Chapter 18
Saturday evening found me in my walk-in closet, wrinkling my nose in annoyance.
Tennis outfits in every color of the rainbow were dangling from the hangers, but party clothes were in short supply.
In fact, I’d only brought one dress, and I’d worn it to the barbecue, so I guess I had to resort to shorts and a T-shirt after all.
There was a knock at the door. I stuck my head around the corner and called out, “Come in!”
Kay opened the door and stepped into the room. She was wearing a short, lavender-blue jumpsuit with an elastic waist, and there was a white plumeria flower in her hair. I couldn’t tell whether it came from her garden or a store.
“I just wanted to say goodbye. Gabe’s about to pick me up.”
“Have fun at the luau.” She cast a skeptical eye at my getup, the towel I’d carelessly wrapped around my body, my wet hair clinging to my shoulders. “Didn’t you want to go to that party today?”
“Yeah.” I glanced at my watch and mumbled, “Shit, already so late!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“Of course you don’t.”
I was counting on her reminding me that I hadn’t come to Hawaii to go to parties.
Instead, she said, “Come on,” and motioned for me to follow her.
Frowning, I trudged after her down the corridor and down the stairs to her bedroom.
It was the first time I had been in there.
It was decorated as tastefully as the rest of the house.
A king-size bed with smooth sheets and gray-blue decorative pillows, a bedside table, a chest of drawers, and a closet taking up the entire wall.
Kay slid the door to the side and purposefully reached for a hanger.
The dress was short, pistachio green, and made of a light, flowing fabric.
As far as I could tell, the straps ran together at the back of the neck.
“Wow, that is super nice.”
“Try it on!”
“You think it’ll fit?”
She nodded confidently. “We should be around the same size.” She handed me the hanger, and I couldn’t help but see the tag.
“But this is brand-new.”
“It hasn’t been worn, but it’s not new. It’s been hanging here for years. No idea what got into me. It’s far too short.” She shrugged. “But it will definitely look good on you. You could wear your metallic-looking shoes with it. Or the white sneakers, if you want to go for a more casual look.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You were against me going to this party. Why are you helping me now?”
“I wasn’t against you going,” she said. “I just don’t think Griffin Chipman is the best person to hang out with. But you’re old enough to make up your own mind.” She waggled the hanger. “So?”
With a laugh I accepted the dress. Back in my room, I tried it on and looked at myself in the mirror.
It fit like a glove and was pleasantly light against my skin.
As opposed to the clothes I usually wore, the dress was indeed pretty short, but I liked my legs.
The only thing that bothered me was the dramatic tan lines around my ankles.
But that would be fine once I put on sneakers.
“And?” Kay’s voice reached me from the hall.
I smiled at my reflection contentedly. “It’s perfect.”
* * *
Blow-drying my hair would have been a pure waste of time.
Aside from the fact that it immediately grew curly in the humid air, on the brief way to the Greenfields’, sweat began to bead upon my neck.
The fact that I was late and had to hurry didn’t help matters.
I hurried up the stairs to the terrace and on my way almost tripped over Vince, who was kneeling on the ground to nail down a loose board.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!”
He slowed me down with his free hand, which landed on my knee and lingered there for a fraction of a second. Until he pulled it away and moved his fingers as if they’d been burned. Judging by the heat that was spreading through my body, maybe they had.
“Sorry,” he mumbled and looked back to the hammer.
Overwhelmed by his minimal touch—which had had maximum effect—I took a tiny step back.
Hardly more than a shift in weight, but I involuntarily drew his gaze.
His eyes flitted over my dress, lingering on my bare shoulders before our eyes met and he…
swallowed. The second wave of heat coursed through my body, and I prayed he didn’t notice.
But there was no mistaking the goose bumps on my arms. Not to mention my wildly throbbing jugular vein.
“You here to see Laurie?”
For a second, I was distracted by how dark and husky his voice sounded. Maybe that’s why it took me a moment to answer.
“Yeah, we’re going to Chip’s party.”
He knit his brow. “She didn’t tell you?”
I looked at him without understanding.
“She went to lie down a little while ago. She wasn’t feeling well. A migraine or something.”
“Oh.”
He looked at me in surprise. “Strange that she didn’t write you.”
“Umm…” I pulled my phone out of my handbag and indeed saw a message from Laurie. She’d written to me almost an hour earlier. Around the time Kay had come into my room.
Sorry, but the party’s not going to work out.
That time of the month and I’ve got a headache. ??
“Guess she did.” I sighed. “I just didn’t look at my phone.” I looked into the distance.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I shrugged. “It’s my own fault.”
“Annoying all the same. You look like you spent a good while in front of the mirror.”
My eyes darted toward him, and I raised my right eyebrow. “Is that an insult or a compliment?”
“Umm…an…observation?”
A grin appeared at the corner of his mouth, and I decided to let him get away with it.
“Well, then. I guess I’ll go back home,” I said with a touch of disillusionment, already seeing myself on Kay’s couch in my pajamas. To be honest, I’d been looking forward to the evening. And I liked this dress. How it felt on my skin. How I felt inside it.
“Or you can come with me.”
I looked at him as if I hadn’t heard properly.
“I can give you a ride, I mean. I wanted to get going soon anyway.”
I looked at his work pants. The hammer in his hand. He didn’t look like he’d be going to any parties today. And hadn’t Laurie said parties weren’t really his thing?
