Chapter 7
SEVEN
KAWEHI
When Kawehi clocked into work at the bowling alley, she moved out to the counter area, tying on her apron.
"Are you Kawehi Carter?"
She fumbled with the apron strings, tying the ribbon at her waist. "I'm sorry," she turned toward the voice and saw a man in a suit, "are you here about Nick?"
He nodded, but she didn't know exactly what he was talking about.
A man at the end of the counter held up his coffee cup.
"One second," she picked up the coffee pot and started toward the end of the counter, looking over her shoulder. "Do you want something to drink?"
As she poured a cup for the man at the end of the counter, he held out his credit card.
"I'd like a box, please."
"Sure." She smiled but felt her hands shaking a little. "I can get that for you, sir."
When she turned back around, the man in the suit was still there. "I'll be right with you, sir."
He waved her off. "I'm in no rush. Take your time."
"Okay." She felt her heart kick against her ribs as she tried to ignore the rush of questions in her head. What is going on?
She ran the credit card for the man at the end. She brought him a to-go box. And then made sure to get the merchant copy of the receipt for their accountant.
Then it was a flurry of filling drinks before she made it back to the man at the end.
A couple of high school students were taking care of the bowling lanes and rentals, or she might have gone a little manic.
"I'm sorry," she tried not to bite into her bottom lip as she approached the man who'd used her married name. "Things got a little rushed there."
He shrugged. "When it rains, it pours. Right?"
She smiled. "That's one way to put it."
He opened up his wallet and showed her his military ID. "I'm Paul Hicks. I work at KBAY."
She nodded, trying to calm her heart which was beating a mile a minute. "I call myself Kawehi Phillips. I try not to think about Nick if I don't have to."
"I can see how that might be irritating." He put his wallet back into his back pants pocket. "I had a call from Wolf. He works with Pallas at the base."
Wolf. That was a name that Dom had mentioned once or twice. "He's on Dom's team, right?"
Paul nodded. "Yes. I know Pallas was having his friend look into your husband, but I was able to pull more information through my sources.
I have to say," he cleared his throat, "I've never seen a case like this before.
Most of our Marines come straight to the base after getting married and get all the paperwork started. "
"Nick didn't tell anyone about me." She nodded and tried not to let her disappointment show through too much. "I'm beginning to get the picture that I was used. I just don't understand why."
Paul leaned forward against the counter. "I can't fault the man's eyesight. You're a beautiful woman, Missus Kemper."
"Please," she had to choke back the bile in her throat, "call me Kawehi."
He gave her a quiet nod and smile. "I hope you don't think that my comment was out of line."
She managed a smile. "No. I don't know why Nick married me at this point.
It all happened so fast. I had never put any stock in the phrase 'whirlwind romance' until he disappeared.
My family tried to warn me off of marrying him, but I was in love.
That's what I told them, because that's what I felt.
I believed that he loved me, too. But the silence of the last two, almost two and a half years tells me that he didn't feel the same way, even though he declared it every other minute. "
She shuddered and then swiped at her eyes.
"Sorry, I didn't expect the anger to come back up like that." She took a step back from the counter. "Why don't you tell me what you'd like to eat, my treat, so I can take a minute to myself."
He tried to wave off the offer. "That's quite all right, Miss-"
"Please!" She winced as the sound of her voice sounded harsh in her ears. "Something. Anything. I just need to feel... useful."
Paul nodded. "Okay. A hamburger, please?"
"Regular? Cheese? Teriyaki burger?"
Paul smiled, a little surprised. "Teriyaki sounds great, I spent some time in Okinawa."
She felt some of the tension in her shoulders release. "Great. I'll let the cook know. Thanks."
"Thank you."
She turned around and moved into the kitchen to give the order to the cook and splash some water on her face.
Thinking about Nick was one thing.
Talking about him to a man she didn't know... someone who might be able to find him... made her feel foolish again. Stupid. Ridiculous.
She'd bought his lies and let him into her heart.
Given him her body.
Her hopes and her dreams.
And he'd just left her with no word. Not even a kiss off.
She didn't want those doubts to creep up again after she'd managed to silence them. Paul thinking she was beautiful was nice, but there were thousands of beautiful women that Nick must have come in contact with being stationed at KBAY. She wasn't anything special amongst that number of people.
