The Aloha Quilt (28 page)

When she went to the kitchen, she found Midori seated on a stool at the center island,
perusing a cookbook as she chatted on the phone. “That’s just silly. Ask her yourself,”
Bonnie overheard her say as she searched the refrigerator for leftovers to heat up,
or better yet, some tasty sandwich fixings. “She just walked in.”

Bonnie glanced at Midori over her shoulder, surprised to discover herself the subject
of conversation. “Who is it?” she mouthed, gathering up sliced turkey, provolone,
mustard, lettuce, and tomato and setting everything on the island.

Midori covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “My nephew.”

“What does he want?” she whispered, coming around the counter to take a loaf from
the breadbox.

“She wants to know what you want,” Midori repeated into the phone.

“Don’t tell him that,” protested Bonnie.

“Here she is.” With that, Midori handed her the phone.

Fumbling with the loaf of bread and the handset, Bonnie almost hung up on him. “Hello?”
she said, dropping the bag on the counter so clumsily that the twist-tie popped off
and a few slices tumbled out. Midori tsked her tongue in disapproval. “Hinano?”

“Eh, howzit, snowbird? My aunt tells me you’ve been moping
around feeling sorry for yourself and scaring the guests away.”

Embarrassed, Bonnie forced a laugh. “I find it hard to believe Midori said that.”

“Maybe not in so many words. Sorry about Elm Creek Quilts. It must’ve hurt to sign
those papers.”

“So much I almost couldn’t hold the pen.”

“It might not be forever,” Hinano said. “You don’t know how things will work out.”

That was certainly true. Bonnie had given up trying to predict the future, because
every time she thought she knew what would happen next, an unexpected twist of misfortune
blind-sided her. “I still have a job there,” she said. “It won’t be the same, but
at least they haven’t fired me. Not yet.”

“From what Aunt Midori tells me, I don’t think they will.”

“We’ll see.” If Craig had any more nasty tricks planned, they might have to, although
they would probably ask for her resignation rather than fire her. She prayed it would
never come to that. “Claire’s offered me a partnership in the Hale Kapa Kuiki, so
at least I have options.”

“Yeah, my aunt mentioned that,” Hinano said. “But if you don’t cheer up, Claire might
change her mind. No one wants to work with a grouch.”

“I’m trying to recall if we’ve ever had a conversation in which you haven’t deliberately
insulted me, and you know something? I can’t think of one.”

“That wasn’t an insult. It was a friendly warning.”

“Really. Then thanks, I guess.” From the corner of her eye, Bonnie spied Midori fighting
to hide a smile. “Is that why you called?”

“No, I wanted to add another item to your list of activities for your campers.”

“Oh.” Sometimes Bonnie forgot that he could be helpful, on occasion. She glanced around
for paper and pen. “I don’t have my notebook with me. Could you hold on a moment?”

“I’m not going to tell you what it is. I’m going to show you. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. My aunt said you need a day off. You aren’t afraid of flying in little planes,
are you?”

“No.” Suddenly Bonnie had an alarming thought. “As long as I get to stay on board
throughout the flight.”

“Uh, okay, that shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. “Why? Do you have a habit of falling
out?”

“No, I just have this terrible feeling that you plan to take me skydiving.”

Hinano burst out laughing. “No. Nothing that exciting. My friend runs a private air
shuttle service and he’s going over to Oahu for the day. He has room in the plane,
so I thought you might like a chance to visit another island.”

Bonnie thought it over quickly. “I would, but I’m not sure if it would be practical
to schedule evening programs that take our campers off Maui.”

“Then don’t think of this as a research trip for quilt camp. Come for yourself. Trust
me, there’s something there you should see. Afterward, if you decide the trip was
a big waste of time, you can punch me in the arm. Or yell at me. Or both.”

She was on the verge of begging off with the excuse that she had too much work to
do when it occurred to her that she hadn’t left the inn except for her morning walks
in days. She had been in Hawaii for more than two months and she had hardly ventured
out of Lahaina. When her trip was over and the islands became a place of warmth, color,
and fragrance that she
could visit only in memories, wouldn’t she regret seeing little more of them than
the same few square miles?

