My Kind of Town
>> Executive Center The hits keep coming
Van Truong glanced at the calendar on the desk beside her iMac. Happy Autumnal Equinox, according to phases of the moon. The equinox heralds the coming of fall, and hopefully the coming of falling in love. The seasons are changing, and what a perfect time for her life to take a happy turn. Van had been alone for so long. Since her husband left her -- shortly after they arrived in America from Vietnam, a journey that started aboard a leaky, filthy tub on which her baby daughter Hong died -- Van had only been with just one man, and that was just once. He never called again. Maybe it was the stretch marks. Maybe it was that she didn't really know about pleasing a man. When she was married, well, her husband did everything, and in a hurry.
That last experience was in 1993. She'd been lonely too long indeed. Thankfully her work as a charge nurse in the Queen's ER, working with wonderful and talented people like Dr. Laurie Tang, with whom Van helped save two lives today, was fulfilling and satisfying. At the end of the day she was proud of what she did and who she was.
And at the end of the day the other side of the bed was always cold. But Van was well on the way to making a change. No sooner had she placed her ad on the heart2heart/2knowU matchmaking Website, the e-mail started going crazy. It was like Casey Kasem used to say on American Top 40: "And the hits just keep on coming!"
She had more than a dozen responses already. But where to start? Well, why not at the top of the long list of men? Van had her reading for the evening. The new Danielle Steele novel on her nightstand could wait.
>> Kaimuki
The thin hapa woman in her late 30s was known only as KD at the restaurant where she washed dishes. "Not Katie," she insisted. "KD."
Co-workers didn't know much about her, other than she was quiet and quirky, and they didn't know the half of her quirks.
"There you go," she said to the photos of people she didn't know -- and had taken earlier today from a home in Pearl City -- as one by one she hung them on a wall in her family room. Her family was growing -- over 50 photos now. KD didn't know their names, but they were hers. They were all the family she had.
And look at them, so many happy faces smiling at her. In their eyes was love, and it was all for her.
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