Haole Wood (21 page)

Being a recent recipient of the stink eye, I had to agree.

“Having a temper is no guilty verdict. I’ll keep searching,” he said.

I stood up, as O’Boyle added, “You never know.” Wow, three whole unnecessary words. O’Boyle was beginning to like me. I couldn’t figure out if he was shy or just super smart sans social skills.

“Thanks, O’Boyle. I’ll try to snoop a little myself.

“Careful. If someone kills once, it’s not a stretch for them to justify doing it again.”

“I’ll be careful,” I said. I stopped off at the store to pick up some goodies to have a little tea party with the ladies. I pantomimed to Halmoni to brew some good tea to go with the sushi, fruit and pastry platters I arranged on the table. I heard Shayna’s voice first and felt a pang, worried about what would happen to her if Lois really were guilty of killing Mike Hokama. I got up and greeted them at the door.

“Hi. Come on in. My grandmother is making some tea and we have some food for you all before you get started.” I was glad they agreed to sew some more inventory, even though I hadn’t sold any more, because they had the time, and I was paying them. I gave Lois the six hundred dollars cash as a down payment until I received more funds.

“Your time and money, sister,” Lois said, taking a seat at the table. I smiled at Mary, Mary and Maria, still not sure I knew who was who. “Shayna, do you want some soda or iced tea?”

She shrugged. I pulled up a chair directly across the table from Lois, so I could be on full alert. I sure hoped my grandmother tossed some extra brain-enhancing ginseng in my tea. I even used Halmoni’s antique china plates, fired with grains of rice on the rim to create a delicate opaque pattern, and scalloped cloth napkins to set the table. “This is nice,” I said.

Mary, Mary and Maria seemed to think so. Lois seemed to concentrate on picking out her favorite pastries before anyone could beat her to it.

“I really want to thank you for all your hard work,” I said. “I know we haven’t sold any yet, but we have to start somewhere. They are beautiful pieces and I got some great news today.”

“From your research lab?” Shayna mouthed off.

The Mary’s and Maria giggled, as Lois said, “One can enjoy the canoe ride when the paddler is skilled.”

I laughed along with them, thinking about telling Jac how much they liked talking about him. Maybe he would take me on a canoe ride someday. “Yes,” I said. “My clinical reports have established—” I trailed off. “Dr. Jac said there is a high sun protection factor, in the fabric alone, which goes even higher with my grandmother’s kukui nut oil treatment. If we can just get some buzz going. I’ve written a press release and sent it to the newspaper and I’m trying to get a contact at the TV station. There’s not a lot of news over here, so I’m hoping someone will want to do a feature on it. So, if anyone knows anybody, please spread the word.”

No one said anything.

“Yes,” I continued, “that kukui nut oil is really something. Here it is, doing so much good providing sun protection, and yet it can also be used as a poison.” I tried not to stare at Lois but I really wanted to see her reaction.

“What are you looking at me for?” Lois said, mouth full of what looked to be both a wad of sushi and cheese Danish.

“I’m not. Just talking. Do any of you know how kukui nut oil is used as a poison?”

Silence. “I mean, is it brewed with tea or made extra strong somehow, like an essential oil and then dropped into a drink? The police haven’t released any of those details.”

“Honey, my mother and my grandmother were healers,” Lois finally said. “They used kukui nut oil, just like your grandmother. My mother distilled it into its purest form and added other stuff, like belladonna or something, to kill rats and such.” She crossed her legs and worked her toes to flap her flip-flop mid-air. “I think some people are more sensitive to it than others, and it seems like Mike was one of those. In a lesser concentration, it can be used to treat upset stomachs, to clean out the bowels, you know, unclog the drain.” Lois may have had ten years and twenty pounds on me, but she lapped me in the smooth-talking department. She slid her hand against her neck, underneath her thick, brown hair. She lifted her head a fraction, as if daring me to ask more stupid questions.

The other women laughed at their leader. Lois shrugged, slurped her tea and then wiped her mouth with my grandmother’s delicate napkin. I stared some more. Lois twisted her napkin, one end opposite to the other, leaving a long, folded crumpled length of cotton. She placed it next to her plate and stood up. “Thanks. Now we’ve got to get to work. We’re going to try to make ten more wraps today.”

