Juniors (6 page)

“It's great,” I say.

“That is so nice of you to say,” she says, as if we're politely accepting the conditions of an old cabin.

“It's a funky place, so I just wanted to make sure you knew the ins and outs.” She looks around like she's checking things off. There's something intense and searching in her eyes. “I don't know if you've run the dishwasher yet, but there's a switch under the sink, and if the washer isn't working, then just flip the switch.”

“Got it,” my mom says. “Thank you so much for everything. The fruit, the wine, the house,” she says laughing. I cringe.

“It's nothing,” Melanie says and looks up. “The ceiling fans are silly, aren't they?”

I look up at the fans. They're like revolving banana leaves.

“They were sort of the trend back in the day.” She gives “back in the day” little air quotes, and I can tell she's one of those people who probably air quote a lot, and in all the wrong places.

“They're beautiful,” my mom says.

Melanie's eyes dart around the room and I wonder if she's going to comment on every object, every appliance, every cushion.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” my mom says.

Not a second goes by before Melanie says, “I'd love one!” She walks expertly to the kitchen and retrieves a glass from the cupboard over the microwave. “That's so nice of you.”

“I love this kitchen,” my mom says, walking to the counter with the bottle of wine and filling Melanie's glass.

“Oh, thanks.” She looks around her kitchen. “Basic, really. I'm so sorry all these things are still in here. We use it as a guest
cottage, so whatever you don't want, just let me know. Robbie's coming this week to fix the light outside your garage. If you want him to box up anything that you don't—”

“We're fine,” my mom says. “Unless we shouldn't use them—”

“No! Please use everything. I just didn't want it to get in your way, or if it's not to your taste.”

“No, it's all lovely.”

This is so tedious. I look back and forth, back and forth. Can't they just drink their wine and be quiet?

“We actually ended up keeping a lot of our boxes packed,” my mom says. “We're leaving them in the garage if that's okay.”

“If you want, I can have them moved to our storage,” Melanie says.

“Oh no,” my mom says. “Don't bother. Everything is perfect. Cheers.”

“Cheers!” Melanie says, and they clink glasses and take a sip. “I'm so happy you guys are here!”

“We're so happy we're here,” my mom says.

Is this what friendships are like when you're grown up? Is this what I have to look forward to? My beautiful, fun mother seems like a different person. She's standing awkwardly too, with her hand holding her elbow.

“I'm going to go do my homework,” I say, even though it's Saturday.

“I wish Whitney would do the same,” Melanie says, then touches my mom's arm and launches into a conversation about how her housecleaner can come to the cottage unless my mom has her own. We do not have our own. We are the housecleaner. My mom gives me a look, a kind of good-night nod. I know
she'd prefer to be with just me, how we were at the table, making our home.

I walk to my room, running my hand along the white wall. Do Whitney and Will know their dad helped get me into Punahou? Should I care? It's the way the world works, I guess. No one can do things on their own when it comes to stuff like this. The Wests are probably used to giving favors. They're probably used to determining someone's good fortune.

WH
ENEVER I PUT THE BLI
NKER ON TO PULL INTO
THE
Wests' driveway, I have a feeling of pride, like the person behind me or heading toward me must be wondering who I am. I wonder if my mom feels this way too—if she becomes the woman who lives here.

Today, Wednesday, I do the same thing I've done all week after school—open the gate, drive right up to our cottage, click the garage open, then seal myself in. No exploring, no meandering. I don't want to run into anyone, but today I stop on the first step and look at the yard between our houses—a vast divide I haven't yet crossed. I don't feel like I can. Since Saturday, I've heard and seen cars coming in and out, lights going on and off. Mainly, I see the yardmen. I have yet to meet Eddie or Will.

“Hello, hello!” I hear. Melanie comes around from the back of the cottage. “Sorry!” she says. “We're in your space.”

“Oh, no problem.”

A man is by her side, a tool belt around his waist. His face is red and dusty. “This is Robbie. Handy Robbie.” She touches his back delicately, as if he might be a germ.

“And Will—where are you? Will?” She leans back to look for him.

Oh God. Will walks out from behind the garage, looking at his phone, then ends a text or something, looks up, and smiles. I'm shocked by the way his whole face lights up. She touches his shoulder and, I think, sort of pushes him toward me. She waves me over, and I walk down the steps while they wait, feeling their eyes on me.

“Hi,” I say, at the bottom.

“Hi.” He scrunches his nose, which is super cute. It's kind of like he's telling me that this is a little awkward for him too.

“Do you know each other?” Melanie asks.

