My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Thanksgiving
Until the phone rang, HPD solo bike officer Quinn Ah Sun figured the only good thing about spending Thanksgiving in the hospital would be watching both NFL games on TV. But then his cousin Lily called to say she'd be coming by later. Now there was something to be thankful for.
Hanging up the phone, Quinn's heart raced. It wasn't his fault that when he'd pulled over this local babe for speeding yesterday, before he'd looked at her license, he looked into her eyes and knew that she was the one, and she was looking back in the same way. But then he did look at the license, and realized she was Lily, the cousin he hadn't seen in 21 years, since they were six. And then later she'd called because she needed a ride home, and they'd stopped to talk at Maunalua Bay, and there in the moonlight they'd shared a kiss that left him wanting more. They were on the verge of another kiss in the garden of Lily's Portlock home when they'd heard screaming inside the house. Quinn ran inside, stopped a creep who'd broken in earlier from raping Rosalita, Lily's maid, but had taken a .22 slug in the right thigh. So here he was.
The first game, Packers and Lions, was about to come on. But until Lily arrived, Quinn was just killing time. He wondered if she'd kiss him. Sure, injured people always get kissed. Quinn had that going for him.
>> With the hand that wasn't in a cast, Serena Kawainui felt the stitches that covered half her face and started to cry again. It was bad enough that she'd lost Donovan's baby in a miscarriage after she crashed his car off the Keeaumoku Overpass yesterday. The baby was supposed to link her and Donovan forever. Worse, her face would be scarred for life -- worse because looks is pretty much what Serena got by on for all these years. Men would do almost anything for a pretty face and a tight body. What the hell was she supposed to be thankful for now? Serena buzzed for a nurse. She needed some serious drugs.
>> Grace Ah Sun opened the door in the ICU, looked inside, and was dismayed by what she saw. Her son Lance still lay unconscious, tubes running into and out of his head, just as he had when Grace and her husband Sheets left last night. He'd been unconscious since falling and hitting his head on a curb when he was attacked by a skinhead during the hate crimes bill rally at the capitol yesterday.
Sheets would be by later, he said, so Grace took up a mother's lonely vigil, sitting at her son's bedside, whispering love and encouragement in his ear, whispering prayers to God. And thankful she still had hope.
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