My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center No shame in love
Lily Ah Sun stepped onto the elevator, pressed the button for the ICU. She was the lone occupant and leaned dreamily against the wall, her lips still tingling from her cousin Quinn's kisses. Lost in la-la land, she barely noticed the door open.
She did, however, notice when the door closed behind a very tall, very brown, very naked woman. Lily recognized her in a heartbeat, from the stories her tutuwahine had told her so many years ago. Lily always thought tutu's tales were just legend and myth. But this was in-the-flesh. "Ho'ola," Lily whispered.
Ho'ola, goddess of life, healer, rescuer, preserver, touched her nose to Lily's and breathed in deeply. "Love," she said. "You smell of love."
Lily blushed.
"There is no shame," the goddess said, "in love that is true."
Ho'ola touched her nose to Lily's once again, sharing her breath of life.
The elevator door opened.
"I am on my way to see Quinn," Ho'ola said. "To share the blessing I gave to you."
Two doctors stepped onto the elevator, not noticing the presence of the tall naked woman stepping past them.
>> The Rand-McNally look that all the stitches gave to the right side of her face made talking difficult, but Serena Kawainui wanted to talk. HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes had asked about her past, before she met Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka.
Serena was 24 and working as a stripper when she met the senator. She'd been in the business since she was 15, working private parties until she was 18 and could legally get paid to take off her clothes in public. Of course there was more to it than dancing.
Customers wanted a little private time with her, for which they'd pay a ridiculous amount.
And Serena was glad to do it because stripping and selling herself was what got her out of a series of foster homes, to which she'd been consigned at the age of 7.
Her own parents were either unwilling or unable to care for her, largely because of their alcohol and cocaine addictions, which led them to leave Serena and her younger brother Lude at home for extended periods without parental protection, not to mention food and electricity.
Gomes listened as her words poured out, and before she was done Gomes knew what he had to do. He couldn't change her past, but he could influence her future. He could offer her a secret Sherlock Gomes scholarship.
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