My Kind of Town
>> Honolulu Soap Co. Oooh-la-la
Lily Ah Sun was just sitting down at her desk when the phone rang.
"Aloha, this is Lily."
It was her maid, Rosalita Resurreccion.
"Mum, Mr. Resurreccion would like to take Elizabeth and me to Pearl Harbor, to see the Arizona Memorial."
Lily had left Rosalita and her 6-year-old daughter Elizabeth at home with Muhammed Resurreccion, the cousin of Rosalita's late husband Jesus. There was something about the visitor from Zamboanga Lily didn't like, and she didn't like thinking it was his Muslim name. To Lily, he seemed to be acting, playing a part. And as she left the house, she found another reason not to like him. He'd made the young woman who was driving his rental van wait in the hot sun while he went inside to visit.
But Lily knew that Rosalita felt "utang na loob," a debt of honor, for Muhammed's "bayanihan," help of a family member.
It was Muhammed who arranged for Rosalita's work visa to Hawaii after Jesus drowned when a ferry sank in a storm off Cebu.
"Of course, have a good time," Lily said. "Everyone should see the Arizona Memorial."
>> Queen's Medical Center
The afternoon edition of the Star-Bulletin that Dr. Aeschylus Wong dropped with a thud on the lunch room table in front of Dr. Laurie Tang quickly drew a crowd, and a few collegial oooh-la-las.
There was Laurie in a photo on Page One, wearing a high-hipped electric blue swimsuit, with a hunky guy wearing only red Birdwell surf shorts, and they were standing on top of a WWII-vintage Japanese mini-submarine at Ala Moana Beach Park.
Laurie's ER charge nurse Van Truong saw the way that Laurie looked up at the guy and how she touched his arm. That explained the good doctor's extra-good mood today. She was goofy-in-love with, according to the caption, HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes.
"Is this serious?" Van asked.
"Really, we just met, um, but he is coming to my place for dinner tonight."
>> Pearl City
One of HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes' greatest gifts was the power of concentration, to shut out everything except the matter at hand. Not today, not after meeting Dr. Laurie Tang. As the widower Sheila Fernandez tearfully explained how she'd come home to find every one of her family photos stolen off the bookshelf in the living room, all Gomes could think about was the family photos he and Laurie would be framing in years to come.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com