Livin' Lahaina Loca (4 page)

I
walked under the block-wide banyan tree on Front Street, smiling at the kids
perched on the tree limbs waiting for the old man who twists palm frond strips
into the shape of grasshoppers. He gives them to the kids for free. My guess is
he’s either a lonely old guy without any local grandkids or he’s an artistic
pervert who came up with a clever way to hang around little kids all day and
not get run off by the cops.

The
captain had said to look for the
Maui Happy Returns
at the furthest
moorage on the outskirts of the harbor. I made my way across the splintery
wooden dock reading the clever names on the boats and checking out the burgees
like the ones I’d seen hanging in the Lahaina Yacht Club. A lot of the boats
sported a red flag with a white outline of a whale so I figured that must be
the burgee for the LYC.

Crews
on the snorkel boats were swabbing down the decks getting ready for the next
load of tourists. Everything from rap and reggae to Hawaiian slack-key guitar
blasted from their on-board sound systems. I slowed to watch a well-muscled guy
shimmy up a mast wearing only a dark tan, a massive lower-back turtle tattoo,
and hip-riding board shorts. Looked like a great way to make a living: plenty
of exercise and fresh air and not much paperwork.

At
the farthest edge of the harbor I spotted a shiny white hull with plain black
letters spelling out
Maui Happy Returns.
There appeared to be no one
aboard. I checked my watch. Almost noon. Maybe I’d written the time down wrong.

As
I got closer to the boat, I took the opportunity to check it out a little
before getting the official sales job from the captain. In my business first
impressions are everything, so if I smelled fish guts or saw a hull encased in
green scum I’d be asking for a refund on my deposit rather than a tour.

But
all was, as they say, shipshape. Gleaming chrome, polished teak, and
well-scrubbed ivory-colored decks signaled a pride of ownership that easily
passed my cursory inspection.

“You’re
early,” boomed a voice behind me.

“Not
too early I hope.” I turned and looked into the face of a guy who fit right in
with the tourist bureau’s perfect day. He was a bit taller than average,
probably a few inches over six feet, with a well-defined chest outlined behind
a damp tee-shirt. His tanned muscular legs—I’m a fool for a good calf
muscle—were topped by baggy khaki shorts. I guessed his age at about forty, but
his smiling weathered face could have added a few years to my estimate. He wore
a white baseball cap advertising the name of his boat. A short thatch of
sun-bleached hair poked from under the cap.  

“I
hope I haven’t kept you waiting long,” he said. His smile appeared authentic,
and his handshake was warm. It was a good thing I already liked his boat.
Demanding a refund from a guy that good-looking would’ve broken my heart.

“No,
not at all. Just got here.” I nodded toward the catamaran. “Nice boat.”

“Very
nice. I wish it were mine. I’m Oliver Kingston—friends call me Ono, like the
fish. I’m the captain; the owner lives in a Honolulu high-rise.”

“Well,
he should be very pleased with you. It looks like you keep his boat in great
condition.”

“Not
to split hairs, but the owner’s a
she.
”

Something
about the way he said it, it sounded like there was more than an
employer/employee relationship between them. I reminded myself my job wasn’t to
delve into the guy’s personal life. I was simply there to check out a wedding
venue.

“Well,
all the better. May I have a tour?”

“Certainly.
Mind removing your
slippas
?

I’ve
lived in Hawaii all my life, so I already knew to remove my shoes before
getting onto a boat—or going in a house—but with my light coloring I’m
accustomed to people mistaking me for a mainlander.

“Wow.
This cabin will hold, what, thirty or forty people?” I said, looking around the
spacious interior. It had a large bar, and padded seats all around the inside
walls of the cabin. Big picture windows allowed guests to stay dry if the boat
should encounter a rain shower or if big waves kicked up salt spray.

“It’s
rated for forty-eight, but that would be a bit tight. But that’s just inside
the cabin. The entire boat can easily handle sixty-five.”

