This Is Paradise (11 page)

Cameron hit the gas and the car jolted forward. The dog was thrown against the backseat. It yelped, and Becky glared at Cameron. She reached back to pet the animal, soothe it. “Don’t touch it. You’ll get fleas all over you!” he warned.

“Stop it!” She glared at him, her hands buried in the dog’s fur. Cameron turned away, disgusted.

In two minutes he spotted a road that led in the direction of the ocean. He turned down it, relieved an exit had appeared so quickly. He didn’t see any houses, and the asphalt soon gave way to gravel, but he continued at top speed. Becky and the dog bounced in their seats. “Slow down,” she said, but he ignored her.

When the road evened out, they spotted a house. An iron gate surrounded the property, and a swimming pool glittered behind the entrance. “We can leave it here,” he said.

“He doesn’t belong here.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s obvious. A house like this? It’s too nice for him. And anyway, we can’t get him behind the gate. He’ll run back to the highway again.”

“Oh, sure, now the house is too good for it. Have you thought about if this dog is just a stray? Maybe it doesn’t belong to anyone. Maybe we should have left it on the road.”

“We’ll take him down to the ocean then,” she said. “We’ll leave him by the water. At least he’ll be far away from the highway, and maybe someone will adopt him.”

“Do you think people here adopt stray dogs?”

She crossed her arms. “You are so negative. Just drive.”

A half mile farther they spied a tan bungalow with white trim, a clean, simple house. No gate or fence surrounded it, just half-dead grass that needed to be cut. The house didn’t look abandoned, but it had a lonely air.

Becky pointed to the driveway, and he followed it until they were only a few yards from the front porch. He threw the parking brake. “Get it out.”

She opened her door and then the back one. “Come here, baby,” she cooed, holding wide her arms as if expecting the dog to leap into them. But it didn’t budge, only rested its head on its paws and looked at them with a forlorn expression.

“I’ll push him from the other side.” Cameron opened the back door and shouldered the dog toward Becky. “You pull.”

“Pull what? I don’t want him to bite me.”

“Just a minute ago you were calling it ‘baby.’ ”

She rolled her eyes at Cameron and then reached under the dog’s front legs, tucking her hands beneath the animal’s armpits. Cameron nudged the dog’s butt toward Becky. The stray curled its forelegs over her shoulders, as if dancing, and its chest met hers. It looked over its shoulder at Cameron, a look that asked, Why is this happening, what have I done wrong to deserve punishment? and for a second Cameron felt sorry for the animal.

Despite its size, Becky carried it to the porch steps. She put it down and commanded it to stay, and the dog sat obediently. But when she started back toward the car, the animal sprinted past her and hopped into the backseat again. Cameron grunted in frustration, and the dog cowered. Cameron wished it had growled, shown some fight.

“This time, when you’re holding him, I’ll shut the doors.”

As soon as Cameron had pushed the dog into Becky’s arms again, he slammed the door on his side. Then he ran around to her side and closed the door there. She set the dog down on the yellow grass. Without waiting for a command, the dog ran to the driver’s side of the car and jumped into the open window. It didn’t make it all the way through, though, and was stuck, head and chest inside the car and hind paws scraping against the exterior. “Motherfucker!” Cameron yelled.

Becky pressed her lips together, but she didn’t say anything.
Cameron walked around to the window and lifted the dog’s hind legs so it could clamber into the car. Then he opened the door and rolled up all the windows. The dog sat happily in the driver’s seat, its head tilted in Cameron’s direction, its ears perked.

“Try again,” he said to Becky with forced calm.

“I know we can’t keep him, but this just seems so …” Her voice trailed off.

“He’s a poi dog, practically feral. He can handle himself.” Cameron didn’t mean to sound unfeeling, but he knew he did.

For the third time she lifted the dog into her arms, and it squirmed against her happily. She set it on the porch and ran back to the car. Cameron revved the engine. Gravel shot from the back tires.

“Slow down! The rocks will hit him!” Becky shrieked.

