The Island Decides

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.

Maui Island Press

P.O. Box 176

Wailuku, Hawaii 96793

www.mauiislandpress.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design by Cynthia Conrad

Cover Photo from 123RF.com

Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9765136-3-6

Print ISBN: 978-0-9765136-4-7

Chapter One

The Maui air touched her cheek like velvet, soft and warm, as she stepped off the plane. Carrie Ann blinked against the bright sunlight. Her eyes burned from the airplane’s dry air, and her nose felt parched. She clutched the railing and descended steep steps behind the other passengers. The couple ahead of her chuckled; big yellow footsteps were painted on the tarmac, as if a barefoot giant had led the way to the terminal. Carrie Ann stood for a moment beneath the plane’s wing, refreshed by the moisture-laden breeze. A swath of green edged the runway and, beyond that, a great mountain loomed against a cloudless, brilliant blue sky.

Somewhere on this island was her little girl.

She hoisted the strap of her bag higher onto her shoulder, then nervously checked to see that it still held the little notebook with the phone number and address for the Maui Legal Aid office. The lawyer in the San Francisco office had arranged everything—she had an appointment with the Maui lawyer tomorrow, and Friday they would go to court. With any luck, she’d be back at this airport within a week and on the way home with Rorie. She took a deep breath of sea-scented air and followed the other passengers along the yellow footprint path.

Inside the terminal, a living tree spread its branches wide and reached up through a hole in the roof. Beyond the tree, the terminal was open to the air. Carrie Ann hadn’t seen many airports, but somehow she didn’t think trees were among the usual furnishings. She retrieved her suitcase and went outside to look for a taxi. She didn’t want to start right out hitchhiking here, though she’d done it often enough in California. At least until she knew her way around, she was willing to spend a little of her precious money. Besides, she had no idea where she would stay tonight.

“Yes ma’am, you need taxi?” A dark-skinned man with a big smile and a flowered shirt greeted her. Carrie Ann thought he looked vaguely Mexican, but his accent was unfamiliar.

“I need a taxi, and I need a good cheap hotel. You know someplace where I can get a room? It needs to be near, uh . . . ” she fumbled in her shoulder bag for the Legal Aid address. “Wahluckoo?”

The man smiled, said, “Wye-loo-koo,” and opened the cab’s back door. “No more hotel in Wailuku,” he said, “but get some in Kahului, not too far away. I take you there.”

At the hotel, the front desk clerk greeted her with a smile as big as the cab driver’s and gave her a room in a detached one-story cinder-block building. It was pretty basic, but then that’s all she could afford anyway, a place to sleep and shower. The room was small but looked clean enough. Right outside the window was a plant with brilliantly colored leaves—green, red, yellow, orange—the colors mixed on each leaf as if someone had splattered different paints across the plant. Carrie Ann hung her one dress in the closet, splashed her face with cold water, and set out to explore. She spotted a little shopping center across a wide street lined with tall palms and crossed over to look for a grocery store. Tonight, she thought, she’d have yogurt for dinner and save the cost of eating out.

But there was no yogurt in the grocery store, and the clerk looked blank when she asked for it. She bought crackers, an apple, and cheese and took them back across the road. Instead of going to her room, she wandered around to the other side of the hotel and discovered it was set on a beach.

The beach was narrow, with an industrial-looking pier at one end. But it was a beach nonetheless, with silvery water lapping at the shore. Across the bay, mountains rose into the sky, sharp ridges blocking the late-day sun so that its rays shot up in spears behind them, piercing the clouds clustered around the peaks.

Carrie Ann sank onto the warm sand and sat simply staring at this incredible sight. She’d never seen anything like it in Texas or California, green mountains rising steeply above the shining water, golden light imparting a glow to misty clouds. Peace settled over her. Even though she had no idea when she’d see her child again or what the judge would say in court, at least she knew where Rorie was. And sitting on this beach, watching the sun go down, she thought Maui was a fine place to be.

Her peaceful mood lasted as she took a hot shower and crawled into bed. Clean sheets were luxurious after long hours of travel. She was surprised how tired she was after the flight, her first time ever in an airplane. Images of clouds floated through her mind as they’d floated below the plane, white and fluffy like the bubbles in a fresh-filled sink of dishwater.

A strange chirping sound startled her out of a doze. She turned on the light and lay without moving. The chirp sounded again. It was coming from a little lizard high on the molding at the ceiling’s edge. She contemplated the creature for a moment. She’d never heard of a lizard bothering anyone. Okay, buddy, she thought, turning off the light—you stay in your corner, and I’ll stay in mine.

But now she was awake. For days she’d been buoyed by the logistics of getting to Hawaii and by the knowledge, after nearly a month of anxiety, that Rorie was alive.

Finally, Carrie Ann was here, on an island she’d never heard of until a week ago, and the anxiety was rising again in her chest. She knew no one in this place. Tomorrow she’d have to tell a stranger, the Legal Aid lawyer, how she’d lost her child, and win him to her side so he’d help her tell her story to a judge.

