Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
T onight there’s no Grady or Thad. It’s just me, Helen, and Nina—the original nunsters. Which is good, because I’ve cried so hard and rubbed my makeup so vigorously that I’m sure my face looks like a chimney sweep’s from Victorian England. I’m in the fetal position on my couch, hugging a throw pillow to my chest, and I can’t stop sobbing. Even Full House is no help. I made it as far as popping in the DVD before I broke into another debilitating round of tears, and now the home screen is playing over and over on a loop in the background, the sappy cheerfulness punctuating my grief like a neon ’90s dagger.
The last wall has finally been knocked down and there is nothing left to hold me up. I’m broken.
I’m only half aware of Helen and Nina fretting over me. “...do you think it’s Kimo?” Nina wants to know, in a whisper.
“If it is, I’ll kill him,” Helen vows, also in a whisper, then quickly amends, “Or maybe just wrack up his late fines so high that he’ll never be able to step into another library again.”
“I can still hear you, even if you’re whispering,” I manage to croak at them, making both of them jump in surprise. “And don’t blame Kimo. It isn’t him. It’s me. It’s always me.”
Above my head, I see them exchange a bemused glance. “What do you mean?” Helen asks finally, reaching down to stroke away some of the hair that’s matted to my face with tears. Probably snot, too.
Sniffling, I sit up, wiping a forearm over my face. “It’s okay. I know there’s something wrong with me. I’m unlovable. I hold people too far at a distance. I say all the wrong things. I’m mean for no reason sometimes. Sometimes I’m hungry, but sometimes I’m just mean . My own sisters don’t want to be around me. I try to pretend that they’re just busy with their lives, but I’ve known the truth for a while now. It’s not that they can’t make time—they just don’t want to make time, for me. I can’t hold on to any friends for more than a few years. Even my own mother didn’t want to keep me. Every time I try to hold on to something, I end up holding on too tight and breaking it, but I don’t know how to stop myself. There’s something wrong with me, too wrong to fix, and no one will ever...”
By now I’m sobbing again, so hard that I can barely speak coherently, huge hiccuping gasps interrupting my words. Nina and Helen have flanked me on either side of the couch, and as if by mutual agreement, they both cocoon me in a hug at almost exactly the same moment.
“We love you, Matilda,” Nina says, quietly but firmly. “You’re passionate, not mean.”
“Sometimes you’re mean,” Helen corrects. It sounds like she’s crying, too. “But...we all are sometimes. Nobody’s perfect. That doesn’t mean we don’t deserve love. And we love you, Matilda.”
I cover my face again. “You’re just saying that because I’m crying.”
“No, we’re not!” Nina insists. “No one checks up on me more than you do. No offense, Helen, but I don’t know if I would have kept coming to book club if it weren’t for you, Matilda. Helen was always so nice and polite about her invitations—it would have been so easy to just stop showing up. But I remember back in the beginning when I missed one meetup, you texted me fourteen times in four days to make sure I would be there the next time. I had no choice but to come! And I’m so glad I did.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry some more at this story. “So I bullied you into being my friend?”
“You knew what was best for me,” Nina corrects. “And you made sure that I did, too.”
“You take care of the group,” Helen agrees, gently forcing me to uncover my face again. “You’re everybody’s protector. You’re our fierce mama bear, and we would be lost without you.”
I look back and forth between them. “Really?”
Helen squeezes my arm. “Really. Now...” She pauses long enough to pick up the remote and mute the television, putting an end to the ceaseless Full House theme song loop. “Tell us what happened, exactly...”
* * *
When I finish my story, Helen and Nina exchange a glance that they probably think is subtle. It isn’t. “What?” I snap at them out of habit. Then, remembering that I’m supposed to be nicer now, I try to soften my tone. A little. It’s more in the delivery, really. “What’s that look for?”
“Kimo’s never said he doesn’t want you to come to Hawai’i, right?” Nina asks me gently.
I shake my head, already anticipating that point. “He doesn’t have to. Believe me, I know the signs of being left behind.”
“You thought we were going to leave you behind when we brought Thad and Grady into the group,” Helen reminds me, “But we weren’t ever going to do that.”
“You weren’t?”
“Matilda!” Helen sounds genuinely offended. “Never. I know bringing in Thad and Grady changes the dynamic, but there’s safety in numbers, you know? The three of us lasted on our own for so long, just us against the world, but now we don’t need to do that. We have Thad to scare off anyone who might mean us harm?—”
“—and to keep you happy with lots of orgasms,” I remind her.
