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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Private dancer
>> Kona
Cruz MacKenzie heard the shower curtain flung open, the water still running. "Your turn," Jasmine Kanaka called.
"Give me a minute."
It was pushing midnight when Cruz called the city desk. The final edition had already been put to bed, Garry the city editor said. "Even if you could get official confirmation at this hour, which I doubt, I'm not going to stop the presses and remake the paper over this."
Cruz hung up. With the sound of the shower still running and Sonya singing along to the Makaha Sons' "Island of Love" on the radio -- "Listen, can't you hear her calling, aloha, welcome my love..." -- he walked out to the lanai for some air, and hopefully guidance. He looked up at the stars, out at their reflection dancing across a calm, kaiolohia sea. What was he going to do about Jasmine? Never in his life had passion and principal competed so intensely, or so evenly. He wanted to do the right thing. He also wanted Jasmine.
"Are you out here?" she called from inside.
Cruz turned, leaned back against the railing and felt his heart click into high gear as Jasmine with just a white towel tied around her chest danced a sensuous hula to Willie K's "You Ku'uipo," and motioned for him to sit on one of the lanai loungers. He obeyed, lay back and watched her dance, and thought that at least once in his life every man should have the pleasure of a beautiful young woman dancing a private hula while backlit by starlight and sea. As his heart raced, as the towel began to slip, he abandoned all claims to uncle-ness.
But then Jasmine weaved, stumbled, kicked the other lounger: "Ouch! Damn! My toe!" And Cruz realized how drunk she was and remembered why: A jerk named Jason. He stood and balanced her and she lay her arms on his shoulders.
"Sorry," she said, dipping her head the way drunks do to get words out.
When she kissed his cheek, Cruz smelled the warm sour breath of someone who's been drinking all day and can't mask it with a little Colgate. Up close now, with the spell broken, in her eyes he saw that all of the drinks had not entirely masked the hurt she'd come to Kona to forget. But his physical attraction had not diminished. Moral dilemmas, alas, are seldom as simple as just saying no. Say no 100 times, temptation tries 101.
"You want me, don't you, Cruz?" she slurred, pulling against him, dancing again. "I can tell." She giggled.
"Yes, I do, dear. But that doesn't mean anything is going to happen tonight."
She giggled again. "I knew you'd say that. But it's OK, I asked Daddy."
"You what?!"
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com