“I’d love to go,” she told Hinano. “As long as it won’t require a parachute or a crash
helmet, I’m in.”

“I’ll save the extreme sports for another time,” he said. “Tomorrow at eight too early
for you?”

She would miss half of the breakfast service, but she doubted Midori would mind. “Eight
o’clock is fine.”

“Good, then it’s a date. I’ll pick you up at the inn. See you tomorrow.”

“See you,” she said, but he had already hung up.

“Well?” prompted Midori as Bonnie replaced the phone.

“Hinano’s taking me to Oahu tomorrow on a top-secret mission to show me something
important.”

“Wear comfortable walking shoes,” Midori suggested, confirming Bonnie’s suspicions
that she knew exactly where Hinano intended to take her and what he wanted her to
see. Perhaps Midori herself had proposed the outing. But if that were true, would
Hinano have called it a date?

Of course he would have, Bonnie told herself, brushing off a sudden twinge of worry.
People said “It’s a date” all the time without meaning that it was a date in the romantic
sense. He knew she was still married. She and Hinano didn’t even get along very well,
at least not all the time.

Hinano was helping her with her research, nothing more. But it was an act of friendship
at a time when she felt bereft of friends.

The next morning Bonnie dressed in light capri pants, a soft cotton T-shirt, and her
most comfortable walking shoes. She was helping Midori serve breakfast when Hinano
arrived,
twenty minutes early. She was flattered until she realized he had come early not for
her but to spend time catching up with his aunt over coffee and pineapple pecan muffins.

While Hinano and Midori chatted about family and friends, Bonnie slipped away to check
her email, a task she had come to dread since Darren Taylor rarely had any good news
and the Elm Creek Quilters’ cheerful reassurances rang false. To her relief, that
morning she had only a few photos from Tammy, a quilting question from a former student,
and two reminders to pay bills. She took her time responding and logged off at five
minutes to eight, returning to the kitchen in time to hear Hinano lamenting that his
son wanted to spend semester break with his girlfriend on Oahu. “It won’t be much
of a Mele Kalikimaka without Kai,” he said.

Shaking her head, Midori set another muffin on his plate. “Kai has to spend Christmas
with
ohana
. Just tell the boy he has to come home.”

“Auntie, he wasn’t asking for permission. He was telling me his plans.” Hinano glanced
up, spotted Bonnie, and grinned. “Eh, snowbird. Ready to fly?”

“You haven’t finished breakfast,” Midori protested.

He patted his stomach and held up his palms in surrender. “Auntie, two muffins are
my limit these days.”

“You’re getting too skinny. You should come around more often and let me feed you.”

Bonnie wouldn’t have described Hinano’s solid wrestler’s build as skinny, and apparently
Hinano agreed. “I don’t miss many meals,” he assured his aunt. “But the food’s good
here and the company’s all right. Maybe I’ll come back.”

Midori swatted him with a dishtowel and said something in a mixture of Hawaiian and
Japanese that made Hinano laugh even harder. “We better go before she hurts me,” Hinano
said
to Bonnie. Amused, she retrieved her purse from Claire’s office and met him at the
front door—but she took her time rather than rescue him too soon.

His car, a ten-year-old blue hatchback that had seen better days, was parked on the
street at the end of the block. The door creaked when he opened it for her, but it
closed with a solid, reassuring thunk when he shut it after she slid into the vinyl
seat. An air freshener shaped like a palm tree dangled from the rearview mirror, giving
off the faint scent of orange.

“It doesn’t look like much but it gets great gas mileage,” Hinano said as he turned
the key and released the clutch. Bonnie nodded and wondered if it was too much to
hope that it also had functioning air bags.

As they drove south out of Lahaina, Bonnie asked, “What was Midori saying to you back
there?”

“She was scolding me.”

“I figured that. What was she saying?”

