Diamond Head (18 page)

Mr. and Mrs. Leong entered from a hallway, Hong trailing behind them with a tray of tea. They were dressed neatly, Mr. Leong in a black suit with a high collar and Mrs. Leong in a black dress that brushed the top of her knees. They looked as regal as they did in the newspaper, but they were smiling.

“Photographer Chan! Marvelous to see you, thank you so much for coming to our home. I know it’s an unusual request!” Mr. Leong walked to the couch to greet my father, who suddenly realized he should stand up.

“Mr. Leong,” my father said, shaking his hand. “The pleasure is all mine. It’s a great honor to photograph your family.”

“Please, call me Frank. We’re not so formal here. And who’s this?” he asked, gesturing toward me.

“This is my oldest daughter and assistant, Amy.” I held out my hand to shake his, and said the first thing that came to me.

“Good morning, Mr. Leong. What a beautiful home you have. The lotuses have bloomed splendidly.”

Mr. Leong chuckled and glanced at my father, who was introducing himself to Mrs. Leong.

“I see you’ve raised this one well.” He winked at me. “I will pass on your compliments to our gardener. You’ll make him a very happy man.”

From the same hallway emerged two more people, two boys—men, really—one wearing a bright red aloha shirt unbuttoned
halfway down his chest, the other wearing a black suit like Mr. Leong’s. Instantly, I knew which one was Kaipo. Over the years, I had heard his name a number of times, always good things; he was so handsome, so charming, so funny. I had even known a couple of girls he dated. But it never lasted long. He could never stick with any one girl—or at least that’s what I’d heard. I pulled my eyes away from his exposed chest, wiping a bead of sweat from my hairline, telling myself to focus.

I looked at the second son, whose face I didn’t recognize. He was thinner and older, more serious in every way. He nodded timidly as Mr. Leong introduced them. He did not lean in to kiss my cheek as Kaipo had.
Easy, son
, Mr. Leong joked.

The six of us sat down to the tea that Hong had prepared, and Mr. Leong began to discuss his ideas for the photography session.

“I want to capture my family as we are—not posing like statues as has become the fashion. I want candid photos, not everyone looking in the same direction and smiling like idiots.” He took a sip of tea. My father nodded.

“Can I have a cigar, then, Dad?” Kaipo asked, spread across a black ottoman.

“If a cigar will capture the real you, Kaipo, then by all means.” Mr. Leong made a sweeping gesture toward his son and turned back to my father. “Can you do that for us, Mr. Chan? I have the highest confidence in your work. I’ve seen your portraits in the paper—no smiling idiots.” He raised his tea cup toward my father, who in turn raised his own.

“You will not be disappointed, Frank,” he said, the Frank sounding like an afterthought.

“And, Amy? Are you on board?”

My attention was suddenly pulled back to Mr. Leong.

“Yes,” I said abruptly. “One hundred percent.” I shifted in my seat, the teacup rattling against its saucer. I was distracted by so many things—the enormous backyard I could see through the tall
windows, the hot tea balancing on my knees, Kaipo’s tan chest—but most of all, I couldn’t help but notice that throughout the entire conversation, Mrs. Leong had not stopped looking at me.

“Well,” said Mr. Leong, finishing the last of his tea and taking a bite of an almond cookie before placing it back on the plate. “Shall we begin?”

“Absolutely.” My father put down his cup. “Why don’t you all continue about your day, and Amy and I will be around the house taking candid photographs. How does that sound?”

“An excellent idea! I was just in the middle of a fascinating news article, so I think I will continue with that. You two have full rein of the house; take the best shots you can.” Mr. Leong rose and began to walk into the dining room, where I could see a newspaper laid out across the table. “You heard Mr. Chan,” he said, turning back and addressing his family, “go about your regular business.” And then, realizing he should amend his last statement, he said, “But please, behave yourselves.” He winked at me a second time and continued into the dining room.

We crept through the house, taking shots of the family. Mr. Leong read the newspaper at his enormous dining room table, dark and glistening, eleven empty chairs around him. Mrs. Leong fanned herself on the front lanai and knit on a window seat, the spool of yarn unraveled to the floor. Kaipo polished his car, his shirt fully unbuttoned by then, and smoked cigars in the study. And then there was the oldest Leong son, Bohai—the shy one—who was the most difficult to photograph, hiding behind a book almost the entire afternoon.

