Iced in Paradise

by Naomi Hirahara

  “The bum one again?” Kelly, who was the team manager of our girls’ volleyball team, had been at the game when I hurt my ankle.

  “It’s fine.”

  D-man gets up from the floor. “I’m trying to get you the fifty grand. I think I can manage thirty for sure.”

  “D-man, there’s no way Dad is going to accept that from you.” I’ve always sensed a rivalry between the two, especially when it came to Mom. “Maybe jail is the best place for him right now. Just to cool out.”

  “Tommy’s not gonna be able to stay locked up for long. He’ll go stir-crazy.” D-man knows my dad too well. He raises his palm and leaves. I suspect that he’s probably going to check on Mom next door.

  “I’ll be right there,” I call out to him as he walks out the door toward Santiago’s.

  “Come.” Kelly pulls out a high stool from behind the counter and gestures for me to sit down. “You know that I was Coach Kawakami’s best assistant physical therapist.”

  I grudgingly pull myself up on the stool and allow Kelly to pull the Croc from my left foot. His callused hands feel different from Travis’s slender, delicate ones. I’m glad that I recently clipped my toenails. I’m not known to be well groomed, but even for me, thick toenails with crud is totally uji.

  Kelly presses down on my anklebone and turns my foot slightly to the left and the right. “You’ll live,” he says.

  “I knew dat.” I ask for my Croc and slip it back on my foot.

  “All kine trouble since you’ve been back,” he says.

  “We may have to find a new lawyer. One from Honolulu. This local one ain’t gonna cut it, I think.” I had already looked into a public defender, and despite my dad’s money problems, he’s still clearing too much money to be assigned one.

  “Maybe you can ask Mr. Yamagishi for help.” Mr. Don Yamagishi was our high school principal and former civics teacher.

  “It’s not so much finding one. It’s the money.”

  “Can’t you pay them at the end? If they get your dad off?”

  I shake my head. “It’s not slip-and-fall. They get their money up front. That’s why criminal lawyers are swimming in the dough.”

  “Sorry, Leilani. Wish I could help, money-wise.” Kelly and Pekelo are living in their late parents’ old house, which still hasn’t been paid off.

  “We can do a second mortgage on our house. I mean, Baachan’s house, because it’s in her name.” Grandpop Santiago, or Jiichan, had bought our small bungalow shortly after he returned from the Korean War. Both he and Baachan had been Waimea plantation kids and known each other since they were in their teens.

  “Don’t do it. The land is everyting. That’s what Pekelo told me from small-kid time.”

  “What about family, Kelly? Isn’t dat worth more than the land?”

  Just then I see the outline of someone standing in the open doorway to the store. I squint; it’s a short person. My grandmother in her muumuu.

  “Do it,” she says, her hand on her weak hip. “Mortgage da house.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I THINK I’M BAD LUCK,” I say to Travis on the phone the next day. “I come back to help the family business, and now it looks like we may lose our house.”

  “How is finding a dead guy in your shaved ice business your fault?”

  “It’s shave ice, Travis.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “No, it’s without—” Forget it, who in the hell cares about that now.

  “Maybe it’s time for you to move back here.”

  I can’t even believe Travis is saying that. Abandon my whole family when things are completely falling apart? “That’s not going to happen. Not for a very long time.”

  “When am I going to see you, Leilani? I miss you.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t think about that right now.” I immediately feel bad about how awful I sound. “Listen, I have to go. I’m waiting for a call from the bank.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “’Kay.” I try to sound enthusiastic about communicating with him, when I’m actually feeling blech. Please give me some space, people!

  I do finally get a call from the bank, and Baachan and I drive several blocks down to the Waimea branch. The sun is shining, and only the loose palm fronds by the side of the highway are signs of yesterday’s storm. There are forms for Baachan to sign—she holds her pen tightly and writes slowly, as though she’s tracing her signature—and then like magic, we have a line of credit. Only thing is, if we don’t meet the monthly payments, we lose the house. I have no idea how we’re going to get the money to repay the bank; I may have to go back to Seattle to work, live in a tent, and send money home.