“I don’t know. I only understood half of it.” Hinano slowed at a stop sign, flicked
on the turn signal, and waved a pedestrian across before pulling onto the highway.
“The Hawaiian half. I speak only a bit of Japanese, words I picked up here and there,
mostly insults and food.”

“You’re not part Japanese, too, like your aunt?”

Hinano shook his head. “Aunt Midori married my father’s brother. Me, I’m
kanaka maoli
, native Hawaiian. Kai has some Japanese from his mother’s side, though.”

After that, Hinano abruptly changed the subject and began describing some of the more
notorious tourist traps as they drove past. His anecdotes were so amusingly preposterous
that Bonnie was sure he was making them up, but he swore every word was true. Perhaps
to enhance his credibility, he tempered the more outlandish parts of his narrative
with historical
facts, so Bonnie learned that Lahaina meant “merciless sun” or “a day of calamity”
depending upon whom one asked and how one pronounced it; that the town had been the
unofficial royal capital of the Hawaiian islands in the early eighteen hundreds; and
that Kamehameha the Great in particular had loved Lahaina for its spectacular surfing.
Whalers had considered it one of the most important ports in the Pacific, even though
they hunted whales far to the north rather than in Hawaiian waters.

“They wintered here, making repairs, replenishing stores,” Hinano explained as they
turned on to the main highway that wound through lush mountains as it cut across the
island. “After the whaling era ended, Lahaina made its money off the sugar industry,
the pineapple plantations, and,” he gave Bonnie an acknowledging nod, “tourism.”

“Why do you indicate me when you talk about tourism?” said Bonnie. “I’m more than
a tourist. I work here, and—”

She was about to add that she might be staying, but she halted before the words tumbled
out.

“I wasn’t calling you a tourist,” said Hinano mildly. “I only meant that you make
your living from tourists. You’re in that industry as opposed to pineapple or sugar
or whaling, unless you’ve been moonlighting without telling anyone.”

“Oh.” She thought of herself as belonging to the quilting industry, but she supposed
he had a point. “I see.”

He shook his head. “This’ll be a long day if you’re going to be so sensitive.”

“I was going to say the same about you, except instead of sensitive, I was going to
say insulting.”

“Insulting?” Hinano protested. “I’ve been on my best behavior.”

Bonnie hid a smile. “I don’t dispute that.”

“Now you’re just teasing me.”

She shifted in her seat to better admire the view out the side window. “Maybe a little.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw his grin widening. “You pretend to be annoyed,
but I think you like me.”

Bonnie hesitated. “Maybe a little.” Before he could reply, she added, “You’re a fairly
good tour guide.”

He mulled that over and shrugged. “That’s a start.”

Bonnie kept her face turned toward the window, smiling.

Hinano fell easily into the tour guide role as they drove across Maui, naming mountains
and native plants, relating legends and histories. Before long they reached the Kahului
Airport, but instead of parking near the main terminal, he turned off farther down
the road, passed through a security checkpoint, and pulled to a stop at a private
hangar. As they climbed out of the car, Hinano called out a greeting to a pilot standing
at the foot of the stairs to a Cessna propjet. The pilot responded with a brief wave
before returning his attention to the two men in business suits boarding the plane,
briefcases in hand.

Bonnie followed Hinano on board, ducking her head as she passed through the doorway
and quickly counting eight seats. She had never been on such a small plane before,
not even for short hops from the Elm Creek Valley regional airport to Pittsburgh or
Philadelphia. She hid her nervousness as she settled into her seat at the back of
the plane across the aisle from Hinano, tested her seatbelt with a sharp tug, and
glanced around for the nearest life vest and air sickness bag.

Soon they were under way, and after a smooth liftoff and a breathtaking aerial view
of an exquisite, emerald green Maui, Bonnie began to relax. It was too loud for comfortable
conversation, so she gazed out the window admiring the dazzling blue of the ocean.
When a bump of unexpected turbulence made
her instinctively clutch her armrests, she started at the touch of a hand upon hers.
“Don’t tell me a snowbird doesn’t like to fly,” Hinano said over the drone of the
engines.