My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center A dream lives
"So this Sherlock Gomes Scholarship, what is it exactly?" Serena Kawainui said, distrustful as always of men.
"Here's the deal," HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes explained. "First we get you cleaned up, off drugs. So you go to a rehab clinic for a while."
When she crashed Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka's car off the Keeaumoku Overpass yesterday, she was drunk and loaded on ice and pakalolo. "Then we get you in school, college or professional school, to learn another profession." Other than stripping and prostitution, he meant.
"We'll also take care of the plastic surgery, to get you looking beautiful again." The right side of her face had smashed into a Cuervo Gold bottle at impact, and at the moment had so many stitches it looked like Rand-McNally had done the artwork.
"But with this scholarship, there are provisos, certain performance standards."
"Meaning that in return you want sex."
A tear started to form in Gomes' left eye, not so much because of the great insult she had just given him, but because of where it came from. This was how she related to men, sex in exchange for something. He quickly blinked it away.
"No," he said firmly. "Meaning random drug tests to make sure you're staying clean. Grade checks to make sure you're following through."
"And at the end?"
"You can be anything you've ever dreamed of being."
Serena had quit dreaming a long time ago. But there was one old dream that had never quite gone away, and it came to her again, filling her head with visions of fabrics of many colors and textures swirling, billowing in a soft breeze, illuminated by warm lights, and beyond a chorus of people applauding what had come from her mind and hands.
Gomes noticed a dreamy look come over Serena's face, a faint smile to her lips. "Yes," she said, " I do have a dream."
That, Gomes knew, was the best news. It meant there was hope for this young woman. He smiled back. He would begin making calls today. "What's your dream?"
Serena had told only one person about her dream. Another girl, she forgot her name, in one of the last foster homes Serena had bounced into and out of. The girl had laughed and ridiculed her for daring to have such lofty thoughts. "You won't laugh."
Another tear started to form and again Gomes blinked it away. "Of course not."
"I want to design beautiful clothes."
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