“Do you mind putting the book down, just for a moment?” my father asked him.

Without speaking, he lowered the book. He looked straight at the camera, his expression entirely pained. My father had yet to lift his camera. I knew he wouldn’t take this shot.

“What are you reading?” I asked cautiously.

“Oh,” Bohai said, shifting his legs against the chair. “It’s about a whale.”

“A whale? No wonder it’s so large,” I joked, trying to lighten the conversation. Bohai twisted his face into a strange half-smile.

“I don’t think I’ve read that one,” I said more seriously, pointing to the cover.

“You can have it.” He hesitated, not looking at me. “I’ll be finished soon.”

“That’s very kind,” I said.

“Okay,” he nodded. “I’ll continue, then?” He looked to my father.

“Yes, of course,” my father said. “Probably better that way. Please, don’t mind us.”

Bohai lifted his book and began to read. My father and I walked from the room but in the doorway, he paused. He squatted and brought the camera to his eye. Bohai sat in his wooden chair, his body slouched ever so slightly, his mouth parted as he read. My father shook his head, but still, he took his shot.

We walked the entire span of the house, peeking into rooms and looking for subjects to photograph. We snapped a photograph of Hong in the sun-drenched kitchen, peeling an orange while she stood at the counter. We found an incredible bathroom on the second floor with a porcelain bathtub larger than my parents’ mattress. One of the bedrooms was lined with bookshelves, each of them crammed with hardbacks, which we assumed must belong to Bohai. Then we went into the garage, where we found three American cars parked side by side, all of them black, two of them convertibles.

“Holy shit,”
my father murmured below his breath, shaking his head in disbelief.

It was Kaipo who put me at ease, who appeared from time to time to make his mother laugh, to put a cigar between her lips and make her pose like an Italian gangster. He insisted that I be photographed
as well, helping me into the driver’s seat of his car—which was not one of the cars in the garage, but a fourth parked in the carport. He retracted the roof and turned on the radio.

“Act natural,” he warned, “or my dad won’t hang it on the wall.”

I understood why so many girls had fallen for his charm. He was mischievous and carefree—a rare combination of traits I decided only wealth could sustain. But even Kaipo could not pull my thoughts away from Henry. I looked at Kaipo and saw a million girls, all of them screaming for his narrow attention. I wasn’t a screamer; I didn’t like the odds. Men like Kaipo didn’t have that kind of hold on me.

At two o’clock, we all sat down together for a light lunch of dim sum, which Hong served before sitting down at the table to eat with us. I remember thinking it was odd, that no one cared that the household help was eating just as heartily as everyone else. Then, as I reached for a third fish ball, I realized that my father and I were also employees, and I put my chopsticks down as Mrs. Leong began to ask me questions.

“Were you in school, Amy?” she asked.

I was used to people asking me this question in the past tense. All the Oahu schools had been shut down since the bombing and it was unclear when they would resume.

“I went to Kaneohe High,” I said, “so I feel the need to thank you for all you’ve done.”

“Nonsense, dear! Think nothing of it.” She smiled, waiting for more.

“Luckily, I graduated two years ago, and since then I’ve been doing various kinds of work. But I think I’ll stick with my father’s photography for now. I enjoy it.” I paused. I hoped it was a satisfactory answer.

“Congratulations, you made it just in time! So, that would make you—twenty, then?”

“I’ll be twenty-one next month.”

“Wonderful,” she replied, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. Kaipo raised his glass to make a toast and everyone turned to face him. Except for us—his mother and I, we kept our eyes on each other, the two of us grinning, lingering in the warmth of each other’s attention.

We promised to return the next morning with the photographs; we worked all through the night to develop them. The next day, Mrs. Leong answered the door and greeted us as if we were old friends, inviting us in for a drink.

“No, no, we really should be going,” my father said, flattening the sides of his trousers. “I just wanted to be sure you got the photographs.”

