Still . . . Makani checked her phone.
As usual, there was no word from back home. At least the messages of hate had long stopped. No one there was looking for her, and the only people who still cared about it—the incident, as she self-censored that night on the beach—were people like Jasmine. The only people who mattered. Makani would have never guessed that her friends’ permanent silence would be infinitely more painful than those weeks when thousands of uninformed, condescending, misogynistic strangers had spewed vitriol at her. It was.
Even without the repeat of their most frequent fight, Grandma Young’s voice turned disapproving. “You left the kitchen cabinets open again this morning.”
Makani stared harder at her phone. “I’m not the one leaving them open.”
“My memory is fine, hon. You’d already left for school when I got out of bed. It’s basic manners to tidy up after yourself. I’m not asking for much.”
“I didn’t even have breakfast this morning.” Makani couldn’t conceal the swell of her frustration. “Have you called your doctor? Like I asked you to?”
“As you’re well aware, I haven’t had an episode in almost a year.”
Makani looked up, and Grandma Young immediately lowered her gaze. It was hard for her grandmother to discuss her weaknesses . . . or have anyone question her version of the truth. They shared this trait. Grandma Young snapped two puzzle pieces together in a way that signaled the end of it as Makani kept staring, wishing that she could push the discussion while recognizing the depths of her own hypocrisy.
Her grandmother was taller than most women of her generation. She had short hair that she had allowed to age, gray with white speckles. It looked beautiful, like the negative of a snowy owl. Makani’s paternal grandmother, back in Hawaii, still dyed her hair black. Grandma Kanekalau even used the same color and brand as Alex.
Grandma Young wasn’t so harsh. She had soft dark brown skin, a soft figure, and a soft voice, but she spoke with the firmness of a commanding authority. She used to teach American history at the high school. She’d been retired for half a decade, and though Makani was thankful that she would never be subjected to a class taught by her own grandmother, she imagined she’d probably been a good teacher.
Grandma and Granddaddy Young had always been kind in a way that the rest of her family was not. They asked questions. They were attentive. Even before the divorce proceedings began, Makani’s parents had been selfish. As a child, Makani had wanted a sibling to keep her company, to adore her, to care about her, but it was for the best that her parents had never had another child. They would have ignored him or her, too.
But Makani’s banishment to Osborne wasn’t just because of her own unspeakable mistake. Grandma Young had also done something bad. Last Thanksgiving, her neighbor caught her sleep-pruning his walnut tree at three in the morning, and when he’d tried to rouse her, she’d lopped off the tip of his nose. She’d been having trouble with sleepwalking since the unexpected death of Makani’s grandfather the summer before. Doctors were able to reattach the fleshy nub, and the neighbor didn’t sue, but the escalation had alarmed Makani’s mother, who persuaded her father that the best solution—to all their problems—would be to dispatch their daughter to watch over Grandma Young.
Makani’s parents couldn’t agree on anything, but they had agreed to send her here. They probably believed the lopping had been serendipitous.
For the most part, Makani didn’t think her grandmother needed a babysitter. Not a single hazardous episode had occurred since Makani’s arrival. Only in the last few months with the return of these mundane, low-key episodes—open cabinets, misplaced tools, unlocked doors—had Makani realized that she was, indeed, needed.
Usually, it felt good to be needed.
It had backfired only once.
She’d been needed in July. The heat that afternoon had been stifling, the kind of oppressive humidity that lends itself to tank tops, short shorts, and bad decisions.
Makani already had all three covered.
It was the first anniversary of Granddaddy Young’s death, and her grandmother wanted to spend the day alone. It was also Wednesday, double-coupon day, so Makani offered to do the weekly shopping in her stead. Greeley’s Foods was less than two miles away, on Main Street. It was as plain and boxy as the high school, but with the added charm of lower ceilings and cramped aisles.
Makani couldn’t understand why these places didn’t expand their premises. There was plenty of room to do it. Unlike coastal Hawaii, rural Nebraska had an abundance of land. It had nothing but land. It was a completely different country.