He
showed me the bridge where he steered; the heads—what we landlubbers would call
restrooms; and then finally the netting stretched like a trampoline across the
bow which allowed casually-attired guests to lay back and enjoy the ride while
watching the ocean slip by below.

“That’s
pretty much it. A catamaran is pretty much a
wissiwig
vessel.”

“Wissiwig?”

“Yeah,
it’s an old software term. It’s spelled ‘w-y-s-i-w-y-g.’ Stands for ‘what you
see is what you get’. Not many hiding places on an open hull boat like this.”

“Well,
it looks in perfect shape and I’m sure my clients will be very pleased. You’ve
got us down for one o’clock on Saturday the tenth, right?”

“Yep.
I’ve got a little rendezvous with the owner this Sunday in Honolulu but I
should be back by Tuesday. After that, she’s all yours for next weekend.”

“Could
the wedding party have pictures taken onboard before the wedding?”

“No
worries. Same day or a day or two earlier?”

“Probably
on Saturday morning. That way the bride’s hair and makeup will be all ready for
the ceremony.”

“I
don’t know how you wedding planner people keep it all straight.”

“That’s
pretty much the whole job—keeping things straight. If you don’t mind me asking,
how long have you been at this gig?”

“Oh,
less than a year,” he said. “It’s a long story. Say, have you had your lunch
yet?”

He
invited me to help myself to a packaged deli sandwich and a soft drink from the
bar refrigerator. As we sat outside on the aft bench, taking in the sun and
bobbing in the gentle wake of boats entering and leaving the harbor, I wondered
why I’d never considered being a boat bum.

During
lunch, I told him about being born in Kauai but raised on Maui. I mentioned my
short stint as a TSA air marshal and then told him how I’d fallen into wedding
planning after helping a friend with her wedding when her planner bailed on her
at the last minute.  

Ono
followed up by describing his life on the mainland. “I spent the better part of
my life laboring under florescent lights. I’d stay up all night wrestling with
CAD-CAM drawings and then try to trick my body into thinking I’d slept by
drinking way too much coffee. I never questioned my day-to-day existence until
my wife, Penny, got cancer.”

We
locked eyes.

“Yeah,
she died. An ugly way to go, no doubt about it.” He dropped his head and rubbed
a hand across his forehead. “Anyway, I said, ‘Screw it’ and set off to see the
world. As you can see, I didn’t get very far.”

“I’m
sorry.”

“Sorry
to hear about Penny or sorry I only made it this far?” He smiled, and the
sadness lifted a bit.

 Finally,
I got up to leave.

“You’re
so lucky to have been born and raised here,” he said as we made our way to the
gangway.

“Don’t
I know it.”

“Those
of us who’ve come over later in life can’t help but wonder what it would have
been like to grow up
kama’aina
here on a neighbor island.”

“Well,
like all things, it’s got its upsides and downsides.”

“Oh
yeah? Give me a downside.”

“Nah.
It’d sound like whining, and I’m not a whiner. But believe me, there are things
you take for granted on the mainland—or even on O’ahu—that we don’t have over
here.”

“Maybe
so. But the color came back into my life the day I sailed the
Maui Happy
Returns
out of the harbor in Honolulu to bring it over here. I can’t
imagine where I’d be today if I hadn’t met Tomika.”

I
gave him a puzzled look.

“Tomika
Fujioka is my lady-friend in Honolulu. She owns this boat, and she also owns a
big piece of my heart.”

I
nodded. Okay, to tell the truth I was a little disappointed. Hatch and I were
doing okay, but there was something compelling about Ono that made me want to
get to know him better.

I
thanked Ono for lunch and reluctantly disembarked the catamaran. As I crossed
the dock, I looked back at the brilliant white hull bobbing in the wake of an
incoming boat. I’d never imagined living anywhere other than my little house in
Hali’imaile, but at that moment I could’ve sailed right out of that harbor and
never looked back.