He slowed a little, but clouds of dust still blossomed behind them. The dog’s barking could be heard through the windows. Cameron pressed the gas pedal again and the car gained speed, ascending the hill with ease, until the barking had faded and the dust was far in the distance and the tires gripped the asphalt, revolving with a smooth, even cadence. He looked over at Becky. Her shirt was covered in tiny black pinpricks. “Your shirt,” he said, pointing. “Wipe it off!”

She acted as if she hadn’t heard him. “Keep driving. I don’t want the dog to follow us back to the highway where he could be hit.” She sat perfectly still, her hands tucked
beneath her thighs, the fleas flecking her skin. He slapped at his ankles. Her face was wet.

They drove in silence for a mile until Cameron found a lookout where he could pull off the highway. They both got out and tried to brush the fleas from their bodies and from the backseat with their hands. He hoped they were hopping out of the car and into the dirt. He couldn’t bear if they were as stubborn as the stray.

“I’d like to take some pictures of the water,” Becky said quietly. She seemed to have entered a world separate from Cameron’s.

“Let’s just get back on the road.” The sun would soon dip behind Haleakalā, and he was anxious to get to the campsite while they still had daylight. He wanted to set up the tent and swim in the Seven Sacred Pools.

“We can take our time,” she said. “I’ll drive.”

“We’ve lost too much time already. On account of the dog.”

“We had to save him.” Her voice was high and tight.

“You had to save it,” he corrected.

She leaned into the car and pulled her camera from the front seat. “You’re right. You would have been happy to let him be hit. It’s amazing you stopped for him at all.” She fiddled with the camera lens. After a moment, she looked up at him again. “I just don’t understand how a man who can care so little for a dog can say he loves me.”

Cameron let a hard laugh escape him. “Are you kidding?
You are not a dog. You and the dog are two separate entities.”

“I don’t see things that way.” Becky walked away from him and stood beside the edge of the lookout. Below her, the water was the color of sapphires.

He followed her to the edge of the cliff. “You’re too sensitive about these things.”

“Too sensitive?” She shook her head. “I’m not
too
anything. I’m just myself.”

“But can’t you be a little less of a bleeding heart? The dog would have been fine.”

“You’re cold,” she said quietly. “I’m sensitive, and you’re cold.”

“That’s not fair.” He threw his hands up in exasperation.

“I don’t know if this was a good idea.”

“What does that mean?” He wanted to grip her shoulders and shake her, or pull her to him and hold her. Or both. Instead, he bent down and scratched his ankle.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have taken this trip after all.”

He rested his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. He saw disappointment there. “I want to marry you,” he said.

She ran her fingers through her hair and released a long, slow sigh. “Can you ask me again later?”

She retreated to the car, but he remained standing at the edge of the cliff looking over the water. The light had
shifted while they were rescuing the dog, and now the sky was pale against the deep blue of the ocean and the horizon was a thin, white line.

They swam in the Seven Sacred Pools as the sun set. She pointed out that the pools were not sacred in ancient Hawaiian lore. He noted there were more than seven.

They did not speak of his proposal, and he wondered if he should try again, this time on one knee, with the ring in his hand. He would wait, he decided, until after they ate their dinner. He would wait until they were laughing again.

He caught six freshwater shrimp, which they boiled over their campfire after the sun had gone down. They peeled the shell from the shrimp tails and pulled the meat out with their fingers. She didn’t like the heads, so she gave hers to him and he sucked on them. The shrimp were large, bigger than jumbo shrimp in a restaurant, and they had the clean, fresh taste of the river water.

“I would like them more if they tasted briny,” she said. “Of the ocean.”

“I like them like this.”

She didn’t answer. In the firelight her eyes were shadowed and her brows, thick and dark, appeared like marker lines on her face. He thought of the girl he had dated during his year in Japan and the way her brows had seemed so delicate and finely shaped on her oval face. Why hadn’t
he and that girl stayed together? What had come between them?

“I’m still hungry,” Becky said. “Are you? I’ll fix sandwiches.”

“No, I’m full,” he said, though he was still hungry, too. He had caught the shrimp and wanted to feel that he had provided enough for her.