She entered the store with a handwritten list and a recycled envelope stuffed with coupons. They noticed each other right away. He was wearing the green Greeley’s apron and restocking the plum tomatoes. Only Ollie Larsson could make an apron look sexy.
Makani wanted to say something. By the way he stared back, she knew he wanted to say something. Neither of them said anything.
She wheeled around a rickety cart and filled it with healthy food. Her grandfather had died of a heart attack, so her grandmother had been recently consumed by the gospel of nutrition. As Makani hunted down boxes of steel-cut oats and bags of dried beans, she prickled with the knowledge of Ollie’s movements throughout the store. When he switched from stocking the tomatoes to the squash. When he hustled over to aisle five to clean up a broken jar of sweet relish. When he drifted back to produce.
They had never spoken in school. They’d had several classes together, but he kept to himself. Makani wasn’t even positive that he’d been aware of her existence before that afternoon. She’d hoped he might switch to working one of the store’s three registers, but as she headed toward the checkout lanes, he vanished into the back room.
She couldn’t help it. She felt disappointed.
Makani was piling grocery sacks into Grandma Young’s early-nineties gold Taurus wagon when she heard the laugh—singular and derisive. She slammed the trunk closed angrily, already knowing that it had something to do with her.
Ollie stared at her from the alleyway beside the store. He was perched on a plastic milk crate, giving all the appearance of a smoke break, except instead of a cigarette, he was holding a book loosely between his fingers.
“You think my grandma’s car is funny?” she asked.
An unorthodox smile grew on his lips. He let it sit between them for several long seconds before speaking. “I’m not sure why I’d make fun of yours when that’s mine.” He pointed at a white vehicle parked on the other side of the lot.
It was a decommissioned police cruiser. The force’s crest had been scraped off, and it didn’t have the light bar on top, but Makani recognized it from school. Everyone knew that Ollie drove a police car—a gift most likely bestowed upon him by his older brother, a cop—and their classmates ragged him about it mercilessly. Makani suspected he kept driving it just to prove that he didn’t give a shit.
“So, why were you laughing at me?” she asked.
Ollie rubbed the back of his neck. “Not you. Me.”
Makani didn’t know if it was the summer swelter or the culmination of seven months of unrelenting tedium, but she sensed . . . something. She walked toward him, slowly. Her bare legs shone. “And why were you laughing at yourself, Ollie?”
He watched her approach, because it was clear that she wanted him to watch. He waited to reply. When she stopped before him, he tilted up his head and shielded his eyes from the sun. “Because I wanted to speak to you earlier, but I was too nervous. Makani.”
So, he knew who she was.
She smiled.
Ollie stood up from the milk crate, and his silver lip ring glinted in the sunlight. She wondered how it would feel between her own lips. It had been too long since she’d kissed anyone. Since anyone had wanted to kiss her. Get a hold of yourself. Makani took a physical step backward, because it was impossible to converse when they were standing that close. Chest to chest. And she was, above
all things, intrigued by Ollie.
She nodded at his paperback. “I never see you without a book.”
He held it up so that she could see its cover: a cluster of men hanging out the doors and windows of a moving train. She didn’t recognize it, so he explained. “It’s about an American who travels from London to Southeast Asia by train.”
“Is it a true story?”
He nodded.
“Do you read a lot of true stories?”
“I read a lot of travelogues. I like reading about other places.”
“I get it.” Her smile returned. “I like thinking about other places.”
Ollie stared at her mouth for a moment, distracted. “Any place but this one,” he finally said. But it was clear that he was referring to the greater Osborne, and not this very specific place beside Greeley’s Foods—this place that contained her.
“Exactly,” she said.
He leaned against the brick wall and melted back into the shade. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to regain his disinterested cool or if he was simply shy. “You’re from Hawaii, right? Are you going back there after graduation?”
