My Kind of Town
>> State Library Back in the days
Two thoughts kept nagging Lily Ah Sun as she headed for the back of the building in search of the newspaper archives: What did Uncle Mits mean when he said her father could blow everything if he didn't pull himself together? And what exactly did Uncle Mits have up his sleeve to keep her away from Quinn?
But Lily's anger and frustration fell away like last year's fashions when she saw the children's section. Oh, the memories it brought back. Lily could see herself, awash in golden sunlight, curling up between stacks of books while her mother looked for her own books in the grown-up section. That had been a perfect day for Lily. She smiled at the memory of the girl she was then, so innocent. And what she wouldn't give for the time to curl up with a book again and not worry about the time.
Lily was in a hurry, but she lingered among the stacks that now seemed so small, but in those days had been like a towering protective fortress where she could hide and lose herself in the words that led to other worlds. She remembered that her youngest brother Lance would also come along when they went to the library. But once he got past picture books, the library would never be as magical for Lance as it was for Lily because, they only learned later, he was dyslexic. That was probably what led him to the creative side, dancing and painting. Poor Lance, who now lay in a coma at Queen's after being attacked during the hate crimes bill rally -- his big coming out party.
Funny thing, their brother Laird never went to the library. He was a rough and tumble boy, surfing, fishing, playing ball, riding his bike all over Kailua with his buddies. Laird never read at all, except when he had to for school. And now he was about to graduate from Stanford business.
And that thought brought the anger back, and the resentment, because their father gave Laird so many opportunities that were never available to Lily. She was expected to be a secretary or sales clerk and find a husband to take care of her. Yet it was Lily who had gone to work in the family's Honolulu Soap Co., starting with the lowliest of tasks, and eventually developed a subsidiary with her own line of phyto-cosmetics, Ola Essences.
Her rising anger guided Lily toward the back of the building and down a flight of concrete stairs to the basement. The scent of old newsprint filled her nose, and her heart raced knowing she might be just steps from finding clues to what made her father and her Uncle Mits 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