Anywhere but Paradise (9 page)

We take the “Are You in Love?” quiz. I love Elvis, I do. But I’m as likely to get together with him today as I am with Harry back home. However, I know enough about him to answer some of the questions, so why not? Do you share favorite foods? Yes. Milk shakes.
Do you share favorite songs? Yes. His. Do you share favorite hobbies? Kind of. I want to learn karate, so I say yes. My score is five out of ten. The advice from the quiz—
Keep trying
.

Malina scores ten and receives an enthusiastic
You’re in Love!
confirmation.

“So now what?” I ask.

Malina whips out her math book with its office-envelope-brown paper cover and a pen. “I need to practice writing Mrs. Kimo Nahoa, of course, and fill in my heart.”

And so she does.

Cindy

MY FIRST THOUGHT
when I wake up is—
Today is Cindy’s birthday
. My second—
I’ve been here two whole weeks and Howdy has one hundred five days to go
. My third—
It’s Good Friday, so I don’t have school. I do not have to see Kiki
.

I mailed Cindy a card early so she’d get it in time. And before I left Gladiola, I bought her a gift and gave it to her mom to set out today. A bottle of nail polish in her favorite color—hot pink.

I helped Cindy plan her first boy-girl party. A costume party. Cindy’s going as Gidget, the California surfer girl. Harry told me he’ll go as John Wayne. I would’ve dressed like Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz
. The cookout should start just about now.

“I know you miss her,” says Mama at the breakfast table, when I remind her what day it is. “You two were so close, I thought you might hear from her by now.”

Me, too.

“Speaking of missing,” says Mama. “I can’t find the extra back-door key.”

“It’ll turn up,” says Daddy.

Yes, it will. Only not around here. Yesterday, I sent it to my best friend.

Friday Morning Lemonade

RIGHT AFTER BREAKFAST,
Malina and I set up a card table and chairs next to the street. In an hour, her family is taking off for a campout over the three-day Easter weekend. Malina’s transistor radio crackles out a tune about lonely boys.

Our
LUSCIOUS LEMONADE
and
PARIS OR BUST!
signs will surely lure in buyers. Guaranteed. A red balloon tied to a leg of the table spins in the wind. The sunny sun glints above the treetops.

“Lemonade. Luscious lemonade,” we shout at the handful of cars that whiz by.

“Maybe we’re out too early or maybe we’re already too late or maybe we’re charging too much.”

“No, no, and no,” says Malina. “It’s a holiday. Folks are in a good mood. There’s nothing more they’d rather do than help two ambitious girls realize their dreams.”

So we wait.

And wait some more.

“You know why I like Kimo?” Malina asks.

“Tell me.”

“He looks like Fabian, even if he doesn’t sing like him. He draws super neat and is vice president of our class.”

“All great qualities.”

A strong gust flaps our Paris sign in front of the card table. One taped corner pulls up and the sign swings down.

“Do you know people in Paris take their dogs to restaurants and feed them right off their plates?” Malina says as we fix the sign.

“I do now.”

“If they are small, they sit on their lap, or on a chair. And they don’t sneak food to them either. They order it off the menu.”

Malina tells me her mom is allergic to dogs. More than anything else, she would like to have one. But all of hers are stuffed.

With the sign secure, we again stand and wave at any and all passing cars.

I talk about Howdy. “Mostly, he’s the silent type,” I tell Malina. “So when he speaks, I know it’s important. He loves canned pumpkin, which Grams and
I discovered early on when we made pie. I call him my alarm cat because he wakes me every morning by touching my face with his whiskers.”

“He sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to meet him.”

If she does, it won’t be until he’s sprung. I explain the jailhouse rule: You have to be over eighteen or family in order to visit.

“No problem. We could be hanai family.”

I know I must look puzzled because I am, and because Malina keeps talking.

“Your family could adopt me. Unofficially, of course. It’s an old Hawaiian way.”

“So we’d be twins, only different.”

Malina’s brother, David, walks up smiling. He’s movie star handsome, tall, with broad shoulders. Dimples. “Hey, sis; hey, haole girl. How’s it going?”

The way he says “haole girl” is playful, like a nickname instead of something mean.

“You’re our first customer,” I say.

David sets the two big empty glasses that he’s holding in his hands on our table. “I’ll take one for my girlfriend, Teresa, too.”

“That’ll be …” says Malina as she pours the lemonade, “a whole lot of money.”

“Nah,” says David. “You owe me a bundle, remember?”

“I’m telling Mom,” says Malina.

“Tell,” says David, and walks away.

“He’s so aggravating, especially because he can talk my parents into anything.”