One of the reasons she was enjoying her time with Domenico was that he hadn't descended on her with declarations of love. He'd shown up and put in time to get to know her. She was getting to know him as well.
She wanted to spend more time with him, but he was also cluing her in on what was going on in his life. Something she was realizing that Nick hadn't done with her. He'd always steered conversation back to her.
And while that was flattering when it was happening, after he disappeared, she realized that he'd told her very little about who he was. She didn't even have a clue about the men he worked with. Sure, he'd mentioned ranks and things like that, but he'd never introduced her to anyone he worked with.
Oh. My. God.
She moved back out to the counter and looked Paul in the eye. "He was stationed at the base, right?"
Paul leaned back and gave her a confused look. "I'm sorry, what?"
She tried to regulate the rate of her breaths, but she was struggling. "He told me next to nothing about his work or who he worked with. And he lived with me off base so I'm starting to wonder if he was even a Marine at all."
A startled look crossed his features before he managed a half-hearted smile. "He's a Marine. I can tell you that. He was stationed at the Marine Corps Base."
She leaned against the counter and managed to gather her thoughts. "Okay. Okay. Thank you."
Paul reached for her hand, but stopped and lowered his hand back to the counter. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."
Kawehi chuckled a little, some self-depreciating humor, she told herself. "I think pretty much everything about Nick upsets me at this point. I just want to serve him with the papers so I can start the process of getting a divorce from him. I want my life back."
"You could start by changing your name."
She shook her head. "Everyone that knows me thinks of me as Kawehi Phillips. It's only on paperwork that I bear his name."
"Kawehi? Order up."
"One sec." She moved to the kitchen door and took the plate in hand.
Her uncle peered into the main room and looked at the corner of the counter where Paul was sitting. "Is he helping you? Or hurting you?"
She gave her uncle a smile. "He's helping."
Her uncle looked at the plate. "If he's hurting you, I can burn that on the grill."
Kawehi moved the plate away from him. "No burning."
Her uncle almost looked disappointed. "Well, das good. I no have to burn your boyfriend's food when he come in next time."
"No," she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek, "no burning Dom's food."
"I settle for burning that asshole haole you wen marry on da grill."
She grinned at him. "Maybe we'll do it huli huli style."
Her uncle gave her a wink that said he might actually be thinking about it, but she knew he was just joking.
Maybe.
Kawehi set the plate down in front of Paul. “It’s not bottle teriyaki sauce,” she smiled, “it’s a recipe my grandfather learned from his friend’s grandmother. She was a picture bride from Japan.”
He picked up the burger and took a bite, chewing quickly. Then he slowed down, his eyes closing.
Kawehi turned around and gave her uncle a thumbs up.
He ducked back into the kitchen with a big grin.
Paul put the burger down and reached for his napkin. He had a little sauce on his face that he quickly wiped up. “I thought teriyaki sauce was okay here but that brought me back to what I tasted in Japan. “
He looked around at the rest of the bowling alley, including the empty tables on the hard flooring area between the counter and the bowling lanes.
When he turned back to her, he looked genuinely confused. “Why aren’t you packed to the rafters in here?”
She shrugged. “After the pandemic, the crowds never really came back. We’ve tried to do ads but that just cost a lot of money.
I think people don’t want to bowl as much as they used to and if they don’t come into play, they don’t come in to eat.
Right now we have our usuals and a few leagues and that keeps our lights on, but it’s getting to the point where we might have to make some hard decisions soon. ”
She let out a long, painful breath.
“I feel like we need to turn around something to get our good luck flowing back.” She shrugged. “Does that sound silly?”
He shook his head. “Hardly. A lot of people in the military believe in good luck charms. Rituals.” He gestured at the maneki neko cat statues behind her on the shelf. “I see those in a lot of stores, even if they don’t have connections to Asian culture.”
“True,” she smiled at him. “I guess everyone wants good luck.”
“Well, I didn’t find this out by luck, just a few calls to the right people, but I think I found your husband.”
Paul reached under the counter and pulled out a leather portfolio. The paper at the top of the stack he revealed inside was an Identification image and an address.
“Thanks to the marriage certificate you submitted, along with your other documents, I was able to get permission to give you his current address.”