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Pakalaki Memories: 14

Kirby Wright

We drove Gramma to the airport the next day. She rode between my parents in the front seat. Ben was in back with me. I cranked open the side window for air. Gramma wore a black dress with a white stripe running vertically off either shoulder. She had on a white fedora with a black band. The hat was cocked to one side and it reminded me of the gangster hats in The Untouchables. Instead of pearls, she wore the plumeria lei I'd made her.

Ben had spent the night with Gramma but he told me she hadn't take him to the bakery. She claimed she wasn't ono for sweets. When he said he was, Gramma told him the combination of eating pastries and drinking juice would make his urine "acidy." She said the acid would eat huge holes through his bladder and kill him. When he told her he was willing to risk death to eat an eclair, she told him to paha his waha.

My father took the Nimitz Highway to the airport and drove past the lei stands. He said Tommy had just been fired as night manager of Queen's Surf for flirting with a Japanese waitress and drinking on the job.

"My Tommy can hold his liquor," Gramma said.

"Not this time," my father replied.

"I'm goin' tah call Tommy and find out."

"Don't you believe me, mother?"

" 'Course I believe yah, Normy."

"Let's face it," he said, "Tommy's a lush."

"Maybe he can get some help," my mother suggested.

My father frowned. "He'll never change."

We waited with Gramma at the terminal. The day was hot and time dragged. We talked about things like Hale Kia's tides, the horses and whether gardenias were blooming outside her mountain house. My father kept looking at his watch. Gramma lit a cigarette and sucked at it through her chrome holder. The plumeria on her lei were turning brown.

When the plane finally arrived, Gramma crossed the tarmac and took the steps up to the plane. We waited for her to wave to us when she reached the top step, the way she always did when she was leaving Honolulu.

She boarded without looking back.

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