“I just have to jump in the shower.”
I was still so caught off guard that all I could do was stare at him stupidly.
“I don’t drink when I’m driving.” Then he added, “If you’re worried about that.”
“No, it’s…” I hesitated but then decided for transparency. “Well, to be honest, I really was going for Laurie’s sake. I don’t know anyone there and…”
“You know me.”
I felt his gaze very clearly.
“Umm…but I can’t imagine you wanting me to hang around you the whole evening.” I covered up my confusion with a smile.
“No biggie. There’ll be a ton of people at the party that you’ll no doubt find way more interesting than me.” He grinned, and I found it really difficult to say what I was about to say, but I did.
“Thanks, but I think I’m just going to stay…”
“If you’re not into it, I’ll drive you back home.”
Puzzled, I paused for a moment. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why…are you offering to do that?”
He shrugged calmly. “It’d be a shame for you to have spent so long in front of the mirror for nothing.” His expression remained serious for only around two seconds, and I rolled my eyes.
“It’s just an offer. Come along or don’t. Both are cool.”
His relaxed smile said that he really meant it. And yet, I couldn’t help but note a hint of a challenge in his voice. As if he was saying, “Do you trust yourself?”
* * *
“Am I overdressed?” I asked once we were on the coastal road toward Haleiwa. I’d been wondering about it ever since he trotted down the stairs after his shower in cotton shorts and a T-shirt and stepped into a worn pair of Reeboks.
“You can go to one of Chip’s parties in a pair of pajamas. No one cares.”
Great. That was a yes. I uncomfortably slid back and forth on the seat.
Vince turned on his blinker and turned left, away from the ocean.
We took a gravel road that snaked through a chessboard-like series of fields, with only an isolated house here and there.
Most of the time just flat-roofed buildings with carports to the side that were filled with scooters and Jeeps.
Through the brightly lit windows I caught glimpses of men and women standing around stoves, families setting the table, and kids running about.
“Chip doesn’t live by the ocean?”
“No.” A mocking smile appeared on his face. “Mere mortals can’t afford anything like that around here.”
For a moment I felt terribly na?ve. Over and over Gabe had mentioned how expensive life was on Hawaii, but I simply spent too much time on the court to really notice.
“In the meantime, almost all the houses along the beach are in the hands of the super rich,” Vince explained somewhat bitterly. “Or real-estate companies that rent to the super rich.” He snorted. “You don’t want to know how much they offered us for the Ohana.”
“Did you all consider it? Selling, I mean?”
“Well, yeah, at the beginning. We didn’t really know what to do with it.
And both of us had our own lives. Not to mention Laurie being in the middle of her studies.
” He cleared his throat. “But it didn’t feel right.
It felt like we’d be betraying Jim. He always got upset about how the rich were claiming the beach.
One cookie-cutter McMansion after another, pushing out the real Hawaii. ”
I swallowed as I couldn’t help but think of Kay’s house, which fit that description to a tee.
“That’s exactly what would’ve happened if we’d sold. They’d have torn down the Ohana and some Texas oil tycoon would’ve put his second home there.”
A series of questions popped into my head, but I couldn’t ask any of them because we’d reached our destination.
Cars and scooters were parked all over the place, and surfboards were leaning against the porch railing.
The house was very different from what I’d imagined.
A simple, yellow wooden building on stilts with a surrounding deck, almost overgrown with palm trees and bushes.
Directly behind it stretched a mountain range whose densely overgrown rocks looked like a green velvet curtain.
I hadn’t expected Chip to live in such seclusion, surrounded by nature.
I didn’t really know him, but he struck me as someone who liked company and always needed people around.
I unbuckled my seat belt and got out. It was cooler up here—we’d driven quite a ways up the mountain. It smelled different too. Of wet earth and grass. The front door was wide open, and I could hear Jawaiian music, the Hawaiian form of reggae. It made me want to dance.
“Along there,” Vince said, as I made my way toward the door.
I shrugged and followed him to the back of the house.
Murmurs and laughter met us as we made our way toward the garden, which turned out to be a wild piece of land.
Apart from the trees and bushes, there weren’t any boundaries.
A guy in sunglasses was lounging in a hammock that had been strung between two palms, and a pretty wooden swing was hanging from a tree.
A few people were hanging out in the meadow, while others were standing together on the deck.
There were probably a few more people inside, which put the number of guests around twenty to twenty-five.
To my horror, I was indeed overdressed. Most of the people looked like they’d come straight from the beach, in bikinis or surf shorts.
I was tugging at my dress when Chip appeared on the deck.
He was barefoot, wearing paisley-print shorts, and a loose-fitting T-shirt.
His hair was once again up in a man bun and his three-day beard looked more like the seven-day variety.
“What are you doing here, man?” he said to Vince, raising his hand for a high five. “I thought…”
“Changed my mind,” Vince mumbled.
I frowned. Hadn’t he said he was going to the party anyway? But before I could think about it any further, Chip’s eyes landed on me.
“Aloha! I’d expected you even less than this dude here.”
“Laurie wanted to come, but she’s not feeling well,” I explained as Chip’s eyes darted back and forth between Vince and me.
“Well, welcome to my humble home.” He extended a welcoming gesture with his arms. “Go ahead and put your feet up.”