Pins and Needles

Not ten minutes later, Lei and Ilikea stood on the second floor of a cream-colored cement-block apartment building. The burnished gold unit numbers “281” popped against forest-green trim.

“All right, you knock, I’ll stand behind you,” Lei offered.

Ilikea kept twisting her hands in her pockets. Lei was sure she was worrying over nothing. Even if Kaukahi didn’t believe Ili was useful, Lei was positive she could change her mind.

After a solid minute of staring at the door, Lei whispered, “Are you going to knock?”

“Hmm? Yeah. Yeah, I’m just…” Ilikea trailed off and lifted a fist. It hovered over the door, wavering a little.

“Oh, for flap’s sake.” Lei reached around to knock on the door herself, then took half a step back, behind her friend.

Ilikea whirled to her, eyes wide. Lei shrugged and shook her head a bit. She spun her pointer finger in a circular turn around motion to get Ili to face the door before it opened and they were caught out here staring at each other.

Ili swallowed, then turned right as the door opened.

A girl about Lei’s age stood in the archway. She had her black hair half twisted up in symmetrical space buns, and half loose on her shoulders. Swim goggles rested on her forehead, and some pins—the kind Lei’s mom used when hemming pants—were held tightly in the corner of her lips. Her oversize shirt seemed to be a pastel patchwork of various band tees and concert merch that hung almost to her knees, the edges of bike shorts just peeking out from beneath the hem. At the sight of the girls on the walkway she backed up and waved them in, metal glinting from the tip of her thumb.

“Hey, Iwi. I jus’ gotta hin nis. Ho’ on.” Kaukahi’s voice was garbled by the pins.

Ilikea translated: “She has to go pin something. Hold on. Oh”—she bounced on her toes—“we should go in and close the door.”

But Ilikea just bobbed there looking through the doorframe. Lei gave her a nudge in the back to get her over the threshold. It was going to be fine. The girl clearly trusted Ilikea already if she wasn’t even questioning her showing up with a stranger. They both kicked their slippers off into the tray next to the e komo mai mat and entered the apartment. Lei froze, closing the door behind her while Ilikea followed Kaukahi into the living room.

Every surface but one was covered in fabric. There were bolts of solid colors in different materials against one wall: shiny satins, cozy cotton, fluffy fleece. Another wall had stacks of patterns: floral, plaid, and others Lei couldn’t even categorize other than capital B-O-L-D. Loose fabric lay on the floor and pooled over furniture. The only wall that wasn’t swathed in cloth had a bunch of different ʻukulele hanging from it. Kaukahi stopped in front of a headless mannequin stuck with a million pins holding long lines of pale pink tulle around its waist. Ili took a spot next to her.

“Kaukahi, this is Lei. Lei, this is Kaukahi,” Ilikea said.

“Aloha,” the girl muttered, eyes on the tulle.

“Back atcha.” Ili did her little double pointy fingers, looking like a complete goob. She was spared judgment because Kaukahi didn’t even look her way. Ili quickly dropped her hands and hissed, “Lei!”

Lei picked her jaw up off the floor and hurried toward the mannequin. Kaukahi studied her project with single-minded focus—chin up, eyes narrowed, oblivious to the other people in the room. She was the complete opposite of Lei’s archnemesis at school, Hennley, and her “all eyes on me” vibe. Lei could picture her classmate now, probably traipsing around the Eiffel Tower in Paris with Lei’s ex-bestie Ridley in tow, laughing a notch too loudly while glancing around to confirm she had everyone’s attention. It was weird even though Kaukahi couldn’t care less about Lei—or maybe because she couldn’t care less—she immediately reminded Lei of Hennley.

The seamstress pulled the pins from her mouth and poked them into bloodred velvet fabric held over the tulle, gathering pinches to create folded pleats in strategic places. Sunshine from the sliding door streamed in across the dining table, casting a sprinkle of lights on the ceiling. Ilikea tilted her head in Kaukahi’s direction and waved her hands at Lei to get started.

“Oh, ah, hi. Aloha,” Lei tried, stepping forward over a wooden yardstick, half waving before dropping her hand because Kaukahi wasn’t even looking.

Kaukahi tapped her chin as she studied the draping of the velvet. Lei looked back at Ili and got a shrug and wide eyes. This had to work. Lei cleared her throat. When Kaukahi’s lips finally parted, Lei leaned forward, ready to jump in to answer who she was and why she was randomly in this girl’s house.

But the questions never came.

“Pass that netting?” Kaukahi pointed, not even looking Lei’s way.

Lei rocked back on her heels. There was a distinct wheezing sound from Ilikea’s direction, and Makani gusted out of the kitchen window, flattening the sheer curtains against the screen, then sent them billowing over the sink as they swooped back inside. Lei grabbed the black netting off the couch and passed it to Kaukahi, who began gathering it up in bunches and holding it to the sides of the skirt.

