Bright dimes and fresh-made bread

 

Kani and the silver-haired man giggled and shone like bright dimes still made from real silver. It was unlikely, and I loved it. My oldest friend was here for a visit, two weeks, ten days really and the silver-haired man was as shy as a fox. Fortunately, Kani Milrose was a woman who loved the company of foxes and was very familiar with trickery. I watched them.

"Ham and cheese! Yum. You make that bread Lilly?" I nodded, dug my elbows into the quilt and slid toward the cooler of gin and tonic. "Help me with this." My upper body is powerful strong from the years of re-directing my muscles to my shoulders and arms but sometimes I just liked knowing someone could be my muscle.The cubes of ice were still holding their cold, but the lid to the old glass shaker was tight. Kani took the glass shaker, caught my eye and said softly, "This was your ma's." The gold stripping was mostly a memory, but yes the glass was the last of my mother's kitchenware. We've known each other since Mrs. Nobriga's first grade classroom in Aina Haina Valley and constant company until the accident. Kani sat beside me, her soft cotton skirt the color of peach juice danced up her long bronze thigh. Holding the cold glass between her legs, she twisted but not before giving the cocktail a gentle shake. 

 

The silver-haired man preferred lawn chairs. His limbs were less supple, or perhaps had more than enough challenge in the bow of the row boat. I handed him a checkered napkin filled with sandwich. "You can help yourself to the booze." The years of work in the sun accentuated the lines across his forehead and the lightning rod creases from the edges of hazel-brown eyes milky with the onset of cataracts. "That, I can do," his voice was a mix of way too many cigarettes and late nights working bridges in near zero temperatures. A deep crackle, and a very sly edge. "You know," the silver man said while pouring the rose-infused gin, "I never used to drink this hard stuff. A beer man through and through. Until I left the union, and shit ... life took me for a spin." I'd heard this story before, but Kani was new to the stories of the laborer turned land-owner. She took the bait, willingly, and smiled that Miss. Hawaii thing. 

"Left the union, ya? Like no longer working ... hard labor kind of work. You retired?" 

"Nope, mostly just disappeared and found myself another life. A slip. Ended up here. This place opened up her arms and I just ... fell in. Come this Christmas, it'd be fifteen years. Time has a way of her own, and the wild rose and me have become very very good friends."  Kani wrinkled her eyes, caught a bit off guard she would need a little more time with this old man to feel the slide of his tales and the way they started one way and ended somewhere else. 

Summer was still crisp, though the winds were changing and then fall would gallop. I wondered about Kani's plans and thought to ask, but didn't. A shimmy of rainbow caught my attention. Percy was back and he had found a friend. The tang of gin with tonic smoothed me out, and then I recognized the friend and almost choked on my ham sandwich.