Sleeping Beauties (17 page)

She rose and held the paper crushed against her chest. It was her father.

“Do you mind?” he asked, pulling out a chair and gesturing to a waiter at the same time. “I’ve only got a minute.” He laid his seersucker jacket across his lap.

Clio folded the newspaper and put it under a leg of her chair so it would not blow away. “I’m meeting Dix for lunch,” she said as she sat down again.

“Dix?”

“My brother. Your son.”

He looked around the terrace, his gaze held for a moment by a woman in a bikini at the next table. “Hello,”
he said with a smile, nodding his head at the woman. He turned back to Clio. “Hope you’re paying. What a bum.”

“He’s looking for a job.”

“Sure.” He ordered a vodka martini, straight up, from the waiter. “What about you?”

“A job or a drink?”

He gave a loud cry of laughter. “Marriage must suit you after all, Clio. Is that what you call irony?”

“I don’t think so.” She looked out at the ocean. There was no surf and it was hot.

“You were always a wild little Indian. Didn’t see you for days on end,” he said, looking again at the woman at the next table.

“Where was I?”

“When?”

“When you didn’t see me for days on end.”

“Playing. In the forest. You were never around.” He winked at Clio. “I don’t remember, to tell you the truth. I wasn’t a very good father, I suppose. Too busy. Too involved with things. Although it doesn’t seem to have done you any harm. You’ve done all right, Clio.”

“You were a very bad father.”

He nodded, not paying attention. “We’re having a dinner for Claire Clarke. She’s a duchess now, you know.” He tapped his front tooth with his fingernail. “Your mother, Burta, is very excited about this. She’s even been down to the Historical Society to check the precedence of seating. You’re coming, of course, although Burta is undecided about Emma, even if she does have royal blood.”

“Who has royal blood? Claire? This is wonderful news for the family. Portuguese royal blood? Just what we’ve been missing.”

“She’s arriving on the tenth,” he said, ignoring her. “Burta wants Claire afforded all the honors.”

“How nice. Burta’s giving her a medal.”

“Relax, honey. I told you, you’re invited. And Emma, too. Maybe.”

“Emma won’t go.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

She looked at the big white hotels streaming along the beach. “I’m very sure,” she said.

“Just be sure you’re there. I think Mother has put you next to the Philippine consul. Nice little man. Gets things done, even if he is the president’s cousin.”

“I hope Claire remembers to come.”

“I’m told Claire has changed.” He spoke as if it were Clio who had a reputation for irresponsibility. “She’s coming home to see if she can do anything about that dreadful situation with her sister, Mamie, and their gardener. Apparently, the mother has no objections and is not putting her foot down. Your cousin is actually living with the Japanese gardener. Must run in the family.”

“I thought Claire was coming home to sell the plantation,” Clio said. “Claire isn’t interested in sex, she’s interested in money.”

He looked at her shrewdly, interested for the first time. “What do you know about that?”

“Why are you prosecuting those Hawaiian men?” She bent down to pick up the newspaper. There was a story about the Kilohanas on the front page. “Natives’ rights? Women’s rights? Dolphins’ rights?”

He looked at the woman at the next table and grinned, afraid that she had overheard Clio.

She held the paper out to him, but he did not take it. “The men who occupied the lighthouse. The Kilohanas. They’re not dangerous. This isn’t the Gaza Strip, Father.”

“Oh, Clio,” he said wearily. “The press is good. The publicity. The challenge of impossible cases. How do you take the deposition of a whale? Or attach the assets of a fire goddess?” He waved away the paper. “I’ve seen today’s
news, thank you. I get awfully tired, you know, doing the day-to-day crap. I get very, very bored. I always have.” He smoothed down his hair. “It’s formal, you know. No Hawaiian wear.”

“Hawaiian wear?” Clio was still thinking about the surprising connection between boredom and justice.

“For the duchess,” he said, waving to Judge Chang, who had just arrived. “I’ll be right there!” he called to the judge. “I think you’ll find it interesting,” he said to Clio. “We can put on a show here as good as anything in your Hollywood. This isn’t the sticks, you know.” He winked at her.

“I’m sure you can put on a show, Father,” she said. “I’ve never doubted it.”

“Good,” he said and went to have a drink with the judge.

