"Thanks."
"You have won the Joe Burke award--excellence in photography."
"Why, never did I dream," she said in a Southern drawl.
"Lunch!"
"Joe, honey . . . " She dropped the drawl. "I'm busy today, let's see .
. . How about Tuesday? I want to check something out on the windward
side. We could eat over there."
"Good deal."
On Tuesday, she picked him up by the sandbox on the lower level of the
shopping center. As they drove toward the pali, Joe said, "I'm
sentimental about that sandbox. Kate used to play there." He was
surprised to see pain flicker on Mo's face. "What's the matter?"
"I had a child, once. He died--when he was two--from a condition my
husband forgot to tell me ran in his family. His nerves didn't work."
"How awful."
"I don't think about it much," Mo said. They were silent for a few
minutes. "So, what have you been doing?"
"Losing money. I got completely involved in the market. I made a major
mistake, but I learned a lot."
"I'll show you where I took the bamboo picture," she said, turning onto
the old pali road. She turned again and stopped by a weathered concrete
bridge. They got out and walked to the other end of the bridge where a
tall grove had grown from the bank below. Mo put her elbows on the side
wall of the bridge, and leaned out, midway up the grove. Joe leaned out
beside her. A breeze stirred and they were enveloped by melodious
knocking, a hundred percussionists set free.
"Wow!" Joe said. "A bamboo orchestra. I've never heard that before."
They listened for a few minutes and then drove through the pali tunnel,
emerging high over Kaneohe Bay--planes of pure light green, turquoise,
dark blue. "Just another day in paradise," he said.
"Kailua isn't paradise, exactly. I've got to stop a moment in town and
then we'll go over to Kaneohe."
"Sure." They wound down off the pali, and Joe waited while Mo
accomplished her errand. She drove along Oneawa Street past the Racquet
Club. Joe pointed. "See that hedge? I planted it!" A tall oleander
hedge curved along the club drive. "A hundred small bushes," Joe said,
"took me almost all day."
"Your roots in Hawaii?"
"Yok. I used to live there with Sally and Kate. I was the manager."
"How old is Kate?"
"Twenty-seven. Hard to believe. Where are we going?"
"Tops."
"That's pretty exciting. We can eat breakfast again."
"I hope she's there--a picture I'm thinking about." Mo pulled into the
Tops parking lot and they sat at the counter. Joe didn't need to look
at the over-sized plastic menu; he'd read it dozens of times in the Ala
Moana Tops. A tall woman wearing a cook's apron stood in front of the
grill. Her black hair, gathered behind her head, was held by a tortoise
shell comb. Her face was long and utterly calm. Eggs, homefries, and
burgers sizzled in front of her. She dropped slices of bread into an
industrial toaster, flipped and scrambled, stirred and buttered, served
and cleaned with untroubled movements of her arms and hands.
Occasionally she turned or moved a step sideways without changing
expression. She was like a reflection of herself in a still pond.
"Something else," Joe said.
"How am I going to get a picture of that?" Mo asked.
"I don't know."