She made two peanut-butter sandwiches with guava jelly and handed one to him. “I’m full,” he repeated, but she left the sandwich on its paper towel beside him. She ate hers quickly, then washed her face and hands, using the washcloth to rub gently behind her ears. She could be fastidious when she wanted to be. While she brushed her teeth, he ate the sandwich and was glad he did. But he didn’t thank her, just threw the paper towel into the fire and watched the white paper catch fire, flame, and then collapse into a million black particles.

He crawled into the tent beside her. “You smell like peanut butter,” she giggled, kissing him.

She climbed on top of him and untied her bikini top. She wriggled out of her shorts, then reached beneath his shirt and tugged it over his head. He flipped her on her back and hovered above her, his chest touching her chest, his shorts rubbing against her bikini bottoms. He kissed her behind her ear where just moments before she had washed her skin. Her flesh had the green scent of fresh water, but her earlobe tasted of salt.

Outside the campfire was dying, and inside the tent
the light was dim. Still, the white of her breasts startled him. He had forgotten how pale they were compared to the rest of her body.

“I’ll marry you,” she said running her hand along the bumps of his spine.

She unfastened the Velcro of his shorts and tugged at the fabric until the shorts gathered at his knees. She slipped out of her bikini bottom. He was hard and wanted to be inside her. He bent down to kiss her stomach. Outside the firewood popped and a small flame blazed, filling the tent with a sudden orange light that faded as quickly as it had flared. A shadow flitted over her body, and Cameron thought suddenly of the fleas, their thick lines weaving across the dog’s chest, and the way Becky had sat motionless when the bugs later landed on her. He felt his desire wither, and pushed himself away.

1) Take a drink each time the haole pastor says “hell.”

2) Take a drink each time he asks if anybody in the room wants to go there.

3) Take a drink each time he looks at one of your uncles when he says this.

4) Take a drink because cane was burning next to Kaumualiʻi Highway on the drive from Kekaha to Poipu, and the hot scent reminded you of your grandmother’s house with its upright piano, rattan furniture, and that deep cement sink in the washroom where laundry was scrubbed, and sometimes babies, too. In the family room you and your older cousins used to jostle each other, each of you hoping to be the one who got to sit on Grandma’s lap in her high-backed butterfly chair.

One year ago you moved to Honolulu from Los Angeles, just to be closer to her, and now she’s gone.

5) Drink when the pastor claims deeds get us into
heaven. Deeds like tithing to the church. Deeds like tithing to his church. (Do not comment on how this is unbiblical. Do not comment on how he encouraged your grandmother to give until she had no money left for the upkeep of her house. Do not comment on the Louis Vuitton man-purse you’ve seen him carry into church.)

6) Sneak a swig when the pastor asks everyone to hold hands and confess the sins in their hearts. Get stuck with his doughy palm in yours. Do not respond when he gives your fingers an encouraging squeeze. Do not interrupt when he prays for your family’s wayward souls. Instead, look mournfully at the casket where your grandmother lies, and blame her for his presence.

7) After the sermon, approach the casket for the final viewing. Take a sip for each handmade paper lei and crayon drawing your little cousins have gently placed on top of your grandmother’s hands. Do not touch her cheeks, which are full and in the dew of a freshly painted blush. Do not kiss her forehead as your cousins might, nor adjust the sleeve of her Sunday muʻumuʻu, the one with the red hibiscus pattern, like your aunties do. You may, however, wrap a fine, gray-white tendril of hair around your finger and remember how you used to comb these same strands as she dozed in the hospital bed.

8) With your degree in English, your aunties expect you to deliver the most grammatically correct homage to your grandmother. Take this responsibility seriously. Your copyediting skills are all you have to offer your family.

After all, you were not born on Kauaʻi. You weren’t even born in Honolulu. No, you were raised a California girl, like your mother before you. She is haole. White. A foreigner. This makes you hapa haole. Half white. Half foreign.

Your eight-year-old cousin is dancing a hula. She hovers on the balls of her feet, her slender hips swaying like a palm. A neighbor’s boy strums “Amazing Grace” on a child-size ʻukulele.

You cannot hula or play the uke. You do not speak pidgin. You never add the right proportion of water to poi. But you can summarize your grandmother’s life in a five-paragraph essay, complete with thesis and topic sentences. And for this, you owe yourself a drink.