Helen’s face flushes pink. “And that, yes, and we have Grady to...talk in an Irish accent and make us lots of coffee.”
“Every group needs one of those,” Nina says with a smile.
I can’t smile, not yet. My heart is still aching. It’s the kind of ache I feel like I’ll be carrying with me for the rest of my life. I feel like all the fight has gone out of me, all the bark and all the bite.
“The point being,” Helen continues, “that we were never going to ice you out. You don’t just get rid of the people you love. I’m so, so sorry that’s happened to you in the past. But that says more about the people who did that to you than it does about you.”
Nina nods her earnest agreement. “We’re not going anywhere.” She takes in a deep breath, steeling herself. “And as your friend, I think you need to have a real conversation with Kimo. Not just run away.”
I shake my head reflexively—a quick, almost violent jerk. “He’s probably relieved that I’ve given him an out.”
“Have you checked your phone since you left?” Helen asks.
I stare at my phone, which I’ve put on silent and turned upside down on the table. It is so much more than a phone, all of a sudden. If I flip it over and see no missed calls, no texts, I’ll know I have my answer. And even though I suspect I already know the truth, having that final confirmation might break me all over again. “I’m too scared.”
“I’ll look.” Helen picks up the phone. Her face is impassive for a moment, then she smiles ruefully at me. “Fifteen missed calls in under two hours.”
Nina laughs, too. “He’s even more Matilda than you are. I only got fourteen texts in a few days when you couldn’t find me.”
“Give that to me!” I open the home screen and see he’s texted, too, and left voicemails—lots of voicemails:
“ Hey, Mattie, where’d you run off to? Everything okay?”
“Listen, I don’t know what Māmā said to you, but she says she’s sorry. Can we talk?”
“Mattie, I’m trying to give you space here, but can you just let me know you’re okay?”
“Shit. Māmā told me what you talked about. Shit. Shit . Can we talk?”
“Please talk to me, Mattie, I need to explain...”
Hearing the urgency, the desperation in his tone only increasing with each missed call, something shifts inside of me. I recognize that emotion, that violent intensity of feeling, that need to do anything to keep the other person around, and in your life. I look to Helen and Nina with wide, wondering eyes. “I think he really loves me.”
Nina and Helen are both crying and laughing on either side of me as they watch this all play out. “I think he really does,” Helen agrees, and Nina nods happily, wiping at her eyes.
Then we hear it—Bon Jovi’s “Always,” booming from outside.
Helen, Nina, and I exchange a glance. “Kimo,” I say, unable to stop the grin that stretches my mouth.
I race over to the window, with Nina and Helen close behind me. Sure enough, Kimo is down there, two portable speakers on the ground next to him, and a variety of potted plants around him.
Potted plants? I look to Helen and Nina in confusion. Is this a romantic gesture I’m unaware of? But they both look confused, too.
Kimo tries to shout something up at me, but I can’t make it out. Frowning, I push open the window. “What?”
“I know the potted plants look less romantic, but they’re more environmentally sustainable!” he calls up to me. “I hope that’s okay.”
That...really isn’t what I thought he was going to lead with. But I guess it is very Kimo. “Why did you bring them here?” I call down to him.
“What?” he calls back.
The speakers must be deafening next to him; I can barely hear him over them, and I’m on the third floor. I cup my hands over my mouth. “Turn down the music!”
It takes him a moment to piece it together, but then he gives me a thumbs-up and turns down the volume. Even so, a few passersby stop on the street to watch whatever it is he’s doing. Someone holds up their phone and takes a picture.
Kimo doesn’t notice any of it, though. He only has eyes for me. His face looks crestfallen. “Have you been crying, baby?”
“No.” But that’s obviously a lie, even with three stories separating us. I sniff. “Maybe.”
“You gotta believe me, Mattie. I was going to ask you to come with me. That’s been the plan for a while now—almost from the first time I met you. Definitely since we realized we didn’t have condoms on Mackinac Island.”
The onlookers glance up at me at this overly confessional bit of information. Maybe I should be embarrassed, but I can’t help but smile at Kimo’s revelation. Screw those strangers and what they might be thinking. “Really?”