What if they didn’t believe her? And should she tell them how she came to send her baby off with Willie and his space-cadet friends in the first place?

No, she decided, it was best not to mention her weekend with Glenn. She turned over to face the wall, trying to find comfort in this strange hotel bed that only a short time ago had seemed luxurious.

No one here needed to know she’d wanted to get Rorie out of the way for a few days so she could spend time with Glenn. And so what, she thought—her motives were righteous weren’t they? Yes, of course she needed a man, but not only for herself. If she found the right one, he would be a father for Rorie. She couldn’t help it if they all ran as soon as they realized she came with a child attached. Glenn had seemed different, willingly including Rorie in their walks through Golden Gate Park, treating her to ice cream, waiting patiently while Carrie Ann put her to bed before he pulled out his hash pipe.

She had done her best that weekend—cooked her famous enchiladas, given him a backrub, brushed his long, wavy hair. Still, she hadn’t heard from him since. Carrie Ann didn’t get it. She knew she was pretty, with a slender body and thick honey-gold hair. She thought her eyes were her best feature—big and hazel-green, rimmed with dark lashes. She could cook, keep house, and sew well enough to earn some side money making fancy shirts for rock ’n’ roll musicians.

But she couldn’t find a man. She’d had no steady boyfriend since Rorie’s dad, Jack, split to Canada. Was it her personality? Or was it because she had a kid?

Carrie Ann turned onto her other side, sighing as she plumped the pillow. Outside a slow rain fell, heavy drops hitting the roof and pattering on the bushes near the window. The sound of rain relaxed her once again, and Carrie Ann finally slipped into sleep.

Birds chirping woke her in the morning. There must have been hundreds of them outside her window, headquartered in a big spreading tree like the one in the airport terminal. She sat up and put her face to the screen. Was it her imagination, or did the air smell sweet?

She crossed the street again to find somewhere to eat breakfast. The little shopping center was already busy. Old men sat playing cards at tables scattered under shady trees, and people pushed carts into the grocery store. Carrie Ann paused, looking around for a restaurant. At one of the open-air tables, a man sat reading a newspaper. He spotted Carrie Ann and scowled, looked down at the newspaper and then at her again, still frowning. Puzzled, she glanced around. She was the only white person in sight—was that why he frowned? She had no idea how the races got along here. Everyone had been friendly so far. Could it be the way she was dressed? She wore bell-bottoms and a tie-dyed T-shirt, along with the earrings and necklace she’d made with beads from her friend Kathryn’s store. Maybe she should have worn a bra.

Well, whatever it was, she had to get going. She peered into the window of a drugstore and saw that it had an old-fashioned counter and stools like the one she remembered from her elementary-school days. Inside, she chose a stool, ordered a ham-and-egg sandwich, and looked around. Only a few customers were at the counter. An elderly Asian man sat a few seats away, eating some sort of soup full of noodles, and another man sipped coffee, reading the paper. By the time she had finished her sandwich, he was gone, leaving the newspaper folded on the counter. Carrie Ann picked it up. When she saw the front page, she realized why that man outside had frowned at her.

A photo depicted long-haired dancers somewhere outdoors, with palm trees in the background. “Love-in Desecrates Hawaiiana, Says Maui Councilman,” the headline read.

Councilman Joe Rodrigues called last Sunday’s rock concert at Baldwin Park a desecration of Hawaiian values. Speaking at a Chamber of Commerce meeting Friday, Rodrigues said the event was typical of those sponsored by the “hippie newcomers who have washed ashore” in recent years.

“Half-naked women, dirty little children with no diapers on, men who need a shave and a haircut—all gyrating to loud rock ’n’ roll. We need to do something about this invasion,” the councilman told a group of about 30 Chamber members.

Rodrigues said the recent quarantine of Guava Gulch was one example of the problems these newcomers are bringing to the island. “Besides the health hazard of them exposing our people to filthy diseases, it cost a lot of money to keep the police on patrol and bring food to those people down there.

“Even worse, they found one child down there that didn’t belong to anybody, had to put her up for adoption by a good local family. These people can’t even keep track of their own kids!”

Carrie Ann stopped reading. Her face burned. No wonder that man outside had given her such a terrible look, and he had not even known that she was probably the parent of that child, the very person who could not keep track of her own kid. She folded the paper so the story and its accompanying picture were hidden and hesitated for a moment. No, she did not want to keep that story. She carried the paper with her out of the drugstore and dropped it into a trash can. The man who had frowned at her was no longer at his table, but she was self-conscious now of her San Francisco hippie looks, and she avoided eye contact with the solid citizens of Maui as she left the shopping center and crossed the road to the hotel.