Makani’s heart stuttered. She searched his eyes—such a searing blue—but it was unlikely that he knew. The Hawaiian media had withheld her name, though that hadn’t stopped social media. It hadn’t stopped her from needing to change her name.
“I’m not sure,” she said cautiously. “What about you? Where do you want to go?”
Ollie shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Anywhere, so long as it’s not here.”
“What’s keeping you from leaving now?” She was genuinely curious. A lot of their classmates never made it to graduation.
“My brother. And the money.” He gestured at his apron. “I’ve been working here since I was fourteen. That’s when they’ll let you bag groceries.”
She’d never heard of someone her age holding down a job for that long. “Jesus. That’s . . . three years? Four?”
“I would have started earlier if they’d let me.”
Makani glanced behind them at the desolate Main Street. Greeley’s Foods faced a meager row of mismatched awnings—a tanning salon, a real estate office, an upholsterer, and a bridal shop that still had prom dresses in its window display. She’d never been through any of their doors. “I wish I could get a job.”
“No,” he said. “You don’t.”
His conviction irritated her. She’d wanted to apply at the Feed ’N’ Seed, where Darby and Alex both worked, but she’d been firmly denied. “I do. But according to my parents, my job is to take care of my grandmother.”
Ollie frowned. “Does she need help? She’s always seemed fine to me.”
Makani was startled . . . until she realized that he must see her grandmother here at the store. Grandma Young was notable enough; few black people lived in Osborne. His brother had probably even had her as a teacher. “She is fine,” she said, sliding into her usual half-truth. “My parents are just using her as an excuse.”
“For what?”
“For sending me four thousand miles away. Parents are the fucking worst, you know?” Her regret was instantaneous. It wasn’t fair to say things like that in front of someone who didn’t have any parents at all. She winced. “Sorry.”
Ollie stared at the asphalt for several beats. When his gaze returned upward, his expression was detached, but she could still see a struggle underneath. It wasn’t difficult for her to imagine how awful it would be to live in a town where everyone, even the new girl, knew that a drunk driver had killed your parents when you were in middle school, and that your brother had moved back home from Omaha to raise you.
He shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“No, I’m really sorry. It was a shitty thing to say.”
“And I’m sorry that your parents are the fucking worst.”
Makani wasn’t sure how to respond—Was that a joke?—so when Ollie’s mouth split into a grin, her heart skipped like a scratched vinyl record. She didn’t want to ruin the moment. “All right, all right. I’d better get home.” She strolled back to her car and shook her head. But as she opened the door, she called out, “See you next week, Ollie.”
Ollie bit his lip. “See you next week, Makani.”
There was nothing else to think about, so, for the next six days, Makani thought exclusively about Ollie. She thought about his lips and her lips and pressing them together. Pressing more than their lips together. She entered a fever state. She hadn’t had a boyfriend since moving to Nebraska. Makani pleaded with her grandmother to let her take over the grocery shopping. She tested out words like responsibility and maturity and strung together other words like valuable, learning, and experience. She won.
When Makani pulled back into the lot, Ollie was sitting on the same milk crate. He was reading a book and eating a red Popsicle. Makani went straight toward him. He stood. His expression didn’t give anything away, but she felt the truth of it in her bones: Ollie had been waiting for her.
She stepped inside his personal space.
Ollie bit his lower lip over the silver ring. It slowly slipped back out.
When he wordlessly offered her the Popsicle, she went for his mouth instead, because she’d long ago—six days ago—decided that being forward was the best way to approach a guy with his sort of reputation. Their first kiss was wet. Cold tongue and sugary fruit. Cherry, Makani thought. His piercing was warm from the summer sun. The surgical-steel hoop pushed against her lips. It felt dangerous.
The Popsicle hit the asphalt behind them in a frozen, quiet thump.
They made out there, in the alleyway, every Wednesday for the next three weeks. The fourth week, it rained. They moved into the backseat of her grandmother’s car. This additional barrier of privacy led to the next natural stage.
