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Hana-lani

By Christine Sunderland

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Prologue
Old Nani-lei dusted the books lining the shelves as high as she could reach, singing to herself. The top rows were left to gather a thin white film rarely noticed in the room dimmed by draperies blocking the Hawaiian sun. Beyond the heavy panels, beyond the grassy bluff, even beyond the black cliffs, the sea crashed beneath the wide dome of sky, but Nani was content to keep the windows covered, for the books were precious to her grandson-in-law Henry, now in his middle age, and the sun was harsh. Some day she would open them for good, and the sea and the sky would flood the front room with their joy. But not yet.
No one in Hana town knew Nani’s birth year exactly, and neither did Nani, nor did she care. She had seen generations come into this world and generations pass on to the better one, children grow to be adults, parents, grandparents. She had lived to 2004 much against her better judgment, but she was there for a reason, she knew, and she accepted this, not knowing what the reason was. Only last month Nani had buried her brother, over a hundred years on this good earth, and now she was the last of her generation. There had been nine of them, two older brothers and six younger sisters, and she had buried them all, the last being Willie. She buried many of the next generation too, a son and a daughter, nieces and nephews. Now Willie rested in the church graveyard with other Browns, Kaelanis, and Fitzhughs. He rested alongside her granddaughter Maria, drowned nearly two years ago.
Nani wore loose flowered cotton over her ample body, and her fleshy arms emerged from cap sleeves woven with ribbons. Her feet were bare most of the time, but for outdoors she liked her rubber sandals from Hasegawa’s General Store. She moved slowly, gliding about the house, her wide hips swaying to music only she could hear, as she cared for Maria’s husband, Henry, and his little Lucy, her fifth great-grandchild. She was mighty proud of it, too, proud to be a tutu, a
grandmother of many.
She finished the shelves and tables in the living room, and moved to the banister that led to the upper bedrooms. She polished the wood with lemon oil, rubbing a thick cotton towel along its grain as her mother had taught. The wood gleamed, the grains both dark and light moving up and down, rather like people, she thought. She loved Hana-lani, the old house that was her birth-home, a clapboard assortment of rooms and extensions that had grown with her own years, and as she worked, she prayed, her cross and her medal of Saint Christopher, patron of sailors, damp against her heart. Sometimes the silver chains entwined, and she had to untangle them with her fingers.
Nani finished the banister and moved to the kitchen to check on Lucy, busy coloring at the table. The child’s dark curls brushed the newsprint tablet as she bent close to her work, her tiny fingers grasping a red crayon. She looked up and grinned, and Nani could see with satisfaction two teeth breaking through the upper gum to replace those taken by the tooth fairy. The child, seeing her tutu pause, returned to the page to fill in the petals of a hibiscus flower. A sweet girl, Nani thought, but she should be in school. Nani adjusted Lucy’s hearing aid, attached to a band worn over her head. The child had been born with the impediment, as they called it, but this little gadget helped. They were a good fit, Nani thought, the old grandmother and the grieving grandson-in-law and the partially deaf child. And Lucy had grown, fed by Nani’s love and listening, from four to five to six and nearly seven now, running over the lawns that lapped the house, collecting yellow plumeria to string into fragrant leis, as the sea pounded the cliffs far below.
She checked her taro chunks boiling in a pot on the black iron stove and stabbed them with a fork. These should make enough poi for the rest of the week, and she would mash them to a fine pulp to work between her gums. She searched for her masher, looking through assorted appliances, gifts she refused to exchange, each one holding the heart of the giver. She would portion the poi into small plastic tubs with snap-on lids to freeze, as she did with her vegetable stew, pureed, so she would never go hungry. She loved the story of the Little Red Hen who worked so hard on that loaf of bread. She tried to do the
same.
Tutu Nani found the masher and set it out, ready. She filled the kettle. Summertime she brewed pineapple tea on the stoop, but this was February and she preferred Noni tea, the herbal remedy against colds and flu. They did have winter in Maui, contrary to what some folks thought. Winter was the rainy season, and the temperatures dropped a bit too. She pulled a bamboo tray from a lower cupboard, set a mug on a cracked saucer, and waited for the water to heat. Henry wanted his tea in his study today, and she would oblige, in hopes he would forgo the rum. She often wondered what he wrote in the makeshift office, but she could not read and was content to help him however she could.