Like Grandpa sweet-talking Grams into serving him another piece of her award-winning pecan pie. And Cindy writing an apology poem to her parents and getting ungrounded after her April Fools’ joke last year. She convinced her younger brother that she’d just seen a bona fide UFO. By recess, the whole school thought it was gospel. Kids either fled home in a panic, lined up for the cot in the school nurse’s office, or refused to return to classes for fear of missing out on a might-never-see-again phenomenon.

“You are so lucky you don’t have a big brother,” Malina says.

Maybe this is true.

“So, what do you want to do on our trip?” Malina asks.

“Whatever you want,” I say. “I’m curious, why Paris?”

“It’s the city of love.”

But of course.

“Besides, my great-grandfather was French.”

“Keen.”

“
Oui
. And since I’m French-Portuguese-Hawaiian by my mom and Chinese-Hawaiian by my dad, China and Portugal are on my list, too.”

“So I could add England and Scotland and Wales to mine.”

A boy hollers from a car that drives by. “Cheapskate,” Malina yells. “That was Douglas,” she says, plopping back down in the metal chair. “I’m glad I broke up with him. Though he is cute.”

She’s right about that.

A family Malina knows from her church pulls over in their station wagon. Four boys wiggle in the backseat. Malina gives them all lemonade for free.

The good news? The mom gives Malina a babysitting job.

We celebrate Malina’s good fortune by drinking the rest of the lemonade ourselves.

She’s going to make it to Paris. For sure.

Underwater View

THIS MUST BE
what it feels like to fly. Weightless. Free.

It’s late afternoon and I’m facedown in the clear, salty smooth ocean with my snorkel and mask. My arms and legs stretch out like an X as I take in the wonders between the rippled sandy floor and me. With the gently rocking motion of the water, I float in the keyhole-shaped space between the coral heads.

This makes up for the water I swallowed figuring out the snorkel. All the mask adjustments before I plugged the leak. The spit I had to spread inside the mask to stop the lens from fogging. And the shorts and a long-sleeved shirt of Mama’s I’m in instead of my swimsuit, to cover up as much of my skin as possible.

In and around the coral—fish: a bright yellow one no bigger than my hand, with a black-and-white tail; a school dressed in broad black and white stripes with
thin pennants of white trailing from the tops of their heads; a mostly yellow fish with markings like a raccoon around its eyes; an all-yellow as long and wide as a wooden ruler; a green fish with a red stripe along the side and red lines running perpendicular; and a bluish-black fish rimmed in white, with a teardrop of orange red near the tail.

I wonder if any of them are the humuhumunukunukuapuaa—however you say it—fishes.

“That’s enough sun for you today,” says Daddy, tapping me on my shoulder. I forgot he was even here.

I lift my head—“Just one more look?”—and return my face to the water.

A turtle. I’m this close to a turtle. I motion so Daddy won’t miss this. The turtle’s flippers, like wings, guide his path. He seems in no hurry, like Grams and Grandpa on a lazy afternoon drive.

After we have a last look, Daddy and I approach the shore, where a family stands shoulder to shoulder in the shallows, donning snorkeling gear. “Don’t put your fingers in any holes in the reef,” says the mom.

“We know, we know,” says a girl. “Eels bite.”

Jeepers! Good thing I didn’t get curious.

A wave swells at the shoreline and knocks me down. I rise, sputtering. More salty water. Not my taste.

Under the shade of the coconut tree, Mama chats with a tourist couple setting up beach mats and towels next to ours.

“Where are y’all from?” the woman asks Mama as Daddy and I approach.

“Here,” Daddy says.

“Texas,” I say at the same time.

That’s home.

Howdy Time

SATURDAY AFTERNOON,
Howdy refuses to come out from under the bench no matter how much I beg. So I lie on my stomach at the edge of his hiding place. The concrete cools my still-tender skin.

“What a good boy,” I say as my hand inches closer and closer. His tail flicks back and forth. But no bopping of my hand. No hissing at my face. Howdy is still scared. About everything. But I’m sure he is happy I’ve come.

I scratch his favorite spot just behind his ears. I move my hand down his back. His fur feels different. Thinner? I turn over my hand and look. My palm is furry. “Daddy, something’s wrong,” I say.

“Looks to me like Howdy is shedding his Texas coat in order to grow his Hawaii one.”

I am not convinced.

I reach for my cat with the still-swishing tail and
rub under his chin. “One hundred four more days after today,” I say. And then I lower my voice, “But I hope we’ll fly home sooner.”

Maybe Howdy isn’t convinced either. He is still purr-less.