“Right,” Lei said. Clearly, she’d need to start this off. Eyes on the prize. For Kaipo. “Ah…so…” Asking about the weather or favorite books seemed too mundane. What would Hennley say? If only Lei’d paid attention…“How about them Warriors?” College sports?! She could hear her dad snort at her now.

But it worked. Kaukahi glanced her way.

“Look, I hate to be rude, but I have to get this—” She gestured at the mannequin and a metal cap that had been perched on her middle finger went flying toward Lei. Lei caught it and handed it back to Kaukahi. Instead of a “thank you,” the girl just said, “Tūtū’s thimble has a mind of its own sometimes.”

Kaukahi tied the thimble to a ribbon around her neck and continued. “This creation needs to be ready by the parade reception on Saturday. Oh, are you wanting a new outfit?” Her face brightened and she tapped her chin while studying Lei. “With your body type, I could do an epic A-line midi. Or are you more of a ready-for-anything culotte, hmm? I have some sweet fabrics tucked back here somewhere…” She started rummaging under the pile close to the couch.

Outfit? Sure. Lei could run with that. “Wow, really cool pieces here, Kaukahi! You have a great eye. Did you pull inspiration from…” How could she tie everything together? Did this family chitchat about ʻaumākua out in the open? Would it be okay for Lei to know about it? “…old Hawaiʻi?”

“Some pieces. You see that shirt?” Kaukahi said, voice muffled. “It’s my take on the original Japanese-Hawaiʻi aloha shirt from the 1920s.”

Lei looked at the wide belt in a celery green around the middle of a shirt with a red lehua print. She took an involuntary step away from the floral fabric.

“Well, that’s fun. Have you ever done things that reference ʻaumākua?”

“Mm-hmm? Ooh, found it!” She popped back out holding what looked like soft, worn denim. “Love this stuff. Already made myself a jacket in it. Would be perfect for you. You like high or low waist?” Kaukahi eyed her waist. “Let’s go high for you.”

Lei looked to Ili. The girl bugged her eyes at Lei and nodded toward Kaukahi like “Go on, make me a hero.”

“Hey, Kaukahi? I was thinking.”

“Mmm.”

“You know how Ili’s a…well…” The words were stuck in her throat. Fear grown from a lifetime of being judged for believing Tūtū’s stories was hard to swallow; even if she told herself she didn’t care what this girl thought of her, deep down she knew she still did. The face of her former best friend Ridley, pleading with her to just “try to fit in,” swirled in her mind, but Lei had to get past that. She’d faced off against a fire goddess in the biggest race of all time to finally understand who she was.

Kaukahi huffed at Lei’s apparent stage fright and went back to pinning.

The absence of her stare made it easier for Lei to force the words out. “You know how Ili’s your ʻaumakua? She turns into a bat?” She clenched her jaw and squinted, waiting for the explosion of disbelief.

But it never came.

“Mm-hmm,” Kaukahi hummed.

Lei’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. Yeah, okay, she knew Kaukahi knew, but it was still freaky to not have some sort of reaction. This seemed like they were talking about Ilikea’s shirt size rather than her corporeal form.

Kaukahi picked up on Lei’s silence and turned, head cocked. “I mean, I’m surprised she told you. Wait, did you just learn she’s your ʻaumakua, too? Are we cousins?!”

“No! No,” Lei protested. “We aren’t cousins. My ʻaumakua is at home.” That sounded weird. “I just wanted to chat about the, uh, perks of having ʻaumākua. ’Cause, like, they’re helpful. They make sure you’re safe and…uh…have a friend.”

She thought about Kaipo and their talk this morning, about everything they’d been through. And then she thought about losing that forever.

The room seemed to shrink in size and it was hard to breathe. Lei started to pace, trying to open it back up, stepping over the big ruler and heaps of fabric. Focus on the goal. Sell Kaukahi on Ilikea. Get Ilikea to let you borrow her pendant. Find Kaipo’s. Everything will be better.

“An ʻaumakua will help you to become the person you’re supposed to be.”

“Seriously?” Kaukahi scrunched her nose, her sudden scorn reminding Lei of Hennley again. “You’re just a pitch person for Ili?”

She turned back to her mannequin with a toss of her glossy black hair and muttered what sounded an awful lot like, “Couldn’t you find something better to do with your summer?”

Kaukahi cleared her throat. “If you’re done, I gotta get back to work. This needs to be perfect and, well, you can see it needs some inspiration.” She tapped her chin again. “Wonder how Mom would feel about spandex…”

Lei was stunned. She had shared a bit of her soul and got told to keep it. If they had been back in Colorado, Hennley would probably have given Kaukahi a slow clap or whatever it is those kinds of girls do when they spot their own kind in the wild.

Lei swallowed hard. “I’ve got to get back to Tūtū. Ili, I’ll see you later.” Lei pivoted before Kaukahi could see her red blotchy cheeks. This was a massive waste of time. She’d have to figure out another way to experiment without Ili’s necklace, because she was done inserting herself into situations where she didn’t belong. She was needed at home.