“Did you forget something?” Michael asked, looking at me with concern. “If you really need it tonight, we can go to the supermarket, but I think we’ll be a laughing stock, dressed like this.”
“Just wait,” I said, and continued with my directions to the old Pierce village. I remembered the little street, and had the driver stop, and ushered Michael out and up to my favorite cottage in the row.
“Let me guess-Josiah Pierce owns this area?” Michael asked as I led him up the short flight of steps and inside the empty old house.
“It’s about to become mine-I mean, ours.” I laughed slightly, and leaned into him. It was going to take a while to get used to being married. As Michael listened, I explained Josiah Pierce’s offer of a house, and an exciting new job for me. When I’d finished, he walked out to the back of the house, opened the door, and there was ocean.
“I could sail to work,” Michael said. “This is…unbelievable.”
“Yes, and I haven’t even told you how low the price is. You could keep your condo in Virginia, in case you-I mean, we-decide to go back.”
“There’s no going back,” Michael said, slipping his arms around me, and burying his face in my hair for a moment.
“Hey, do you smell something?” I asked, finally noticing what had seemed different this time around.
“Just your skin. Is that plumeria body cream?”
“No, and I left my lei in the limousine. I think there’s fresh plumeria nearby, and I swear it’s not growing in the garden.” I broke away from Michael, and he wandered after me into the former parlor, which I’d pegged as our future bedroom.
I hadn’t noticed anything before, but the room now held a small, weather-beaten card table, and on it was one of the old crocks from the kitchen filled with yellow hibiscus and white plumeria: the colors of my wedding gown.
“You didn’t arrange this to welcome me?” Michael said, leaning over and sniffing the lush bouquet.
I shook my head. “No, and nobody knows this will be our cottage. I never told JP I came back here one afternoon, looked at all the houses, and decided this is the one I like best of all.”
Michael straightened up and slipped his hand into mine. “Well, by the time we move in, we’ll hopefully have an answer to this mystery.”
I smiled back at him, thinking to myself that it wasn’t going to be that simple. I didn’t need to know who’d brought flowers to the house. All I cared about was their scent, and my dreams.
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK WAS awhile in the making. I would need to throw a luau to have room enough to thank all the people who helped with it. I’ll start with thanking Maeona Mendelson who opened her little black book, and thus opened Hawaii for me. I am grateful for what I learned from Honolulu lawyer and activist Bill Kaneko about the loss of civil rights for Americans of Hawaiian ancestry during wartime. And another friend of Mae’s, University of Hawaii religion professor George Tanabe, offered great insights into many topics ranging from aquaculture to O-bon. Finally, thanks to June Shimokawa, who shared her memories of her father’s wartime internment.
Another new and dear friend is Liz Tajima, who did everything from introduce me to Hawaii Japanese to help with this manuscript. I’m also glad to have interviewed Professor Ginny Tanji of the University of Hawaii and her focus group: Andy Tanji, Richard, Emily and Philip Tanimura, Jean Toyama, Ginine Castillo and Colleen Kimura. Great information on Leeward Side life came from Betty Shimabukuro, features editor at the Star-Bulletin, who also introduced me to librarian Cynthia Chow of Kailua. Through Cindy I made friends with the terrific Hawaii writer Deborah Atkinson, who I thank for her insights on water sports and Hawaii schools. I learned so much about real estate from Cori Meyers of Kapolei Realty, and Patrick M. Cummins, a partner in Hawaii Land Consultants and an expert in the intricacies of land ownership in Hawaii.
The Kapolei Police were so helpful regarding my questions, and the entire staff of the archives department of the Japanese Museum of Hawaii were extremely gracious to an unknown drop-in scholar, sharing documentation of the immigration experience and connecting me with community member Sidney Kashiwabara. I’d also like to thank Marji Hankins for explaining the importance of Transpac, and at the Transpac Yacht Club, Ray Pendleton and Rich Roberts for giving me the access and information needed. In the Kapolei area, my home base for both summers, I am grateful to Retired Officer Kane from the Honolulu Police Department for sharing his knowledge of native plants, and Kevin Won of the Honolulu Fire Department. Management at the Halekulani and Hale Koa hotels in Waikiki were very kind to answer many questions and check out the rooms. Doctors Nancy Withers and Ken Hirsh, thanks for the introduction to Tamashiro Market, and more. Kyoko, Gary and Brian Vogel helped make my family’s stay in Hawaii more fun than we even expected, as did Vanessa MacDonald and her friends.
In the US, I thank my new writers group in Minneapolis, Judy Yates Borger, Maureen Fischer, Stan Trollip and Gary Bush for their uncomplaining help with this manuscript and its revisions. In New York, I am indebted to my agent Vicky Bijur for finding a happy home for this book with editor Amanda Stewart and publisher Edwin Buckhalter at Severn House. It’s taken a long time to get Rei to England, but she’s there now! And I close as always with many hugs and kisses to Tony, Pia and Neel Massey, who were with me all the way from plantation villages and lush Hawaiian gardens, to the less obvious thrills of writing and proofreading.
If I left anyone out, please accept my apology for the oversight, and I promise you a plate of tofu-scallion pot-stickers at the Little Village Noodle House.
Aloha.
Sujata Massey
Sujata Massey
SUJATA BANERJEE MASSEY was born in England to parents from Germany and India. She was raised in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in Northumbria; Philadelphia, PA; and St. Paul, MN. After earning an undergraduate degree in the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, stayed on for five years in Baltimore as a features reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun . Sujata began writing mystery fiction during a two-year stint teaching English and rarely seeing her husband, a medical officer connected to US Navy Fleet Activities in Yokosuka, Japan. Her first Rei Shimura mystery, The Salaryman’s Wife , won the Agatha award for best traditional mystery. Other books in the ten-novel series have been nominees for the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Mary Higgins Clark awards. The series, published in seventeen countries, is on hold while Sujata completes a historical suspense novel set in late British colonial India. She lives in an old house in Minneapolis with her husband, two children, and a beagle.
