Chapter Twelve

Over the next several days, the news broadcast on KGMB told of the British moving their fleet into Singapore to defend the colony against a possible Japanese attack. I listened off and on at the carriage house, then walked out to the mailbox for the Advertiser to read up on local details. A front page story quoted the State Department as authorizing a probe of Japanese spy activities in the Islands. In other news, the comedy hit Great Guns was showing at the Hawaiʻi Theatre, and a Christmas mail shipment was due any day now.

At Makani Kai, the first tentative wisps of December brought the kind of sunny weather that often stayed until spring showers rolled around to plump all the tiny buds into bloom. Mr. Gonsalves’ crew was taking advantage of the dry conditions to work on the roof, so I gave myself a couple hours off on Thursday. The big Christmas berry tree along the driveway was heavy with clusters of scarlet in advance of the upcoming holiday season. Its cheerful colors prompted me to pack an old picnic basket I found in the pantry with tubes of paint, a watercolor sketchbook and brushes for a morning of painting en plein air.

When I was young, Mother had woven holiday wreaths from the smaller branches sprigged with berries. I wanted to try for the same festive effect in watercolors. As I walked down the valley road, a faded memory of her became a little brighter in my mind that morning, like a photograph that had been lost, though remembered fondly, if not well.

Even though I had to hold down Auntie’s brimmed straw hat during gusts that channeled down the valley, I didn’t mind the breeze. It smelled as sweet and fresh on my bare arms as the Yardley’s English soap she had given me. I was saving the little lavender bar for a luxury soak before dressing for the charity ball this weekend but wasn’t able to resist peeling off the fragrant paper wrapper to tuck in with my hankies.

Jerry had phoned early in the week to say he would pick me up at eight o’clock on Saturday. I’d kept the conversation short, pleading a million things to do before then. He accepted my excuses with good humor, in the spirit of someone who believed I was looking forward to the evening as much as he was. There was a satisfied ring to his voice when he signed off with, “See you then.”

I put aside my thoughts about Jerry when I reached the tree. He was well-meaning, but he didn’t belong to Makani Kai. I spread out my skirt and sat down under the tree, taking the sketchbook and a round sky-wash brush out from the basket. A flash of hesitation checked my hand mid-air before I continued. After making so many sketches of the bridge, I questioned whether the impulse had released its hold on me.

The first wash flowed across the paper, in tones of green for the leaves. Then followed the berry details. There were no remnants of the bridge in any of it. What I felt was only a strange nostalgia that had risen up to waylay my heart. I was both relieved and disappointed. I had been looking for something without knowing what it was, and now it had all shifted into a yearning I couldn’t explain.

****

Friday passed in a whirl. I spent a half-hour ironing my silk dress, thinking I would get prepared for the ball ahead of time. Then on Saturday afternoon, when I tried on the dress, I discovered a little tear in a seam. By the time Auntie knocked on my door, I was fidgeting with a needle and thread and half-inclined to call off the whole thing. I was only kidding myself, it seems. Auntie took the final stitch and knotted it with, “That should do it. You’ll be the prettiest girl there.”

“I wish you and Edward were coming.”

“Edward needs to be on duty by ten. The concert at the Naval base will be over in time for him to get to the hospital.” If she was remembering her husband’s long working hours and all the dances she missed during their marriage, she didn’t show it. Everything that was traditional and sensible about her added up to being a helpmate. “And Johnny will enjoy it—there’s going to be a jitterbug contest.”

“Who’s going to be his partner, you?” I joked, with good-natured affection.

“He’s meeting a school friend, a girl from the neighborhood.”

“Well, take it easy if you and Edward decide to cut a rug,” I cautioned, smiling. I would leave it up to Johnny to break the news about Rose.

She gave me a parting once-over. “You’ve got the pearls and gloves?” I motioned to them on my vanity. “Then, have a wonderful time, and I want to hear everything in the morning. I won’t wait up.”

I promised, and, satisfied, she disappeared down the stairs.

I shut the bathroom door on possible interruptions and ran my bath. The Yardley soap scented the water as I settled into the tub, lying back until little waves lapped around my shoulders. I should have been eager for a night of dancing. This was my first formal introduction to Honolulu’s social season, not a funeral. I closed my eyes to relax, allowing my thoughts to rise up and dissolve into the steamy fragrance around me.

Plunk—plunk, plunk. In my imagination, Jamison and I waltzed to the rhythm of the dripping faucet. One—two, three. One—two, three. We circled the dance floor together, rising and falling with the tempo. A giddy sense of gliding among the other dancers swept over me, flowing through my arms and legs. We stepped forward and back, around and away, until there was no separation between us. We danced as one.

The sensation lingered until I pulled the plug, and the fantasy drained away.

