My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
Reality runs late
>> Queen's Medical Center
Sheets Ah Sun got right to the point.
"I've been thinking, Lily. You know that proposal you gave me the other day, to reorganize the Soap Company? The more I think about it, the more I like it. After this heart attack, I know I need to cut back. I need some help, somebody to run things for me. And since Laird showed us what an idiot he is by going off to Afghanistan, well, Lily, it occurs to me that out of you three kids, you're the one most like me and ..."
Lily's heart was pounding with anticipation. "So what's the question?!"
"Would you like to become president of the Soap Company?"
Her shriek brought Carlita Delos Reyes running. But all the young nurse saw was the patient getting a hug from his daughter and everybody was smiling. "Everything OK?"
"Sorry," Lily said with half a blush and a shrug. "I got excited."
When the nurse left shaking her head, Lily said, "I'll make you proud of me."
"I already am," he replied.
Which made Lily and her mother Grace mist up.
Sheets didn't have time for that. "First thing tomorrow, call Dick (the Honolulu Soap Company's corporate attorney), have him come see me so we can draw up the papers."
Lily made a note in her Palm Pilot day-planner.
"And I'll draft a statement to employees and the media, announcing the change."
This was happening so fast, reality was running late for Lily. "Are you sure about this? It's not just that you're angry with Laird?"
At that moment her younger brother Laird was checking in at Honolulu International for his red-eye to San Francisco, soon to join Christian X.O. St. James' mission teaching Christianity and capitalism to the mujahadeen.
"Oh, I'm plenty mad at that boy. Disappointed too, what he's doing with his new MBA from Stanford. But better to find out now he's a goofball than after he's running things. And it takes more than book-learning to keep a successful company moving. I never had a day of school after 12th grade, but I had a dream and I was willing to work for it. I see that same thing in you, Lily, and I know what you've done with Ola Essences. So, yes, this is exactly what I want to do."
"Me too!" Lily was excited to get started in transforming the Honolulu Soap Company into a modern business, and excited to tell Quinn the cool news.
But before she left, she hugged and kissed the man who had raised her even though she wasn't his, who had always given her love, and who now placed his precious company in her care. She thanked him again, and she called him Daddy.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com