Carrie Ann changed into the conservative navy-blue dress she had bought especially for this trip, then contemplated her image in the mirror. Why had she seen that damn newspaper, today of all days? She was already nervous enough, without reading about her own irresponsibility on the front page of a local newspaper. She wondered if the lawyer had seen it. Everyone on Maui must be talking about her.

Once in a taxicab, her thoughts switched to another topic of anxiety. If she kept staying in hotels and paying for cabs, she would be broke in no time. At least the ride to Wailuku was a short trip. If she had known where she was going, she probably could have walked, though the hill between the two towns was steep. Wailuku was more village than town, a quiet cluster of buildings set in the foothills of the mountains she’d admired from the beach the night before.

The cabbie dropped her off outside a small green cottage with a Legal Aid sign above the front door. Carrie Ann stood nervously combing her hair with her fingers, gathering courage to enter. She hoped she looked okay. She’d gone secondhand-store shopping with Kathryn when she learned she had to go to court, and they’d picked out this little navy-blue number with its neat white collar. She’d put on her bra for this meeting, and there were stockings in her suitcase for the actual day in court, along with real shoes instead of the Indian leather sandals she usually wore. Kathryn had trimmed inches off her hair so it swung straight and thick just to her shoulders and had counseled her to wear a little lipstick to court.

She was early. The Legal Aid secretary said the attorney, Rick Stinson, wouldn’t be able to see her for a while. Carrie Ann sat down and stared out a window at a tree with pink blossoms that reminded her of the simple cartoonish flowers Rorie liked to draw.

“Carrie Ann Emerson?”

The man standing in the doorway was young and bearded, with wire-rimmed glasses, rolled-up shirtsleeves, and long hair pulled back into a braid. Carrie Ann let herself relax. This guy looked like someone she might have met back in San Francisco, not the stuffy, judgmental old guy she’d expected. Kind of handsome, she thought, automatically checking his left hand for a ring. Not that a bare finger really meant anything.

“Have you seen Rorie?” Carrie Ann asked as they settled into chairs on each side of a scarred wooden desk. “Is she okay? Will I get to see her pretty soon?”

“I haven’t seen her myself,” the lawyer replied. “But I talked to her social worker, and he says she’s doing fine, staying with a nice family with another kid. You’ll probably see her Friday, when we go to court.”

Carrie Ann bit her lip. “Well, at least she’s okay. At least I know where she is.”

Rick leaned back in his chair and tugged on his beard. “So tell me. What’s happening here?”

“You mean how Rorie got lost?”

“Yeah. You gotta admit this is a pretty unusual situation.”

Carrie Ann clasped her hands tightly in her lap and plunged in. “Last month, I let her go on a camping trip with Willie Sampson, an old friend of mine—we grew up in the same neighborhood, and he’s known Rorie since—well, since before she was born. He babysits her sometimes, and I had some other stuff happening that weekend. He was going camping, so we thought it would be cool for her to go on her first camping trip, you know?

“Anyway, while they were camping Willie got this terrible stomachache, and someone took him to the hospital. Turned out he had appendicitis and they had to operate, like right away.”

Carrie Ann paused. Tears stung her eyes. “So somebody named Paula ended up taking care of Rorie, and then she had a fight with her old man and split for Los Angeles. And this weird chick who was camping with them, I guess she told Paula she didn’t need to hurry to get Rorie back home because I didn’t really want to be a mom, and I wouldn’t mind if Rorie never came home.” She sniffed. “At least, that’s what one of the other guys who was camping told me when I was trying to figure out what happened.” Her voice broke. “I can’t believe she said that, some chick I barely know, and she pretty much ruined my life.”

Rick reached back and took a box of tissues off the shelf behind him. He pushed it across the desk to Carrie Ann, who blew her nose and tried to get control of herself. Shit. How could she have told this lawyer, this stranger, that terrible thing? This was the first time she had told anyone but Kathryn and her husband, Duke, and the first time she’d let herself think about it for weeks.

“And is that true? Do you not want to be a mother?”

“It’s not true! I love my daughter and I’ve been worried sick. I want her back. I came all this way to get her, didn’t I?” Carrie Ann paused. “It’s just . . . it’s hard, having a kid and not having an old man, and having a kid makes it harder to find a man, so it’s kind of a vicious circle, you know? So maybe I don’t always seem that happy to be a mom.”

“What happened to Rorie’s dad?”

Carrie Ann looked down at her hands, twisting the damp tissue.

“That was Jack. That’s how I got to San Francisco. I quit school to follow him out there when he went to join this rock band. I caught a ride with Willie; he was transferring to San Francisco State. Anyway, Jack got a draft notice and split to Canada, and right afterward I found out I was pregnant. I wrote to him about it, but I don’t even know if he ever got my letters.”

“So, it’s just been you two?”

