From the Heart

by Eva Shaw

  Payton pulled me aside. “That’s the happiest I’ve seen sis since the accident. She was bouncing up and down with music and I thought she was going to knock over her wheelchair. I swear, for a time, I thought she was going to get up and dance. The docs have been guardedly optimistic that she’ll walk again with plenty of physical therapy, but it’s been a nightmare for Alana and us. You and the band are an incredible blessing to my family, Nikky, and I won’t forget this.”

  “Then stop calling me by that awful high school name, will you,” I pleaded.

  “That I can’t do because I love it,” he said and I swear if he hadn’t been such a guy’s guy, he would have slapped his face for letting that gooey statement out. But instead of being embarrassed as a normal human would be, he pulled me to a quiet corner near the deserted dressing rooms.

  “Look me in the eyes, Nikky or Nica or Mrs. Wainwright-Dobson, or whatever you want me to call you,” he demanded.

  I looked down into his smooth, but craggy face which was weathered just enough to show he loved the outdoors. I watched his expressions soften and then his lashes flutter. As an inept profiler, these signs I believe meant he was an experienced liar (wait, Payton was a politician) or someone who was about to spill the beans and get totally mushy. Therefore, I tried to get away, but when he touched my face, my feet refused to budge.

  “Just listen. I apologize for all the adolescent, hormone-driven behavior I put you through years ago. If I could go back in time, I would have stopped the gossip. I would have told the truth and stood up to the others like a man.”

  “Payton, it’s okay. It’s over,” I tried to interrupt him.

  “Stop. Listen to me, hear me out, Nikky. I have regretted my actions or realistically my stupid inactions every day since that incident, regretted my behavior for two decades. When that line backer Buck Flint, and yes, he is the baby brother to Miss Margaret Flint, pulled you down to the ground there under the bleachers where I knew you were hiding to get away from the taunting of the cheerleaders, including Courtney, I just wanted you to get away. I knew, we both knew, what he had in mind.”

  “So you stood up to him,” I whispered, “and what he had in mind didn’t happen.”

  “Wait. Something awful still did happen when old Buck spread the gossip that you and I were doing it after every evening practice. And that you’d have sex with anyone who got to know you. I knew it wasn’t true, but it would have been my word against Buck’s and by the time I got back to practice after helping you get cleaned up, he’d told the world, that was our high school, all those wretched lies. Who better to take revenge against me because I was selected to be the quarterback when he wanted it than to lie about you and me having sex beneath the bleachers.” He gulped. “I honestly thought the talk would die overnight because everyone seemed to think I could get any girl on campus, but whether you want to believe it or not, and I’m hoping you believe me, I was as socially awkward as any other guy in our class. Sure, I knew kids in our school who were doing it, but I wasn’t part of that. You have my word on it. My sin was that some part of insecure me wanted to believe that you found me attractive enough to, well, do what Buck said.”

  I placed my chin on his shoulder. “I didn’t understand why you didn’t tell the others what really had happened, but I was just thankful you happened to be there when you were.”

  “I was there because I’d seen Buck staring at you since the start of school. When I saw him follow you, I just acted.”

  As if I’d lost control of my arms, they circled Payton and I felt his arm come around my waist. “I know this is twenty years overdue, but thank you. If you hadn’t stepped in, much of my life, I’m sure, would have been different. We probably wouldn’t be here talking today.”

  He pulled away and looked into my eyes. “And you wouldn’t have been dubbed the easiest girl at Kukui High for the next three years. Yeah, I really helped.”

  “Stop it. It’s over.”

  “Can I call you Nikky because I love to?”

  I punched his chest, softly. “Okay, but if you rhyme it with anything, anything, Payton Yu, I will have you arrested for harassment on some trumped up charge that will take you a month of Sundays to get out of.”

  “Scout’s honor, ma’am, um, Nikky.” He laughed and yanked me to his chest.

