Chapter 28
The day after we catch a killer, the entire resort exhales.
The entire island of Kauai may have exhaled, too.
It’s late afternoon, the heat is finally easing as the trade winds carry off the last of the humidity, and all of Hanalei Bay has gone golden and wonderfully lazy.
Snorkel fins flash out by the reef, kids chase each other down the wet sand waving buckets and shovels like tiny armed bandits, the coconut sunscreen is thick enough to taste, and somewhere down the beach a chicken has claimed a towel that does not belong to them.
I’m on a lounger on the shoreline at the Coconut Cove Paradise Resort, blissfully unsupervised for the first time all week.
The warm sand between my toes and the kiss of heated sunshine on my shoulders, and the scent of plumeria perfuming the beach makes me forget all about the nightmare the last seven days had brought us.
And the Miss Mango contestants are blissfully unsupervised as well—free at last from a week of living off nothing but lip gloss and culinary restraint, each one draped across a lounge chair of her own in a state of glorious surrender.
They are eating. Double cheeseburgers. Towers of malasadas.
Triple-scoop sundaes melting faster than they can be consumed.
Cinnamon rolls the size of catchers’ mitts.
Somebody’s nursing a latte topped with enough cold foam and whipped cream to frost a sheet cake, and beside her a former contestant is working through a personal-pan pizza with total focus, like a rabid raccoon eating out of a dumpster.
She’s waited a long, long time for this, and it shows.
And there’s mango butter mochi everywhere, pan after pan of it, because Lani made a mountain of it the moment the pageant ended and the girls have been demolishing it ever since, no longer pretending they live on air and feel-good vibes.
Lani keeps walking past the spread just to watch them eat it.
I’ve never seen her happier. After a week of watching forty women treat food as a hostile witness, the sight is almost emotional.
Spam is asleep in my arms. He’s taken the shape of a banana nut loaf, his cute half-bitten-off ear keeps trying to twitch, and he’s purring like a tiny motor.
I think he’s decided that catching a killer entitles him to a permanent vacation.
I’m not going to argue. He’s earned it. He also weighs roughly as much as a bowling ball and my arm fell asleep twenty minutes ago, but you don’t disturb a hero.
Halea heads this way looking every bit the beauty queen she is in a hot-pink bathing suit and a tangerine sarong. Both manage to glow off her bronzed skin, and her cheeks are picking up the rosy hue as well.
“You were magnificent,” I tell her as she drops into the chair beside me. “Taking over that stage. Running the whole thing after the disaster that went down. You held four hundred people together with your bare hands.”
“I had to.” She grins my way. “Somebody crowned the wrong girl for thirty years. It felt good to finally crown the right one.” She stretches, then pushes up.
“Speaking of holding things together, I’ve got a line of guests at checkout.
At least the high school reunion taking over next week can’t possibly be as insane as this was. ”
She says it breezily, on her way to the lobby. And now I’m left wondering if she updated our uniform policy without asking. On second thought, Halea in a bathing suit is probably what’s packing them in.
“How bad can a bunch of grown adults in matching T-shirts be?” she calls back.
Famous last words.
Ruby and Lani arrive as Halea takes off, with Ruby in a neon green caftan with hot-pink hibiscus flowers printed on it that could take out a working set of retinas, and Lani still in her apron, both of them carrying plates.
“I knew my food was delicious,” Lani says, settling in with deep satisfaction, watching a contestant inhale a second cheeseburger.
“A week. A solid week they turned up their noses at my malasadas, and now look. Look at them. I’ve been vindicated.
I want it on my headstone. Lani Mahelona: The Food Was Good All Along! ”
“Consider it done,” I say. “We’ll even toss in your malasada recipe on the back of your headstone. Just the ingredients, though. The secret step goes with you. I know how you are.”
She nods. “Smart woman. That step is why they’ll keep coming to the grave. You give people everything, they forget you by spring.”
We share a quick laugh.
“All right,” Ruby says as she claps her hands. “No more stalling. We are doing it. Right here. The buildings are finally getting their names.”
Lani sighs.
“I’m not ready,” I say, closing my eyes and feeling the sun warming my lids. “Maybe after some shave ice.”
“It’s been a week, Jinx,” Ruby continues. “A whole week. I’ve planned entire weddings in less. Two of my own. We’re starting now. Lani, you get to name building two.”
