Haole Wood (22 page)

“Oof,” he said, releasing his grip.

I spun over and sprung off the bed, gasping for air. “You were trying to kill me.” I panted and gulped in a deep breath. I wiped at my nose with the edge of my shirt. “Why? Haven’t you done enough? Surely you’re not supposed to kill me? That would be a major screw up, even for you.”

“Kill you?” His voice protested like a herd of parrots. “Bless your heart. What are you talking about? I am comforting you.” He stroked his own head, smoothing down his black curls. “You know, like nice Jaswinder, nice Jaswinder. It will be okay.” He paced the room. With his bulk he pretty much could only march in place.

“I cannot believe your attitude,” he continued, wrinkling his brow as if he were confused. “All I get from you is grief about how terrible your life is. ‘Oh, woe is me,’” he said in an exact match of my own voice on my whiniest day. He stopped pacing and shook his finger at me. “For someone you say you do not believe in, I have become your biggest punching bag. You abuse me at every turn.” He took on my voice once again. “Oh, no! What’s going to happen next? What happened last week? What do you know? Help me, help me, help me!”

I took a step back. “Sorry,” I whispered. “You’re right. I know, I’ve been riding my broom around and taking it all out on you. It’s been a rough week, alright? And today was really hard, too. I’m just so disappointed in myself.” I sat on the bed. “But, why can’t you help me? Isn’t that what guardian angels are supposed to do?”

He jabbed his finger at me, his sparkling brown eyes now just sparking. “You may think I am no prize in the guardian angel department, but sister, let me tell you, they are not lining up for the golden opportunity to be your guardian angel, either. I am sick of your negativity. It is draining. Quit your whining. You are in Maui. Grow up.” He shut his eyes. I wondered if he was praying.

“Yes. I am praying. I am praying for you, you ungrateful . . .” He groaned a big mournful sound, shaking his hands up in the air. “I tried. I tried.”

“Listen,” I said, speaking in a hushed calming tone. “If you could just tell me—”

“Enough!” he bellowed. “I am not telling you anything. It is not in the rules.”

“I don’t understand you or what you are doing here, then,” I said, waving him off. “The universe does not seem to be doing me many favors right about now,” I added. “You seem like a nice, friendly enough guardian angel, but I need more from you. Surely, you can understand that?”

He just stood there, shaking his head at me.

I tried again, hating the sound of my own voice, wheedling as if I were a teenager, needing a new cell phone. A thrill of fear reminded me this was a much bigger deal than an adolescent angst for better technology. A man has been killed, for Pete’s sake, and worse, heaven forgive me, my grandmother was about to take the fall. All I asked for was a clue. One little clue as to what I should do. He could point to something, or write it out . . . he didn’t even need to specifically spell it out. There are ways around the rules, and we all know it.

“Give me a hint. No one needs to know.”

“I am warning you. Stop right now.”

I held up my finger and thumb, squished together. “Just one little suggestion. A random thought. An idea . . . Anything.”

He exhaled so loudly my hair blew back.

“But, just—”

“Girl. I swear. I knew I should have opted for reassignment when I had the chance. Damn.” He pounded his fist into his hand.

“Come on,” I kept at him. I knew exactly what I was doing. I would wear him down. This was a game I knew how to win. “I’m just asking you for a little proof here. Just give me something to let me know that you are who you say you are. I mean people just don’t come face to face with their guardian angels. You have to admit, you can understand why I think I’m going crazy, can’t you?” I just had to get him to buy in and agree with me.

“You are beyond belief,” he roared. “And you are making me crazy. I have never felt this throbbing powerful energy before. Is this anger? It is so tempting and tantalizing in its awfulness. I do not want to feel this way but the seductive pull of its dark energy is luring me into losing control. Must. Stop. It.” He put up his hands as if he were Superman fighting against kryptonite.

“Anger is defeat,” he told me, trying to smile.

“All I want to know,” I began again.

“No!” he raised his voice again, seeming to fill my room even more. “That is it. You have pushed me too far. Trust me. You get everything you need. All you need to know is that the miracles you want are not usually the miracles you receive.”

“But—”

“Enough.”

“What does that mean? What miracles?”

“Stop it, I say.”

