TroubleinParadise (8 page)

Sione sat down and rubbed her shoulders. “What did you two
fight about?”

“You should go back to your date. Don’t worry about me.”
Even as she said the words, her voice trembled and jumped two octaves, undercutting
her bravado.

“It’s okay, Kala. Tell me what happened.”

Wiping her cheeks, she sniffled. “It’s the same thing we
always fight about. He wants me to commit to making babies this spring and I
want a little more time.”

“For what?”

Clarissa shrugged. “I don’t know. To get settled into a job.
To work on my art career. The usual stuff.”

He continued to massage her upper back, his strong hands
working the knots from her neck. After a while, he said, “I’m going to say
something you aren’t gonna like, but I’m going to say it because I’m your
friend and you need to hear it, ’kay?”

She nodded.

“Mika’s right. You make excuses to put off what he wants
because you’re afraid of the responsibility. And before you bite my head off,
let me just say that I see the behavior in you because I do the same thing. We
don’t want to grow up, but maybe it’s time we both did.”

As she looked up at him, her first instinct was to dispute
his assertion. But how could she? He’d hit the nail on the head. Every time
Mika brought up children, she felt as though a hippo had parked itself on her
chest. Scared and cornered, her only recourse was to lash out. How could she
tell the man she loved that his hopes and dreams felt like a straitjacket to
her?

Sione planted a kiss on her cheek. “And I’m sorry if I—not
‘if’—
that
I muddied the waters.”

Clarissa took a deep breath. “Wasn’t just you. We both did.”

“Michelle’s here,” Sione said to the ground more than
Clarissa.

“What?”

“Michelle’s my hot date.”

“Holy crap.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, giving Sione
a pinch on the arm. “You should’ve told me.”

“
Auwe
.
Sorry, sistah.”

“Oh God, she must think I’m pathetic, showing up like this.
Apologize to her for me.”

“Nah. She knows you’re going through a rough time. That’s
why she came over last night, to rip me a new one. She was pissed after you
told her what I did. Yelled at me for like an hour, told me I was messing where
I had no right to mess. When she finally let me get a word in, I said she was
right.

“Then we talked about us for a while. There’s something
between us, always has been.”

“Which is why you ran away from her,” Clarissa interjected.

“Exactly. After that, one thing led to another…” A sly grin
completed his thought. “When she saw you were at the door, she sent me out here
‘to clean up after myself’.”

Clarissa squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb
and forefinger. “This whole situation is one big, fat, hairy mess. I didn’t
mean to interrupt you two. You should be inside making up with Michelle, not
playing wet-nurse to me. I feel like an idiot.”

The weight of her foolishness bore down on her. A few sobs
clutched at her throat. Though she fought to keep her composure, she lost the
struggle. Fat tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down the bridge of her
nose, taking her mascara with it. She swiped at them, leaving black smudges on
her fingertips.

A sheltering arm wrapped around her. He whispered to her,
“Sh, sh, sh.”

Of all the intimate moments they’d shared in the past weeks,
this one felt real, felt good. Built not on misplaced affections, but the
security of a friendship that had weathered a storm. Sione held her as she
cried, the hum of the occasional passing car the only indication the outside
world still existed. But one vehicle didn’t drive past, and the slam of a car
door drew their attention.

“What the fuck, man?” A sharp tone of indignation rang out,
perhaps more than that—a deep wound. Mika stalked across the street, parking
himself in front of his wife and his cousin.

Sione stood up. “Brah, it’s not what you think.”

“You.” Mika gave an accusatory jab to Sione’s shoulder,
moving the man backward. “You don’t talk to me right now, Sione, or I’ll bash
your fucking face in. Let’s go, Kala.”

“You’ve got the wrong idea.” She rushed to get up.

“Didn’t I just say I don’t want to talk about this now? Just
get in the car, Kala.”

“Cuz, nothing happened. Nothing happened,” Sione called
after Mika.

Mika spun around, chest heaving. “Who you trying to
convince? Me or you?”

“Don’t worry,” Clarissa said to Sione. “I’ll talk to him.”

Sione gave her a curt nod, his lips tight against his teeth.