“Yeah, except I have some really good friends who’ve helped a lot—my girlfriend Kathryn and her husband, Duke—he manages the band Jack played in—and my roommate, Mimi, and of course Willie.” Carrie Ann shook her head. “Poor Willie, he freaked when he found out what happened. As soon as he could get out of the hospital, he helped me look for her. And Duke called his rock ’n’ roll connections—he knows a lot of people all over California. Then Duke and Willie and I drove down to L.A., since that’s where Paula headed after the fight with her old man, but we couldn’t find any sign of them. Plus of course we told the police, but they weren’t much help. I guess they figured I was some hippie who couldn’t take care of her kid.”

Carrie Ann dabbed her eyes with a fresh tissue. “And my social worker—she was really pissed, not helpful at all. She said maybe I shouldn’t get to keep Rorie even if I found her. And she was going to cut off my welfare right away, but I begged her to keep it going, so I wouldn’t have to find a job, and I could keep looking for Rorie.”

“Did she go for that?”

“Yeah, she let me stay on welfare until the end of this month. I called her when I heard where Rorie was, and then she was helpful—told me to call Legal Aid in San Francisco and get them to set up an appointment with you. And here I am.”

Carrie Ann paused to wipe her cheeks dry again.

“How did you find out where Rorie was?”

“About a week ago, somebody Willie knew from San Francisco State showed up. He had been here on Maui, living in some commune, and I guess they had an epidemic?”

Rick nodded. “Hepatitis. It’s pretty much over, but they were under quarantine for a while. That’s where Rorie showed up.”

“Well, this guy said the cops found Rorie and turned her over to foster parents and she was really happy . . .” Carrie Ann began to sob and almost couldn’t finish her sentence, “and they wanted to adopt her and keep her.” She pulled another tissue from the box.

For a moment, Rick sat, letting her cry, then asked, “Any idea how she got from California to Maui?”

Carrie Ann shook her head. “No idea. I don’t know if Paula brought her or someone else—we never did manage to track down Paula. I don’t know how anyone could take a child that wasn’t theirs and bring her all this way across the ocean. It’s unbelievable.”

“Yeah, pretty weird,” Rick said. “You want to hear what I know?”

She nodded, trying to compose herself.

“I got involved in the Guava Gulch situation representing a couple of the people there who were not sick and didn’t want to be forced to stay in the Gulch. I knew about Rorie—they found her with a woman named Sundance, kind of a freaky lady who was one of the last ones to get sick. Anyway, she didn’t really know who Rorie belonged to, and Rorie seemed to have forgotten her last name and where she lived, so they put her into foster care. And you know about the legal ad that ran in the Maui News, we sent that to you after the San Francisco attorney contacted us.”

“Yeah, that freaked me out.” The ad, creased from much rereading and refolding, was tucked into her wallet. She could almost quote it verbatim. “To the parents of Rorie, a 4-year-old female child, greetings: you are hereby notified that the Department of Social Services and Housing has petitioned the Second Circuit Court, County of Maui, for legal custody of the above-named infant.” Be in court on Maui September 17, 1971, the ad said, or lose your child.

“And this family that has her. They really want to adopt her?”

“I guess so. But that’s not the immediate problem. No one can adopt a child until parental custody has been terminated, and that’s what we face in court day after tomorrow. You have to prove to the judge that you are a fit mother.”

Carrie Ann chewed her thumbnail. How could she prove a thing like that to a judge in court, especially after ending up in this freaky situation? She looked at Rick, so handsome, so competent; a lawyer who knew about court and judges and how these things worked. He would know what to do. She had to trust him to guide her. She had no choice. “I can see her Friday?”

“Yeah, not in the courtroom, but probably with the social worker in a private room before the court session. The social worker says Rorie’s doing okay now, but she was pretty scrawny when they found her, with head lice and pinworms.” Carrie Ann closed her eyes and groaned. “But she’s doing a lot better,” Rick repeated hastily.

“Poor baby,” Carrie Ann whispered, shaking her head. She blew her nose again. “How did something like this ever happen? It’s unreal.”

“Yeah, it sure is. Well, listen—we need to spend some time together tomorrow. I have to be in court today, unfortunately, and we see the judge Friday. How can I get hold of you?”

“I was going to ask you. I stayed in this little hotel, down the road in, uh . . .”

“Kahului?”

“Yeah, Kahului. But if I stay there even a few more nights, I’ll be flat broke. And if I have to stay longer . . . Oh, God, what am I going to do?” Her voice broke again, and her eyes filled.

“Hmmm, yeah, I see your point. I guess you need someplace right now, and as cheap as possible.”

“I could go back down to the hotel tonight, but I’d really rather not. Is there like a YWCA or something?”

“No, nothing like that. But tell you what, why don’t you go hang out in the reception room, and I’ll make some phone calls. I might be able to find you a place.”

Five minutes later Rick stuck his head out of his office door. Carrie Ann looked up from the magazine she’d been staring at.

“I found you a place. I can take you there after I get out of court this afternoon. You can handle rock ’n’ roll, can’t you? And all that goes with it?”