Nani poked the taro again and glanced through the kitchen window. The sun had disappeared suddenly, as it often did, and the afternoon sky was dark with black clouds pushed by the wind. Farther out, the sea churned, sending white caps in a mad dance over the surface. Nani knew of the sea and its lore, how outriggers with their boat gardens followed the stars to Hawaii, how they crossed the oceans from Tahiti so long ago, an ancient line of adventurers going back even to India. She knew the tales of Hana and the sugar fields, and the time when white cattle grazed on the grassy slopes of Haleakala. She recalled the building of Fagan’s cross, planted high on the ridge under Pele’s volcano, reflecting a new way of worship, a more peaceful way, she thought. She knew of the mountain’s stormy past and quiet present, sure that both would form the future, and she sensed she bridged the mountain and the sea with her huge soul, a soul holding time before, time now, and time to come.
The kettle boiled and steamed, whistling its vapor into the still air. Nani poured the hot water over bark shavings in a clay pot, brewing the mulberry tea her family had made ever since she could remember, a family that carried the blood of many cultures in its veins. Indeed, she believed she was related to every soul in Hana—Samoans, Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, even the haoles—and her stories wove these threads together into a patchwork quilt she wore over her heart, warming the broken places.
Over the years she had waited tables and made beds. She taught music and dance to the keikis in school and played her ukulele in the
Congregational church, sitting cross-legged and humming, as her eyes roamed to the rose window over the front door and the people sang “Fairest Lord Jesus.” At family gatherings, she danced the soft sway of the island hula to “Aloha Oe” and tried to move her hands like a ballerina, her mottled fingers painting the air with stories of love and war. Pieces of those years cluttered the rooms of the house, for she could not give things up easily—dried flowers in a school yearbook, photos of her children and their children, faded and smudged with fingerprints. Most dear were Lucy’s pictures, swathes of vivid greens and pinks and deep sea-blues, tacked wherever a bit of blank wall could be found.
Nani poured the tea through a strainer into a mug, stirred in honey, and carried the tray to Henry’s study. Lucy padded close behind. The old woman paused outside Henry’s door, grief hitting her heart. She breathed deeply.
When Maria had drowned in the cold waters of San Francisco Bay, Henry left his teaching job at the university and came home to Hana-lani with Lucy, as was right, for Nani had seen to his raising since he was twelve. Nani gave him the living room for his books and didn’t mind the shelves that covered the walls and the draperies that covered the windows. Henry was happy to sleep on a cot in the adjoining den and Lucy slept in his old room, the sun porch in the back. He asked for quiet, for solitude. He seemed relieved when Nani took over the routine of living—the cooking, cleaning, mending, washing, and above all, the care of Lucy Maria.
The dark-haired child with the soulful eyes was a painful reminder, Nani saw, of his beloved Maria, and the grandmother prayed her grandson would be healed of the grief demons, for she saw him plunge farther and farther into the abyss. If he fell too far, she feared she could not reach him. So in her grief, she watched over them, weaving them together as best she could, allowing the spirits of past, present, and future to work through her, under the mountain on the edge of the sea, in the wild grass surrounded by the rich rain forest.
Lucy knocked on the door and reached to open it with her small brown hand.
One
San Francisco magazine said she was one of the most eligible women in town, and Meredith Campbell agreed. It was nice to be appreciated since moving from New York, nice to be admired in the party circuit. She had arrived at the City by the Bay in early 2002, so it had taken her only two years to get her name in print.
The workout room was packed with slim bodies, pushing and pulling, engaging steel levers and weights, grinding rubber soles onto moving belts. Above the whirring of the machines and the beeping digital read-outs, a rock band wailed as the February rain fell silently outside the double-paned windows of the tenth-floor club.
She flipped her cell shut, thought better of it, flipped it open, and tapped another number. She had finished twenty minutes on the Stairmaster and read her results: 178 calories. Not bad. Unlike some women who let themselves go, she worked hard, two hours daily, to meet her standards, but it seemed she could never quite meet them; she could never be quite like those models in the magazines. Still, her legs were long with muscular calves, her thighs toned, her tummy almost flat, her hips just wide enough to be alluring, her waist sweet and narrow. Her breasts tilted up nicely, impressive in her stretch camisole. She couldn’t complain about her facial features, either, with the high cheekbones, wide-set blue eyes, star smile, and thick blond hair falling to her shoulders. She had come to expect men to melt at first glance.
Holding the phone to her ear, Meredith waited, counting the rings, not wanting to leave a message. “Pick up, Parker, pick up.” She wiped her brow and climbed off the Stairmaster.