Clio had been too far ahead of Claire at school to have seen much of her, but later, at the Outrigger and at parties at the old Walder estate, after the shopping-cart millionaires from Kansas City bought it with cash they carried in suitcases, Clio had seen more of her. Claire had worked hard to become Clio’s friend, perhaps because of Clio’s attachment to her older sister, Mamie, or perhaps because Clio was just the right age to introduce Claire to a more prosperous group of men than the college boys Claire tormented so successfully. Clio had not seen her in two years, not since Claire went to Portugal.

Claire telephoned when she arrived in Honolulu, a few days before Burta’s party, to ask if she could stay at Hale Moku. A certain good nature always accompanied Claire’s opportunism, so she was not particularly disappointed when Clio explained that their grandmother did not want any more guests in the house. Claire did point out that she
was more a relation than a guest. “Grandmother never liked me,” she said mildly.

She came to call the next afternoon and managed, even before confusing Tadashi by asking for a Rob Roy, to behave rudely to Mabel. The women were on the lanai, listening to a Gabby Pahinui record of slack-key guitar. Mabel put out her contorted gray hand, as ugly as a bird’s talons, at the sound of Claire’s footstep and said, “Welcome home, my dear.”

Claire did not bother to take the root-hand held in her direction, but leaned stiffly toward Mabel, as if she were loathe to touch her, and kissed her quickly on the top of her head.

“Hi, Grans,” she said. “You’re looking well.” She made a face at Clio, but Clio refused to acknowledge it. “Has the lesbian fad that’s racing through Europe reached Hawai‘i yet?”

Before they could answer, even in their astonishment (Clio thought at first that she’d said thespian fad), Claire said dismissively, “Probably not. Not here.” She sighed and stretched out on a
hikie‘e
.

“Lesbian fad?” Clio asked, unwilling to let it go.

“I’ve never understood about orchids,” Claire said, gazing at the descendants of Mr. Kageshiro’s flowers. “Sometimes they don’t even smell. Yes, Clio, lesbian fad. It’s a big deal. Someone said it was postmodern, whatever that means. It’s become really cool to pretend you’re a dyke. You don’t even have to do anything. You don’t even have to look like one. In fact, it’s cooler if you don’t. It’s incredibly fun to be at some ball, all dressed up, and ask another woman to slow dance. Everyone is freaked out and excited at the same time.”

“Decadent Europe,” Emma said.

“Have you been there, Aunt Emma?” Claire asked in surprise.

Emma did not answer.

Tadashi, with more than her usual tentativeness, tiptoed onto the lanai with Claire’s drink. There were many cherries rolling around the bottom of the glass.

“Now this is delicious, Tadashi!” Claire said, taking a big drink. “They don’t make very good ones in Portugal, I can tell you. Too sweet.”

Tadashi shakily stood three bottles of beer on the table next to Emma, who nodded to let her know that she had done everything perfectly.

“Does Claire remember how to play ‘Net of the Moon’?” Mabel asked loudly as Tadashi placed a plate of sushi on her lap.

“Your husband makes a very good cocktail,” Claire said to Clio, smiling slyly.

“You already told me.”

“Did I? I don’t remember. Nando always scolds me because I lose track of things. Nando’s my husband. It’s short for Fernando,” she added, turning helpfully to Emma. “I have no memory,” she said. “None whatsoever. Nando does his exercises, well, sit-ups really, he calls them exercises, every day naked in front of this big gold mirror, and he makes me sit there and count while he grunts and sweats. Before I even get to twenty, he stops and rests and I forget where I am and he gets really, really mad. He wants to start over again, but I say no, just begin at fifty.” She sighed. “He’s old.”

Emma handed Clio a beer.

“He’s no Tommy Haywood,” Claire said. “Maybe we could trade.”

Something in Claire’s tone—guilt and defiance and self-delight—made Clio look at her closely. “Maybe,” Clio said. “But then I’d get Nando.”

“Well, after you said you were never ever coming back, I thought it was all right to stay with Tommy at Malibu. What a cool house! I mean it was all right, anyway, but
after you said that, it was really all right. He was pretty pissed at you. Something you said about seeing him in the movies.”

“Did you help with his exercises?”

“Cliome,” Claire said primly. “He doesn’t need to exercise.”

Clio took a drink and looked at Claire. “Really?”

Claire gasped suddenly. “Have you heard about Mamie?” She shuddered. “I certainly have no
problemas
in this area. My first boyfriend was Orval Nalag, who lived in the workers’ camp. Do you remember him, Clio? God, he was handsome. There wasn’t anyone who could tongue-kiss like Orval. Mamie used to say, ‘Here he comes, walking the camp walk.’ ”

“I remember him,” Clio said.

