Chapter 3

Estella didn’t know what to expect when Queenie picked her up at Honolulu airport, whether that lascivious comment she’d made when Estella had been rescued meant there’d be more of that sort of thing. Truth be told, Queenie had an intimidating presence, and Estella didn’t know whether she wanted to be pounced upon by the Hawaiian Amazon.

Turned out Queenie was all sweetness, Aloha Spirit or something, hugging her in greeting rather than in sexual interest, and on their way to the house she lived in in Waikiki on the Ala Wai canal, her asking about Joe seemed more inquiring about his well-being more than more intimate details.

That all made sense when Queenie introduced her to Carol, a thickset white woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a tented muu-muu and her two mixed race kids, white and Hawaiian or hapa-haoli, Grace, 12, and Joy, 10. The two women looked completely connected, and Carol must have been a calming influence on Queenie’s intensity.

After hauling her bags up to the top floor, again the attic room, of the house, Queenie brought her back down for a late supper of teriyaki chicken and polenta with cooked carrots which a hungry Estella thoroughly enjoyed. The two kids were in the next room watching television.

“You must be wondering about this strange home,” Carol grinned, her well-tanned face showing laugh lines beside her eyes.

“If you know about Jackie and Sam, nothing’s strange anymore,” Estella giggled.

“Jackie’s that IT guy, friends with Joe,” Queenie explained.

“I guess not,” Estella said, embarrassed.

“No worries,” Queenie said. “Stell worked for Jackie and his wife, Sam.”

“And their two kids as a maid,” Estella added. “Thing is Jackie is flamboyantly gay if you know what I mean, and Sam is...”

“Butch,” Carol nodded. “Not a contest but...”

“They’re my nieces, and...,” Queenie began.

“Carol is your sister-in-law,” Estella finished.

“Ex, I suppose,” said Carol.

“Your ex?” Estella asked.

“None too pleased. I challenged his manhood preferring a woman, and his half-sister at that, however much I realized belatedly it was who I was, who I always had been. He got back with a cousin of his who I guess I’d stolen him away from, plenty of I told you so’s I suppose, but liked his haoli type, and things got violent when his wife got jealous, abuse on both parts I think until he killed her, accidentally I think, and went to prison for a few years. Last I heard he was out and living in Makaha.”

“The kids?” Estella asked.

“His wife wanted nothing to do with them.”

“Thank God,” Queenie said. “He’s my brother, but I always thought he was a selfish prick with a huge chip on his shoulder.”

“He could be very charming,” Carol explained, “innately intelligent, and lord knows handsome.”

“Bad boy charm,” Queenie argued.

“Probably,” Carol agreed. “I guess I preferred the bad girl.”

“At least I wasn’t hiding it like him.”

“True. You get what you see from you.”

They laughed.

“Not exactly true,” Estella thought.

Waking after a long sleep in the comfortable single bed, the trade winds keeping it perfect sleeping temperature, Estella showered in the half bath and dressed comfortably in a t shirt and cargo shorts and walking shoes. She filled her backpack, making her look even more like a college student, with her laptop, and just in case, a bikini rolled in a borrowed towel. She’d keep her papers in an envelope inside an outer zipped pocket if she did go swimming so they didn’t get wet.

“Breakfast?” Carol asked when Estella arrived downstairs.

“Coffee and cereal?”

“Kashi with papaya okay?”

“Sounds good.”

The coffee had a peculiar intensity, almost a sweetness beyond the sugar she’d added. “Hawaiian?” she asked.

“Kona,” Carol explained. “Too expensive considering it was grown only a few islands away, but Queenie insists on it. I make her buy it,” Carol laughed.

“Do you mind if I ask what you do?”

“School teacher.”

“Summer vacation?”

“Finally. I finally am veteran enough not to have to teach summer school. I was hoping on a long vacation with Queenie, but...”

“She has to work.”

“Yeah, whatever that might be. Late nights lately.”