  During our six-block drive home, Baachan holds her purse shut, as if someone is going to be grabbing its contents. “Your Jiichan wen work so hard for dat house. All his military pay and everyting.”

  You didn’t have to do it, I want to say to her. But that would be a lie. There’s no other alternative for the Santiagos.

  “Your Papa sold dat surfboard for your Mama’s medicine. He won’t say it, but I know.” I’m shocked to hear that, but it makes sense. I’ve been making Cobra payments on my own medical insurance and not really thinking about my parents’ situation or my little sisters’.

  When Baachan gets home, she starts rummaging in the kitchen, rearranging our mixing bowls, cleaning our cracked-tile counters. We hear some crowing in the backyard, a few feet away.

  “What dat?”

  Sophie comes into the kitchen. “That’s Jimin, Baachan,” she explains.

  “What dat Jimin?”

  “It’s her rooster. From the North Shore.” I sit at the kitchen table with my bare feet on one of the chairs. My sore ankle is starting to smart, and I’ve placed a bag of frozen edamame on it.

  “I no like one buggah rooster in my house.”

  “He’s not inside the house. He’s outside.”

  “I don’t care one mile away. He’s out.” Baachan picks up the largest knife that we have in the house—a huge Chinese cleaver that Mama Liu loaned us that we never returned—and heads out the back door.

  “No, Baachan!” Sophie shrieks, chasing her.

  I cover my eyes. This is one mess I will not even try to clean up.

  No rooster is slaughtered that night, though not for Baachan’s lack of trying. Turns out, Jimin is actually smarter than he looks and expertly dodges Baachan’s cleaver hacks.

  We do have a bird for dinner that night, but it’s one from the poultry section of Big Save Market. Mom makes her signature chicken long rice, a gingery soup with clear cellophane noodles. All five of us are quiet around the table, elbow to elbow, as we slurp and swallow.

  After dinner, the girls go off to watch a samurai movie with Baachan in her room and I help Mom wash the dishes and put them away.

  I wipe a chawan bowl with a dish towel Court had embroidered with orange koi. “What did you see in him?” I ask Mom.

  Her hands scrubbing another bowl in the dishwater, she turns to me, a bit lost.

  “Dad.”

  “He was hot, for one thing.” She rinses the chawan and gives it to me.

  “Yuk, Mom.” Mom was in college when she spent a summer on Kaua‘i and fell in love. That love resulted in a surprise—me!—that fast-tracked their relationship and led Mom to drop out of Cal State Long Beach and move here, much to her parents’ objections.

  “You remember watchin’ your dad surf?”

  I do. He looked like a superhero, Aquaman, with his wet long hair plastered down his back, his muscular legs controlling that board.

  “That caught my eye. But it was his pure heart that got me.”

  Huh? This was unexpected.

  “You’ve seen one oddah man with a purer heart?” Mom has spent more of her life in Kaua‘i than in California, and sometimes the pidgin can’t help but come out at times like these.

  Well, D-man, for one, I think. But when I think about it more, D-man is dependa
ble but not passionate. Sometimes I have no idea what he is thinking.

  “Sometimes I think Dad hates me. Even after everyting I do to help.”

  “Leilani, no. He loves you.” She shakes the excess soap from another chawan. “Just you two the same. You both rather give stink eye than a smile.”

  It’s true that I’m not one of those naturally happy people like Court.

  “Do you know that he watched every one of your volleyball games?”

  “Nah-uh.”

  “Kelly took videos and sent them over to me to show your dad.”

  “No, he nevah say.”

  “Dad didn’t want you to know. Make a fuss.”

  “Fo reals?” This was hard to believe.

  “He’s probably more Japanese than Pinoy. Got that strict Baachan spirit in him. You just like him. So can’t show off.”

  What Mom is saying somehow makes sense. That it’s not about only me but the family. The family is part of me.

  Mom stops washing and looks me straight in the eye, her dripping hands raised as if she’s preparing to do some surgery. “I don’t want you to sacrifice your life for us, for me. After all of this is over, and it will be over, Leilani, I want you to go back to Seattle. Be with your boyfriend and follow your dreams.”

