Rani Patel In Full Effect. Sonia Patel
a tourist. He must be drunk, ignorant, or both. I bet both. Because first of all, everyone on Moloka’i knows I’m not Hawaiian. I’m the only Gujarati girl on the island. Second, guys never notice me. Pretty lady? Gorgeous hair? What was he talking about? Moloka’i boys won’t even look at me. To the fine local studs my age, I’m a sixteen-year-old dorky four-eyed flat-chested curry-eating non-Hawaiian nobody.
“Let’s you and me take a drive,” he suggested, winking. He propped his elbows on the bar. He tracked me with his beady eyes.
That’ll take chloroform.
“Tempting,” I said, pulling up my glasses by the hinges. Then I crossed my arms and shifted my eyes and chin slightly up and to the right. As if I was actually contemplating his offer.
Not.
I looked back at him. With a bogus pout I said, “Sadly I have to stay and clean up.” And with that, I continued the closing process, ignoring him and his stalker eyes. I shut off the stereo. Silence replaced Leahi’s Island Girls. I switched off half the lights—a nice contrast to the bright, loud, busy evening I’d spent waitressing. Fortunately, the rowdy mainland visitors were gone. Unfortunately, they left behind their boozed-up compatriot.
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He hadn’t moved from his spot at the bar. I grabbed the broom from the tiny closet in the hallway and started sweeping vigorously, hoping he’d get the hint and leave.
In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Drunk-Ass-Creep, West End Cafe is closed now.
He hadn’t noticed.
He pushed himself off the bar and stood up. For a couple of seconds he swayed like a coconut tree in the trades. Must’ve been all those Primos he ordered. He recovered his balance, then staggered towards me. His red golf shirt with Kaluakoi Resort, Moloka’i embroidered on the left chest was untucked and lifted up on one side. Ugh, I could see his hairy beer belly. Smirking, he slurred, “At least gimme one hug. C’mon, make this old man happy.”
I didn’t expect that he’d have the chutzpah to actually do it.
But as soon as he was close enough, he threw his arms around me. Locked in. And squeezed. One of his thick, calloused hands tumbled down my back and crash landed on my okole. Luckily I was still holding the broom, which I used to shove him away. He stumbled back and wobbled, like he was balancing on a tightrope.
Please don’t fall. I don’t want to deal with this. Get out!
He found his footing, gave me major stink eye and yelled, “What the hell! You’re too skinny anyway, you crazy bitch.”
He lurched out, slamming the screen doors behind him.
Drive safe, s’kebei.
Thank God. I shut and locked the front entrance, turned around and leaned my back against the door. The humidity hit me like a ton of bricks. My uniform—a black t-shirt with the restaurant’s name printed in large white cursive letters on the front—clung to my skin. Not fast enough, I hoisted it up and off. I chucked it onto the bar and pulled up my hot pink tube top. AA cups require frequent tube top manipulation to prevent slippage. But I refuse to be denied the right to rock my style. And, just because I’m flat as an anthurium, why shouldn’t I enjoy the natural ventilation a tube top offers? Luckily my baggy jeans were already cool—as in temperature and excellence—by virtue of their billowing roominess and the strategically located holes.
The chill out moment ended all too soon. Mom called from the kitchen, “Rani, do the pouthu, I’ll do the vasun.”
“Ok,” I called back. I took out the mop and bucket.
She had no idea what had just happened on the other side of the saloon doors. But that was nothing new. She’s always been oblivious to most things that involve me. Except the piano. That’s the only thing she’s ever really talked to me about—besides what I have to do at the store and restaurant. It’s always been one of two short edicts:
Practice piano.
Play piano.
Anyway, I think she’s been out to lunch with regards to me because she’s been living in Naraka ever since her arranged marriage to my dad seventeen years ago. Living in hell is probably the opposite of the blissful adult life she imagined as a girl growing up in Kenya and Gujarat. Her chance at a happy life was ripped away by my dad and the vaitru he demanded. And here she is still doing his work today.
Though she’s been blind to things happening in my life, I’ve been a gecko clinging to the wall of her life, listening and watching. Arguments with Dad. Phone calls to relatives. Interactions with customers. And without ever having any heart-to-hearts, I’ve picked up many tidbits about her life. I know she wanted to be a doctor. I know about a handsome man she met at her Gujarat college who wanted to marry her. And she him. I know she never wanted to marry my dad. But as this observant gecko has gleaned, her desires didn’t matter. She had to conform to the expectations set forth by her parents and backed by an entire Gujarati culture. They controlled her life. She submitted. It was all chalked up to naseeb. And boy oh boy, was fate cruel to her. Sometimes I wonder if she thinks it’s a fate worse than death.
I rolled the bucket to the back room to fill it up. Mom was immersed in washing a mountainous stack of dishes in two of the gigantic industrial-sized sinks. I added a couple of capfuls of mopping solution to the bucket and tugged at the pull-down faucet. Water gushed out and the sudsy mixture rose.
I gripped the mop handle. I hated to clean. I shoved the bucket like it was a gigantic boulder and I was Sisyphus. When I got to the dining area I surveyed the mess. I blew the loose strands of hair from my face. Napkins, beer bottles, remnants of rice, hamburger steak, and Portuguese bean soup were scattered across the tables and hardwood floor. The soles of my precious hot pink, baby blue, and creamy white Adidas high tops clung to the boards. A strange groan and shudder emanated from my body. It was so bizarre that I decided it should have its own word. A grudder. Or a shroan.
I hate my life.
I freakin’ hate my life.
Then I felt guilty for hating my life because I realized it would never be as bad as my mom’s. Still, I was resentful. I mopped away the tourists’ dinner evidence and their sticky dregs. The monotony of mopping allowed my thoughts to wander. But like always, they returned to my dad. Things had been out of whack. Worse since the roses.
In early August, Pono Kamakou and I, both reps for our senior class of 1992, were at Moana’s Florist. Now I’m definitely not one to front like I know much about Hawaiian culture because I most certainly don’t. But I know that it’s customary in local culture nowadays to present honored guests with lei. So Pono and I were selecting lei for the University of Hawaii at Manoa college admissions officers flying over for an assembly early the next morning.
Incidentally, Pono’s got to be the hottest vice president on the face of the earth. Since I’m president I get to hang with my towering, hunky VP outside of school for official class business like this. In my humble opinion, it’s the biggest perk of being president—a position I was elected to only because no one else ran for it. I’ve been crushing on him since the beginning of junior year. Too bad he’s had a girlfriend pretty much since then. The perfect Emily Angara. Not that it would matter even if he was single because like all Moloka’i boys, he wouldn’t be interested in me even if I was the only girl in school.
Pretending like I was carefully inspecting ti leaf and pikake lei, I was secretly ogling Pono’s amazing brown eyes, silky black hair, and dark, smooth skin. He’s three-quarter Hawaiian, one-eighth Filipino, one-sixteenth Spanish, and one-sixteenth Chinese with the lean, muscular body of a die-hard surfer. Which he is.
The front door creaked open. That’s when I spotted the back of my dad’s head. I knew it was him. He’s the only man on Moloka’i with that jet black coarse wavy Indian hair. Pared down like a round, sculpted Chia Pet. I call it his Indro. He didn’t see me.
Pono