“You never...”

“She insists. I know I’m good for it. I can actually see her relax when she gets home from ... whatever. So ... yeah ... gift horse and all that.”

“Are you going on vacation?”

“Yep. We’re leaving in a couple days so you can have the place to yourself,” Carol chuckled.

“What would a vacation be when you live in paradise?”

“The mainland. For us it’s visiting my folks. They’re mostly in Wisconsin, Madison to be exact. My dad’s a professor there. Philosophy. He had a sabbatical here and I came along, so...”

Estella nodded. “I’m actually heading to the University of Hawaii to officially matriculate and meet my professors.”

“Queenie said. Kind of odd starting in the summer.”

“It’s mostly research for my study on the Portogese here.”

Carol nodded, looking unconvinced.

Having mapped out the path to the University, Estella walked the few miles there, to the registrar’s office to be officially registered in her two classes, one on the linguistics of island pidgin and the other on Hawaiian history, then, as planned, with her teachers.

The associate professor of history she met first didn’t look like any she’d met before, deeply tanned, broad shouldered and in shape, his blue eyes and long blond hair restrained with a leather thong from what remained of his receding hairline made his somewhat leathery skin from over exposure to the sun obvious of his race if his skin color no longer did. His predatory grin made her wonder if he’d ever been caught fucking his students, which she was fairly sure he must do.

After shaking his hand, not surprisingly a firm grip, he waved to a seat and sat across a cluttered dark wood desk from her. “You realized this class begins post territory,” he said. “There’s a prerequisite class.”

“I do and got special consideration with my situation,” she returned. “Perhaps a syllabus for the previous class and any reading you might recommend? I’m a quick study.”

“Just a moment,” he grinned and tapped at his laptop, writing the result on a pad, handing it to her. “This will get you what you want.”

“And the phone number?”

“For any questions you might have.”

“Not your address?” she smirked.

“I don’t imagine my wife would appreciate the visit of such a pretty lady.”

“Probably not,” she chuckled.

“Let me give you this,” he said, handing her a few stapled sheets. “My syllabus.”

“Pretty extensive.”

“There’s a page of reading besides the course books, and I like to write historical quotes for the students to contemplate. Extra credit for any essay on their relevance.”

“That your text?” Estella noticed.

“A guy’s got to make a living,” he grinned. “You heard of Howard Zinn?”

“Read the People’s History of the United States in Portuguese,” she told him. “I’m a fan.”

“Good,” he approved.

“Your text...”

“I’m a fan too.”

“Good to hear. Looking forward to class.”

“Looking forward to you being there.”

“Can I ask do you always flirt?”

“Only with the ladies,” he admitted.

“If it’s more than that...”

“I’ll be good.”

“Just so you know, I have some moves you don’t want to witness, or feel for that matter.”

“I’ll be good,” he laughed.

“So, why summer school?”

“At heart I’m still a surf bum.”

“Oh?”

“Best waves are in winter. The summer waves suck.”

“Got it. You know, could you print out the other syllabus?”

“Sure.”

He did.

“Thanks,” she smiled, standing and receiving the pages and pushing the two syllabi into her backpack. She got up and swayed out, catching him looking. “You can look, but...,” she smirked.

“Got it,” he laughed.

Her next teacher couldn’t have been more different, slender and a lot taller than the usual Japanese, and a lot shier. Younger too, an instructor instead of any professorship. She couldn’t help finding him cute despite himself.

After introductions they sat across a much smaller metal desk, nearly empty of anything, and what remained had been neatly arranged.

“How many generations have your family been here?” she asked him.

“Third, and first,” he told her. “My father visited with his baseball team and stayed, fell in love with my mom and of course the island. Her father always approved when she didn’t date gaijin.”

“Thus your height,” Estella nodded. “Hawaiian Japanese always that strict?”

“Not always but it’s not rare either. There’s a fairly insulated group on the windward side of the island.”

“Your community?”