****

At quarter to eight I was sitting at my dressing table, hairbrush rolling a last wave into my up-do, when Jerry’s car pulled into the driveway. I marched down the stairs, step by dragging step, and opened the door as if expecting to face a firing squad.

Jerry looked a little taken aback as I stood in the doorway. “This is for you,” he said, recovering his usual alacrity. “You’re wearing pearls.” His gaze skimmed across my throat as he handed me a box.

I opened the cellophane-lid and thanked him. Inside was a single pink orchid. Delicate rose veining fanned out from its white heart, framed by lacy ferns and ribbons.

“Let me pin it on you.” Jerry rushed his words. “I should have asked ahead of time what you’d be wearing to match the color.”

“It’s perfect,” I said, touched by his thoughtfulness.

“Just like you.” His eyes sparkled. “You look gorgeous.” He stood back to take a look and stretched out his hand to escort me to the car. “I’ve kept the top up, so your hair won’t get mussed on the way there.”

He helped me slide into the passenger seat, walked around the front of the car, and got in beside me. “That doesn’t mean you won’t get mussed on the way home,” he continued with a grin. “Whether the top is up or not.”

Same old Jerry. Not wanting to encourage him, I sat with my hands folded in my lap, watching the valley road snake through the trees until it widened into the pavement. Jerry asked if I’d ever been to the Oahu Country Club before, and when I said I hadn’t, he kept up a running commentary on its history and social importance. How it had been started by businessmen in the early 1900s with a clubhouse and the first eight holes of the golf course. “The club hosts the annual Manoa Cup for players from all over the world. Do you play?” He broke off his monologue to include me.

We turned into a long driveway flanked by rolling fairways and towering Royal Palms. Not long after, the clubhouse came into view, nestled under the sheer cliffs of the Nuʻuanu Pali. I confessed to not knowing much about the game, but was spared a rundown on the finer points as we pulled into a magnificent stone portico and were met by a parking valet.

The charity ball was already underway. Lights streamed out through every windowpane of the clubhouse and were shining crisscross patterns on the wrap-around veranda. Jerry took my arm to ascend an impressive staircase banked with flowers on either side to where a receiving line had assembled earlier. I was thankful we could make our entrance less conspicuously than standing in line would have required, captives to scrutiny and gossip.

From the foyer I could see the main room, brilliant with chandeliers sparkling above the swirl of ball gowns and tuxedos. My own dress was tea-length rather than the floor-sweeping hemlines of the older matrons, and I was relieved that it fit in nicely with what the younger crowd was wearing.

No dance partners presented themselves who might come to my immediate rescue, but Violet Silverman, looking library-prim in a gown the color of yellowed parchment was dancing with a bearded man sporting a medal for the Hawaiʻi Royal Order of the Guards. Off to the side in a window seat, Frederick Grant sat listening to an intense scarecrow of a woman in gray crepe. She was leaning forward in the way that people do when they are pressing a point, while he maintained an air of interest, assuring her of his attention with a considered nod every once in a while.

“Would you like to dance?” Jerry asked. The band launched into a lively rendition of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood.”

“Sure.” I joined the glittering parade of dresses that were taking the floor. For the briefest moment, I scanned the room, involuntarily searching for the slick black hair and broad shoulders that I’d been trying not to think about all evening. Then, the music welled up with the beat, drowning out my fantasies and any possibility of conversation as partners moved apart then together for an up-tempo swing. Jerry was an accomplished dancer—obviously, he was right at home in the nightclub scene. He twirled me under his arm, then caught me with both hands around my waist and spun me around to catch me again. We moved among the couples in a blur of faces and colors. More than one eyebrow lifted quizzically, then vanished in our wake. Were they wondering who was dancing with the oh-so-eligible Jerry Caine? It was just the kind of attention I wanted to avoid, but there was no mistaking the stir we created.

The music stopped, and Jerry and I drifted with the crowd to the sides of the hall. I touched my cheeks with my fingertips, thinking I would ask him to bring me a cool fruit punch, when a young man with a sweet smile, asked for the next dance. It was a foxtrot that let me catch my breath between bantering remarks about the music. Then I was led out by a dark rat of a man who smelled of cigars, followed by a white-haired gentleman squeezed into a tightly corseted cummerbund. Then it was the young man again, whose name I learned was Arnold, but little else, as the jitterbug wrested my last breath away.

I was making an escape to the powder room, when a voice behind me called my name. I started like a criminal caught red-handed, and turned cautiously to find Frederick Grant smiling in a conspiratorial way. “Shall we make a getaway together?”

“Hello, Professor Grant,” I tried not to sound defensive. “I didn’t realize I was being so obvious.”

