Frangipani (21 page)

Oh, it’s very easy to have a beautiful body when you’re young, Materena thinks. But what is there to resist? Materena asks in her head. Whoever that boy is must be Monsieur Perfect. Too good to be true.

“Where does he live?” Materena asks out of interest.

Leilani casually replies that the boy she’s trying to resist lives in Punaauia PK 18.

“Punaauia PK 18!” Materena is exclaiming, because it costs millions to live there. The houses have electrical gates and access to the white-sanded beach. Then, at PK 21, where Pito’s family is from, you’ve got the fibro shacks.

“Oh, Mamie, you’re impossible. So what if he lives in Punaauia PK 18? He’s not a king.”

“I know that . . . but tell me, why do you have to resist that boy?” As far as Materena is concerned, there’s some news coming, some news that is going to make her go silent. Some news like, The boy is a Casanova, a heartbreaker.

But the news is that he’s too nice.

“Eh? What?” Materena asks, confused. “That’s the reason you have to resist him?”

Leilani confirms this with a slow nod. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s just an act to get into my pants,” she continues.

Materena bursts out laughing. “One minute you’re telling me nothing and next minute you’re telling me everything!”

“But what do you think, Mamie?” Leilani asks. “How can I tell if he’s being nice because he is nice or if he’s being nice because he wants to get into my pants?”

Materena looks up to the ceiling. “Let me think a little.”

“Was Papi really nice to you at the beginning?” Leilani asks.

“
Non,
he was like he is today.”

“And you still went with him?” Leilani sounds like she can’t believe her ears.

“What do you want,” says Materena, shrugging. “Love is like that. You can’t explain. What’s the boy’s name?”

“Hotu Viriatu.”

And before Materena can say anything about this piece of information, Leilani advises her mother that he’s Catholic, he’s not from an enemy family, and he’s not a cousin.

He’s just Hotu Viriatu: twenty-two, handsome, smart, and nice.

“You’re nice too,” says Materena. “Nice people sometimes attract each other.”

“He’s had five girlfriends.”

“Five,” calmly repeats Materena. Five! she yells in her head. But he’s worse than Ati, that one! At least Ati had had only two girlfriends by the time he was Hotu’s age.

“Is this a lot?” asks Leilani.

“Oh . . . it depends.” These days Materena is very careful with what she says to Leilani. Leilani goes on about Hotu’s ex-girlfriends. The first one was when he was seven years old, and the next four were from when he was eighteen years old to twenty-one. As she names those four girlfriends, Materena exclaims.

Hotu was the boyfriend of last year’s Miss Tahiti!

And before her there was the champion rower from Hawaii! And before her there was one of the nieces of the president of Tahiti! And before her there was the daughter of the man who owns the Vaima building!

Each time Leilani confirms with a nod, and before Materena has the chance to say that Hotu might have exaggerated a little bit, Leilani informs her mother that she didn’t find out about these women from Hotu but from his mother.

“Ah, because you met the mama?” Materena is so surprised. It is unusual for the mama to want to meet her son’s girlfriend so soon! Materena met her mother-in-law when she was pregnant with her first child with Pito. Materena’s cousin Giselle met her mother-in-law the day after she gave birth to her first child. On the whole, in Tahiti anyway, mothers are pretty selective when it comes to meeting their son’s girlfriends. The romance must be over a year, at least. “Hotu’s mama invited you to her house to talk?” Materena asks.

“
Non,
she just walked past the restaurant and saw us.” Leilani adds that Hotu ducked under the table, but it was too late. His mother had seen him. So she came in and made herself comfortable at the table. She looked Leilani up and down. She talked about the weather and this and that, Hotu’s famous girlfriends, whose photos are hung in the living room.

Now, Materena understands that when a girlfriend becomes an ex-girlfriend it doesn’t mean you put all her photos in the trash. No, you put her photos in an album. The only girlfriend who gets to be in a frame and on the wall is the current girlfriend. That is what Mama Teta does with her youngest son’s girlfriends. When the girlfriend is current, she’s in a frame on the wall, and when she ceases to be current, she gets transferred into the album.

And the girlfriends Mama Teta was very fond of and is still very fond of get their pictures downsized so that they fit in Mama Teta’s purse.