“We don't,” he says. “Nice to meet you.” He sticks out his hand, and I shake it. It's smooth on the outside, callused on the inside.

“You too,” I say. “I think I've seen you around Punahou. I'm going to high school there.” Why did I say
high school
? Why not just
school
? “I'm living in the cottage now. With my mom.” He grins as though I'd said something far more interesting, or maybe he totally misheard me.
We're l
iving in the cottage
. I'm totally high a
nd cool.

“Welcome,” he says, looking down, then back up at my eyes.

“Yes,” I say, for some stupid reason.

“Will was just leaving for the golf course,” Melanie says. “Hon, maybe show Lea the club and the neighborhood before you go?”

“Oh, that's okay,” I say. “I'm fine. I don't want—”

“Can you do that, hon?”

Melanie doesn't have a job that I know of, yet she's wearing a nice dress, along with big earrings and thin gold bracelets. I feel like she's always either very dressed up or wearing exercise
clothes. She's different from the other women here—the paddlers, loud and confident, the moms in their bikinis and caps. I can't imagine her in the ocean.

“Um, sure, I have some time,” Will says, glancing again at his phone.

“Thanks, hon,” she says, then goes back to talking with Robbie.

“Ready?” Will asks. He seems to scan me, toe to head.

“Yeah,” I say, at once mortified that this is happening, yet inexplicably grateful to Melanie for making it seem as though I don't have a choice.

• • •

I feel self-conscious sitting next to Will, even though he's looking ahead. I lift my thighs so they don't splay out on the seat. We drive down Kahala Avenue, and the day has become even more beautiful. It hasn't gotten hotter. Just clear blue skies and a crisp air.

“So,” Will says, “this is the 'hood.” He looks quickly at me, then back at the road and smiles. “Waialae's down thataway. Great golf course and tennis program.”

“When do you need to golf?” I ask.

“About an hour,” he says.

“Sorry,” I say. “You don't really need to show me around. I've been here before so—”

“It's fine,” he says and looks over at me and down at my legs. “I don't mind.”

He drives with one hand on the wheel, looking so much like a man, like someone who could take care of you your whole life. For some reason, I don't want to like him or think he's cute.
Maybe to set myself apart from everyone else. He looks like someone who's never been refused.

“You can drop me somewhere if you want,” I say.

“You want me to drop you on the side of the road?”

I look at the mansions on the side of the road, some that put me in mind of Tuscany, others Greece, some . . . who knows? Beverly Hills in the eighties? What's up with the lion statues and the turquoise turtles on iron gates?

“I meant if you want to get to golf earlier, it's fine. I could just sneak back to the cottage.”

“My mom would see the gate opening,” he says. “She'll be doing yoga in about a minute on the lawn.” He changes the station on the radio, landing on an R&B love song. I hope he's not leaving it here because he thinks I like this sort of thing.

“She got an idea for me to drive you around,” he says. “It's best just to go with her ideas.” I'm put at ease, comfortable with the fact that all mothers are so similar—friend pushers. Social curators.

“She does yoga at a certain time?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He laughs. “She hires this girl from the studio to do it with her and her friends.”

“Why don't they just go to the studio?”

“What? Now, that wouldn't be as special.” He disarms me with his eyes green like ferns.

“I can always walk around for a while,” I say.

“You really want to get rid of me, huh?” he asks. He glances over, coy and amused, and my first thought is,
No. Never.

“I just don't want you to feel obligated to hang out with me,” I say, hoping that doesn't sound too pathetic.

“Look, I'll just show you the neighborhood. We'll turn back, and I'll bring you to the club. I'll let you know when I can't take it anymore, okay? Now, be quiet about it already.”

“Okay,” I say, holding down a smile.

He turns at the end of the road that skirts the edge of the neighborhood.

“I can't take it anymore,” he says, and I laugh, relaxing my legs.

“Sorry—my mom . . . ,” he says. “She gets things in her head. When I was younger, all of my playdates were highly organized. Had to be with the right kids, doing the right activities. I'm used to it.”

“So I'm a playdate?” I ask, and immediately a heat runs through my arms and chest from feeling bold and at ease.

“I guess so. But a much better one than Rodney Nash. That kid was torture.”

We drive up toward Diamond Head lookout, and he turns left and heads down a narrow road, which leads to a circular driveway. We stop in front of what looks to be an entrance to a fortress on the ocean.

“Doris Duke's place,” he says, circling the driveway before coming to a stop. “Shangri La. It's pretty awesome inside. There's all this Islamic art and furniture. Every detail of the house she worked on.”

“Why Islamic?” I ask, feeling I need to say something.