“Why can’t you give me a hint?”

“For the love of Siddhartha, I beg you to stop.”

“Why are you so angry with me?”

“I am not angry. We do not get angry. We are unable to experience the emotion.”

“But you said you were starting to.”

He heaved a deep breath, as if he were going pearl diving. “I could have been your sister’s guardian angel before you came along, did you know that? Her guardian angel has a sweet assignment. Put her on autopilot and call it a day. Do some meditation, salvage some souls, peace out. But me? I have you. On call every rotation in the orbit. If you only knew all the trouble I have kept you free from.”

“Then tell me. Why can’t you? Surely you have some magic or something to show me. Just give me one little hint about what I should do. I don’t know what’s going to happen and that freaks me out.”

I thought I’d try a different tactic. “Some guardian angel. You have not been pulling your weight, have you?” I’m ashamed to say I really widened my eyes when I said the word weight. Mean, I know. But, I was on a roll. “Why couldn’t I have my sister’s guardian angel? Why can’t I get some good news? Why won’t you make something good happen for me?”

“You spoiled little brat.
Ho‘omanawahui
. Be patient. The Hawaiians would say you are
ua ka ‘a niniaui ka wili wai
.”

“What does that mean?”

“Swirled about by whirlpooling waters. Can’t you just be still for once, and let the mud settle?”

My breath caught in my throat.

“Why?” He continued. “You have no idea of all the things I have done for you. If only you knew how much worse things could be.”

“Then why don’t you do one more little thing?” I couldn’t stop challenging him. “I’m in a tough spot here. If you are who you say you are, why can’t you help me?”

He stared at me, his nostrils threatening to inhale the curtains, fluttering at the window. His brown skin spurted beads of water. His dimples became angry indents of dislike.

“You want me to do something?” he said so softly I could barely hear him. “You want me to
do
something?” he said a little louder. “
You
want
me
to do something?” he shouted. His size seemed to inflate even more, like a Harry Potter special effect, or spell gone bad.

I couldn’t look away. I nodded at him and whispered. “Why don’t you? Go on.”

“Because I know what is going to happen!” His eyes widened and he clamped his hands over his mouth. And then he was gone.

The rickety roller coaster, with the so-so safety record on which I rode, careened around yet another downhill curve. Centrifugal force hurled my stomach toward Japan as my innards clawed their way up my esophagus, clinging for dear life. What did he mean by that? What was going to happen? Whatever it was, judging by my guardian angel’s reaction, I was not going to like it. Oh, Supreme Being, the only thing worse than rock bottom is that last step falling into it.

I sat on the edge of my bed and held my own hands. I may have rocked back and forth a time or two. I stared at the space where he had been. A hummingbird’s heart beats fourteen hundred times a minute and mine fluttered faster. Goosebumps were present and accounted for, on high alert.

I heard a bird chirp and smelled a waft of jasmine carried on the salty breeze. I sniffed for the final trace of his name. A strand of hair fluttered against my face, which tightened at the start of a grim smile. My tears finally dried on my cheeks.

Warning received. It was time to find out what I was made of. Though I did eat a ton of sugar and spice, I had to admit, my ambitions had never been very nice. Like Dumbo holding tightly to a magic feather, I clung to the idea that at least I had a guardian angel on my side.

Against looming doom, I felt a gush of gratitude as hope flooded through me, a warm, humid embrace from Maui. I knew what I had to do. I had to deal with the two fighting turtles inside of me. I had to feed my integrity and stay and help my grandmother, no matter what was going to happen. It was time to start starving my fear.

Armed with resolve, I rekindled my belief that the sunshminas were great and geared up to give it another go. I would sell these sunshminas or try dying, as my sister always said.

The next day, I set up shop again. The sun shot columns of bright orange between the shadows. I set up again in the lobby and tried to look friendly and inviting. I pushed back my cuticles. I cleaned out my purse. Good thing I didn’t have dental floss or nail clippers on me.

Sitting up straight, I beamed at two middle-aged sisters who were on a special getaway from Seattle. “Darling, just darling,” they both agreed, without forking over any cash.

I commiserated with a sunburnt mother of three vacationing from Arizona. “Maybe later,” she told me, her sweaty toddler nearly sliding off her hip.