  Truth be told, I was rather enjoying being where I was until I heard a round of not-so-subtle coughs and giggles behind me. Yes, the entire Yu family, Slam Dunk members, Jane, Tom, Harmony, and thank goodness, not the little dog, were right there.

  “Any announcements to make, little brother?” Alana asked, unable to stop smiling.

  “Yeah, Nikky has accepted my apology for being a jerk,” he replied and kept an arm around my waist.

  Alana grabbed my hand. “Honey, I believe that was the first time in my life I’ve ever heard my sibling apologize for anything. I don’t know what magic you’ve created that has changed the guy, but keep it up.” She pulled me down and we hugged.

  “I second that,” said tiny Mrs. Yu.

  Henry jumped on a chair and waved his hands. “Listen up, everyone. You’re all invited to the Glass Slipper, that restaurant, okay it’s a dive, but friendly and it’s right across from the Aloha Tower. We’re all going there for a late supper and it’s all on Slam Dunk.”

  I’ve never seen so many musicians, lighting crews, stagehands and their families, because this was definitely a family affair, move so quickly. It felt like a gale force wind hit the place, and there I still stood. But I had the sense to let go of Payton. Before I got all mushy about his apology and announcement that he loved my name, I let the crowd move me out of the theater. Besides, I needed to think over what had just happened. And if it had anything to do with my heart beating out of my chest, or that was some chemical reaction, some hormones that had been in hiding for years or a result of the cancer treatments.

  Finding love again in the future sounded okay, but there was no way on God’s green earth I was going to let my heart get smacked around by the likes of Payton Yu unless I wanted to and he showed maturity to my wishes. Remember, my friend, I’ve been married twice and had to learn what “death do we part” meant. While Payton was younger than husbands number one and number two, there was so much I didn’t know about him as a man, like his moral code, his personal statement of faith, and if he was someone I wanted to see the last thing at night and first thing in the morning for the rest of this lifetime and perhaps beyond. Plus, did he always travel around with two muscled bodyguards? Or was that just during elections?

  So when he slipped an arm around my waist again as we headed toward the exit, I stepped away.

  “Did my magic evaporate that quickly?”

  “No, Payton, you’ve got charm oozing from every pore,” I replied.

  “Sounds disgusting,” he said and waited by the stage door while I grabbed my shoulder bag. “Nikky, listen for a second. I came on awful hard just now. I’ve always stayed back when emotional decisions were to be made, waiting to see if my feelings would be safe. It could be my heritage, but after forty-five years, my parents still smooch. Except that’s only when they think nobody sees them. It’s weird, but Alana and I have just tried to accept them.”

  “What are you getting at?” I felt my forehead wrinkle.

  Payton looked at the bodyguards, nodded, and they disappeared. “After Alana’s accident, she told me from that hospital bed about how she had a near-death experience when she was on the operating table. Yeah, serious and rational Alana told me it happened while she was having surgery to stop the internal bleeding. Our grandmother, we called her the Chinese name Nai Nai, and she were walking on a beach, holding hands and talking. They reached a place with waterfalls and lush vegetation. Alana said it reminded her of Sacred Falls State Park, on the North Shore. Nai Nai told her there was more for her to do so she wasn’t going to
die. You know Alana. She argued with Nai Nai, but my grandmother wouldn’t listen. Alana said, ‘I was told to get back in my body, stop my whining, and do the work God planned for me.’

  “Then she freaked me out. Alana said, ‘Payton, Nai Nai wanted you to know that you must stop being afraid when love looks you in the eyes. She told me to tell you that when you dream of the woman you have loved for your entire life and you must find her.’”

  Payton was not smiling. This wasn’t a trick to get my attention. His face was pale. “I’ve never told anyone about this. Alana asked me not to. And she doesn’t know what happened next. I stayed the night in the hospital, on a pullout bed they have for family of dying patients and that night I dreamed I was back at the Kukui High. There was Buck dragging you down in the mud, but this time I was me. I was thirty-eight-year-old Payton Yu. I grabbed the back of his football jersey and lectured the big oaf on how if he ever even thought of looking in your direction again, I would rearrange his brains and he’d wish he’d never been born. I also used language that would have turned my mom’s hair even grayer.”

