look, here’s a café. Sit down and catch your breath.” His voice was so warm, his arm on my back was comfort and safe and okay, I’ll confess, I followed like a confounded kitten.

  I put the pink box on the bistro table, caught my breath, and then asked, “What are you doing here, Payton? Following me?” I huffed, which even surprised me, but the acknowledgment of being a lost little kitty made my bluster sound hollow. Because it was.

  Payton’s island tan never looked better and the cream-colored aloha shirt looked like it was custom made. He waved to a couple across the café, pulled his chair closer to me, and whispered, “My tutu, um, that’s aunt to you mainlander types, is Tina’s second cousin. Tina—you remember, the receptionist at Carlton Villas. Well, she sent a text to her cousin saying that she met a relative of someone who was somehow connected to Slam Dunk. She told her your name. Tutu knows Alana loves Slam Dunk and thought maybe Tina could ask you if you’d introduce my sister to the band. Then Tutu told me. The Hawaiian grapevine is speedy, although not always correct. For all I know, you could have been doing some charitable duty and visiting because you are such a noble woman.”

  “So you drove across town to meet me here?” I was totally confused.

  “No. Not exactly. Tina also mentioned that she left for lunch just after you did and thought she saw someone following you. She followed the man, medium tall and pointy hair. Then she called Tutu again. After that Tutu called me because I’d told her we were friends and mentioned that you were at the reunion.”

  “And you dashed in on your white horse to rescue me?” I looked around. “To rescue me without your hired muscle?”

  “Yeah, I left them at the office. Aren’t you glad I’m here?” He smiled, that crooked melt-a-high-school-girl smile and darn it all, a little something in me seemed to be defrosting.

  I took
a long drink of the Kona coffee. “There was someone following me, Payton. Who would want to find out what I was doing? Who would even care?”

  “Want me to ask some questions? You know, I’ve got a few connections here in Honolulu—and in the state.”

  I shook my head and snapped. “I’m a big girl, in case you didn’t notice. Sorry, I haven’t been myself lately.”

  “You look better than yourself, Nica. Whatever you’ve done since you left us locals to head to Boston and MIT agrees with you. Henry told me about your job, um, career, and about your marriages. I’m sorry. It’s rotten luck to have to bury one husband, but two? I really am sorry.”

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  Payton gazed across the street, then said, “Do you remember Courtney Osaka?”

  Having one of “those” minds that lets you keep all the useless and useful information stored for further need is a gift, so I immediately said, “Yeah, head cheerleader, cute as all get out, and as I remember, told everyone she was going marry you straight after high school and bear your children. And that was in tenth grade. Did she?”

  The server offered more coffee. Our quick chat stretched to a half hour, which was fine by me. Better to have Administrator Quinn out for his golfing date with the governor and away from the building.

  Payton laughed, but it didn’t sound like he enjoyed this walk down Memory Lane. “Sort of. We did get married.”

  “Hey, congratulations. That’s great,” and I meant it. They’d been sweet together. Courtney was pint size with thick black hair that fell to her waist and every guy on the football team willing to do her beck and call. Even then, with Payton’s huge, chocolate colored almond-shaped eyes and a smile that could make anyone fall in love with him; she did, of course. Now where did that “fall in love” memory come from? I thought and shoved it to the back of my brain. “And I bet you have more than your share of little ones, right? You two always made a cute couple and your little ones have to be darling. What’s children in Hawaiian? Keikis?” See, I can be polite even though I was still thinking about the hopeless feeling I had for Payton when Courtney made it well known he was taken. As if there’d been a chance for me, right?

  “Not exactly. I was in my junior year at the university and had already been accepted to Stanford with their MBA program. Courtney, who was finishing cosmetology school, came to my apartment one day and announced that she was pregnant, very pregnant, eight months. She demanded that we get married.”

  “Okay, well, that’s still good news, right?”

  “The folks weren’t that excited, but they accepted her. We made it legal, she quit beauty school, and I had an official roommate.” He stopped abruptly. “Do you really want to hear my tale of woe, Nica? Don’t you have better things to do today?”

  Wild horses were not going to drag me away from hearing Playboy Payton’s romantic downfall, because I could read on his face that all wasn’t Jim Dandy in his world, and besides, he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. More so, there was no line where one had been in the recent past. Okay, it’s horrible for me to say this, but a microscopic part of the Old Me felt that maybe he was getting as good as he had given. The New Me, with my now forgiving heart, said, “I’m a good listener.”

  He puffed a great breath, leaned his chair back to balance it on its back legs, just like I’d remembered him doing in homeroom so many years before. “The baby came, healthy, and Courtney did well. Cute little guy we were going to name Patterson, after my anakala, um, uncle. The baby also had red curls.”

  “But how?” I understand procreation, yet I must have missed something.

  “Red curls, lots of them.” Payton shrugged. “You know that my heritage is Chinese. Courtney’s is Japanese. There was the dilemma.”

  This time, I just nodded.