I congratulated the unbelievably good-looking couple on their honeymoon, whose “love would protect them from the sun,” gag, “because we haven’t really left our room.” Vomit.

Another guy slumped gratefully onto a bench and wiggled his toes in his flip-flops. He slipped his right bare foot into his lap and began rubbing. He picked up his sandal and smelled it. I hid my smile back in my magazine.

“Aloha,” came a voice, startling me out of what I had been reading. My cheeks blushed even though I knew no one could possibly know it was a DIY article on curling your own toes. Since I didn’t have STDIFM, Someone To Do It For Me, it was as close as I was going to get. I dropped the magazine under the table.

“Lana. Hello. Aloha. How are you?”

“Good,” sang Lana, her voice lilting with the exact right amount of accent to make her seem adorably exotic. “What are you doing?”

I waved my hand over the table. “I’m selling sunshminas, resort wear wraps for sensitive skin.” I watched Lana pick one up, the blue one, and toss it over her shoulders. I could smell the scent of her shampoo, or perfume, or probably that’s the way she always smells, as the wrap wafted over her golden shoulders. Her long slender fingers seemed to have a minuscule tilt at the end and moved in a graceful dance. With her symmetrical nails that were a matched set of opal gems, tinted pink like the insides of seashells, she tied the ends of the wrap under her bikini top. She spread her arms and twirled. “How do I look?”

She was a Hawaiian princess, a goddess. “Lovely,” I whispered. I cleared my throat. “It even provides great sun protection.”

Lana laughed. “Not that I need it,” her glance skimmed and condemned my pink skin in a flicker. “This is gorgeous, though.” She unknotted the wrap and slid her fingers down the seam, as though looking for the price tag. She picked up the end to see the label. Had it not been directed at me, her laughter could have been sold to noise machines to help people calm down at night so they could drift off to sleep, right along with the recorded sounds of babbling brooks, chirping birds and cooing babies. Lana laughed again. “Haole Wood. That’s perfect.” She laughed some more before asking how much. Her perfect eyebrows curlicued when I told her.

Lana raised her hand. “You know what? I think that price is in the right ballpark. This is luxurious, and the pricing helps keep it exclusive. Women are going to love these. You just need help marketing them.” Lana kept smoothing the fabric between her fingers. “I’ll help you. Here’s what I’m going to do.” She put the sunshmina back on, flipping her long hair over the back. She shook her head and shimmied her shoulders. If that had been in slow motion it would have qualified as soft porn.

“I’ll wear this and when people ask me where I got it, I’ll send them to you.” She smiled at me, flashing her “got milk” poster smile and smoothed down the edges of her sunshmina. I found myself nodding along.

“OK. Sure. Thanks. I wanted to say how sorry I was about Mike Hokama.”

Lana’s look halted the rest of what I wanted to say. I continued. I fiddled with my fingers. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I wanted to ask you who you think could have,” I swallowed, “would have,” I stopped. I tried to use my news reporter skill of the sound of silence to hopefully nudge Lana into speaking. Apparently, Lana’s skill was superior because I caved first.

“My grandmother did not kill him,” I said, filling the dead air. “I’m trying to help find who did. I know we’ll all feel a lot better when the real killer is arrested.”

“As I’ve told the police, I don’t know who would have done this. I wasn’t there. I was singing. If only I had been there, maybe I could have saved him.” Lana’s graceful swallow signaled the end of our conversation. One tear glistened on the crest of her cheek. I felt so bad for her, trying to hold it together like that.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said.

Lana nodded, hulaed her hips and tossed an “Aloha” over her shoulder. As she sashayed away, her mesmerizing body swayed, beckoning players from both teams as men and women alike watched her from their lounge chairs.

What just happened? I can’t believe I let her walk away like that, with a free sunshmina. Now I have a negative sale.

A lot of guests stopped by to feel the fabric and admire the sunshminas, but no takers. Late in the afternoon as the sun began its dip toward the ocean, I noticed a woman’s white skin before the red hair it was under.

“Aloha,” I smiled and stood up.

The pale-skinned woman with large turquoise eyes and titian hair twanged out an “Aloha” in return.