But it’s one thing doing this and it’s another framing your son’s ex-girlfriends and putting them up in your living room.

“Hotu’s mother sounds like a bizarre woman,” Materena says, getting up. “What does she look like?”

“A Christmas tree,” laughs Leilani. “Mamie, she’s got so much jewelry, it’s ridiculous.”

“Hum.” Materena nods.

“And you know what they say about people who wear a lot of jewelry,” Leilani goes on.

“
Non.
” Materena wouldn’t know this. She doesn’t know anyone who wears a lot of jewelry.

“They have a low self-esteem,” Leilani informs her mother. “They’re not confident. That’s why you are confident, because you don’t wear any jewelry except for your wedding ring.”

“Ah.” Materena agrees with a nod, although she’s not really following her daughter’s explanation. In her mind, the reason some people wear a lot of jewelry is because they can afford to buy a lot of jewelry.

“She’s Tahitian, she’s brown as, but she speaks like she was born into the French aristocracy,” says Leilani. “She has a French accent, Mamie! She does the
reuh-reuh!
”

“Ah.” Anyway, let’s go back to Hotu’s ex-girlfriends, Materena would like to know who broke up with whom. She’s not particularly interested in Hotu’s mother right now.

“He did.”

“He did, eh?” Materena says, shaking her head. Now she can see the type. He sounds like Monsieur Casanova, that one.

“Mamie, he had to go back to France, you know,” explains Leilani. “To finish his studies.”

“What does he do?” Materena can’t believe she forgot to ask this very important question. What the boyfriend does is always the first question mothers are supposed to ask.

Well, he’s a dentist. Leilani explains that at the moment he’s working with a dentist in town, but he will be opening his own practice soon.

“A dentist!” exclaims Materena. “How old was he when he finished school? Twelve?”

“Seventeen, like I will be when I finish school.” Leilani goes on about how it’s the normal age to finish school when you don’t repeat classes. “And Hotu didn’t become a dentist for the money,” stresses Leilani.

“
Ah oui?
” Materena can’t help being a bit skeptical. Everybody knows that people become dentists (and doctors) for the money. Anyway, that’s the general belief.

Leilani continues about Hotu’s mission as a dentist: to educate people on the importance of looking after their teeth (because bad teeth affect health), and to donate several hours of his time each month to poor people who can’t afford a dentist and who badly need one. That’s why Hotu is taking lessons to perfect his Tahitian. He wants to be able to speak to people who can’t express themselves in the French language.

“Ah, his Tahitian is not really good?” Materena asks.

“Oh, he’s like me, you know. He gets by . . . he’s like many of us.”

Materena nods in agreement.

“He’s so wonderful.” Leilani sighs. “He really wants to give something back to the world, having had such a fortunate childhood. But I don’t think it’s the right time for me to be with him.”

“All right, then.” Materena gives her daughter a long kiss on her forehead. She’s had enough of hearing about the dentist, since Leilani’s plan is to resist him. “Listen, girl,” says Materena, “forget about that boy, okay? Work hard at school. Get your degrees and a good job. Then, if the dentist is still free and you still feel strongly about him, don’t resist him anymore. But he sounds to me like a real nice person.”

Now, Materena can say in all honesty that she has experience in a lot of departments. She knows, for example, how it feels to have Father Unknown written on a birth certificate. To be alone most of the nights, cook dinner for six in less than ten minutes, greet relatives so that they feel welcome, get rid of relatives so that their feelings don’t get hurt. Materena knows a lot of things about the everyday life, but she has no idea how it feels to love someone you have to resist. She’s never had to resist physical attraction.

When she met Pito and fell head over heels in love with him, she didn’t stop to think if he was a good catch or if there was another, better specimen waiting for her on the horizon. She just ran to Pito with open arms and with 100 percent passion. Since then, she’s never looked at another man.

Oh, Materena is not saying that when a good-looking man walks her way she closes her eyes,
non.
She looks, she admires the body and she admires the face, but that’s it.

Materena has resisted a lot of things in her life, like she’s resisted telling her mother-in-law off to her face, hitting Pito on the head with the steel frying pan he gave her for one of her birthdays, slapping her big-mouth cousin Loma across the face . . . Let’s just say that Materena knows very well how hard resisting can be, and resisting physical attraction must be even harder. If Materena was in such a situation she’d avoid being in the whereabouts of the man she wants so bad but has to resist because he’s married, he’s a cousin, it’s not the right time.

