My Kind of Town
The eyes have it
>> Honolulu Soap Co.
Chinese and Japanese and Hawaiian blood ran in Lily Ah Sun's veins. Her father Sheets always said: "In business, be Chinese. In your manners and bearing, be Japanese. In your love for life and your family and Hawaii, be Hawaiian."(There was haole blood, too, from a Scottish seaman or something. But nobody talked about it because if it happened, it happended in China a long time ago. How else would you explain Lily's brown skin and hazel-green eyes?)
Lily loved life, and so she had named her company Ola Essences, because life was the essence of the company and its products. From the start Lily wanted to create perfumes and cosmetics that came from real plants and flowers, products that were full of life, not petroleum- or animal-based gunk. And she'd found a way to remove the essence of a plant, preserve its nutrients and its power, and bottle it up. Face creams that came from cucumber and papaya and aloe, a pineapple astringent, perfumes practically fresh-squeezed from ginger and gardenia and roses. Phyto-cosmetics. Now Ola Essences was being sold around the world. She hoped her father remembered that while considering her proposal to reorganize the Honolulu Soap Co.
A vision of her long-lost cousin Quinn in his tight motorcycle cop uniform and boots flitted through her consciousness. Lily knew a no-fault way to determine a man's buffness -- in the chin and the cheeks. Cheeks of the face, of course. Lily was thoroughly modern, but she was also old-fashioned, thank you. And judging from his chiseled cheeks and chin, Quinn was a hard body.
She'd given her card to him and hoped he'd call. The mere thought excited her.
"Get those thoughts out of your head!" she said to herself. "He's your cousin. Damnit."
Besides, right now Lily needed to focus on business.
>> Mokauea Street
The faded gray sedan stopped at Nimitz Highway for a red light, waiting to turn left. No way the three guys in the black SUV were going to lose this guy Mickey. It was a matter of family honor, this traditional aufoga.Growing up in Samoa, when he was still known as Selila, Seth recalled the roving vigilante groups that would mete out citizens' justice. The chiefs looked the other way, knowing that social order was being maintained. The creep Mickey who ripped off his daughter Kimmee in a drug deal would soon be meeting justice at the hands of Seth and his cousins Tai and Wili.
>> Tomorrow: Six-day synopsis
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com