Carrie Ann managed to smile. “Oh, yeah. I’m used to rock ’n’ roll. And all that goes with it.”

Chapter Two

“This is sugarcane,” Rick said as they drove through green fields toward the great round mountain Carrie Ann had seen when she landed yesterday. Rick said its name was Haleakala, a word she could barely pronounce.

“You’ll see lots of sugarcane here.” Rick pointed off to the right. “See those smokestacks? That’s a mill where they process the cane.”

Carrie Ann’s hair flew in the warm wind blowing through the open sides of Rick’s Jeep. Sugarcane swayed in the fields like giant blades of grass. A few peaceful-looking clouds drifted in the wide blue sky.

A town appeared ahead, along with another smokestack.

“This is Paia,” Rick said. “The beginning of country and also the beginning of where the freaks live—the West Coast transplants, hippies, surfers, and other assorted strange haoles.”

“Strange what?”

“Haoles. That’s us. It means foreigner, but mostly it means Caucasian. Paia, Haiku, all this area we’re heading into—it’s filling up with haoles, mainland dropouts. First new people to come here in many, many years. This place was practically dead, the old plantation villages closing down, until the longhairs started moving in a few years ago.”

Paia had an old-fashioned western look, with rickety buildings that needed a coat of paint. The tiny town disappeared after a couple of blocks, and the road continued through more cane fields and past a few well-landscaped houses.

“And coming right up,” Rick said as his Jeep rounded a curve, “is Hookipa.” Suddenly, they were driving along the coast, with waves pounding at the land’s edge yards from the Jeep. Rick pointed out to sea. “See the surfers?”

A cluster of tiny figures floated near the wave line a few hundred yards out. A wave swelled, and several of them paddled madly. A few stood and rode the wave nearly to shore before diving into the water.

“Wow,” Carrie Ann said, craning her neck to watch the surfers as the Jeep moved past. “I wonder if I could do that.”

“Are you a good swimmer?”

“Not very.”

“Well, that’s the first requirement. The ocean is powerful. You have to be able to handle yourself out there.”

Carrie Ann settled back to watch the scenery, which became more beautiful by the minute. The cane had disappeared, replaced by orderly rows of spiky gray-green plants Rick identified as pineapple. This was the country all right, with few houses and little traffic. She saw someone riding a horse down a road heading toward the ocean, and farther along a man in a cowboy hat loading cattle into a shiny red truck.

Rick turned off the highway and headed uphill. Slowing, he pointed to a dirt track into the jungle, a road so poorly marked she’d never have recognized it on her own.

“That’s the road to Guava Gulch,” he said. “That’s where they found your little girl. It belongs to this old guy with real old-time liberal views—has a big picture of FDR on his wall. He started letting people stay there a few years ago. They built little shacks and planted gardens, and he let them have all the bananas they wanted, as long as they kept the banana trees weeded. First thing you know he had a little colony going.”

A couple of miles up the road, Rick shifted into a lower gear, turned onto a dirt driveway, and slowed to ease the Jeep over ruts and rocks on a rust-colored muddy track winding down into green jungle. In the golden light of late afternoon, Carrie Ann saw heavy vines climbing up the trunks of enormous trees and red waxy-looking flowers growing from clusters of foliage that must be as tall as she was. Giant stems lifted enormous heart-shaped green leaves. The air was humid, with a rich, fruity scent. They drove over a tiny stream trickling across the road and then started uphill again, passing a forest of thin green bamboo.

One final turn and they were back in the sunlight, in a carefully tended yard where a tall gray-painted house stood at one end.

“This is the O’Connor place,” Rick announced, turning off the Jeep. “Come on in and meet Jerilyn.”

The strains of “Honky Tonk Women” greeted them from the open windows of the living room as they climbed the steps. Rick took off his shoes and walked right in. Carrie Ann hesitated briefly, fighting back a sudden surge of anxiety. Her life seemed to be one new challenge after another lately; now she’d meet the people who’d offered to put her up while she went through the process of getting Rorie back. She hoped they would like her, but she also hoped they wouldn’t be too weird. What kind of people let someone move in, sight unseen? Well, she had no choice at this point. She took a deep breath, decided she’d better follow Rick’s example and go barefoot, then slipped out of her sandals and followed him.

Inside, a woman in cut-off jeans and a tank top was vigorously polishing a window pane with newspaper, singing along with the Stones as she rubbed. Her sun-streaked brown hair was pulled up into a knot on the back her head, anchored by an orange chopstick. The room smelled of vinegar.

“Jerilyn!” Rick shouted over the music.

The woman turned, grinned, and stepped over to the record player to lower the sound. Carrie Ann felt better, seeing the tanned, smiling face of her hostess. She looked friendly and wholesome. Maybe this wouldn’t be so scary after all.

