“Trouble has a way of finding you,” Michael had said, and then he kissed me, as if we were the only two people alongside the canal. By the time we’d broken apart, the ring that I’d thought he’d returned had transitioned from his pocket to my finger, and now all I had left to do was convince my fiancé that in Hawaii, not only brides wore white, but grooms too.
“WILL YOU COME to my wedding?” I asked Josiah Pierce, when I’d accepted his invitation to tea in the garden of his Tantalus home. I was flushed with joy, for now the pending marriage felt real, and I knew it was the right thing to do. My fear was gone.
It was the afternoon of the day after Michael had left for the mainland and, as if in protest, the weather was bad. The sky had opened right at the start of Mr. Pierce’s exhaustive garden tour, so we traversed the garden under the protection of a golf umbrella. Standing close to him, I wondered how I could ever have been afraid. His courtesy, and thoughtful attention to old manners, reminded me of my Japanese mentor, Mr. Ishida. Of course I would want Mr. Pierce at my wedding, where he could meet Mr. Ishida and the rest of the handful or so of very close Japanese friends and relatives who could come to Hawaii on short notice.
“What do you mean, wedding? Are you leaving the husband you have?” Josiah Pierce’s wry question brought me back to the present, and I remembered my long-ago fib.
“I’m not leaving Michael. I must to admit to you, with some embarrassment, that we’re marrying. For the first time.”
“You didn’t want me to know you lived together? My, you are an old-fashioned girl.”
“No, that wasn’t our situation. It’s actually a rather new romance. I’m sorry we weren’t honest at the start, when we met you. Michael thought…” I trailed off. It was impossible to explain.
“Well, I can only imagine that Michael said these things because he wanted the situation to be different. I think that’s an indication he’s likely to be a devoted husband.” Josiah Pierce sat down on an aged iron garden settee, and indicated that I should join him.
“I used to question whether I…whether I could commit to anyone,” I said. “But those fears are gone now. Permanently.”
“What changed for you then?”
“I credit it to spending time with my father, day in and out. I just got used to living with someone I cared about, and having more family around. And I think it’s better that way. You know, Michael and I are in the midst of deciding whether to permanently relocate here. It seems crazy to give up our past lives, but awfully tempting.”
“Yes, lots of people want to live in paradise, but when they really settle in, they get something we call Rock Fever-an insatiable desire to get off this island and go somewhere larger and more interesting.”
“Don’t you think we could make it here? We can’t help speaking with mainland accents, so maybe we’ll never escape being malihini.”
JP smiled. “Oh, don’t worry about that. This is not only the best place on earth to raise children, but also to grow old. But before the children come, what will you do to stay busy?”
He meant well, so I decided to ignore my slight irritation at his assumption that I would stop working forever if we had a child. “Well, I will concentrate of finding us a place to live first, which I gather is no easy feat on Oahu, and at the same time try to arrange some job interviews, maybe at the museums. I have more or less the right training and experience for museum work, but I always seem to be getting distracted.”
“Back up a moment. You’re talking about buying or renting a place before you’ve got the two salaries in place, and one of them will be at a non-profit? This island is expensive, if you haven’t noticed.”
“There are small apartments in the urban areas that aren’t that bad…but Michael and I really have become fond of the Leeward Side. It’s cheaper, sunnier, and it’s where the real people live.”
“I like the Leeward Side too, but you’ve got to remember to call it what we do: Ewa. And you may want to hold on to the mainland condominium. The more real estate you can afford to hold close, the better.”
“Spoken like a true robber baron,” I teased.
JP laughed. “I don’t drive much anymore, Rei, but if you have time this afternoon, I have a hankering to go Ewa.”
“Do you want to see the burned village?” I asked, not wanting to revisit the destruction Calvin had caused on this particular beautiful day.
“Actually, I don’t want to make myself sad on such an afternoon of good news. There’s a place I’d been thinking of showing you, but then you fell ill and I didn’t think you’d want to go anywhere alone with me. Now we can visit this place, but only if you aren’t in a rush.”
“Sure.” I thought for a minute, and then took the plunge. “And maybe-on the way back-we can stop and say hello to my Great-Uncle Yoshitsune. I think you should meet each other.”
JP nodded. “Yes, I’d like to see him, if he’ll see me. I agree that a conversation is long overdue.”
WE DEPARTED THE congestion of Honolulu freeways to H-1 West, where the dark skies gave way to a giant rainbow, and then plenty of sun-so much that I gave up on the ailing air-conditioner and asked Mr. Pierce if he didn’t mind my rolling down the windows. From the Ewa Beach exit, Mr. Pierce directed me to a smooth, limited-access road, bordered by housing developments, gas stations, and strip malls. Then we left the highway for a spur road that led to a narrow quiet street overhung with old, lush trees. On the right side was a one-story church built in the long, simple form of a barn; it looked quite old, but was painted a fresh white and had a sign that indicated a community pre-school was operating within. Across the street from the church stood the abandoned sugar mill, a monument of rusted metal and broken glass.
“That was the last mill in operation on our island,” Josiah Pierce said softly. “So many people cried when it closed.”
“Well, at least it’s not a ghost town around here. It looks as if people are still living in this area. The church has a school.”
“Yes, and take a right on the next street. You’ll see the village has residents, too.”
This was a plantation village? As I slowly drove the streets, I passed simple, box-shaped cottages similar to those I’d seen near Kainoa’s coffee shop. But in this neighborhood, smoothly paved roads ran alongside freshly painted cottages, and the gardens were full of healthy fruit trees, flowers, and vegetables.
“You’ve brought me to old houses that are living happily ever after. What a wonderful gift!” I beamed at him.
JP looked at me with satisfaction. “This neighborhood, Tenney Village, is a state-sponsored project-subsidized, so people of a certain income level were allowed to buy these 1920s plantation village homes at very reasonable rates.”
“It must have been difficult to get people to believe this could be done.”
“Yes, indeed. I was one of the naysayers, given the deplorable state of my own decrepit plantation villages, and the lack of interest from anyone except big money developers who wanted to raze them. But this village has something our older area by Kainani doesn’t: it’s close to the shopping in Waikele, and about twenty minutes from central Honolulu. Some people even commute by boat to their jobs at Pearl Harbor or downtown.”
I wanted to ask more questions about the development, but Josiah Pierce was looking at his watch and urging me back to the van. I got in again and said, “To my uncle’s house, then?”
“Yes. But there’s another stop just five minutes away that I’d like you to see.”
With the van windows rolled down to bring in the gentle trade winds, I cruised back on to the limited-access highway, and then followed Mr. Pierce’s directions to make a couple of lefts. Passing a ramshackle supermarket and a series of worn-looking apartment buildings, we came to a rough path of gravel and that led to a vintage cottage with peeling paint, and then another just like it.