  “Me? You dreamed about me? After twenty years?” What would you have said to that revelation? Yeah, I was dumbstruck, too.

  “When I woke up that next morning, Alana was actually sitting up in bed with ear buds on, listening to Slam Dunk on her iPod and tapping a tune with her index finger, the one finger that she could move back then.” He swallowed. “So, when I bumped into you at the International Market, you think you were blown away? I nearly had a heart attack, and my heart’s in fine working condition.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Except, Payton, it was just a dream.”

  “Nikky, I thought so, but if you’ll have me, I’d like to do something so old fashioned that it’s probably going to become hip again. I’d like to court you.”

  I chuckled, the nice kind that sounds warm. “Is there an app for that? I could Google it, maybe, and see if I wanted all that it entails.”

  “As the hopeful next governor of the State of Hawaii and responsible for our people, our ‘ohana’—our family, I would be honored if you’d accompany me to the Glass Slipper and let me buy you dinner and maybe even ask you to take a walk later.” He bowed.

  I blinked and blinked again. If this was the new and mature version of Payton Yu, it was bizarre, but oddly comfortable. “I may live to regret this, but can we shake on the fact that we’ll consider this courting thing?”

  “I’d even do a blood pact, but you may remember, I faint at the sight of it.” He chuckled and made a face.

  “That’s right. I remember the last football game of the season and you scrapped your leg. You stood in the end zone, and yes, I was hiding behind some silly sign. But I saw you look down at your shin, see the scrape and the blood, and topple over. Everyone thought it was an injury until the coach informed the crowd that you were fine. You just had a delicate stomach. However did you get over that?”

  He took my hand and the car keys that were in my fingers. “Too much information already? I have to save some of my most embarrassing moments for our next courting session. Come on, the family will think we’ve deserted them and who knows what Henry will make of this. Alana? She can read me like a novel, like all those romance ones she gobbles up.”

  Chapter 12

  When we arrived at the Glass Slipper, the music poured out the open doors. Henry was right. It was a tropical dive and complete with cheesy tiki torches and ten-foot tall Hawaiian masks.

  “You been here before, right?” Payton asked.

  “No, you? But according to Henry, the poo poo platter is to die for and you can stuff yourself on everything from poke to loco moco and hear the best old rock and roll on the island.” I told Payton how the place only served tropical drinks sans any alcohol as the owner was a recovering alcoholic. “Besides, he told me, ‘Old rockers don’t get that way when they mix music and alcohol,’” I explained to Payton as we walked through the front doors.

  Henry, Max, and a few guys I didn’t recognize were jamming.

  Payton nudged me. “You know you want to sit at the keyboard.”

  “You know no such thing,” I snapped. What provoked my irritation was that I didn’t like the guy reading my mind, thank you very much.

  “Go on, you want to. I’ll find us a table. I’ve got some connections, know a few people here. You have fun.”

  “I would greatly appreciate it, Mr. Yu, if you should ever again want to read my mind, don’t cross the line and tell me want I want to do.” But I was now smiling.

  “Duly noted, Mrs. Wainwright-Dobson, my love.” He smiled the words and turned to meet and greet some locals who probably were prospective voters. Payton waved to the body guards we’d left at the Hawaii Theatre who were sitting at a table near the entrance and having a great time.

  Time slipped away and the club filled with more people. At nearly midnight, the group took another break and I had my first chance to find Payton. He was at the bar and introduced me to the club’s manager, Reba Price.

  When Payton pulled out a stool for me, I realized they were talking about Jimmy March.

