My Kind of Town
>> Honolulu Iron Works But still yet...
The fifth glass of white merlot arrived for Lily and Shauny at the same time Shauny's identical but very different twin Fawn did. The one Lt. Col. Chuck Ryan had been waiting for since he met the trio while working out earlier.
Black slacks, camel jacket over a cream silky top with a high kind of neck deal, whatever they called it. Ryan really was bad at women's clothes. But at least he noticed, and wasn't that the whole point?
Ryan stood, offering the seat next to him at the corner of the bar to Fawn.
She smiled, sat down.
"How about some lunch?"
"Is that a trick queshtion?!" Shauny slurred and laughed, which gave Lily the giggles.
"I'd love some lunch," Fawn said. "The blackened ahi." She pointed at Ryan's Miller Lite. "And one of those. But only one. My limit"
"That's nice to know," said Ryan, meaning it. And then to the bartender, "And let's get the pupu platter. Some people around here need to get some food in them or we're all in trouble."
The food arrived with Lily and Shauny's sixth glass of white merlot.
"So what's the deal with this guy you said you met today?!"
Lily told it from the start, from when she'd been blasting down the H-1 and a motorcycle cop pulled her over. In her rearview mirror she watched him straddling off his big bike, and couldn't believe how tall and muscular he was. But she didn't realize how good-looking he was until he arrived at her door. And her heart fluttered. And stunned as she was, she thought that maybe the young cop was having similar feelings.
Lily told them how the cop removed his mirrored Oakley shades and leaned down and looked at her in a way that warmed her inside. She felt drawn into his light brown hapa eyes and found herself removing her DK sunglasses and looking back. For a moment they shared a lingering gaze.
"And?!" Shauny urged the story forward.
"And he said my name and sounded stunned. And then I noticed the name stitched in gold on his blue uniform. We have the same last name, Ah Sun."
"Omigod!" Shauny said. "It's your cousin, the one you haven't seen in ..."
"Since we were both six, 21 years ago."
"Oh, Lily, you can't be in love with your cousin!" Fawn said.
"I know I can't," Lily said unconvincingly. "I don't want to have kids who look like salamanders."
"But still yet ..." Shauny said.
"But still yet ..." Lily agreed. "But still yet ..."
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com