“That’s my window-washing music,” Jerilyn said. “Hey, how you doin’, Rick?” She gave him a kiss on the cheek; Rick patted her plump shoulder.

“And this must be Carrie Ann?”

Carrie Ann took her outstretched hand and smiled nervously. “Hi, Jerilyn.”

“That’s me—and this is the O’Connor Manor.” She gestured at high ceilings, painted sky blue. Each of the walls was painted a different color—lavender, chartreuse, coral, turquoise. The room was sparsely furnished with a wood-framed couch, a few rattan chairs, and piles of cushions. “It’s an old plantation house. Used to belong to a sugar mill manager, years ago, before everybody moved to town. Then we came along and found it empty, got it for a song. It’s roomy, but boy does it have a lot of windows! I’m forever cleaning windows—that and sweeping up termite shit. Well, listen—you guys want some coffee? Johnny will be home soon. Carrie Ann, where’s your stuff? I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

“I left it in the car.”

“I’ll get it,” Rick said. “You go take a look at your room. I’d love a cup of coffee, Jerilyn.”

Jerilyn led Carrie Ann through the kitchen, lit by slanting rays of sun that shone through wide windows over the kitchen sink. Jerilyn paused for a moment. “This is where I spend a lot of time—I cook for my husband and son and our foster daughter, but also for the band. One of the guys lives down the road, one lives downstairs, and one lives in the cottage up behind our house. They all show up for dinner most nights, and the bass player’s girlfriend is usually around too. She’s not much help, I have to say. Anyway, nice kitchen, huh?” She gestured to the warm peach-colored walls, gleaming wooden cabinets and big windows, with their view of sky and tall waving bamboo. “This is the one room we really fixed up when we got this place. Johnny built the cabinets out of koa. It’s a native wood, really pretty.”

“It’s beautiful,” Carrie Ann agreed, running her hand along the edge of a cabinet whose wood seemed to glow. How Kathryn would love this kitchen; hers was small and dim, with a stained sink and out-of-date appliances. Carrie Ann had spent many an afternoon there with Kathryn, making dinner for Duke’s band and whoever else happened to show up.

She followed Jerilyn through a short hallway to a room where dark-purple walls were decorated with psychedelic rock posters. Two single mattresses covered with pink Indian bedspreads lay on the floor, and a wooden chest of drawers stood in one corner. More Indian bedspreads shaded the windows, darkening the room.

“It’s not much, and you have to share with Allison, but you’ve got your own bathroom.” Jerilyn gestured to a closed door. “And dig the view.” She pulled back a curtain to show another of those enormous trees, this one sprouting giant ferns here and there on a gnarled trunk. Flowers in shades of pink clustered around the tree’s base.

“I can’t get over the plants here,” Carrie Ann said, moving closer to the window to get a better look.

“They’re pretty amazing, huh?” Rick said as he set her suitcase next to the door.

Jerilyn pulled open a drawer of the dresser and sighed at the crumpled wads of clothing it held. “That girl—no wonder she never has anything decent to wear to school.” She shoved the drawer shut. “Looks like you’ll have to live out of your suitcase for a while, Carrie Ann. Allison’s got this thing crammed full.”

“That’s okay,” Carrie Ann said. “I’m hoping I’ll be on my way home soon anyway.”

“Well, come on into the kitchen and sit down and tell me all about it,” Jerilyn said.

Carrie Ann was finishing her story when she heard the sound of an engine rumbling up the driveway. It stopped, and a door slammed. Jerilyn got up from her seat at the kitchen table and peered out the windows over the sink.

“Hi, baby!” she called out the window. “Come on in and meet our new roommate.”

“Does he know Carrie Ann is here?” Rick asked as Jerilyn refilled his coffee cup.

“Oh sure, he called an hour or so after you did, and it’s fine. You know Johnny. He’s always cool with another face at the table. Of course, then he disappears with everybody else to play music after dinner, when the sink’s full of dirty dishes.”

“I’ll help with the dishes,” Carrie Ann said. “I know what it’s like. My friend Kathryn has the same problem. Her old man manages a band, too, and Kathryn’s always stuck with the dirty work.”

“Dirty work? What dirty work is that?” A large man with fluffy brown hair and beard appeared at the kitchen’s back door. He plopped a six-pack of beer onto the table and leaned over to give Jerilyn a quick kiss before lowering himself into a chair.

“I’m getting too old for house building,” he said, pulling a cigarette from his shirt pocket. “Those damn musicians better get rich and famous, and they better do it damn quick.”

“Johnny, you left your boots on again,” Jerilyn said.

“Shit. Oh well, if I do it you got no excuse to yell at anybody else.” He leaned back and looked around the table. “Hi Rick, howzit. And is this our lost mommy?”

Rick grinned. “Well, that’s one way to look at it. Carrie Ann Emerson—Johnny O’Connor. Jerilyn said you guys would put her up until she goes to court and we see what the judge has to say. Then we’ll have to figure out what to do next.”