“Parker Kirby, Accounts,” Parker said in her clipped voice, sounding rushed as usual.
“They fired me,” Meredith hissed as she slipped her magazine, folded back on “How to Find Love,” into her Gucci tote alongside the
Chronicle’s horoscope page. The astrologer had predicted today would not be good.
“No! From your nice cushy job?”
“Yes, from my nice cushy job—the one you got for me, remember?” Meredith reached for her towel and headed for the locker room.
“The one Daddy got for you. You do interview well. Did he really fire you?”
Meredith’s job had been good, really—six months of meeting and greeting clients, including her current roommate, Nick, but she had missed a few days.
“He may as well have, but no, it was that Mapleton lady, the old witch. She said my attire wasn’t appropriate and my attendance irregular. I couldn’t pass up that ski trip with Nick—I’d be a fool. And my attire is what everyone wears these days. She’s a real Victorian, if you ask me.”
“I told you your skirt was too short and your cami too tight. Too much leg and too much cleavage. You can’t dress like that at the office of Kirby and Calhoun, not with your body.” Parker laughed. “And I found the doc for that, don’t forget.”
“But I paid for it.” It was worth every penny—the silicone enhancements, the nose job, and she was considering a tummy tuck, but maybe not right away, considering her bank balance. At thirty-six, she needn’t worry about Botox. She moved her hand over her thigh, adjusted the black Lycra, and smiled at a well-built young man staring from the weight room.
“Parker, maybe you could talk to your father.” Meredith paused and stretched out a sculpted hamstring.
“No can do, my beauty, no can do. Daddy left for London this morning.”

Meredith climbed the stairs to her third floor apartment on Taylor, halfway between her Nob Hill sports club and the Union Square shops,
a convenient location. Nick wouldn’t be home for hours. She could enjoy a hot bath, maybe call her masseuse, and be ready with champagne, wearing the black negligee he bought her. Being unemployed did have its advantages. Bubbles and hot water were nearly as soothing as sex and kept the dragon at bay, that uneasy feeling she might topple into the void, into nothingness.
Had she always felt that emptiness? That dizzying fear of being on the edge of the world, alone? Did everyone feel it? Newness helped banish the fear, smother it. Shopping gave her a nice rush as she carried her bags through a boutique door, planning how the pieces would fit into her ever-changing wardrobe. New was good. New was fresh and raw and untouched. New had edge and the surprise of the unknown, the unexplored. But better than new was sex, and best of all was new sex. In the early stages of a relationship, sex satisfied that need for—how could she define it—something intimate yet infinite. But even with sex, she hadn’t been able to retain the feeling for long. Nick had been the longest, nearly three months, but he was a doctor with good hands.
One more floor. She tightened and released her abdominals as she climbed. Fitness could fill the void, and the right body would surely help, as well as the right job and the right man. That man could be Nick. Nick was so right in so many ways. He was easy on the eyes for starters, and he had a significant income as a surgeon. It was merely a matter of watching her diet and working out, exploring all aspects of seduction and achievement. Multi-talented women possessed power. They owned their lives, controlled their world, fulfilled their dreams. She was nearly there, by anyone’s standard, or had been, until this job thing. Well, it was their loss. Her expertise would save someone else’s company. And in the meantime Nick would console her, help with the rent, and keep her dragons at bay.
Meredith opened the door and threw her jacket on the white leather couch. In the weak light dimmed by high-rises and dark skies, she again appreciated the clean lines and muted tones of the condo’s decor—the chrome chairs, the cream walls, the vanilla carpet so thick under her feet. The new rug had been Nick’s idea when he moved in, and she smiled as she recalled their first tumble to test it out. The
plasma TV with surround sound was his contribution as well, covering most of one wall, and the screen greeted her like a friend, inviting her to pause, relax, unwind, absorb another’s thoughts, experience another’s feelings, a kind of vicarious pleasure and pain. They watched the news, and old movies too, or tried to, often finding the flashing images and voices arousing, like having sex in public.
She turned toward the long kitchen off the dining nook. The charcoal granite counter was bare except for a few artistically placed whisks, ladles, and spatulas in stainless steel holders. She checked on the goldfish a neighbor had left with her to feed. She frowned. The orange body floated on the water’s surface, scales glistening.
Meredith ran her fingers along the smooth sides of the glass bowl as though she could bring the fish back to life. The boy in 2B had shoved it into her hands, and his mother had looked at her imploringly, offering a small canister of flakes. It was a moment of weakness, she thought now, as the floating fish accused her. She would find another one. Didn’t they all look alike? The kid wouldn’t know the difference.