  I stay quiet and put my weight on my good leg. I have no idea what my dreams could be.

  I go to work the next morning and it’s slower than usual. The storm probably delayed a fresh crop of tourists from arriving. I go ahead and shave myself an ice. Instead of using one of our plastic bowls, my coffee mug serves as my container. I experiment with matcha and mango syrup, Dole Whip, and a dusting of li hing mui powder. The li hing mui adds a salty zing that somehow doesn’t go with the matcha green tea flavor. The search for my signature flavor continues.

  As I lick the last bit of Dole Whip from my spoon, I check my cell phone. The signal is weak in the shack, but it’s good enough for me to get on the internet. I find what I’m looking for: “Wynn Hightower to hold an informational meeting for investors about the Bamboo Royal Hills real estate development.”

  The meeting is being held in Po‘ipū in the late afternoon today at one of those hotels where young couples honeymoon. At least it’s close by, on the southern part of the island, I think. Of course, I’m planning on attending.

  I figure I need to step up my wardrobe a bit, and after Sammie comes in to relieve me, I go home to check out what I have. There are my work clothes from Seattle, but when I try on the button-down blouses and slacks, they feel strange and tight-fitting. Aisus! I must have put on some pounds from Mom’s good cooking. I chuck it all for a short-sleeved floral blouse and some khaki shorts. Khaki is fancy in Hawai‘i, right? Instead of Crocs, plain sandals.

  I drive into the self-park lot and pick up a ticket from the machine. I’m depending on Mr. Hightower to provide validation because I’m sure as hell not going to pay ten dollars for this outing.

  As I walk down the walkway, bricks of red and tan designed in a geometric pattern, I straighten out my blouse. I haven’t been in one of these fancy hotels in a long time. Bright green grass and planters full of hibiscus surround the property. The building itself is a modern version of Kaua‘i’s plantation style, with a sloped roof and majestic tall windows. Parking lot attendants in crisp white aloha shirts run to collect car keys from waiting customers. A few feet away from the covered front entrance, a couple of yogore-type folks, political protesters I sometimes see on television, squat on the sidewalk next to a stack of preprinted signs that read “Don’t Take Our Land.” I’m most familiar with one of them, a tall, dark, lanky bruddah in his thirties who wears a yellow bandanna around his neck. I can smell trouble, but it seems like the hotel staff is just ignoring it for now.

  I step on the humongous welcome mat, and the glass doors whoosh open for little ole me. The lobby is fit for a queen. The floor is a stone mosaic featuring a giant hibiscus. Large pastel columns go from the floor to the ceiling, maybe a hundred feet high, where a skylight reveals the blueness of the sky. The people milling around range from young couples to families with strollers to middle-aged men in aloha shirts.

  On the right-hand side is a sign on an easel, “Hightower Properties Reception.” That’s me. Beyond the sign is a hallway that leads to an open area with high windows offering a view of the hotel’s spectacular outdoor landscape: waterfalls over volcanic rocks. A woman in a red suit and wearing a pink plumeria behind her ear welcomes me, provides parking validation (yay!), tells me to sign in and write my name and business on the name tag. “Leilani Santiago, Santiago Enterprises,” I write, and with a glossy folder held in place under my arm, I enter the reception area. The men in aloha shirts—a couple are in full-on suits—are gathered in clumps around high cocktail tables. The waitstaff circulate platters of pupus. I don’t waste time and quickly snag a grilled jumbo shrimp skewered with a toothpick and accept a small square napkin so I look like I belong.

  I’ve been to these kinds of events in Seattle, and the heightened bullshit in the room actually gets me excited. Everyone has some kind of angle, something they want to sell or acquire. My job will be to figure out who Mr. Hightower really is.

  Along the edges of the room are some long tables. “Meet Surf Champions Celia Johnson and Rex Adams” invites a foam-core board on an easel. And like real-life dolls, seated at a long table are Luke’s girlfriend and one of his two BFFs.