***

I
checked my watch as I trotted back to my car. It was already after two o’clock
and I needed to get Keith and Nicole’s cake order up to Keahou’s bakery in
Kula. Also, I’d had a call on my shop phone from a prospective client on the
West Coast wanting to discuss a Christmas wedding. She said she couldn’t talk
long since was calling from work but she wanted me to return her call at around
seven—Pacific Time. It was still daylight savings time over on the mainland, so
with the three-hour time difference, I still had an hour to go. I’d charged my
cell phone around noon. With the way the battery had been acting up, I’d be
cutting it close to have enough juice by then.

I
got in my car and glanced in the back, hoping against hope the rightful owner
had come by to retrieve her missing locks. No such luck. It was probably my
imagination, but it seemed the color had faded a little since I’d first found
it. It looked more bottom-of-the purse copper penny than shiny-new copper
penny. Maybe Nicole was right. Maybe I’d leapt to conclusions simply because
red was an unfamiliar hair color in Hawaii. But regardless of whether it was
Crystal’s hair or not, she was still missing.

I
had two stops to make before calling it a day: the police station and Keahou’s
bakery. Which should I do first? The hair wasn’t going anywhere, and there was
no way of knowing how long the cops would detain me.

Delaying
the missing person report was regrettable, but conducting a wedding without a
cake was unthinkable.

CHAPTER 5

I
had the Geo floored as it clawed its way up the steep road to Kula. My
agreement with my cake vendor required me to place my order—in person—at least
ten days in advance to guarantee delivery. I’d decided to go up to Kula first,
then stop at the police station in Wailuku on my way back down. The last time
I’d dealt with Maui’s finest I’d been stuck in an interrogation room for hours.
This time I was bringing in evidence, so they’d probably grill me about finding
the hair, and then do a big CSI number on my car. Who knew how long
that
could take?

Keahou,
cake artist extraordinaire, lives in an area we call “upcountry,”
on the
flanks of Haleakala, the island’s tallest volcanic mountain. It’s always cooler
up in Kula. When I was a little kid, I thought the word
cool
came from
the word ‘Kula’. It’s also very lush up there, with farms and ranches and even
an upcountry vineyard. With good traffic it takes at least an hour from
Lahaina, and since it was mid-afternoon the traffic situation was going from
good to iffy as rush hour approached.

“Hey,
girl,” Keahou said, meeting me at the door with a big hug and a glass of
pog—the super-sweet fruit juice every Hawaiian kid guzzles until they graduate
to beer.

“Hey,
Auntie,” I replied. Of course she wasn’t my biological aunt. In Hawaii, every
friendly female a decade or more older than you is usually greeted as
auntie
,
unless they really are related to you in which case you might call them
mama
or
tutu
.

“You
got a cake order for me?” she said. As we went into her house I sucked in the
aroma of baking bread, caramelized sugar and chocolate. No doubt heaven smells
like Keahou’s kitchen.

“Yeah.
A big
ono
one.” It didn’t escape my notice that the word
ono
—which
is Hawaiian for
good
or
special
—was also the nickname of a
certain boat captain I hadn’t quite yet put out of my mind.

“Oh,
sounds good. Sit down. Let’s see what you got.”

I
went over Keith and Nicole’s cake order and Keahou smiled shyly when I got
around to the breast-shaped cake.

“She’s
going to get you a picture of hers so you can match it.”

“Why
all these girls think their
da kine
boobies are so special? Mostly I
make the same cake and then I just make the frosting a little lighter, a little
darker, yeah?”

“I
agree. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all. But it helps if I offer the
personal touch.”

“You
didn’t touch her!” Her eyes bugged out as if I’d dropped my pants.

“No,
no. I mean, I tell them to get me a picture of theirs so they will think it’s a
totally custom cake—special for them. That’s what ‘the personal touch’ means.”

“So
‘personal touch’ means ‘special for you’? I never heard that before. I like
it.”