She opened the refrigerator. Not much there. They rarely cooked, and Nick was as punctilious as she. No leftovers or old produce waited to be thrown out, no cheese molded in plastic drawers, and no eggs or butter or milk were getting past pull date. Several mineral waters, some vermouth, a lemon, and a jar of olives sat on the top shelf. Next to the olives was a bottle of champagne. At first relieved there was a chilled one waiting, she looked closer. Only half-full. She didn’t recall opening it.
She reached for a mineral water and twisted the cap. As she put it to her lips, she heard someone laughing from down the hall. A woman. Nick’s deep voice. What was going on?
She stepped slowly toward the bedroom. A pair of women’s penny loafers lay on the carpet. Meredith stared at the shoes, then at the closed door.
She opened it slowly, her heart racing.
A woman’s head slipped under the sheet. Nick looked up, raising himself on an elbow, his brown eyes wide with surprise, his face flushed, his thick hair sweaty.
“It’s not what you think,” he said as if reading lines.
“Yeah, sure.” She grabbed his hospital ID and trousers and slammed the door behind her. Had she really seen that?
She gripped the pants in her fingers. She had never doubted Nick’s adoration. After all, she had saved him from his boring marriage. What a fool she was, she thought as she tossed her neat bundle out the kitchen window into the back alley, where it landed squarely in the dumpster. Yes. A small satisfaction, but appropriate.
She found her jacket and tote, slammed the door, and walked down the stairs, numb. It wasn’t until she reached the street that she realized the woman was Ashley, his wife. She was ten years older than Meredith, at least ten pounds heavier, and her hair was a mousy brown.
Meredith paused in front of her building and stared at the traffic. How could he? Her chest throbbed and her throat was dry. She swayed and sat on the porch steps. What had happened? She and Nick had been close. She was sure they had been close. She was sure he loved her. Even though they never said the words, she knew it. How could he do this? The bedroom scene flashed through her mind like TV news, again and again. There was Nick, replayed and replayed, his sweaty face so surprised.
She clutched her knees. Wasn’t she good enough? And with his wife!
She shook her head, gripped her bag, and headed for Parker’s office. Parker would know what to do. Meredith pulled out her cell and tapped her friend’s number with the nail of her index finger.
“He was with Ashley,” she said, raising her voice above the traffic. She cut through Union Square, passing a new café and street musicians. Nick with Ashley did not make a pretty picture. Maybe her therapist could exorcise it.
“That can’t be.” Parker sounded interested but distracted.
“Meet me somewhere, Parker. This is serious. I’m falling apart.”
“I’ve got things going on here. Just a sec.”
Meredith maneuvered through the crowds, past an animal rights demonstration at Neiman Marcus, and on toward Grant Avenue.
“Okay,” Parker returned, sounding out of breath. “He’s gone. Meet me at Buzz’s. I want to hear all about it. Geez, Meredith, I’m so sorry.”
Meredith flipped her phone shut and inhaled deeply, tightening
her abs, working that tummy. By the time she approached the steel-and-glass skyscraper that leased the top floor to Buzz’s Bar, she had resolved to get Nick back. He was so right for her; he didn’t want children since he had three already, and she could not tolerate children.
Parker would have ideas how to remedy this temporary setback, and bring him to his senses. After all, Meredith was gorgeous. Everyone said so; they had always said so. She accepted her svelte curves and classic bone structure as her just due. This job thing and Nick’s slight error in judgment were simply blips on the screen. She slipped through the revolving doors as the guards in the lobby stared. Men do like leather and tights, she thought, especially when a red camisole shows a little cleavage.
As she rode up the elevator, the image returned, Nick looking up at her, guilty. How could he? This was not a good day.

It was early to be at Buzz’s, only four, but locals were beginning to arrive. They lingered around the chrome bar, dangled legs from retro stools, and partnered at Formica tables with potted ferns. A female vocalist wailed above the clatter of glasses and ice-crushing blenders.
“Play hard to get.” Parker stirred a martini with her baby finger. She pulled out the olive and sucked on it. Her strawberry curls fell to her shoulders, and she raised a knowing brow over pink-shadowed lids that matched her lip-gloss. “That’s what I usually do. Men generally want what they can’t have. They’re simple souls, really.”