“Hold on,” Mrs. Leong said, holding out a palm and starting across the room, “let me get Frank. He’s been talking about the pictures since you two left. And if you won’t stay for a drink then you must at least agree to come for dinner next week.” Her finger was still raised as she disappeared down the hallway.

A moment later, Mr. Leong’s voice called out.

“Photographer Chan!” he exclaimed, right arm extended as he walked to where we stood in the entry. “And Amy,” he added, accepting the package of photographs.

“They came out great,” my father told Mr. Leong, “even better than I expected. Your family photographs beautifully.”

Mr. Leong whistled as he flipped through the stack of images.

“Tremendous work,” he declared, “fantastic. Well, this one of Bohai will have to go and look at this one—who is this old man?” He chuckled, stopping on a picture of himself drinking coffee. Again, he winked at me.

Mr. Leong reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin fold of bills. He handed them to my father.

“Thank you, Photographer. And you both are to take Lin’s invitation seriously.” He pointed a finger at each of us. “We expect you here at dinner very soon.”

I could see my father’s hand tremble slightly as he removed his wallet from his back pocket, inserting the money as he tried to maintain the conversation.

“Of course,” he replied. “We look forward to it.”

Then, emerging from the hallway, something long and glistening draped across her right arm, Mrs. Leong rushed across the room and held out what she carried. It was a dress, apricot-colored and silk, with enough fabric to reach the floor.

“I had it made for me,” she said, wrapping the dress in tissue paper and placing it neatly into a shallow box, “but what a waste it seems when I imagine how it would look on you! Of course it will have to be taken in, but really, it’s going to be stunning.”

She placed the box in my hands and my fingers, unsure of what to make of her extravagant offering, accepted with hesitation—before my mind could politely refuse.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure?” Mrs. Leong laughed. “Yes, dear, I’m absolutely certain—this dress was meant to be yours.”

I had never even seen a dress like that before. In magazines perhaps, but never in person. This was the kind of dress you had to create, dictated from start to finish, every detail, every button, every stitch considered.

“Wow,” I said. “Well, thank you. I don’t exactly have a place to wear it but—”

“You’ll wear it here,” she interrupted. Her eyes flickered with energy. “When you come to dinner, you’ll wear the dress.”

She looked so happy, so eager to see me again. Too happy, I thought to myself. Why was she so eager?

“Of course,” I managed, still holding the box with two hands, perfectly even as if it were filled with liquid. “Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure,” she replied.

On the way home, I thought about asking my father if he felt it was strange, if there was something peculiar about the gift or the
way in which she gave it, but my father seemed just as happy as Mrs. Leong, just as eager. I thought of how to say it, how to make it sound silly, dismissing the question as I asked it. But as I tried to form my question, my mind fought back; it wanted what they had, it wanted to be happy, to feel worthy of our triumphant day. Mrs. Leong was a generous woman, I told myself; money like that, it came without explanation.

The next week, I sat at the cash register trying to write a letter to Henry. No matter how many ways I started it, I couldn’t quite convey what I needed to say; that I missed him, that I thought about him constantly, that I followed men around town that looked like him from the back. I missed his family. I missed his mustache.

But then there were the other problems, like how I was beginning to forget the tone of his voice. And when I closed my eyes at night, I could only picture his eyes and his nose, a blank space filling in his mouth and his cheeks. I woke up often, in the dead of night, reaching under my mattress for the photograph I kept of him, straight-faced in my father’s studio. I’d take it into the bathroom, study it under the yellow light, perched on the toilet seat until I felt entirely crazy. It had only been three weeks—not even a month—and he was already starting to deteriorate in my mind. With each sleepless night, more and more my memories of Henry became defined by that photograph. That uniform, that somber stare, I could imagine him no other way.

But I couldn’t tell him that. How could I possibly tell him that?

“Amy,” I heard my father call from the back room, pulling me swiftly from my miserable thoughts. “Come here a minute.”

The back room was a place that I entered only when asked. It was my father’s space and he felt protective of it. When I first came to work at the studio, he insisted that I understand how film was processed, and I spent hours with him in the darkroom as he explained each of the liquids and the importance of timing and cleanliness and
temperature. But since then, the only time I went to the back room was when it needed to be cleaned, which wasn’t often.