“Not at all. And please call me Frederick,” he said in his amiable way. “I was hoping for an excuse to get a breath of fresh air, and here you are. The perfect partner in crime.”

“I didn’t take you for the criminal type. More the soft-hearted scholar.”

He chuckled under his breath. “My former students follow me everywhere, as you may have noticed, and I don’t have the heart to turn them away. I’m not much for dancing anymore, but then, I don’t want to lecture myself hoarse for the evening, either.” He offered me his arm. “Would you care to stroll out to the veranda? We can give each other a legitimate alibi.”

I placed my gloved hand on his arm, and we walked to the far end of the clubhouse, sinking into two of the lounge chairs that overlooked the expansive lawn. From inside, the lilting melody of “Stardust” made for pleasant background music to Frederick’s chatty observations on the fine weather we’d been having.

“Your date will be looking for you. Jerry Caine, isn’t it?” Frederick said at length. “I should be getting you back.” His eyes fixed on my corsage for a moment, then returned to the nearby window.

“A little longer won’t matter.” I spoke too quickly and noticed his look of mild inquiry. There was no keeping it a secret in small-town Honolulu, that Jerry brought me to the dance. “He knows a lot of people here tonight, and I think it’s a good opportunity for him to combine business with pleasure.”

“And here I am keeping you away from making your own business contacts.”

I shook my head. “That’s the last thing on my mind tonight.”

“Starting up a guesthouse—it’s an ambitious undertaking for a young woman.” There was a note of admiration in his voice.

“So I’ve been told. Again and again.” He chuckled at the resistance he must have guessed I was getting. “My aunt Vivian has been supplying me with historical details about the house, and the building contractor is a genius about restoring everything.” I touched the velvety petals of my corsage nervously before I continued. “Jamison Sumida—the architect?—has given him some drawings to ensure the authenticity of the period.”

“And recommend a furniture store?”

My eyes collided with Frederick’s in half-amused comprehension, as I ran back through my memory to recollect my not-so-private conversation with Jamison at the dinner party. I said, only, “We have a number of interests in common.”

“That would explain the coincidence,” he said with twinkling eyes. He reached into his vest pocket for a cigarette case, then asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

I told him I didn’t, and declined his offer to join him as he went through a little ritual of lighting one for himself. With a satisfied sigh, he leaned back and beamed at me through a puff of smoke. I was enjoying his company and felt we’d reached a meeting of the minds, when he spoke again. “Princess Kaiulani, you may recall from your history classes, was half-Hawaiian and half-Scottish. King Kalākaua put her forward as a bride for the Prince of Japan until it was learned he was already promised to a Japanese noblewoman.” He took a long drag on his cigarette until it glowed red at the tip then went pink again. “There’s been a long history of alliances between the two countries.” He lounged with his head back, eyes half closed, reflecting, perhaps, on the princess who died when she was about my age.

My thoughts turned to Jamison. There was so much I didn’t know about his culture. His upbringing had been very different from my own. Still, I turned over my own words of several minutes earlier, that we had interests in common, and it stirred a curious sensation in my heart. I sat peacefully with Frederick Grant, enjoying the moment as the closing strains of “Stardust” turned my gaze toward the night sky.

The moon was a couple days past full, now obscured by a passing cloud that cast an eerie glow on the lawn. Two silhouettes came out from the trees barely thirty feet from the veranda. I couldn’t hear what was being said—an argument, I suspected by the guttural outbursts.

The moon broke through its filmy veil while I stared at the men in whirling silence. Jerry’s face was suddenly lighted by the moonlight. The other man circled around him. He was dressed in street clothes, certainly not the attire of an invited guest. A cigarette ember flicked away from him as he pulled down the brim of his hat. Something caught in my throat at the gesture, and I stifled the sound at the risk of coughing.

I glanced over at Frederick who was reclining with his eyes closed. If only we could stay unnoticed a few more seconds. Jerry strode toward the side entrance to the clubhouse—around the corner from where we could be seen. The man disappeared into the shadow of the trees, then reemerged as a dark speck scuttling down the driveway until it merged into the darkness of the pavement and vanished.

“We should be getting back to the dance.” I forced a thin smile and uncrossed my ankles, to disguise my lack of enthusiasm for leaving our veranda refuge.

Frederick raised his head and tapped the dangling ash of his burned-out cigarette before speaking. “It’s been a delight spending this quiet time with you.” He grunted faintly as he stood up. “There’s nothing like a good smoke with a beautiful woman.” He chuckled under his breath, for a moment. “And a chessboard.”

“Archery’s my game,” I admitted with a shaken laugh, wondering where my date had run off to.

“Well, that’s the younger generation for you.” He patted my hand as I rose to my feet. “I hope you don’t take the ramblings of someone from the older generation the wrong way.”