But her daughter’s plan of action is very different. In fact, Materena doesn’t really believe that Leilani is doing much resisting these days.

Leilani is coming home later and later, and since Materena knows that the reason for her daughter’s lateness has got nothing to do with Leilani comforting her crying friend, she doesn’t need to ask all kinds of questions. She doesn’t need to ask, “How’s Vahine? Is she still crying over Tamatoa? Is she still going to send him a framed photograph of herself? Is she still thinking of tattooing Tamatoa’s initials on her hand?”

Materena has to ask only one question, a very specific question, a question that requires a very specific answer—a yes or a no. And the question is, Did you resist today? That is the question Materena asks the very next day, the question she asks every day from then on.

Did you resist today?

And these are the answers Materena gets.

“We just talked.”

“I wasn’t with him, I was with Vahine.”

“I wasn’t with him, I was with Rose.”

“The truck ran out of petrol.”

Ah, here’s Leilani coming home now, five minutes later than yesterday.

“So, girl?” Materena asks. “Did you resist today?”

“Stop asking me that question!” Leilani exclaims with a faint smirk.

And Materena understands all that there is to understand.

Hotu Viriatu

I
f your daughter is thirty years old when she first gets a boyfriend, the relatives say, “Ah, finally! About time! It’s a miracle!” If your daughter is in her twenties, the relatives don’t say much. But when she’s not even seventeen years old, the relatives talk about it for days and days. They say somebody has got fire up her arse!

Oh, they don’t say these very words to the mother. Say these very words to any mother and you’ll get a slap across the face, so the relatives just interrogate the mother. “I heard your beautiful daughter has got a boyfriend. And who is he? And where did your daughter meet him? And who’s the family? How old is he? Has he got a job?”

Materena, about to go to the Chinese store, braces herself for the upcoming interrogation. She can’t hide forever. Plus, she much prefers to be interrogated on her way to the Chinese store, outside the Chinese store, inside the Chinese store, anywhere but in the whereabouts of her house. Because when the relatives are in the whereabouts of your house, they trick you. Before you know it, they’re inside your house. And before you know it, they’re sitting on the sofa in your living room.

Now, Materena could just ignore the questions fired at her. She could say, “It’s none of your onions. Mind your own onions.” But the trouble with relatives, some of them, most of them, all of them, is that if they don’t get informed, they invent. They believe every word the big-mouth relative of the family—Cousin Loma, the one and only—says.

If you want the truth to be known you’ve got to speak.

Aue . . .
might as well give the population what the population wants. Following is the information Materena is prepared to share today.

Yes, her daughter has a boyfriend, and Materena much prefers this situation to another situation, like her daughter being at the mercy of different boys who are after only one thing. True, her daughter’s boyfriend is older than Leilani, but we’re talking about just six years here, not twenty.

Leilani’s boyfriend’s name is Hotu Viriatu (he’s Catholic, he’s not from an enemy family, and he’s not a cousin). He’s very charming. He won Materena over in one second with that beautiful smile of his. His teeth are so white! What about the body!
Ouf!
What a fine specimen, that’s all Materena can say.

He came to visit last night, but at least he called first to warn of his arrival, unlike many people Materena knows. Materena had plenty of time to hide the parts of the walls that had a bit of paint peeling off. She ignored Leilani and Pito making fun of her. Monsieur Dentist arrived not on his motorbike but in the silver BMW his father bought him when he came home with his degree. After the greetings, Pito asked Hotu to take him for a drive in his BMW. “Eh,” Pito said, “take the old man for a drive, okay?”

“Pito!” Materena said under her breath. She was so embarrassed!

“Sure,” Hotu said, “I’ll take you for a drive.”

“You can fix my teeth too, eh?” Pito said, walking out of the house, winking at Materena just to annoy her more.

Nevertheless, despite the embarrassing situation with Pito asking Hotu to fix all his teeth (free of charge, of course), it was fun last night. After the drive, Hotu talked to Materena about what a fine girl Leilani is. “She is so smart,” he said, “and I know where she gets her beauty from.” Immediately after this lovely compliment, Pito decided to challenge Hotu to an arm-wrestling competition.