  Reba reminded me of a Hawaiian Jennifer Lopez, ultra-shapely and enjoying showing it off. Her handshake was firm and she got right back to business. “I’ve only been here for a few years. I’ve heard about the March Man, larger than life from some of those stories. If I’ve learned anything in this business, it’s smart to believe about half of the stories—especially about rock and roll singers.”

  “I saw Babes Waller this afternoon. Doing well,” I said and she nodded.

  “Max told me about the old group. Have you seen Pinkie yet?” Reba asked quietly, as Payton started schmoozing with a passing customer.

  “Did Pinkie know Jimmy as a musician or a writer?” I had no idea who Pinkie was, but it was a lead. I wasn’t going to blow it by sounding like an outsider.

  “No idea. I’ve never met him, just know the name. Seems to me, and I could be wrong, that he managed or maybe played with some of the groups back then. Never Slam Dunk, but the others that Jimmy played with before joining up with Henry and the guys,” she said and motioned to Henry who was diving into a poo poo platter.

  Reba plucked a golden hibiscus from the vase on the bar and put it behind her left ear, making the Merlot-color of her hair looked stunning. “Wait, my dad mentioned Pinkie a few days ago. That’s right, Pinkie lives with his kids now—has to be pushing seventy, think it’s north of Pearl City. Dad was talking with a customer about old times and like bartenders love to do and I was washing glasses. I remember them saying that when his band managing skills went south, he played backup. When the Navy closed some bases, the bars where service personnel closed and even the good musicians couldn’t find gigs.” Reba toyed with the Club soda and juice she was sipping. “Never Pinkie’s last name, Nica. But the barista, I recall, is somehow related to someone who Pinkie knew and I’ll just ask—” But a customer wedged between us and started talking to the manager.

  I got up and said, “I need a refill of the mango juice. I’ll find out.” And weaved through the crowd to the middle bar where the bartender was working.

  “I’ll take a chance and just to be risky, add a twist of lime to that,” I said when I was caught staring at the nose rings, all four and strung through his right nostril.

  “Hot crowd tonight.” He smiled. “And you’re the best of them.” He had braces on his teeth.

  That was so way not true, and I wondered if he thought I was a cougar. “Been here long?” I wanted to check his driver’s license and contact his mama about what he was doing. This guy looked about sixteen and yet I swear he was checking out my cleavage.

  “Nope. Reba’s somehow related to my mom and when she heard that Slam Dunk was going to come here after the concert, she put on extra staff. I have all of Slam Dunk’s music. Most of us around
here worship at Diamond Head Christian Center. That’s how we met. If you know this town, you know it. It’s just about six miles east of Honolulu, big building. Gotta come to the Saturday night service, I tell you, the music is the most excellent. Hey, I could take you.”

  “Sorry, I’m, well, see Payton Yu over there?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He has decided he’s going to court me.” I smiled.

  “That some type of new video game, right?”

  “Close, but I’ll explain it later,” I replied.

  The kid stuck his hand across the bar. “I’m a genetic science major at HU and hope to finish my doctorate next year. My mom likes to tell people, ‘Time some more Christians became scientists,’ but she only started saying this years back when I scored the highest on my SATs in Hawaii’s history and got that scholarship. I love anything that explodes, but I guess with genetics explosions aren’t such a good idea. What do you think?”

  “Have you thought of switching to decaf?”

  He got the joke and filled my glass. Then I asked, “So if you’re helping, who is the regular guy?”

  “George Stratford. In the back. Said his feet hurt. Seems to know everyone here and then some. A little quite for a barista. The strangest thing is that the man doesn’t drink coffee and won’t touch juice. Imagine being a barista and not drinking this brew. No, me either. Hey, you sure you don’t want an espresso? I make a mean one.” He bounced up and down, taping his hand on the counter.

  “I have had enough already.” Once I got past the nose rings, the barista was too cute, funny, and charming and yes, too full of coffee for his own good. “Think George would mind if I took my break with him?”

  “Hey—no problem. If you know Reba, you get the run of the place.” He lifted the hinged divider and motioned me toward the tiny kitchen.