  Celia, wearing a lei of white orchids, literally sneers at me. She’s Miss High Makamaka, thinking she’s better than everyone. “What are you doing here?” she asks me.

  Rex sits farther down from her, looking sheepish. He seems like he wants to be anywhere but here.

  “I guess you two changed your mind about leaving town,” I say. I hold the sales folder against my chest.

  “We meet our commitments. Because we are grownups.” Celia raises her head, as if she, a person who gained her fame from standing on a polyurethane board in the water, is better than me.

  Did anyone really care about Luke? I wonder. Because the only person who does is behind bars.

  I nod toward the well-designed poster. “Looks like this has been in the works for a while.”

  Rex, who looks like a fallen Greek god with leis of ti leaves around his neck, slumps back in his chair. Is it guilt making him so miserable? I wonder. Either he really cared for Luke, or maybe he is responsible for his friend’s demise.

  A couple of gray-haired people approach the table, taking out head shots from the marketing folder and requesting that Celia and Rex sign them. It’s beyond corny, and I walk over to another corner of the room and thumb through the Hightower Enterprises material. There are full-color schematics of the new development, a cascading structure with escalators, luxury condominiums, and storefronts. It looks like something that belongs in Hong Kong, not in the Moloa‘a Valley.

  The PA system crackles. Wearing a baby blue aloha shirt, Wynn Hightower stands at the podium. He also has leis of ti leaves streaming down his chest. I hate to admit it, but for an old guy, he’s pretty good-looking, in a George Clooney type of way.

  The hotel waitstaff moves throughout the room with their trays of champagne glasses. I grab one, the bubbles still fizzing.

  “I want to welcome all of you to this celebration of bringing a new project to the Garden Isle. Bamboo Royal Hills.” He raises his glass in making his toast, “Kāmau kīaha.” Wynn’s accent isn’t bad for a haole.

  “Kāmau kīaha,” the crowd replies back, and we all take a swig of the champagne. It’s delicious. Definitely expensive.

  He then goes on to say how much the new development will contribute to the island’s economy. Locals will get jobs, blah, blah, blah. My eyes start to glaze over, and I concentrate on enjoying the champagne.

  I’m in the middle of my last sip when I smell the spicy scent of men’s cologne next to me. “What are you doing here?” A smile is plastered on his face, but the tone emanating from Wynn’s mouth is anything but kind
.

  “Checking out the new project,” I say after swallowing.

  “This event is for investors only.”

  “Maybe I’m interested in investing.”

  “Maybe you should be interested in figuring out how to make a living after your father is sentenced to prison indefinitely for killing my son.”

  “My father is innocent.”

  “We’ll see about that. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you left the premises.”

  Hey, this is a free country, I feel like blasting him.

  “She’s with me,” says someone in a familiar hoodie next to me. It takes me a second to register Sean Cohen’s presence.

  Wynn Hightower focuses on Sean’s name tag and carefully measures his worth, in contrast to the speed with which he dismisses mine. “Well, watch her, then,” he says. “Make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble.” With that, Wynn dips his head and makes his way to his more moneyed guests.

  What a jerk! Anger surges through my body. “What are you doin’ here?” I ask Sean.

  “I was curious. Wanted to hear the presentation.”

  I take a look at his name tag. Underneath Sean Cohen, it states “SC Enterprises.”

  I know that company. I’ve been writing our Waimea Junction rent checks to that company. SC Enterprises is our landlord.

  Sean follows my eyes, and his face, and even his ears, become flushed.

  “I can explain—”

  SC. Sean Cohen. “Why didn’t you tell me that you owned Waimea Junction?”

  “I was planning to. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “Are you part of this? What these assholes are selling? And do you know him, Wynn Hightower?” I think back to the police station when we were picking up my father. Was Sean faking that he didn’t know Luke’s father?

  “No, never met him in person until today. But we know of each other.”

  “Because you rich white guys all belong to the same club, right? And what’s this, ‘Make sure that she doesn’t cause trouble.’ Like you own me or something.”