“Yes.”

“So if you dated a gaijin?”

He blushed. “They think I’m a lost cause.”

“Oh?”

“I think maybe they think I’m gay.”

“Are you?”

“No. Just ... nervous.”

“You never...”

“I’m not a virgin!” he exclaimed. “Sorry.”

“So there’s a lucky girl?”

“No ... I ... This meeting is for you.”

“I think it’s for us, getting to know each other, you know. But I get your meaning.”

“So you’re a graduate student, right?”

“Your equivalent of a Bachelor’s Degree, graduated this spring.”

“Major?”

“Anthropology, specifically cultural anthropology.”

“I can see how linguistics fits with that, however...”

“Any enthnolinguistics or cultural linguistics should be subsumed in the general understanding of linguistics, in the science of language, why we talk in general. But to me, language is always political.”

“How so?”

“I mean it’s obvious, isn’t it? One must speak properly to be among the elite, yes? Language is classist as in those of the uppercrust speak uppercrust and those of the lower levels of society, especially the lowest, have their own way of speaking, almost their own language really. One of those low rungs wants a place up higher, they have to sublimate their own way of speaking and speak that upper class language pretty much every step up, you know? And then there are cultures within cultures, almost outcasts you might say, that create their own speech patterns, perhaps bringing their old world words into the new. Pidgin.”

“I see.”

“I find it fascinating that my people, Portuguese, have had a presence here for many years, perhaps hundreds considering Portugal had been one of most far flung of European exploring nations. You’d think these Portuguese would completely subsume themselves into the culture of this new world.”

“No more than the English or Americans did.”

“Exactly. But of the lower class, yes? With their own pidgin, adjusted to the ownership of the Americans once the royals had been infected by Christianity and finally conquered. To be honest, my interest is personal. I want to research whether there are families here with associations I know of from Portugal or Brazil. So I’d like to research their presence here, their pidgin, but also their oral histories, however much they exist.”

“Interesting and ambitious.”

“I’m thinking of it as a Master’s thesis, but I’d like to see if at least part of it fits into your class. Whether or not it does, I’d like to study linguistics one way or the other.”

He nodded. “We’ll see, but I appreciate your interest.”

“Well Ken,” Estella asked, standing. “Any plans for after office hours? It is after hours, yes?”

“Uhm, no. I mean, yes it is and no I don’t.”

“Great. Show me the island. I just got here.”

“Uhm.”

“Perhaps a favorite beach. I haven’t even been yet.”

“As you can see, I haven’t much either,” he chuckled shyly, referring to his lack of suntan.

“Nevertheless.”

“Okay. Okay. But I need to make a couple stops.”

First they went to Stadium Village, the University’s student social area where he had a small apartment in a small apartment building. “Give me a few minutes,” he said shyly, closing the door to his bedroom. He kept the rest of the apartment clean and organized and sparse just like the desk in his office. He emerged still looking collegiate, more student than professor really, still with long pants. “Okay,” he said.

They returned to the Isuzu four by four and used the Pali Highway to cross over to the Windward side, stopping at a tourist spot between the two sides and looking out at the side they would drive to.

“Beautiful,” she told him over the hard trade winds.

“Yes,” he said, cutely looking at her.

Next stop his parents’ house. Within a community of modest suburban houses they stopped in a drive-way.

“You want me to meet your parents?” she asked.

“They’ll be fine. Besides my snorkel equipment is here. You can borrow my sister’s.”

“Snorkel?”

“About the easiest skill to pick up. You can swim?”

“Of course.”

“So, no problem. Come on.”

No avoiding the meeting, the couple were in the living room, both standing when they saw Ken’s guest. “Mom, Dad, this is Estella.”

Bowing ensued. “Sit,” said the mom.

“Be right back,” Ken pronounced.

“No hurry,” said the mom.

She stood maybe three inches taller than Estella, a very pretty face and body on the thick side while his father looked to be as tall as Ken, but stockier. The mom did the interviewing, the dad seeming as shy as his son.

