|
My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Rude awakening
>> Honolulu
That night after their first dinner at Sam Choy's, Bodhicita Guzman and Fon Du slept the sleep of the aroused as little snapshot memories of the dinner and their happenstance meeting at Neiman's flashed in their heads.
He lived at a Kahala estate behind high walls with several other members of Te-Wu, who like him were officially with the Bank of Lhasa's Honolulu branch. Fon Du, as head of the local Chinese secret police, got the master bedroom, and he longed to bring the Japanese-Puerto Rican beauty here and know her in intimate detail. When he did, he understood, she would be different from the others and he would never get enough of her. Well, even secret agents have wives, don't they? At 33, perhaps it was time for him to consider it.
Bodhicita lived in Kaimuki, he knew -- a Te-Wu colleague followed her and reported that she rented a small cottage behind a larger house on Ninth Avenue.
And there, for the first time, her twin bed felt empty. She'd found her man -- tall, handsome, fit, a banker with wit and charm, and financially secure. She'd just met him, but she knew already that he was her future.
He called the next morning when she was on her way to class, said he had a business dinner that night -- in fact, he would be attending a Falun Gong session -- but hoped he could take her to lunch. Yes, she said, and was so excited that she had a hard time focusing on the lecture.
He picked her up in a black Mercedes, took her to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel Surf Room. Bodhicita decided she could get used to living like this. He asked about her studies, learned she was working on a masters in Pacific History. That should have raised a red warning flag. He'd been taught that a trophy wife is fine but don't marry one too smart. Better to get one who didn't think too much or ask questions.
But he ignored the warning, and she ignored one too -- he worked a lot of nights for a banker -- and within two weeks she invited him in after dinner at Sarento's. And he was hooked. Soon he was bringing her home to his master bedroom.
She was there one morning six months later, afterglowing with her head on his shoulder, when as usual he reached for the remote and turned on the KHON morning news. Kirk Matthews was reporting that the local lama was returning to Honolulu for the first time in 16 years, and before she could say he was the brother of her friend Joe Kharma, Fon Du swore, jumped up and said it was time to go to work.
Just that quick, she fell out of love.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com