“I wouldn’t give up those nights in the banyan tree for any duke in the world—well, maybe I would—but it’s one thing to sleep with them and another to actually make it your life. Mamie’s going to turn into Mother. A nice version of Mother without Mother’s famous gardens. But with the gardener.” She laughed and looked around at them. “That was funny! Mamie and Frank Harimoto. He’s the gardener,” she said helpfully to Emma. “They’re teaching Hawaiian kids all the things they should already know, like how to spearfish. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so,” Emma said. She was furious.

The women sat silently, waiting for the unacknowledged antagonism that had suddenly risen among them to stretch and yawn and creep back to its usual hiding place in Claire’s pocket.

Clio was relieved to see that Mabel had fallen asleep. My grandmother’s life, she thought, was ruined by cowardice and prejudice, but my cousin Mamie is able to live, as Mabel had not been free or brave enough to do, with a Japanese man. It does not do my grandmother much good.

“You know, there’s one thing I’ve learned, if you can believe it,” Claire said abruptly, wrapping her hair around her finger. “You do pay a price for everything. The big thing is to figure out whether it’s worth it. For example, it takes about two hours for me to go down on Nando. It’s difficult for him. It takes him a long time. But then I think: two hours for a Chanel bag. Is it worth it?”

Clio saw Emma look at Claire’s bag. It was a quilted leather satchel with gold chains.

“You can’t keep the high-wire act going forever,” Claire said, shaking her head. “Even if you wanted to.”

“Now you tell us,” Emma said.

“None of us can. Women, I mean. By the way, I don’t know what you’re doing, Clio. You don’t do it at all, which I personally think is a big mistake. How could you let Tommy go? He said something about your getting incredibly mad in Morocco over a sex act and then you disappeared. I mean, Cliome! He was really worried. He said you were scared or something, that’s why you left Morocco.”

“Scared?” Emma asked angrily. “Clio, scared?”

“There is a little more to the story than that,” Clio said calmly.

“Well, that’s what he said. He said you were afraid.”

“Why would you believe Tommy rather than Clio?” Emma asked.

Claire shrugged, not interested.

Clio wondered if Claire had really meant it when she’d boasted that she had no memory. “Do you remember,” Clio asked, “the time we went fluming and Lily Shields broke her wrist for the second time and we were afraid to tell her father because he’d warned her to be careful until it healed? We made a cast in the garage out of wet newspapers and paste and she went in to lunch and vomited on the table.”

“You and Mamie made the cast, not me. I had nothing to do with it. Dr. Shields couldn’t get it off.” Claire yawned with a little yelp. “I didn’t have anything to do with it. I only watched you guys make it.”

“I don’t think anyone is accusing you, Claire, twenty years later. Dr. Shields scolded us because we didn’t come for help, not because of the cast. I tried to tell him the truth, that it was because we were afraid. He said fear is never a good excuse.”

“I kind of remember. Why?”

“It is one of the things I most remember. I wasn’t afraid in Morocco, but I should have been. I think Lily’s father was wrong. I think fear is a very good excuse.”

“Well, you’ve always been obsessed by courage, hasn’t she, Aunt Emma?” Claire gave Emma a big smile, as if she had just noticed Emma’s coldness. “At least you used to be, Clio. I haven’t seen you in a while.” It was difficult for Claire to take responsibility for anything, even an opinion.

She suddenly looked at her watch. “I’m supposed to pick up my new bracelet in Kaimuki at four-thirty. Shit.” Like Emma and Clio, she wore a gold bracelet engraved with her Hawaiian name. “I get a lot of questions about it in Europe. People always want to know what my Hawaiian name means. My real name means beach plover, but I lie and say it means beautiful-flower-of-heaven. I’m getting a bigger bracelet. As thick as yours, Emma. The biggest one they have, even if I’m paying for it myself. Well,” she said, sitting up, “even if Nando is paying for it. You know, he thought Hawai‘i was west of South America. He was surprised I was white. Of course, I told him we didn’t have running water or lights.” She picked up her costly bag and finished her drink.

“It is west of South America,” Clio said, working it out.

“What is?”

“Is that why your husband remained in Portugal?” Emma asked. “He thinks we live without electricity?”