“Where are you from?” the mother asked.

“Brazil,” Estella told her.

“I have family there, distant cousins. Or maybe it’s Peru.”

“There’s some Japanese in both countries,” Estella nodded. “Probably for similar reason as your family emigrated here.”

“Agricultural work, yes, I think so,” the mom agreed. “We don’t like to think on those early days.”

“I suppose not. I believe the people of Japanese heritage have done especially well here.”

“Of course,” the mom smirked. “Where on earth did our Ken find such a lovely woman?”

“She’s a student of mine,” Ken muttered, having gathered the gear. “Just arriving here, and wished to be shown around.”

“As you say, Ken,” the mom nodded. “Pleasure meeting you.”

“You too,” Estella nodded back, nodding to the quiet father as well and getting a nod.

“Sorry,” Ken said back in the car.

“Not a problem,” Estella chuckled. “She seemed nice enough.”

“She is, for appearance sake. I’m sure there’ll be twenty questions later.”

“Not too in depth I hope,” Estella winked and patted his thigh.

“Uhm...”

She could swear she could see some expansion nearby.

They arrived at a popular snorkeling spot with a substantial changing room for Estella. Ken wore his trunks beneath his pants. She emerged wearing a fairly modest dark red bikini, but a bikini after all, and Ken looked quite appreciative. Whatever netting inside the trunks seemed to prevent any real definition, but that expanded lump hinted at his excitement.

As he promised, the snorkeling lessons he gave her didn’t last all that long, and they soon swam out to where the fish played amongst the coral. The coral itself wasn’t all that spectacular, but the fish certainly were. It took a couple times diving under the water before she became comfortable rising up and expelling all of the water in her snorkel, but soon she felt like a pro.

They spent at least an hour there witnessing the variety of beautiful tropical fish. They spotted a much less beautiful and somewhat scary eel, at least the head of it since the body hid in a hole in the coral, which Estella especially enjoyed watching as did Ken, who’d hoped they’d spot one.

Afterwards they headed to a point at the west coast of Oahu where they snuck onto what seemed to be private land and watched the sun set. They had changed, and Estella noticed Ken had gone commando.

Ken leaned into her really for the first time. “See the huge house to our left?” he asked.

“Hard to miss,” Estella chuckled.

“That’s where the man lives.”

“You’re...”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t nearly as shy as you pretended,” Estella giggled and pounced on him, kissing him thoroughly. Definitely commando.

Breaking the kiss and gathering his breath, he reluctantly told her, “Not here.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he laughed.

They snuck back to the car and Ken drove them to Waikiki. Parking, he sent a message. “Nothing. Okay,” he said. “Hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Seafood okay?”

“Of course.”

They walked to an outdoor bar/restaurant in the residential area of Waikiki and a fey Japanese man guided them to a table and took drink orders.

“A Mai Tai I think,” Estella decided.

Ken chose a Japanese rice beer.

He guided her to get the Mahi Mahi while he went with the Ahi, or tuna. She changed to his beer to better taste the flavor of the fish, which she definitely did, his too, though less so.

His phone chimed towards the end of the meal, interrupting a conversation more fully fleshed out and honest since she found out he was part of the team. “Okay,” he said after some typing. “Let’s finish up.”

“No dessert?”

“Only if you don’t want another kind of dessert,” he winked.

“Let’s finish up,” she agreed.

They walked back to where they parked and entered a tall condominium, which he had access to. The elevator took them to the penultimate floor. He knocked at a door and then opened it with a key.

A gorgeous Japanese woman in either her late twenties or early thirties wearing a diaphanous robe greeted him with a hug. “Estella, right?” the woman, her voice somewhat husky and definitely sexy, asked.

“I am. And you are?”

“Keiko, but you can call me Kei.”

“And you are?” Estella asked again.

Kei laughed. “Ken’s whore.”