the nearly black lava soil. She barely made it the hundred or so feet to the porch, before the rain came down in sheets, blanketing the rows of Kona coffee trees behind her in warm tropical rain. She shook raindrops from her hair as she eyed the front door. Bright pink-and-white tropical flowers grew near the porch. A huge bird of paradise rose up from the edge of the porch step, a magnificent flower growing like an ordinary marigold.
She rapped hard on the door. Seconds later, a heavyset woman with warm eyes and thick black hair, a silver streak running through it, opened the screen door. Allie recognized the familiar smile. She wore her same old flowered muumuu with a shiny dark macadamia-nut necklace. Besides the streaks of gray in her hair, she had aged little in twenty years.
“Aloha,” she said in greeting.
“Aloha.” Allie smiled. “I’m Allie Osaka. Misu Osaka’s granddaughter? Remember me?”
“Aah... Uh... Ōlelo Hawai’i ’oe?”
Allie blinked at the woman. Was she speaking Hawaiian?
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Ōlelo Hawai’i ’oe?” the woman repeated, looking at Allie expectantly. Allie shook her head and spread her hands.
“Do you speak English?” Allie asked her, wondering if the woman only spoke Hawaiian. Was that even possible? She didn’t remember that before, but then her memory was spotty.
“A’ole no e law aka makaukau ma ho’okahi wale no olelo.”
Now Allie was completely lost. Kaimana held up one finger, the international sign for “wait” and then disappeared back inside her house. She came back a few minutes later with a bag of her grandmother’s coffee.
“Kona coffee?” Allie asked, pointing to the cup and then to the trees behind her.
Kaimana nodded. “Kona,” she repeated, and pointed to the row of coffee trees behind her as she handed her the open ziplock bag. She smelled it and was immediately reminded of her father. He’d always smelled like fresh roasted coffee.
“Uh... Mahalo.” Allie knew the Hawaiian word for thank you. That and aloha were the extent of her Hawaiian language skills.
“A’ole pilikia,” Kaimana said.
“Mmm,” she murmured, inhaling.
Kaimana nodded, as if she knew this already. Allie felt hopeful then. Maybe she did understand English.
Allie held the bag, wondering what it would taste like brewed. She should’ve made more of an effort to know her grandmother, to know her coffee. But it had been so expensive. Kaimana watched her, smiling all the while.
Then she disappeared back inside her house and soon reappeared, carrying a teak bowl filled with hibiscus flowers and a half-strung lei. She bustled out to the porch and sank down on a wooden rocking chair, motioning for Allie to sit in the other. She began stringing the lei while Allie held the coffee, wondering what to do next.
Nearby, bright-colored birds chirped, and a warm breeze blew, rattling the delicate glass wind chimes hanging from Kaimana’s porch. They made a high tinkling sound.
“Ms. Mahi’ai...”
“Kaimana,” she interrupted, pointing at herself.
“Yes, uh...Kaimana, I’m not sure if you understand me, but my grandma Misu...”
“Misu,” Kaimana repeated and nodded.
“Yes, Misu. She left me the coffee plantation, but I need to sell it. Misu wanted me to get your permission before I did that and...”
Kaimana’s face looked blank as she strung flowers on the lei.
Allie realized none of what she was saying was going in. She barreled on anyway.
“I need you to sign this paper, please.” Allie reached in her back pocket and pulled out the folded slip as well as the ballpoint pen she’d stashed there. She pretended to write with the pen on the paper and pointed to Kaimana afterward. “You. Sign?”
Kaimana made no move to pick up the paper. Instead, she finished looping the last flower on the string and expertly tied it, her brown fingers working nimbly. She held it up for Allie to inspect and said, “Nani?”
Allie had no idea what she meant, so she just nodded. “Uh... Nani.” And nodded again.
“Ko Aloha Makamae E Ipo,” Kaimana said, smiling, as she stood and draped the lei around Allie’s neck. It was beautiful and soft, emanating a sweet, tropical fragrance.
“Oh, I couldn’t accept this.”
Kaimana shook her head and put up her hands, showing she wouldn’t take it back. “Nau wale no.”
At a loss, Allie had no choice but to take it. “Mahalo,” Allie said finally. “But about the paper. If you could just sign...”
Kaimana waved the paper away. “Dallas,” she said.
“Dallas?” Allie echoed. “No, Dallas can’t sign this. Dallas...” Wouldn’t, even if he could.
“Dallas,” Kaimana said, sounding certain he would handle it. “A’ole pilikia. Aloha ’auinala. Kipa hou mai,” Kaimana said, and she patted Allie on the shoulder and then went back inside and closed her door. Allie heard the lock being thrown.
“Kaimana? Ms. Mahi’ai? Are you in there?” Allie knocked, but Kaimana didn’t come to the door. “Hello? Uh...aloha?” Allie knocked once more.
Again, she heard nothing.
That went well, she thought sarcastically, staring at her unsigned piece of paper and Kaimana’s locked door. What now?
Allie stomped back across the plantation and found Dallas casually unloading a big toolbox from the back of his black pickup. She felt irrationally angry at him as he worked. If he wasn’t so stubborn, so full of himself, maybe the two of them could’ve found some kind of compromise. He glanced up and tipped his straw cowboy hat in her direction, his blue eyes amused.
“Ma’am,” he drawled. She ignored him. He let out a low chuckle as she walked past. “How did that conversation with Kaimana go?”
She whirled on him, his smug grin feeling like salt in her paper cut.
“As if you don’t know,” Allie spat out, annoyed. Dallas had sent her over there knowing full well she’d get nowhere without a translator. “She doesn’t even speak English!”
Dallas raised his eyebrows in surprise and then inexplicably burst into laughter.
Allie shifted uneasily, foot to foot. “What’s so funny?” Allie felt exposed, as if she might suddenly be transported back to the cafeteria in middle school. The joke was on her; she just didn’t know how.
Dallas nearly had tears in his eyes he was laughing so hard. He laid a big strong hand across his flat stomach as he howled.
“She speaks English just fine,” he managed to get out.
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s one hundred percent fluent, as fluent as you or I. But when she doesn’t like what’s going on, she’ll usually refuse to speak English. Just ask the traffic cop who pulled her over for speeding last month.”
Understanding dawned on Allie a beat too late. “She tricked me?”
“Probably just wanted to put you off for a little while,” Dallas said and grinned. His blue eyes sparkled. He clearly was enjoying this. “Whatever you were asking her about, she didn’t like.”
Allie felt a surge of annoyance and complete embarrassment for making a fool of herself by blubbering on as if Kaimana didn’t understand her, complete with full pantomime.