“Really. I just didn’t want to scare you off since it’s all been happening so crazy fast. But when you meet the person you were meant to love, your heart doesn’t need time to catch up. Your brain might not get it, but your heart, your gut, the rest of you knows it. I know it, Mattie. I want you with me for the rest of my life. Hawai’i is home, but it won’t be home without you.”
Then, to my complete and utter shock, he drops down to one knee. “I was gonna get a ring, but I don’t know your ring size. We’ve only known each other a few weeks, you know? But I know you’re brave, you’re strong, you’re beautiful. You’re a tiger fighter, but I want to be the one to fight tigers for you now, honey. Will you marry me?”
Helen and Nina gasp. I’m too shocked to even make that much noise. I don’t know how to hold this feeling inside of me, my stomach swirling with nerves and adrenaline, and my head rushing from the shock, and my heart trying to burst out of my chest with the joy I’m feeling at his words. He loves me. He wants to marry me. He wants us to build a home, a family, together. It’s a dream that’s been building in me since the Over the Rainbow Gala, when I saw him walking down those stairs toward me—no, earlier than that, I realize. Since he started singing the Full House theme song to me on that boat so I wouldn’t be so afraid.
I always thought pure and total happiness would be something bright and loud, but I realize now it is breathtakingly quiet.
Before I can form a response, I see a shoe hurtling through the air from the floor above me, clipping Kimo’s forehead. He staggers back. “Keep it down!” someone shouts from upstairs.
* * *
I make it outside in record time, grasping Kimo by the face so I can examine the damage. Luckily the shoe struck him on the side opposite from his recent head injury, but it was still too close for comfort. A spot on his left temple is reddened and raised, and it looks like a bump is already forming.
The idiot doesn’t even seem to notice—he’s too busy giving me a gushy, happy smile. “Mattie,” he says, reaching up to stroke the side of my face.
There will be time for that later. I turn my glare up to the window where the shoe thrower lives. “You better lawyer up, asshole! I know people. You’re gonna be paying off a settlement for the rest of your life.”
Kimo huffs a laugh behind me. “Mattie, it’s cool. He already apologized. He didn’t mean to hit me, just scare me off. I think I woke his baby up.”
I should have known the assaulter would have already been Kimo’d in the few seconds it took me to get down here. But remembering that shoe arcing through the air, clobbering my man, I’m not so easily placated. “Your child will be paying off that settlement, too!” I warn.
“Mattie.” Kimo guides my gaze back to him, holding both sides of my face now and looking deep into my eyes. “Was there something else you wanted to say to me, or did you just want to threaten one of your neighbors and all of his descendants?”
The fire instantly drains out of me, like someone has reached up and shut off a valve. I would go to war for Kimo if he needed me to. But that isn’t what he needs from me now. What he needs from me is far more terrifying than putting my life on the line.
It’s my heart that’s on the line now.
My eyes dart across his hazel gaze. I see amusement there, patience. I see a man who sees me in return, not just my body or my face, but my warts, my flaws, my soul , and against all odds, finds me endearing. No, more than endearing—enchanting. I see someone who is too good to be true, and yet he is the realest person I know. Pono. Good one. The best one. My Kimo.
“Yes,” I tell him.
Kimo furrows his brow. “Yes, you just want to threaten your neighbor...?”
I shake my head, unable to help the grin of pure joy that’s splitting across my face. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Kimo lets out a cheer that is somehow both high-pitched and guttural, as well as being completely unlike anything I’ve ever heard. As he crushes me in his arms and swings me around, I hear Helen and Nina cheering from upstairs and several passersby applauding us on the street. From a fourth-floor window comes the sound of a crying baby and a long, belabored sigh.
I’m too thrilled to care about that karmic revenge—well, I’m too thrilled to only care about that karmic revenge. When Kimo sets me down, he gives me a not entirely PG-rated kiss that is captured on several strangers’ phones as they happily snap pictures and take videos. I’m sure some tabloid will be writing about this tomorrow. Oh, well. At least this time I’m wearing a bra.
Seeming to become aware of the onlookers, Kimo pulls me close to murmur in my ear, a moment just for us. “Sorry I don’t have a ring. I’ll get you whatever you want—just name it.”
I smile even harder and pull him even closer. “I don’t care about the ring. I just want you.” After a moment, I tag on, “But that being said, I wouldn’t turn down an Edwardian-era, marquise-cut diamond...”