“Hands,” she explained later to her friends. “Not mouths.”
“Could you make it sound any more disgusting?” Darby said.
“But it’s an important distinction,” Alex said. “They got each other off, but their clothes were still on. And their heads were still above sea level.”
Makani made a face. “Never mind. I’m not even sure why I told you.”
On the fifth Wednesday—the last before school began—the sky was clear, but Ollie slid into her car anyway, and she drove them someplace private.
It was a cornfield, of course.
They had sex, of course.
“Are you guys ever gonna go out? You know, for real?” Darby asked her that night. “Or is this just going . . . to end?”
It ended the next week. Before the first bell on the first day of school, their eyes locked across campus. Ollie’s expression was unreadable. That purposeful, standoffish blankness. The truth hit Makani like an ugly slap. No, they had never discussed going out. She didn’t even have his number. This summer had been a secret thing, a dateless thing, which meant that one of them—or both of them—was ashamed of it.
Makani wasn’t ashamed. Confused, yes. But not ashamed.
So, it was Ollie, then.
Makani narrowed her eyes. Ollie narrowed his. Did he know? Had he somehow found out about that night on the beach? Now he’d act as if they’d never known each other. Shame returned to Makani full force.
So did humiliation. And rage. She refused to look at him anymore, and she never returned to Greeley’s. She pleaded for her grandmother to resume grocery duty, claiming that school took up too much of her time. It didn’t. Makani had been judged and put back in her place, but she was still bored as hell.
As she pointlessly rechecked her phone, battling two measly bars of pitifully weak service, Makani wondered if boredom had also contributed to her reapproaching Ollie at lunch. Had she really sunk that low?
Probably. Shit.
“Oh, shoot,” Grandma Young said. A spinning circle blocked the television screen, and Olivia Pope had stopped talking mid-sentence. “I called the cable company just last week, but they said we’re already getting their highest-s
peed package.”
Makani pictured her beachside bungalow in Hawaii, where the internet only went out in the worst tropical storms. Where her phone always had full bars. Why couldn’t landlocked Osborne figure this out? Why was everything so damned difficult here?
They turned off Netflix, and Makani grabbed her shoes and trudged upstairs to do homework. When she returned downstairs at five, Creston Howard said nothing new in a way that reassured Grandma Young but made Makani want to punch him in the jaw. It was all very unsurprising. They’d both already seen the footage online: the Whitehalls’ crime-scene taped farmhouse, Haley’s father stumbling, head down, into the police station for questioning, and Haley herself, flying around the stage last year as Peter Pan.
“Tonight, Osborne grieves for Haley Madison Whitehall,” Creston said, ending the segment with a solemn head tilt. “It’s a sad day for a sad community.”
Grandma Young nodded as Makani’s nose wrinkled with distaste. Neither her grandmother nor Creston seemed to realize that he’d insulted the entire town. At least he wasn’t wrong. Sad did describe it.
But then she felt bad again, because a girl was dead, and it really was sad.
CHAPTER FOUR
Makani’s mind churned with restlessness as she helped her grandmother cook dinner. It was one of her daily chores. When Makani moved in, Grandma Young had posted a list of daily and weekly chores on the refrigerator under a magnet that read: YOU CAN’T SCARE ME. I TEACH HIGH SCHOOL. She claimed Makani needed structure. This was true, even Makani knew it was true, but it still sucked. Sometimes she felt like a child. Sometimes she felt like a caregiver. She didn’t want to be either of those things.
Tonight, they prepared a heart-healthy meal of baked turkey meatballs and a simple salad with vinaigrette. It was beyond depressing. Makani lusted for flavor and fat. Lime-topped papaya. Kalbi ribs. Poi with lomi salmon. If she could, she’d spend her every cent on a plate lunch—steamed rice, mac salad, and an entrée. Chicken katsu. Teri beef. Kalua pig. Her mouth watered, and her soul ached.