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I ADMIRED THE PERFECTLY-preserved Victorian houses of Russian Road as we passed through. Each was set on a vast, velvety lawn. We left Russian Road behind and continued up the narrowing street that paralleled the Hanakoa River. Trees closed overhead as we rose in elevation, and the houses became sparser and seedier. Every so often the road bent, and I could glimpse the deep Hanakoa River gulch. Finally, Leilani turned right onto an even narrower cul-de-sac, whose infrequent houses were outnumbered by overgrown vacant lots. At the very end loomed a ramshackle Victorian, magnificent in its decay.
“Wow. That house is something,” I exclaimed as Leilani’s Le Baron rolled slowly to the end of the street. “I’m not so sure about this neighborhood, though. What’s with all of those tiny A-frame shelters in the backyard? Aren’t those for roosters? I’m not sure I want to live near a cockfighting house.”
“Is not to worry. River is in back. You will hear river, not roosters.”
She pulled up and parked. I climbed out of the car and looked the house up and down.
“I’d have to get a home inspector out here. It looks like a lot of work. The stained-glass window, though. Is it original?”
“Yes, is original. And affordable for you.” She told me a number that made me perk up. At that price, I could afford to put quite a bit aside for repairs. I would have to. The exquisite pillared front porch listed to one side in a way that signaled expensive carpentry work ahead.
I pulled out my phone, snapped some photos, and sent them to Pat. The signal was almost nonexistent this far up the mountain, so it would take a while for my pictures to go through. I sent a text message to follow up: Fabulousness mauka of Russian Road.
I did not send anything to Emma, because number one, Emma didn’t appreciate glamorous decay the way Pat and I did, and number two, I was still mad at her for sneaking my DNA.
I didn’t send anything to Donnie either. I was even madder at him than I was at Emma.
“Come and see,” Leilani said. “You like haunted house? Here is haunted house.”
I shrugged. The only advantage of a “haunted” house had been as a Davison repellent. But Donnie wasn’t my problem now, so neither was his terrible son.
Leilani and I tiptoed up the sagging steps of the front porch and peered through the cloudy glass of the front door. The narrow hallway opened into a little parlor off to the left. Further along, panel doors were half-open to reveal a dining room to the right, with termite-eaten beadboard and peeling rose-pattern wallpaper. Wires sprouted from the entryway ceiling where a chandelier used to hang.
“Can we go inside? Do you have a key?”
“No lockbox. If you are interested, I get key.”
I didn’t believe Leilani forgot the key. The interior was probably in even worse condition than it looked from outside, and she didn’t want me to be put off right away. She’d get me to fall in love with the exterior and the view first.
We stepped carefully on the weedy stone path around the side of the house, past the kitchen in the back (an obvious addition) and into the overgrown backyard. Yellow caution tape crisscrossed the back door of the ramshackle kitchen addition.
“Are there structural problems?” I asked.
“No structural problems. Is built on lava. Tape is to keep away intruders.”
A tiny patch of lawn in the back was surrounded by thick jungle. Whoever was maintaining the landscaping was doing the bare minimum. I could hear, but not see, the Hanakoa River roaring down the gorge toward the ocean.
“This looks like the kind of place where kids on Halloween dare each other to go up and ring the doorbell.”
“Look,” Leilani said, “Backyard has north exposure, so is shady in afternoon.”
“It is nice and cool back here. So if this is north, the front of the house faces directly south. I could put in solar on the front-facing parts of the roof. I wonder if it could support the weight.”
This all seemed like a lot of work. The exterior was in bad shape, and Leilani’s evasiveness about the key made me certain the interior was even worse. I had a perfectly good house in downtown Mahina, close to campus and shopping, and I had already fixed it up the way I wanted it.
“You know what, Leilani? Let me think about it. I really need to go home and get ready for my meeting.”
“Sure, I drive you back to town. But first here is something you must see.” She motioned me toward the edge of the yard.
I snapped one more photo of the backyard, texted it to Pat, and then went to see what Leilani was talking about. She reached in, parted some vines, and stepped into the wall of greenery. I followed her.
“I’m not sure I’m up to the renovation this house would need,” I said as we picked our way through the dense foliage, “but it sure has amazing potential.”
I took out my phone and snapped another photo, this time skyward, the jungle canopy surrounding an oculus of gray afternoon sky.
“I didn’t see a For Sale sign anywhere.”
“Neighbors don’t like For Sale sign. Makes neighborhood look bad.”
“Leilani, where are we going?”
I felt a hard shove, and the ground disappeared.