Meredith had never played hard to get. How many had there been? Did it matter? It was a liberating time to be alive, a time when a woman, just like a man, could have what she wanted or who she wanted, when she wanted. No commitment, no baby complications. Her morning-after pills had come in handy, and the one pregnancy she had blundered into had been neatly erased by Parker’s sister, a fertility specialist. The stinging metal, the twinges of regret, and lingering guilt had been successfully buried, deep in her memory. Why should she even think about the abortion? After all, it was her choice, and the law
of the land backed her up. If the law said it was okay, well then, duh.
“Hard to get?” Meredith motioned to the waiter for a martini like Parker’s. “I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, like Scarlett and Rhett.”
“In Gone with the Wind?”
“Yeah.” Parker’s eyes roamed.
“What if he doesn’t fall for it? What if he believes I’m seriously leaving him?”
“No chance.”
Meredith followed her friend’s gaze to a cowboy at the far end of the room. He wore a three-piece suit and a broad-brimmed hat.
Parker whistled through her teeth. “Whoa baby, look at that guy. Matching pocket scarf.”
“He’s unavailable, remember? That’s the newsman from the magazine show.”
“You’re right. I thought I recognized him. He’s gay, another man lost to grazing women. This town gets worse every year. I don’t know why I don’t go to Texas or something, where there are real men. The number here is dwindling fast.” She shook her head and sighed.
“Parker, you’re not helping.” Meredith slipped a strand of hair behind her ear and pulled her camisole down farther.
“Okay, go to Maui.”
“Maui?”
“Go anywhere warm and tropical and romantic, so when Nick finds you, you’re in the right place, tanned, wearing appropriate clothing, or not wearing, as the case may be.” Parker waved her fingers through the air, her rings flashing, her bracelets jangling, as though she were pitching a Hollywood scene. “Remember the Bahamas, our junior year?” she said, giggling.
Meredith grinned. They had hooked up with two Yalies. It had been good. Was it Roy and Carter? No, it had to be Billy and Calum.... “Maybe you’re right. I’ve got a little leeway on my plastic.” Suddenly she regretted spending her paycheck as soon as she received it, sometimes sooner, and wished she had opened a savings account as her father had advised. But she had some room on her cards, and a few of them had never been used. It might be time to break them in.
“No maybes. Book the flight now.” Parker eyed Meredith’s cell in the side pocket of her bag.
“Maui? I haven’t been to Maui since college.” She had been careless on that trip, a lesson she wouldn’t forget. He was a sweet boy, too, a local, with incredible biceps. They parasailed. He sucked her toes. They had sex on the beach.
“Stay at the Hotel Hana. I honeymooned there with number one.”
“Number one? You mean Terry?”
“Yeah, Terry.” Parker sighed, drifting away. “He had some bod, that Terry, and the place is a real sweet hideaway. I wonder what he’s doing these days.”
Meredith recalled the moist heat of the islands, the trade winds ruffling silk pareos, the aromas of jasmine and plumeria. She drank fruity rum cocktails with tiny parasols and wore clinging string bikinis. Her tan showed off her white teeth and blue eyes. She could use a little sun, aroma therapy, and yoga on a daily basis. Waiters would stare; porters would compete to carry her bags. Nick would be putty when he arrived.
“Tell me about it,” Meredith said as she reached for her second martini.
“They say it’s the top-rated getaway for the year. Posh. Very romantic. Private cabins and hot tubs. Crashing surf. Black sand beach. And it’s at the foot of Haleakala.”
“Haleakala?”
“The volcano.”
“You’re kidding.”
“An inactive volcano, not to worry, but, like, it’s different, right? Something new? Ever made love at the foot of a volcano?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“The hotel has a fabulous spa with all the latest treatments, a huge pool, even horses. Now that’s sexy.”
Meredith saw herself riding with Nick through frothy waves crashing on the beach. She straddled a palomino in high-cut shorts, galloping, up and down, up and down, her hair flying, the sea air fresh against her cheeks, Nick in pursuit. He would dismount, pull her off, and they would make love on the sand like Deborah Kerr and Burt
Lancaster in From Here to Eternity.
“I’ll need a new wardrobe,” Meredith said. She saw flowered bikinis and bronzed skin, wet and glistening, as she rose from the surf, like an updated Bo Derek in Ten.
“Then go shopping. Something new always lifts my spirits. Start over with everything.”
“I’ll do it.” Meredith smiled as she recalled a sale at Saks. “I’ll do it.” She flipped open her cell and tapped a number with a crimson nail. “Thanks, Parker.”

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