“So what’s the prognosis? You gonna get her little girl back?”

“We’ll have to see. Depends on the judge, I guess. It’s Yoshioka, and he tends to be pretty conservative.”

“Is that bad?” Carrie Ann asked anxiously.

“Well, it could make things tougher. But on the other hand, he’s basically a nice guy, and there’s the traditional belief that kids belong with their moms unless there’s a real good reason for other arrangements, so keep your hopes up.”

Johnny frowned. “Speaking of kids, where’s Allison?”

“She went motorcycle riding with Michael,” Jerilyn said.

“Oh, great. That asshole is practically old enough to be her father, and all he’s interested in is getting in her pants, if he hasn’t already.”

“Oh, baby, he’s not that old, and Allison’s not exactly an untouched virgin, you know.”

“As long as she stays on the pill. Hey, forget that shit, how about a beer, Rick? Carrie Ann? And let’s roll one up, it’s been a long, hard day.”

Jerilyn glanced at Carrie Ann, then at Rick. “I hope Carrie Ann is used to being around people smoking dope.”

“Hell, she’s from San Francisco, of course she is,” Johnny stated, stretching one long arm to reach a flower-painted metal box on top of the refrigerator.

“Oh, I don’t mind. I kind of like a little smoke,” Carrie Ann said, a blush heating her cheeks. “But, Rick, I didn’t know lawyers smoked it—not that I know any other lawyers.”

Rick laughed, a bit uneasily. “Sure, lawyers smoke it, especially if they’re lawyers who spent their school years in Berkeley and then moved right to Maui. Just don’t tell the judge, okay?”

“I won’t, don’t worry.” Carrie Ann accepted the roach Jerilyn passed her, took a deep toke and handed it to Rick. She held her breath a moment, savoring the sense of having her head fill with something that made her very, very peaceful.

“What’s the latest on Guava Gulch?” Johnny asked, his voice choked as he held in the first toke from the new joint he’d rolled.

“Everybody’s free to come and go, they’re all well, and now there’s the building permit hassle. But the best part of the story—have you heard this one? You know where it turns out the hepatitis came from?”

Johnny stopped in the process of rolling another joint and looked up. “Where?”

“The Lono Poi Factory.”

“You’re shittin’ me.”

Carrie Ann sat mystified as Johnny, Jerilyn, and Rick grinned and shook their heads.

“I don’t get it. What’s the Lono Poi Factory?”

“It’s a place where they make poi—the traditional staple food of the Hawaiian people. The native equivalent of bread or rice, really basic,” Rick explained. “And the irony is that the local politicos have been using this hepatitis epidemic as an excuse to come down hard on haoles in general and hippies in particular. Anybody who looks weird or has long hair has been getting hassled, and the chief weapon has been the claim that ‘da heepies’ are bringing disease to our fair isle and contaminating paradise.”

“So when they find the source of the nasty old germs, and it’s a poi factory, it shoots that theory to shit,” Johnny said, still grinning.

“Man, that’s too much. I can’t believe it,” Jerilyn said.

“It’s pretty far out, all right,” Rick agreed.

“How did the hepatitis get to the Gulch? And why didn’t anyone else get sick, if the germs were in poi?” Jerilyn asked.

Rick shrugged. “I guess some of the people in the Gulch are into going native to some extent and were eating poi pretty regularly. And then once someone was infected—they have such poor hygiene down there; you gotta wonder about those outhouses above the stream, and they all bathe in that water—anyway, it got passed along. Then I guess somebody carried it to Makena and infected some people down there.

“And here’s the really political part. There were locals with hepatitis. One whole family ended up in the hospital, but it was hushed up somehow. Nobody told the reporters there was anybody else sick, so it got no press. All the health officials and politicians just carried on about the dirty hippies.” Rick wasn’t smiling anymore. “It pisses me off. I’m trying to figure out if there’s any way I can use this when I go to court with the building permit cases.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty disgusting,” Johnny said. “Maybe you need the ACLU or somebody, or at least a friendly reporter.”

“This one guy from the Honolulu paper was showing some interest, and one young guy at the Maui News, but they have to get whatever they write past the editors, so who knows.”

The roar of a motorcycle interrupted the conversation. Johnny rolled his eyes and put the pot back into the metal box, closed it firmly and set it on top of the refrigerator. “I’ll be damned if I’ll get that asshole high,” he said, shoving the remaining beer into the refrigerator.

Footsteps clomped up the back stairs, and a girl appeared in the doorway, a stunning redhead wearing jeans, a black leather jacket, and heavy boots. She stepped inside and bent to remove her boots. “Hey, smells good in here. Got any more?”

Behind her, a tall man appeared. A zing went through Carrie Ann’s body, as if seeing the man in the doorway had somehow given her an electrical charge. His eyes met hers, and for a moment they simply looked at each other. Johnny broke the spell by belching loudly.