Lani glances at the building behind her. “I still think Coral has a nice ring to it.”
“Coral,” Ruby repeats, considering. “Coral. Coral.” She rolls it on her tongue. “Lani. That’s a good name.”
“Of course it’s a good name,” Lani says with an annoyed glance at her bestie. “I picked it out a week ago. I haven’t been stalling. I’ve been correct.”
“Coral it is,” I say, before Ruby can launch a counter offensive. “Building two will be known as the Coral Building. Approved. Moving on.”
Ruby straightens. “Building one is mine.”
“Lay it out for us,” I tell her.
“Pearl,” she says, with the gravity of a woman presenting the family jewels. “It’s on the ocean. We all know it’s got the best views. It should be Pearl.”
“It should be Hanalei,” Lani counters, instantly. “Because it overlooks Hanalei Bay. Why are we hiding from the most beautiful name on the island?”
They look at me. I look at the bay.
“Hanalei Pearl,” I say. “Both of you got one. Move on with your lives.”
Ruby gasps with delight. Lani nods once, like she’s been waiting on me to catch up. Hanalei Pearl. Done.
“And building three?” Ruby asks, the warmth draining out of her voice the way it always does when she contemplates building three.
“Right,” Lani says. “Building three.” She lowers her lids at the building in question as if it just let an obscene odor fly.
The three of us look out across the property, past the path that winds back toward the runt of my buildings, the one with the slightly haunted pool and the air of having once expected more from itself.
Ruby opens her mouth. Lani opens her mouth.
“Driftwood,” they say, in unison.
We all stop. Lani turns to look at Ruby. Ruby turns to look at Lani. These two argue about everything. Recipes, driving, the correct number of husbands. And here they are, finishing each other’s real estate decisions like an old married couple neither of them would ever admit to being.
“Driftwood?” I confirm. “Then Driftwood it is.”
“It’s perfect,” Lani says. “Especially since that building basically just washed up here one day.”
“It is doing its best,” Ruby says, “and when the big wave comes, mark my words, that’s the one that will float.”
Lani nods. “And you have to put the luggage carts somewhere.”
“It has a pool,” I say, lifting my coffee in tribute. “And now it has a name.”
I make a mental note to tell Shaka and Loco about the new signs, and I can already picture the look they’ll exchange, the one that means they know they’re about to be on a ladder.
Give it a week and there’ll be three hand-carved wooden signs out front of three buildings on the North Shore, and the Coconut Cove Paradise Resort will officially have a Hanalei Pearl, a Coral, and a Driftwood.
It is, I have to admit, a significant improvement over Building One, Building Two, and the Green Pool Situation.
“You know what this pageant was missing?” Ruby announces.
“Men. We had forty gorgeous women and not one eligible bachelor to judge them. It’s an outrage.
” She points her finger at me with what looks like a burst of inspiration.
“Next year we’re hosting a man pageant. Mr. Coconut Cove.
Swimsuit round, talent round, the works.
May the man with the biggest coconuts win! ”
“Ruby—” I cringe at the coconut visuals taking over my brain.
“I’ll judge,” she volunteers, loud enough to be heard on Mars. “I’ll judge so hard.”
Before my brain can even locate a response to that, Kitty appears, and she looks good. Lighter. Like she set something old, furry, and heavy down on a beach last night, and she walked away from it, and it shows.
The three of us stand to greet her.
“I wanted to thank you all before I go,” she says in a bright blue sundress that makes her look all of sixteen. “Really. You didn’t have to tell me the truth, and you did it kindly, and—” She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I already have a lawyer. Lani pointed me to one this morning.”
“My niece,” Lani says proudly. “Kauai’s finest. She’s a divorce attorney and she is terrifying. She once made a man cry during a deposition and then billed him for the tissues.”
“She’s already found three things in the prenup Wink forgot were there,” Kitty says, with the serene glow of the newly liberated.
“I’m going to be fine. Better than fine.
I’m going to be a woman with a beach house and no furry walrus to share it with.
” She laughs, and we all join her. “Thank you. All of you. This place gave me the worst news of my life and somehow, it’s still the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. ”
“It does that,” I say. “Come back anytime. Next time we’ll try to keep the body count down.”
She hugs us each and takes off, and I genuinely think she’s going to be okay, which is not something I get to think about everyone who leaves this resort—especially those who leave in body bags.