Her feet weighed down by anchors, body wooden, she trudged
to the van and climbed in. Mika tore away from the curb.

“I get that you’re upset, but could you not drive like a
madman?” she said.

“What were you doing there?” He gripped the steering wheel
tighter.

“Talking, that’s it. I swear.”

“What you two have to talk about, huh? This is the second
time I find you with him after we fight. Is there something going on?”

Clarissa didn’t reply.

He turned left onto the main thoroughfare without signaling.
His teeth ground against each other. “I’ve been looking all over the place for
you. To apologize. But I couldn’t find you anywhere. So I come over to Sione’s
to grab a couple beers while you cool off and I find you there, making a fool
out of me with my own cousin.”

“I didn’t do anything but cry on his shoulder.” She set her
jaw—it was time to come clean. “But I find him so much easier to talk to than
you. He’s easier to be around.”

Mika flinched “Are you telling me you want to be with him?”

“No. I just… I have doubts about us. I think we want
different things.”

“Doubts? Why is this the first I’ve heard of you having
doubts?”

She flung up her hands. “Are you kidding me? I tell you all
the time, you just don’t listen!”

“But I bet Sione listens real good, huh?”

Objections and excuses evaporated on her lips. The hard fact
of the matter was she had no good excuse for her behavior. She could protest
her innocence all she wanted, but her intentions tonight hadn’t been innocent.
By dumb luck, she and Sione had dodged a bullet. If Michelle hadn’t been there…
Clarissa didn’t finish the thought.

Silence stretched into a chasm between them. Clarissa stewed
in her own guilt as Mika pulled in front of their apartment building. Reaching
across her, he shoved open the passenger-side door.

“You’re not coming in?” she asked.

“Nope.”

Sheer anguish colored his face, a harsh, ruddy hue licking
at his cheeks. Eyes like granite, he swallowed hard.

“Mika—” she began, but words failed her.

She felt dirty, angry with herself, foolish. She couldn’t
stand his expression.

“Nothing happened,” she croaked.

“You went to another man for comfort, my
cousin
. How
do you think that makes me feel?” He nearly spat the words through clenched teeth.

She couldn’t think of a response.

“There’s nothing to say, Clarissa. Just get out of the van.”

The use of her proper name cut her more than any knife
could. It spoke of a distance, gaping and unbridgeable.

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not running to another woman if that’s
what you’re worried about.”

Again his words cut her, but she deserved it.

“Please, go.” He motioned for the door.

She swallowed hard, nodding. “Don’t do anything stupid,
Mika.”

“I need time to think.”

“How much time?”

“I don’t know. Just go inside.”

Nothing left to do, nothing left to say, she unbuckled her
seatbelt and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Mika slammed the door and took off
without a backward glance.

The sun came up over Diamond Head. Bold brushstrokes of hot
pink and deep purple painted another glorious Hawaiian sunrise. Clarissa had
come to take them for granted most days, but not today. She stood on the lanai,
entranced by the subtle changes in the sky. The coolness heated little by
little to a warm orange glow.

By sunset that evening, Mika still hadn’t come home.
Clarissa grew more alarmed the longer he stayed away. Melodramatic absences
were more her style. Sione and Michelle had called around seven to check on
her.

“I’ll tell him I was here and that nothing happened. You two
really did just talk,” her friend said.

“But he’s right.” Clarissa’s voice quavered. “I was thinking
about—”

“Thoughts and actions are two different things, Kala. You
two didn’t act on what you felt. That should count for something.”

Sure it counted for something, but she’d still been in the
wrong. They ended their call and Clarissa poured a glass of merlot. Panic and
fatigue battled for supremacy over her state of mind. Sinking onto the sofa,
she allowed the battle to continue with nothing more than a few gulps of wine
to calm it.

A photo album sat open on the coffee table. Their wedding
album. One of the few occasions that brought her mother and father to the
islands for a visit. Somehow they’d managed to refrain from sniping at each
other, a minor miracle in and of itself. Not like their epic arguments from her
childhood.