“She traveled a lot, saw things she liked, picked them up, buying as she went.”

“Must be nice.”

He looks over at me, and I sense disappointment, like I'm not getting something.

“She was the daughter of this tycoon, and still she was this adventurous person, didn't want to be defined . . .” He trails off. Maybe he's trying to sell her to me, along with aspects of himself. He's more than the son of someone big.

“That's cool,” I say.

“In back, there's this pool area—it was a dock made for her yacht,” Will says. “People jump off the wall.”

“Fun,” I say, thinking of Danny and how he's shown me a place near Makapu'u to jump from. A wooden plank hovering above clear blue water. I feel like I know the island by the jumps—Point in Hawaii Kai, far off the coast, black hot rocks, deep sea. The Mokuluas, little islands off Lanikai, high cliffs into roiling ocean. Maunawili Falls, slippery hike, cold mountain water.

“I want to do that,” I say.

He laughs. “I've only done it once a long time ago. It's kind of a local thing, if you know what I mean.”

Funny how people use that word here—
local.
It doesn't always refer to the people who live here, because then we'd all be locals. Sometimes it means people who talk pidgin. People who don't go to private schools, people who live in Waimanalo.

He drives back to the wide expanse of Diamond Head Road, and I wonder if Shangri La was just a part of the show-her-around tour. We follow a trolley filled with people holding their phones toward the ocean, catching shots of the surfers and people at the lookout holding their phones out too. The thing with tourists—you can't blame them. This view is beautiful, and no matter how long you've been here—the ocean and sunsets, the light at six
A.M.
, the light at six
P.M.
—it never gets old. The
thought gives me patience as we trail the trolley down the hill past the lighthouse.

“So how long are you living in the cottage for?” he asks.

It's like he's asking me how long I'm going to be using something of his.

“This sort of got sprung on me,” I say, wanting to apologize.

“Oh, I'm sure it got sprung on your mom too.” He smiles in a way that feels like pity. We drive past the fountain, then loop around and drive into the Outrigger, its
O
sign with the paddle across it, like a heart pierced by an arrow. He stops in the roundabout.

“Did you want to check things out in there?”

“Um, okay,” I say, nervous and somewhat excited to be seen with him.

“Yeah, grab something to eat, get some sun, hang for a while? Or I can take you back.”

“I'll hang out,” I say.

“Cool. I need to get going, but my number's seven, eight, one, two—feel free to order whatever and put it on my tab.”

“Okay, thanks.” I get out, because what else can I do but show him I didn't think he was going to come in with me? I won't let him think that I was looking forward to walking in there with him, getting something to eat with him. That would be crazy.

“Thanks for the tour,” I say, making my voice sound joyful and carefree.

“You're welcome,” he says. “See you around.”

He drives off, and I wave, mumbling to myself, “What the shitshow was that?”

• • •

I don't know where to go. I've been to the Outrigger a few times, but always with my mom. I walk down a set of stairs. Some women are in the basement of the parking garage, paddling in a stationary canoe—a two-seater hull placed in a vat of water that the paddlers use to focus on technique or something. It's a treadmill version of a canoe; they paddle furiously, but don't go anywhere. I look down at myself as if my non-belonging is something detectable, though it's probably the only exclusive club in the world where you look misplaced if you're overdressed versus underdressed. The women here, maybe around sixty years old, are barefoot and in bathing suits, practical, sporty ones, though one wears a bikini. She has wild frizzy curls and a plumeria tucked behind her ear. She gives me a friendly look, and I pretend I should be here.

In the hallway that leads out to the club, a group of guys walk from the other end. I recognize them from school and, without thinking, duck into the locker room so I don't have to pass them in the narrow hall. I can't just stand in front of the room attendant, a Filipino woman whose eyes light up as though she recognized me, so I go into the girls' locker room, hoping no one from my school will be there, but it's pretty empty—just a few six- or seven-year-old kids. They stand in front of the mirrors, striking funny poses. Their bikinis are so cute, just like the ones teenagers wear, but smaller. On the mainland people would probably freak out, think them too sexy, but here, it's just how it goes.

Whe
re are their mothers
?
Kids are so free here. It makes them seem older, more capable, coordinated, but wild.

The little girl in the magenta bikini and trucker hat tells the other girl to put the shampoo back where it belongs. The friend obliges, and when she walks past me, I catch a scent of something familiar. It's the smell of Whitney's hair and her friends'—and even Will's—the scent I associated with privilege and popularity, beauty, ease, and laughter. Really, it's just the club's Costco brand shampoo.