“Sorry,” he drawled. “We done used up our quota for the afternoon.” He took another gulp of beer.

“Allison, this is Carrie Ann Emerson,” Jerilyn announced, ignoring Johnny. “She’s gonna be your roommate for a little while.”

“Oh?” Allison straightened up slowly, one boot in hand. “How come?”

“Because she needs a place to stay, and your room’s the only immediate possibility. Carrie Ann, this is Allison, and that’s Michael Wharton, our neighbor from down the road.”

Michael stared at Carrie Ann without smiling, a distracted sort of stare as if his mind were halfway somewhere else. But he kept his eyes on hers, and she couldn’t take hers away. They were beautiful eyes, she thought; so blue.

“Hi,” he said, looking down from a height that must be inches over six feet. Long, pale-blond hair framed a chiseled face. Carrie Ann had never seen anyone that handsome. She was glad he didn’t cover that face with a beard. He looked like a Viking.

“Hi,” she said in a small voice

“You got any homework, Allison?” Johnny asked, keeping his eyes focused on the beer bottle he was sliding in a slow circle on the tabletop.

“Yeah, some.”

“Well, you better get with it.”

“Fine.” Allison dropped her boots with a clunk on the floor, turned and stood on tiptoe to give Michael a kiss. “Thanks for the ride, Michael. See you later.”

“Later,” the Viking replied, as Allison stomped off to her room. “I guess I better hit the road myself. Nice to see you folks, Rick—and Carrie Ann, is it?”

She nodded, speechless.

“Hope to see you again sometime,” he said and was gone, rapid footsteps down the back stairs and the sudden roar of a motorcycle engine. Carrie Ann found she had been holding her breath.

Chapter Three

Carrie Ann knocked timidly on the door to Allison’s room, heard a muffled “Come in,” and opened the door. Allison was balanced upside down in a shoulder stand.

“You’re doing yoga?”

“Mmmm.” Allison opened her eyes briefly, then touched her toes to the floor in front of her and rolled slowly down to lie on her back.

“I gotta do something to stay loose,” she said, “since I have to go to that dumb school all day, and Johnny is so stingy about sharing his dope.”

Carrie Ann pulled her T-shirt and jeans out of her suitcase.

“Thanks for letting me stay in your room. I really needed a place.”

“Mmmm,” Allison replied, rolling over onto her stomach and grabbing her ankles to pull herself into an arch. Carrie Ann went into the bathroom and closed the door. She changed, then washed out her dress in the sink with a bar of Ivory, so it would be clean for court on Friday. There must be somewhere outside she could hang it.

Allison was sitting in a lotus position, facing the wall, and said nothing as Carrie Ann left with her wet dress wrapped in a towel.

Sure enough, there was a clothesline outside. Carrie Ann hung her dress and the towel, then wandered around, admiring the plants. Butterflies fluttered over a vegetable garden, and beyond that chickens clucked in a wire-enclosed yard. Carrie Ann watched the chickens for a moment—she had never seen live chickens up close—then headed back to the kitchen. She had promised to help cook dinner.

Jerilyn was there, pulling a big pot out of a cabinet.

“Hey, now you look more like you belong around here.”

“That’s my court dress. I got it just for this trip.”

“Well, I’m sure the judge will be impressed. You look very straight and responsible in it. Around here, we’re pretty responsible, but we’re not straight!”

Carrie Ann smiled. “I can tell. Do you want me to wash the carrots?”

“Hey, great. Then maybe you can chop them up. The knives are there, by the cutting board.”

Carrie Ann fell into the familiar kitchen rhythm she’d often shared with Kathryn, who usually had a house full of mouths to feed. Rock ’n’ roll musicians always seemed to be hungry, no matter how many drugs they had taken the night before. She glanced at Jerilyn, who was swishing water through a pot full of brown rice.

“What kind of band does Johnny manage?”

Jerilyn carefully drained the wash water from the rice and refilled the pot.

“Oh, you know—good old noisy rock ’n’ roll. Their name is Blend. They’re pretty good, got a lot of original songs. They’ve played in the club over in Lahaina and even went to the Crater Festival in Honolulu last year.”

“What’s the Crater Festival?”

“A big daytime concert in Diamond Head Crater. They hold it every summer, the past few years. There are bands, craft booths, all that stuff.”

Carrie Ann sliced carrots in silence for a moment. Jerilyn set the rice on the stove and turned the burner flame to high. “What’s Allison doing in there? I don’t suppose it’s homework, by any chance.”

“She was doing yoga. Said she needed to get loose.”

Jerilyn rolled her eyes. “Oh, right. That’s her latest, ever since she’s been hanging out with Michael. Allison’s such a flexible young thing, she could do all the postures and stretch farther than anyone the minute she started. I don’t think she’s getting any spiritual value out of it, but I guess it’s good for her body.”