“It’s way too late to worry about that.” I sighed into the sky. “The hands of time keep moving forward.”

Jerry’s voice rang out from the stairway end of the veranda, “So there you are.” If he was about to fly into a jealous tantrum, he stopped himself cold when he saw Frederick. “I was worried about you,” he said in a more moderated tone.

“Let me introduce my friend, Professor Grant.” I added with a tight smile. “Jerry Caine.”

“My apologies for taking Merrylei away for so long while she kept me company.” Frederick glossed over my unexplained absence with a handshake, and the two men exchanged pleasantries as we made our way back toward the ballroom. Frederick bid us good night at the front steps.

“What were you saying about moving forward?” Jerry asked when we were alone in the foyer.

“Who was that man you were talking to?” I countered in a silky voice, thinking of Frederick’s chessboard, and moving my Queen piece on the offensive. Gently, very gently.

“What man?” Jerry stalled.

“On the lawn, you seemed to be arguing.”

Jerry studied me with those baby blue eyes that had a crease of trouble deepening around them. “You must have mistaken me for someone else,” he said. His fingers wound around mine as he tugged me toward the main hall. The band was striking up “Chattanooga Choo Choo.” “C’mon, let’s dance.”

“I’m serious.” I stood my ground

Jerry slanted a glance at me. “Just a party crasher. I noticed the scoundrel sneaking around the side steps when I went looking for you. He seemed suspicious, the way he was dressed and all, and not being one of the club regulars. I wanted to give him a good thrashing, but…” He straightened the lapel of his tuxedo and flicked off an imaginary bit of lint as though signifying the delicacy of the situation. “I told him to get off the club property or the police would be brought in.” He ended with a smirk that radiated superiority.

A couple dressed to the nines sauntered through the foyer at that moment, the woman swinging her beaded purse with the abandon of someone without a care in the world. I arranged my face in a genial but aloof smile that wouldn’t tempt them to start up a conversation. After they passed us and walked down the stairs, Jerry leaned closer. “You seem jumpy tonight.”

I turned my head, my gaze travelling upward as if searching for a sign beyond the rafters. “It’s nothing. There’ve been some setbacks with the house recently, but things are getting worked out.”

True to form, Jerry seized on the house problem. “Why don’t you try getting some distance from that place? I hate to see you tied up in knots over it.” He squeezed my hand. “Give yourself a break and get away for a while.”

I had no ready rebuttal. In the midst of ball gowns and corsages, the danger I’d been in seemed far away, though the colors around me appeared to have wilted a little, like flowers baking too long in the sun.

“Let’s go back inside.” Jerry pressed my hand again. “There’s some people I want you to meet.

The small measure of enthusiasm I’d had for the ball was dwindling minute by minute, but I brightened with renewed interest to see Violet Silverman coming our way in her parchment paper dress.

Maybe there are patterns in each day’s endlessly rotating kaleidoscope that the brain picks out to create meaning. What had Frederick said? About the theory that coincidences happen in the mind?

Faded parchment. I remember that my father had a file in the library where he’d always kept the family bible, with names and birthdates hand-written in ink. There were some ledgers, too. I’d given them a cursory once-over, half intending to put them in some kind of order when I got the time.

Now I wondered if any of them mentioned a debt or obligation that could be a clue to a past enmity. Was there a commitment that hadn’t been honored? If that were the case, financial restitution would depend on me running a successful guesthouse, not a bankrupt one. Not a vandalized one. After all, I couldn’t pay back what was owed if I was broke. Or dead. I shivered.

Other motives might lie behind what had been happening around Makani Kai. Like revenge. And I had not discounted the animosity of the tenant farmers, remembering Mr. Ching’s unfriendly manner.

There were too many factors to consider until I gathered more information. I pulled my attention back to the music and glittering lights around me.

“Violet,” I cried with too much enthusiasm. “It’s good to see you again.” I introduced her to Jerry, and we made plans for her to visit the library next weekend and stay for lunch.

During the rest of the ball there were dances and new faces, all forming a vague montage that didn’t seem important at the time, except to remind me of the one person who was missing. I waltzed with Governor Poindexter who was spry for his age. Then there was a turn with Judge Frear and several other dignitaries that were associated with the insurance business.

Jerry gave me an accommodating smile when I asked him to take me home at eleven, pleading a headache. In the car we sat side by side as empty as the lonely city streets. When we reached the carriage house, I thanked him for the evening, and unable to dodge a kiss goodnight, offered my cheek.

Afterward, I stood in the doorframe, straddling the threshold, neither in nor out. Something bothered me that I couldn’t close the door on, or even put a name to, but I felt it anyway.