I shook my head. “You can’t go back and change things. You learn at a certain pace, and what you know to that point colors what you do.” I thought about Haoa. I had to give him a chance to learn, to assimilate what he knew about me in the past with the me I was today.
We slid easily into further reminiscences, and then eventually we were home. He dropped me off at my parents’ house, and mercifully, all the reporters and vans had disappeared, off to exploit someone else’s misery. I spent an hour or so watching TV with my parents in the living room before I went up to bed.
Sunday morning I woke late and had a bowl of cereal while I read the newspaper. There was no mention of either me or Haoa, a good sign. Funeral services had been set for Evan Gonsalves, at the Kawaiahao Church downtown, across from Honolulu Hale. The Clarks were descended from early missionaries to the islands, and had ancestors buried in the graveyard behind the church. Even though they had sold Clark’s to a Canadian with a chain of stores across the States, Terri’s family was still very prominent in Honolulu. Because of Evan’s connection to them, the funeral would be big and well-publicized, and I knew it wouldn’t be possible for me to sneak in the back unseen.
I wanted to go, but I didn’t know how Terri felt about my part in his death and I was sure that there would be reporters at the funeral who might come after me. I didn’t want to add my troubles to her grief.
I didn’t feel like doing anything much so I sat in front of the TV, watching cable reruns of talk shows, hoping the misery of others would make me feel better about my own.
By lunchtime my mother was fed up. “Come with me,” she said. “We’ll go somewhere for lunch, and then you can come along while I go shopping. I need a present for Ashley’s birthday and a pair of blue shoes with a low heel.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“You’re coming.” When her mind was made up, my mother did not tolerate argument. It was the same thing when I resisted going to Punahou because my brothers went there. It was simply not a matter open to discussion.
“All right,” I said. “But no place close to home. I don’t want to see anyone you know, or anyone I know, all right?”
“You’re going to have to face people eventually.”
“Eventually is fine. Just not today.”
I made her drive all the way to the Kahala Mall instead of going down to Ala Moana. There was a Clark’s there, along with a Liberty House and a bunch of standard mall shops, the same kind you find in every shopping center in every corner of the United States. Foot Locker, Banana Republic, The Limited, and all their ilk: the chain shoe stores and chain bookstores and chain record stores. Without the occasional crack seed stand or tourist knickknack shop selling plastic leis and chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, you could think you were in Florida or California. If you stayed indoors where it was climate-controlled, you could imagine you were anywhere from Oklahoma to Oregon or Maine to Maryland.
I’d brought a book with me, a Florida thriller by James W. Hall, and I tried to sit and read while my mother tried on shoes or picked through dozens of junior dresses. But I couldn’t concentrate, and yet I didn’t want to make eye contact with any other shoppers. Instead I roamed the aisles restlessly, looking at the merchandise but not really seeing it. Finally my mother said, “All right, I can’t take any more of this. We can go home.”
That night at dinner she complained to my father about me. “He needs something to do. Why don’t you take him to work with you tomorrow.”
We sat at the dining room table under the glow of the chandelier. Our dining room was the most un-Hawaiian room in the house, lifted almost intact from a home decorating magazine of twenty years ago. The elegant crystal chandelier had been shipped in from San Francisco, as had the formal mahogany table and chairs. “I don’t need a babysitter,” I said. “I can stay by myself. I can even go home.”
Behind us was a tall mahogany cabinet filled with Chinoiserie and other knickknacks. Across from us the living room was dark. “Your Uncle Chin called today,” my father said. “We had a long talk, and I recognized something. Chin had two sons, and he has lost them both. I don’t want to lose any of mine. You are who you are, even if I don’t like it. You’re still my son and I’ll try to accept you.”
I didn’t know what to say. My father continued, “Uncle Chin would like to see you. I said we would have lunch with him tomorrow.”
“Where? I don’t want to go anywhere people will recognize me.”
My father laid his fork down next to his plate, and then used the napkin from his lap to dab at his mouth. “Places Uncle Chin goes are very discreet,” he said. “Why don’t you come to the office with me in the morning, and we’ll go together to lunch.”
“I don’t know.”
He leaned forward toward me, and the warm light from the chandelier glinted off his glasses. “I’m preparing a bid on a big job,” he said. “You could help me. It gets harder for me to read the tiny details on the plans.”
“All right.” I looked down at my plate.
A little later, from a phone upstairs, I finally reached Tim. “Hi, it’s Kimo. I haven’t talked to you for a couple of days.”
“It’s been really busy.” He hesitated. “I saw a piece on the news about you. How have you been holding up?”
“It’s been hard,” I said, and my voice broke. “I just want to be with somebody who accepts me totally, you know? I want to forget about all this for a while.”
“I wish I could be there for you. Things are crazy at my office right now. We’re in the middle of discovery for this big case, and there are piles of documents to read. I brought home two full briefcases tonight.”
“You have to eat. Maybe we can get together. It doesn’t have to be for long.”
“Kimo.” Then there was silence. I was afraid the connection had been broken, and then he said, “My private life is my business, and I don’t want to see it spill out into the headlines. I just need to back away from you for a while. It’s not that I don’t like you-I do. I think you’re handsome and kind and interesting and I enjoy being with you. But you’re public property right now, and I can’t be part of that.”
“I understand.” I wanted to argue with him, to say we could make it work. He could stay in the shadows and I’d carry the weight of the spotlight on me. But I’d already seen what that spotlight had done to my brothers and my parents and I couldn’t blame Tim for wanting to avoid it. After all, he’d run all the way from Boston to Honolulu to keep people from knowing he was gay. It wasn’t up to me to drag him out.
“You are very nice,” he said. “I hope you come through this all right.”
“I hope so too.” I paused. “Well, I’d better let you get back to work.”
“I guess so,” he said.
After I hung up the phone, I flopped back on my bed, surrounded by all those artifacts of my teen years, and felt just as confused and lonely and bad as I had back then, before I could really put a name on my problems. What a long journey I had taken from those high school posters and old books, to wind up at the same place. Well, not necessarily the same, but a place so close to where I had been that it felt no different.
I turned the light off and lay on my bed in my clothes, staring out the window at the crescent moon rising over the Ko‘olau Mountains, trying not to think of the brief time I had spent with Tim, trying not to worry if I would ever meet anyone else who could make me feel the same way.
I didn’t have much success.
SHOPPING CENTER DETAILS
The next morning my father and I stopped on the way to his office and got coffee and malasadas from a van in a shopping center parking lot. We sipped and ate in silence, and I wondered if this was what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
There were worse things. My father’s business was winding down, but perhaps Haoa and I could revitalize it. With his advice, we could be as successful as he had been, maybe even more. My notoriety might even help. Long lost classmates would remember who I was from having seen me on the evening news. We could even develop a subspecialty among Honolulu’s gay population. Build houses with extra-large closets and dressing areas for the