Most of the time, they’d save the knock-down-drag-out fights
for after Clarissa’s bedtime, as if the yelling and door slamming wouldn’t wake
her. She’d sit in the dark, frightened, listening to harsh words. Sometimes she
tried to look them up in the dictionary, but few of the words they hurled at
each other appeared in
Webster’s
. Not in the
Oxford English
Dictionary
either. Their cruel language was punctuated by dashed coffee
cups or dinner plates, which sounded distinctly different from a broken
wineglass or beer bottle. Once the words dissolved into her mother’s sobs and
her father’s silent retreat, Clarissa would focus on a poster of dolphins
frolicking in the Hawaiian surf—a gift from one of her father’s many business
trips.

In the morning, they’d pretend nothing was wrong, though the
palpable tension made breakfast her least favorite meal of the day. Dinner was
a close second with mouths pinched into flat lines of disgust. Sad point of
truth, lunch at the school cafeteria became the only meal she could enjoy in
peace.

Her parents divorced when she was seventeen. With an
adolescent disregard for her mother’s feelings, she’d asked Mom what had taken
them so long to split up. Her mom replied they’d stayed together for Clarissa’s
sake. At this Clarissa had burst out laughing. Not her finest moment, but she
couldn’t fathom how her parents had come to the conclusion that their
cantankerous relationship would be a nurturing environment in which to raise a
child.

The divorce settlement took another embattled year to
negotiate. By then, Clarissa had run away to Hawaii. Though she found few
dolphins playing in lagoon-like settings, she’d found Mika and his family—a
totally different experience from hers. Sure, there were squabbles, even
long-standing feuds, but ’
ohana
came first. ’
Ohana
was
everything. She found herself surrounded by more family than she knew what to
do with. Aunties, uncles, tutus, great-tutus, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters
and a multitude of cousins. The specific relation took on less meaning than the
bond of family itself. She’d fallen in love not only with Mika but his entire
clan.

Her gaze fell on the juxtaposed photos, their formal wedding
portrait and a snapshot of her and Mika dancing at their reception. Her smile
in the portrait, though toothy and brilliant, hinted at her exasperation with
the forty thousand shots the photographer had taken. In the candid picture
though, her smile showed an unencumbered joy. A joy born of uniting her life
with Mika’s.

Michelle’s words echoed in her mind. Indeed thoughts and
actions were two very different things. Was it nobler never to feel temptation
or, having felt it, to have resisted it?

A rattle at the front door interrupted her thoughts.

“Kala?” Mika called out, squinting as his eyes adjusted to
the dim house. She hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights.

“Hey.”

He lugged two ten-gallon drums with him and dropped them in
the foyer. “Hey.”

Taking a few tentative steps toward her, he shifted his keys
from hand to hand.

She rushed toward him but stopped short of reaching out.
“Mika, I’m sorry. I am so very sorry. I know I screwed up. It won’t ever,
ever
happen again.”

Putting a gentle finger to her lips, he shook his head.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

A shard of ice pierced her heart. No, he couldn’t give up on
them. He couldn’t think so badly of her…could he?

“Mika, I—” She clutched his hand, at a loss for words.

Again, he shook his head. Tears glittered in his eyes and he
set his jaw against them. “If you don’t love me, Kala, tell me now. If you want
something…
someone
else, tell me now.”

His voice cracked and a tear streamed down his cheek. He
swatted at it as if it were a bothersome fly.

“No, Mika. No. I don’t.” She wrapped her arms around
herself. “I just get so scared sometimes.”

He nodded, swallowing hard. “You’ve tried to tell me that,
tried to show me.”

He walked to the sofa, sinking onto it as if he’d deflated.
“All my dad did was work. That’s what a man does. A man provides for his
family. The times he was out of work, they crushed him. I don’t ever want you
to see me like that so I work hard. I push us forward.”

She sat beside him, perched on the edge of the cushion.
“Sometimes I need you to be here now.”

Meeting her gaze, he nodded.

“And I am here. I will always be here. And I will try to
listen better.”

Clarissa sighed. His words felt like an apology and she knew
she should be the one apologizing. “It’s still no excuse for my behavior. I
know I hurt you.”