I nodded. What just happened? Something niggled at me, like a fine hair trapped under my T-shirt that I couldn’t reach that drove me crazy. My mother always called me the princess and the pea, the slightest irritation always chafed my skin. I thanked them and watched them walk down the hall. I got up and started clearing the plates. I took them to the sink carefully before I hand washed them. I put away the leftovers, in case anyone would want to take a break later. I started to pick up the napkins and came to Lois’s twisted one last. The others kept their napkins folded, pretty much the same way they had been laid out. Shayna hadn’t even used one. My grandmother’s looked barely used. Mine had lipstick marks all over it, damn it. I’d have to pre-treat it so the stains didn’t set.

At the end of the day, true to their word, the women completed ten more sunshminas. I planned on taking them to Jac’s office, and promised to pay them in full, one way or another, by the end of the week. At least Halmoni’s pretrial had been postponed for a few more days. Thank goodness for island time.

“All ready for your big day?” My guardian angel looked like he was using an invisible straw to siphon the ketchup off my plate of hash browns.

I nodded. “Yes. I hope it goes well. I love my sunshmina like a security blanket. It’s pretty, goes with anything, feels so soft and airy, and it truly does protect me from the sun—I’ve got the science to back it up. They really should sell.”

“You have done your homework.” He pretended to dab at his eye. “Your personal growth is exceeding all expectations.” With that he disappeared before I had a chance to let loose on him. Even though he knew how to push my buttons, he was pretty entertaining. I gulped my tea, grandmother’s special blend of the day, and headed out the door for my ten-minute drive up to Ka’anapali.

Walking into the cool, breezy open atrium at the hotel, I felt like I was on the first day of a new job. My table was set up to one side of the main lobby, nestled on the stone floor, surrounded by pots of lush, tropical plants. Guests at the hotel, at some point or another, would have to walk by me. There were other tables set up with island artists’ wares, palm frond place mats, coconut shell purses, water colors and paintings. At least I was the only clothing vendor. I liked how my table looked. I covered it with the Hawaiian quilt from my bed that my grandmother made, it’s blues, reds, and greens surrounding the white whip-stitched flowers, fit perfectly. I arrayed a few of the shimmery sunshminas over the tabletop, some of the ends sashaying in the breeze. I cut some red hibiscus flower blooms and banana leaves from my grandmother’s yard and arranged them in a hollowed out pineapple I cored that morning. Doesn’t get much more Hawaiian than this, I thought. I wore my own green sunshmina. My sign stood on an easel next to the table: “Haole Wood Sunshminas, protective resort wear wraps for sensitive skin – SPF 30,” and was matted inside an old hand-carved picture frame I rustled from the back bedroom closet.

All I needed was a sale, or twenty.

I straightened up as a pink tourist approached. Her ruddy cheeks glistened with sweat. A white sun-hat wrapped around her strawberry blonde curls, its wide brim obviously failing to do its job. She looked like she had on her husband’s cast off pale blue oxford shirt, over a mid-calf white gauzy skirt. Her sandals didn’t look very comfortable. She had to shuffle to keep the brown leather straps on her feet. Her toes were hanging on for dear life, looking like survivors on an overloaded life raft, adrift on ten foot waves. Ohio or Iowa, I bet myself.

“Hi, Aloha,” I said. “How are you?”

The woman stopped and peeked over her sunglasses. “Fine, I guess.” She fingered the ruby sunshmina on the table.

I went into my spiel. I spread my arms, “. . . And I love mine. You have the same fair skin as I do, and this sun here is strong.”

“Where were you earlier this week?” she asked. “We’re leaving tomorrow. But, how much?”

“Three hundred dollars,” I said.

“Nah. I blew my wad already and I really don’t need anything like this back home.”

“Where are you from?”

“Idaho,” she told me.

I knew it, I thought. “Sure you don’t want it back there for this summer?” I tried.

She laughed. “This is gorgeous, but not quite ready for Idaho, don’t you think?” She was still laughing as she shuffled away. “Good luck,” she called back.

Me and good luck had nothing in common. The day dragged on with plenty of people stopping and touching, but not buying. I honestly tried to help one woman who had the strangest tan lines I have ever seen. She caught me staring and explained, “I was reading a book and fell asleep.”

Purposely not staring at the perfect white-skinned right angle on the woman’s chest, I made my pitch. “You could really use this.”

