My Kind of Town
Three elements
>> State Library
It had been years since Lily Ah Sun was here. So long, in fact, that it hit her how small everything seemed now. In all of her previous memories -- usually of coming here with her mother, who passed along her love of reading (or was it just a habit?) to Lily -- everything was so big, the stacks of books like enormous towers built of paper and ink and words, arguably the greatest combination of three elements ever created.
Lily caught herself. Well, no, actually. Moments ago at Queen's she experienced the greatest combination of three elements -- eucalyptus, ginger and sea brine -- the scent of Ho'ola, goddess of life. It was a scent that Lily would attempt to recreate when she got back to work. She'd been out of the office for 24 hours now, nearly a world record for her, and she really didn't believe that Ola Essences could function very long or very well without her there. Suzee Mountain was a great assistant, but Ola was Lily's baby. Ola needed her.
Unfortunately, she would have to be out of the office for at least the rest of today. Because Lily's personal life had erupted. It had also been so long since Lily had been here that she decided to get a new library card. In doing so, librarian Marion Lee discovered that Lily had a late fine, from February 1986, "Sweet Valley Twins: Three's Not A Crowd." With late charges and interest, the librarian said, looking over the top of her reading glasses, the total amount due was $19,783.62.
Lily gulped. "Would it help if I returned the book?" She knew exactly where it was -- on the bookshelf in her old room at her parents' home in Kailua, which they kept exactly the way she'd left it when she moved out at age 19 to share an apartment with her best friends, the identical but very different twins Shauny and Fawn Nakamura. Back in February 1986 when they were in the seventh grade and for some time after, "Three's Not A Crowd" was Lily's favorite book because it was like the author was writing about her and Shauny and Fawn. "I guess I forgot it was a library book."
A deal made with the stern but sympathetic librarian Marion -- who mentioned that she recognized Lily from yesterday's Star-Bulletin business story about Ola products going into Macy's stores nationally, meaning she knew very well how to get ahold of Lily if the book was not returned ASAP -- Lily headed for the newspaper archives, hoping to unlock the secret of why her father and her cousin Quinn's father had quit speaking 21 years ago.
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