“The tradewinds are as cool and soothing as I remembered them,” Etsuko said happily, looking out from beneath a wide-brimmed hat.
Rachel had not been here since moving to Maui and was relieved to see that—while it scarcely resembled the more rural Waikīkī of her childhood—it still retained its beauty. The Moana was one of only eight buildings on the beach: the Waikīkī Tavern; the windowless back wall of the Waikīkī Bowling Alley; the Surfrider Hotel; the Outrigger Canoe Club, famous for launching the career of Olympian Duke Kahanamoku; the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, in whose palatial pink buildings Rachel once briefly stayed; the Halekūlani Hotel; and the old Wilder family beach home. At the 'ewa end of the white crescent, only a thick grove of coconut palms covered Cassidy’s Point.
Frank and Ruth joined the kids in the ocean, which was warm as bathwater. Ruth felt a gentle swell pass under her and took in the dazzling white beach fanning out on either side of her. The warmth of the water, the briny smell of the sea, the brightness of the sun, and the blue clarity of the sky—Hawai'i truly engaged all of one’s senses.
After an hour they all came out of the water to rest. Frank, sitting in a beach chair and looking out to sea, suddenly blinked. “Was that mai-tai more potent than I thought, or does anyone else see what I’m seeing?”
Ruth looked out to sea and saw a dark-skinned figure not just standing but playfully pirouetting on a long, fire-engine red surfboard. Even more remarkably, at the forward “nose” of the board, sat …
“My God,” Ruth said, “is that a dog?”
A small brown-and-white dog was, in fact, perched calmly on the board’s nose, smiling happily.
“Oh, sure,” Rachel noted casually. “That’s Sandy. He’s famous.”
“Sandy? Is that the dog or the guy behind him?” Frank asked.
“Dog. Surfer is Joseph Kaopuiki, but everyone calls him Scooter Boy. You want to meet them?”
“You know him?” Peggy asked.
“When I was living in Honolulu, I liked to come here and watch the surfers—it brought back good memories. I became friendly with a few of the beachboys: Chick Daniels, Poi Dog Nahuli, Scooter Boy … come on.”
She escorted the Haradas down to where Kaopuiki was shouldering his impressively large board—fifteen feet long—as Sandy shook off seawater.
“Scooter!” Rachel called.
Scooter was a slender part Hawaiian in his mid-forties. “Rachel? Hey, where you been, haven’t seen you in a long while.”
“I moved to Maui to live with my sister,” Rachel explained. “Scooter, I’d like you to meet my daughter and her family.”
Sandy sniffed Ruth and Peggy, instantly pegging them as suckers for a dog, allowing them to stroke his wet matted fur and scratch behind his ears.
“How did you teach him to surf?” Ruth asked.
“Like I teach everyone. He’s a smart little guy, picked it up fast.”
“Could you teach me to surf?” Peggy blurted out.
“Peg,” Frank said, “I’m sure Mr. Ka—Scooter has better things to…”
“Be glad to,” Scooter said, “for Rachel’s 'ohana.”
Frank asked, “She’s only fourteen, is it safe?”
“I started surfing a lot earlier than that,” Rachel said, “and as good as my papa was, he wasn’t a master waterman like Scooter.”
“Hey,” Donnie piped up, “how do I learn to use one of those canoes?”
Scooter nodded toward the turquoise building next door to the Moana. “Outrigger Club Services can set you up. Ask for Sally Hale, she’s in charge.” He turned to Peggy. “Come on, let’s get you started and onto that board.”
* * *
After showing Peggy how to go from belly-down to popping up on the board, Scooter had her paddle out to the first break, turn around, and wait for a wave. They were small swells, and Peggy actually managed to hop to her feet on the first try and ride a wave for all of four seconds—before she fell off the board into waist-high waters. This only spurred her to get back on. Within an hour she was riding waves for close to a full minute before wiping out.
“She has good form,” Rachel noted.
Frank smiled. “She doesn’t get this from my side of the family.”
Rachel beamed with pleasure and pride for her granddaughter.
Later, Frank tried to give Scooter a tip, but he demurred. “Professional courtesy,” he said with a wink to Rachel, who was touched and flattered.
Donnie enjoyed canoeing but complained, “I wanted to take a closer look at a coral reef but the instructor said no, the water was too shallow.”
“He did that because you could’ve scraped the bottom of the canoe on the coral and damaged it,” Rachel explained. “Coral reefs are living creatures, Donnie. They’re hard skeletons that form around tiny animals called coral polyps, and if you step on one, or scrape it, you can kill it.”
“They’re alive? They look like stone.”
“The skeleton is made of limestone, which the polyps secrete. If you want a closer look, you could go snorkeling one day at Hanauma Bay.”
“That sounds great!” Donnie said, and Frank promised to look into it.
The next morning the family enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the hotel’s Banyan Court Lānai, under the spreading green canopy of the hotel’s fifty-seven-year-old banyan tree. Everyone was happy with the food, especially Peggy, who loved her hotcakes with macadamia nuts and coconut syrup.
Ruth sipped her coffee, marveling at how the restaurant and banyan tree had seemingly grown up together, accommodating one another’s needs. She watched the morning sun peek through the tree’s tangle of branches. It was so beautiful here; so serene. She had no conscious memory of going to Waikīkī Beach as a child, though Etsuko told her that she had; but there was still a comforting familiarity about the sweet fragrance of orchids and jasmine and the salt breeze off the ocean. Now she knew why Etsuko missed Hawai'i.
“Okāsan,” Ruth said, “would you like to go to Chinatown today? Frank and the kids want to stay at the beach, so it’ll just be you, me, and Rachel. Maybe we can do a little shopping afterward.”
“Oh yes, that would be wonderful. To see Kukui Street again.”
“Etsuko,” Rachel cautioned, “there’s still a Chinatown here, but it’s not necessarily the one you remember. A lot’s changed in thirty years.”
“I understand. It is just for—what is the phrase?—‘old time’s sake.’”
After breakfast, Ruth drove, as Rachel navigated, to the streets 'ewa of Fort Street and what remained of Honolulu’s once-thriving Chinatown. Ruth parked and they explored the area on foot. There were some newer shops and markets here—China Silk House on Fort Street, Chinese Bazaar on Nu'uanu Avenue—but these were unfamiliar names to Etsuko. The fish market near A'ala Park was still operating, the reek of the day’s catch still competing with the sweet smell of soap from nearby laundries. But she searched in vain for the Chinese Mission School, Komenaka’s General Store, or any of the family groceries she’d frequented.
The shabby condition of the buildings, the flaking and fading of their paint, discouraged her even more, as did the relative quiet. She recalled Kukui Street as bustling with conversation and commerce in at least three languages. The silence saddened her.
“Okāsan. Look,” Ruth said suddenly.
Etsuko stopped. They were standing in front of a two-story building with a barber shop and grocery store on the first floor, shaded by yellow-and-white awnings from the sun; the second floor was fronted by a long plantation-style lānai. “Isn’t this where … Papa’s store was?” Ruth asked.
Etsuko looked up at the building’s street number: 216.
“Oh!” she cried. “You’re right. How did I not recognize it?”
“I can’t believe I did,” Ruth said, pleased and surprised by these fragments of her past that were surfacing from some deep fathom of memory. “Does it look like anyone’s living up there?”