Page 56 of Talk Story

When I stood up, Keone turned me by the shoulders. He took my left hand in both of his and lifted it into the light. The pearl glowed.

“You moved it,” he said. “We’ve gone from probably engaged, to definitely getting married.”

“Yep.” I inhaled. Exhaled. “I came tonight to serve you humble pie.” My voice cracked right down the middle. “Maine style. Generous portion. I’m sorry I went cold on you out there in the water when we were swimming.” I shook my head. “Aunt Fae explained me to myself. It was very rude of her to be so right.”

He laughed and pulled me in; I went into his arms and pressed my face into his neck the way I had a hundred times.

“Welcome home,” he said into my hair.

We kissed for a long time—but I couldn’t relax.

I felt the edge of something uncomfortable, even with Keone’s arms around me.

Because Pali Moku was going to walk into Hana PD in the morning and confess what he’d done with the archive, and after that it would be a police matter.

It wouldn’t be about what was pono, or what the valley needed. It would be about the law, and the law was regulations.

Keone and I had made peace with what Pali had done.

What the law would require, was another thing entirely.

I slid my hands down Keone’s shoulders to squeeze his hands. “Can we continue this most excellent activity after I make a couple of phone calls?”

“As long as I’m with you on speaker,” he said. “Lei and Malia, right?”

“You got it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I leaned in to kiss him one more time.

21

By four o’clock on Sunday, the model home where Aunt Fae and I lived in the New Ohia State Park wasn’t a staging company showpiece anymore—it was a party.

Aunt Fae and I had thrown open every slider to the lanai and the pool, and the cream canvas furniture slipcovers I’d found impersonal had disappeared under people wearing aloha shirts, muumuus, and Red Hat purple plumage. I wedged a Bluetooth speaker into the fake ficus by the stairs, and Artie’s slack-key playlist drifted out over the terrazzo deck and open floor plan of the downstairs, gentle as trade winds moving through. The whole place smelled like a Hawaiian potluck, meaning it was heaven: shoyu, ginger, roast pork, fried taro chips, and the bright, tangy note of fresh cut pineapple.

This gathering to celebrate the end of the case had been my idea, though Elle—with Aunt Fae’s enthusiastic support—had taken the planning over immediately.

After the week we’d had, I was happy to play second fiddle to their hyper-organized girl band. Multiple trips to the cave, the Chang rescue, the long, ugly drive down the mountain, confronting Pali on the lanai with his sealed-up secret—I was ready to step back into boring. Frankly, I couldn’t wait to get back behind the counter at the post office.

But before that happened, I wanted everyone I loved in one room, eating too much, laughing and talking, while the news was still fresh and good, and before some new drama rocked our tiny town. I wanted to gaze on each dear face and savor every sweet connection I’d built here on Maui.

Opal and Artie Pahinui came early and set up like they were provisioning a small army. Opal had made her famous shoyu chicken in a roaster the size of a bathtub, and she stood guard over it in a silk shoulder wrap pinned with an enormous brooch shaped like a sea turtle, ladling sauce and dispensing opinions in equal measure. Artie brought his ukulele and a tray of his trademarked “secret recipe” musubi.

Edith and Josie arrived together, Edith in her courtroom posture even in hibiscus print, Josie towing her little wheeled oxygen cart with a lei draped jauntily over the canister and carrying a platter of laulau. Edith lugged a legal pad along with her macadamia nut brownies, because Edith Pepperwhite never went anywhere without something to take notes on. Rita Farnsworth appeared with her young ward, Maile, in her usual no-foo-foo flax and linen, having contributed an enormous salad grown in their garden.

Pearl Yamamoto, accompanied by Lani, was enthroned in her wheelchair near the slider. She sat tiny and upright, a paper crane already taking shape between her fingers; she’d brought butter mochi and a quiet radiance that came from being alive to see this day—when not long ago a man had nearly poisoned her. She’d folded a thousand cranes since, and there she was, folding another thousand.

Ilima Kaihale held court near the kitchen island in an emerald-colored muumuu, mayoral even at a potluck, her warm laugh carrying over the music. Uncle Kalani sat a little apart, gazing out over the pool in the quiet way he had, a still point in the noise. He accepted a plate from Aunt Fae with a grave nod and the smallest curve of a smile.

My Keone moved through the crowd, refilling glasses, lifting Josie’s oxygen cart over the slider track, bending to hear something Pearl said and throwing his head back to laugh. He caught my eye across the room and smiled. Something in my chest went warm and sweet as marshmallow melting over a campfire.

“You’re staring at me,” he said, when the drift of the party finally brought us together over by the drinks table.

“It’s mutual. I’ve caught you ogling a time or two.”

He took my left hand and turned it, so the pearl gleamed. “Gonna stare all day. Maybe all year. Get used to it.” We kissed, my second-favorite thing to do with him. “People are talking about which hand you’re wearing the ring on. Coconut wireless had it by breakfast.” He grinned. “Pua texted me a string of those little party emojis.” We glanced over at Pua; she’d brought her super cute, extra yappy little dog Sassy, and was wearing the belligerent little pooch in a crystal-studded dog carrier strapped to her chest.

Aunt Fae materialized at my elbow with the unerring radar of a woman who senses two young people standing idle in her kitchen. “There’ll be time for canoodling later,” she said. “Right now we’ve got guests, and I’ve got a brisket I need an opinion on.” She towed Keone away to the barbecue where she was slow roasting a huge brisket—one New England woman at a Maui potluck who planned to upstage everyone else’s cooking with that and a pan of cornbread.

Dr. Nainoa Emerson arrived, accompanied by Auntie Leilani, the historian in charge of the Hana Museum. He moved carefully—a man of his age recently returned from being held captive for days does not bounce right back—but smiling. The two folded immediately into the Pahinuis’ orbit as Opal piled his plate without asking, and Pearl reached out to touch his arm and said something that made him chuckle.