  “I didn’t know what to do. My parents were in Hong Kong visiting my mom’s side of the family. The day “our” child was born, I asked for a paternity test. No weird DNA discovered. Little Patterson wasn’t my biological child. Courtney and I had a tear-filled talk and she admitted she’d been seeing a few guys at the same time we’d been dating. When she found out about the pregnancy, she went through the list, told the others, and each denied the possibility. Good old Payton Yu, Mr. Stand-Up and Honorable Guy, regardless of how shifty you may think I am, did the responsible thing.”

  I patted his hand. We both looked at our hands touching and in the same instant drew apart. “That was the respectable thing to do since you didn’t know.”

  “Long story about to be over . . . Courtney and I filed for divorce and she sought out Patterson’s biological father who married her and accepted Patterson. It’s complicated, but we’ve stayed friends, us three adults and Pat. He’s eighteen and a great guy. Plays football, we surf almost every Saturday morning together, and he calls me Uncle Pay.”

  “That’s a happy ending, right?”

  “Yeah, sure, Patterson’s a great kid.”

  “So, you’re not married?”

  “I don’t think that’s in my future, Nica.”

  I sipped the smooth coffee. “Life is complicated. It certainly has been for me.”

  “Henry told me when he was at the house today. Oh, don’t look at me like that. He explained about the cancer and your treatments because he loves you. When changes happen in life, it takes time to adjust. I know that.” He looked at the tablecloth, twisted his coffee mug, and then re-arranged the orchid in the tiny vase.

  The only changes I could imagine that could or should trouble playboy Payton Yu would be the fact that his hair was getting thin and that he’d never get into a thirty-two waist pair of jeans again. Then I wanted to slap myself. The guy just so was kind to me. Apparently, I could think I was grown up on the outside and hold a responsible position with a federal agency, but Payton turned me into a caustic, sarcastic adolescent. However, wonder of wonders, at least this time I didn’t bark out those words.

  “So, Alana had a chance to visit with Henry. Good time was had by all?” I asked, and yes, I did want to change the subject. If Payton needed those bodyguards, then he was playing in a league I didn’t want to know about.

  “She did. They talked for a long time and that’s good for my sis. Life’s been grueling for her these last months.” His cell buzzed. He didn’t answer and immediately turned it off.

  I was stunned. “Running for governor is a big, complicated deal. All of your family must be proud of her. I knew, even in high school, that she’d be important one day. Planning to run for president in the future? She’ll certainly get my vote. Wow I cannot wait to tell the people I worked with in the bureau that I went to school with the next governor of Hawaii.” I waited. And waited a bit more.

  Payton didn’t even smile. How could he not be tickled three shades of pink for his sister? They’d always been close. What had happened?

  “I thought you knew,” Payton said, twisting the coffee mug. His brow was etched in lines I’d never seen before.

  “Knew what, Payton? Your last name is everywhere. I’ve seen the signs that shout ‘Yu for Governor’ all over Honolulu. I’ve been avoiding watching the news since I’m trying to think only cheery thoughts to get over the constant edginess, like the doctors had advised me to do. What about Alana?”

  He looked up and gently placed his hand over mine. “Thought you knew that just before Christmas, Alana was cycling on the Big Island—some charity race—and a fan thought it would be helpful to offer her a cup of water. He stepped out too far, she swerved to avoid hitting the kid, and at the same time a branch from one of the palms lining the highway fell in front of her. She flipped the bike, went down a cliff, and hasn’t walked in eight months.”

  “No, oh, Payton, I am so very sorry. Alana was my hero. But she’s still active, right? She’s running for governor, so she must be,” I offered, but the words came out tinny
because his face was clouded. I knew worry and fear when I saw it.

  “Wrong Yu, Nica.”

  “But your father is elderly? Oh, of course, one of your other relatives.”

  Payton tried to smirk, tried put on the crooked smile that melted high school girls, but it didn’t work this time. He was serious. “I’m the Yu whose name is plastered around town.”

  Chapter 9

  “You? Oh, no. You’re kidding, right? You? No.” The mouthful of Kona coffee that was nearly down my throat, nearly was spit all over the next hopeful governor for the State of Hawaii.

  “What’s up with this, Nica?” Payton handed me his napkin which I needed to blot coffee from my chin that got there when I gasped the above words. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a staunch supporter of Margaret Flint. You are aware that she’s the incumbent and my opposition. She has aspirations of running for president in the next decade, all backed with shady funding?”

  “Not at all, Payton. I just am having a hard time imagining you as a politician,” I replied and then thought back to the reunion dinner where Payton was glad-handing everybody from the catering servers to the guys in the slack string guitar band and all of the alumni, too. I prided myself on being aware of my surroundings and I had missed that. Totally. “So, who were the protectors surrounding you at the International Marketplace?”

  “Protection, you’re right, actually. Even this early in the campaign, the Flint camp has started to throw some mud. And it’s going to get dirtier. I’m running on the Green Party ticket, which is actually strong in the Islands. Our current governor, Miss Margaret as she likes to be called because she traces her ancestors back to the original missionaries, inadvertently let it slip that if elected for another term, she’ll lobby to bring in nuclear power to the islands. I heard that she’s planning on selling some of the park land on the big island, too. I am dead set against all of this, as are the majority of voters.”