“I know,” she said, walking away, her flip-flops thwacking, showing the back of her calves, one with a straight-edge line of pink, the other leg sporting a Rorschach blot of red amid a freckled sunscreen protected background.

I finally had to call it day and managed to keep my tears at bay as I drove home. One look at my Halmoni’s face released the tropical drizzle down my cheeks.

“I didn’t sell a single one.”

“Not that,” was all she said, handing me a cup of tea.

“I hope you crushed some Xanax or something like that in this brew,” I said, taking a big swallow. I burned my tongue, the perfect ending to a perfect day. “I was so sure these sunshminas were a good idea. I don’t even think it was the price. People just didn’t seem interested.” I felt like a little kid who had missed her afternoon nap and was winding up for a temper tantrum. “Maybe they are too expensive. Who knows? Maybe this was all just a giant waste of time.”

I dried my tears, slurped my cooled tea, and knew what I had to do. Time was up.

I ran upstairs and slammed by bedroom door so hard the toilet bowl had a minor tsunami.

“Don’t get your knickers in a knot,” pronounced my guardian angel, sitting cross-legged on my sister’s bed.

“How about you just get some knickers,” I said, flinging a towel at him.

He caught it and draped it over his head and stroked the ends, pretending it was long hair. “Do you believe in love?” he sang, stroking the towel, a la Cher.

“Shut up!” I said, “You are in a strange mood today, but I’ve had enough. I’m done. Finished. Over and out. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what?”

“You, for starters. Stop appearing to me, stop haunting me, or whatever the hell you are doing. You’re not real. Just be gone. I never want to see or hear from you again.”

“Oh, and that is a fine way to be treating your protector of the universe.”

“Now you’re Irish? For once, just leave me alone. Be gone.” I folded my arms over my chest and boinked my head at him. As I did, I heard the unharmonious thwank sound effect that always happened when Barbara Eden’s magic wasn’t working on
I Dream of Jeannie.

“You are unbelievable, you know that?” I wrenched open a drawer, its warped sides screeching upon wooden runners. “You are fiction, something made up by my overtired imagination. Am I so filled with self-loathing that you, as my guardian angel, are the best I could come up with?” I pulled out a clean T-shirt and my skirt. “I’ve had it. I’m not seeing you anymore. I’m not hearing you anymore, I’m not listening to you anymore.”

He stood up, dropping the towel on the floor. “Jaswinder, Honey-Girl. Come on. You do not mean that. What do you think you are doing?”

“I’m taking a shower. Then I’m going to call my parents, and beg them for help, once again, to restart my life, once again. I just can’t keep wasting time here. I’ve failed. I know, big surprise. News flash.”

“You are giving up already?”

“What choice do I have? I need to learn when to cut my losses. I don’t have the luxury of money or time to try to make this work. I told myself if I only sold one today, that would be a good start. But come on, I’m listening to the universe here, I didn’t sell any. I’m in over my head. It’s time to let my parents know I’m waving the white flag so they can make plans.” I folded my sunshmina and placed it on my bed. “Even if I would charge half-price, they would still be too expensive, and no one would buy them. I don’t mean to be a defeatist, but face it. I’m not an entrepreneur.”

I stomped around the room. “My parents are just going to have to come out here and help Halmoni. I’m going to have to borrow more money, to pay off Lois, to get my ticket back home. Do you know I don’t even have enough money to buy Ramen noodles?” I bit my lip.

“How arrogant was I to actually think I could pull this off? I’ve let so many people down, Lois, the Marys, Shayna. Myself, my parents. And what about my grandmother? My poor Halmoni. I can’t help her and it breaks my heart. I have no idea who killed that guy. Maybe she did do it, what do I know?”

I marched into the bathroom looking for my makeup case. I twirled around. “Give me that,” I said grabbing my mascara back from my guardian angel who was feathering his lashes.

He fluttered his eyes at me. “Do I look like Dr. Jac?”

“Stop it!” I flung myself on my bed. The pillow soaked up my tears, though I felt like I was drowning. I tried to turn my head away from the soggy mess but an unrelenting pressure pushed my face deeper into the pillow. He was trying to kill me. I thrashed and kicked my legs, my head immobilized by the lobster grip of his giant hand, pincing me into the pillow. My elbow made contact with a fleshy fold, driving into what felt like a day-past-its-prime mango.