Jasmine wanted to tell her she was wrong, that she’d proved that you could run away from your past, that the past was an unnecessary burden if you got far enough away from it.
“I still remember what you were like when I met you,” Cynthia said, smiling.
“Don’t,” Jasmine whispered. She didn’t want Cynthia to dig up the past right here, right now. Not on this gorgeous beach. Not as the birds swept overhead. Not as Jenny dealt with the stormy moods of a husband who didn’t love her.
Cynthia sighed and gazed at the sky above them.
And despite everything, Jasmine found herself thinking about the past.
It was the summer of 1975 when Jasmine’s plane landed in Hawaii. Four months pregnant, all she had was a backpack, fifty dollars, a change of clothes, and a dream. When she was a girl, she’d had a poster of Hawaii hanging in her bedroom, and when she knew she needed to run away, she’d decided it was the only place she wanted to go.
Back in the seventies, Hawaii wasn’t as expensive. There weren’t as many resorts, nor swarms of people on the beaches. You could eat out for as little as a dollar, and you could buy groceries for less than you could on the mainland. That first night, Jasmine got a motel room for twelve dollars and walked the beach, her hands on her stomach, a promise in her heart. The sunset was like a burst of fruit. She wept at its beauty. She was twenty-eight years old, but she felt both younger and older at once. She couldn’t believe she’d escaped.
Although the island was cheaper back then, Jasmine knew she needed to get a job as soon as she could. The following day, she walked up and down the beach and introduced herself to restaurant owners. She didn’t look pregnant yet, which was a blessing. She figured she could hide it with loose dresses, at least for a few months. She finally got a job at a seafood restaurant that featured traditional Hawaiian dancers. One of those dancers was Cynthia, a twenty-six-year-old native Hawaiian with an enormous smile and secrets about where to swim, eat, and dance at night. Jasmine liked her immediately. That night, after a gruesome shift, Jasmine confessed to Cynthia that she was pregnant and had run away from her old life. Cynthia toldher simply, “Your secret is safe with me!” And they danced for three hours after that.
Cynthia helped Jasmine find a better place to live. It was a bungalow not far from Cynthia’s favorite beach, and it was owned by one of Cynthia’s uncles. Jasmine’s rent was more than affordable, considering what she made at the restaurant every night in tips. She couldn’t believe how beautiful everything felt. How new. How alive.
It wasn’t till the seventh month of her pregnancy that her boss figured it out. He called her into his office and asked her about her “upcoming changes.” Jasmine froze with fear and mumbled something about “not feeling right” lately. It was stupid. He knew she wouldn’t be able to work for much longer, and it wasn’t like he could pay her for maternity leave. She held it together until she left the office, walked into the walk-in freezer where servers went to “compose themselves”, and burst into tears. Cynthia found her in there, pulled her out, and took her home.
“I talked to my family,” Cynthia announced as she cleaned the kitchen, a kitchen that was already mostly spotless. Jasmine had already learned that Cynthia couldn’t sit still. By contrast, Jasmine continued to sob at the table. Cynthia added, “We’re going to take care of you.”
“I can’t take charity,” Jasmine told her.
“What do you mean by ‘charity’?” Cynthia demanded. “When I get pregnant, you’re going to help me, too, maybe not with money. I know you won’t have much of that. But with your heart. With your time. With your spirit.” Cynthia finally sat across from Jasmine and took her hands in hers. “I don’t know where you came from or why you’re here, but I don’t really care. You’re my family now, Jasmine. I want you to stay in Hawaii for the rest of your days. I want to know your baby. I want to watch them grow up. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Jasmine had never heard such kindness in her life. It stunned her.
“Now, stop crying yourself silly,” Cynthia instructed, not waiting for a response. “Call that boss of ours and tell him you’re going to come back three months after the baby’s born. You have to tell people in life what you need from them. You have to take ownership. Otherwise, they’ll walk all over you.”
Jasmine was too stunned to do anything but follow Cynthia’s directions. To her tremendous surprise, her boss sighed with annoyance and agreed. “Three months after the baby’s born,” he said. “Don’t make me regret taking you back.”
Jasmine’s heart swelled with meaning, with purpose, with love.
Soon, the baby would be born. Soon, her life would have a three-dimensional sturdiness that came from putting down roots and having soulful, wonderful friends.
Chapter Five
The following afternoon at Larry Calvin Johannes’s place, Oriana listened quietly in the corner as Isabella interviewed him for the upcoming article inArtist on the Move, which planned to feature “Oriana’s next greatest find.” Reese was still at the hotel, doing a little work and, she suspected, still resting. She shoved fear about it out of her mind and told herself to be present, to listen. Was there something amiss about this Larry guy, or did people in Nederland—much like people in Martha's Vineyard—like to gossip about things they didn’t know anything about?
To begin, Isabella asked Larry a series of questions that buttered him up. She asked him about his artistic process and his inspiration. She asked him how he felt about being “discovered” at the age of eighty. He grinned sheepishly, and the photographer took a picture. It all felt extraordinary. It all felt like it was falling into place.
“Tell me, Larry,” Isabella continued, her grin sterling. “It’s lonely up here in the mountains alone. Was that your plan? Or did you ever share this space with anyone?”
A flicker of sorrow came over Larry’s face. “I was married once,” he said. “When you’re as old as I am, you’ve had hundredsof experiences. Some of them don’t even feel like they belong to your life.”
Isabella leaned forward and put her chin on her fist. “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Larry took a staggered breath. “It was so long ago, Isabella. Honestly, the man who married that woman was a very different person. I imagine that wherever she is, she doesn’t think of me at all.”
She definitely doesn’t think about him if she’s dead, Oriana thought darkly, then cursed herself for it. It wasn’t likely that this soft-spoken, artistic man had killed a woman. Then again, softer-looking men around the world had done much worse. It was irresponsible to judge someone based solely on looks.
When the interview was finished, Oriana oversaw the packing of Larry’s paintings and explained that they would be shipped to a Manhattan warehouse. “From there, I can work on broadening your reach and vamping up your brand.” She narrowed her eyes, wondering if she was making a mistake.
Larry beamed with happiness and shook her hand. “This is the happiest time of my life,” he said. “You know, I’ve worked tirelessly for decades. I never thought anyone would want to see my paintings again. I thought my life wouldn’t matter.”
Oriana was caught off guard. “I thought my life wouldn’t matter” was such an honest and strange thing to say that it nearly broke her heart. It was true that this was everyone’s fear, wasn’t it? That their lives were small, that they hadn’t impacted anyone during their time on earth. As she drove back to the hotel to find Reese, she counted back the years of her own life and wondered if they’d mattered at all. She considered her daughter, her son, and her sister. She thought of her “new” half-siblings, Roland and Grant, and how wonderful it was that they’d come together as one big, happy family. “It had meaning,” she toldherself as she parked at the hotel. It all continues to have meaning.For me, anyway. For those I love.
But Larry didn’t have anyone else around, she remembered. She ached with a sense of loneliness for him, for his years alone and apart.
