Miss Lucy Pineda died two weeks ago. She was always Miss Lucy. Yesterday, there was a big neighborhood barbecue at her house. Her brother, Alvin, wanted everyone who knew her to come celebrate her life.
And everyone who lived in the area did know her; she was one of the last of the old-school friendly neighbors. You know, that person who says hello to everyone and always has something nice to comment about. Asks about your family. Real cheerful and warm. That’s not easy to find nowadays.
But Alvin, even knowing that not all of us were old-school friendly enough to be old-school well acquainted with Miss Lucy, came around to let us know he’d be having this party and that we were all invited.
“Bring something to eat, something to drink,” he said, after knocking on my door and introducing himself as her brother.
I made my go-to potluck dish, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink bean salad, put a six-pack of Coors Light in my little U.H. Rainbow football season cooler, and walked up to Miss Lucy’s house at the appointed time.
It’s Hawai‘i, right, so lots of people run on Hawaiian time, which means coming late. I guess you could call it stylishly late, although that was never my style. If anything, I’m usually early. I don’t know if that’s unstylish. I often catch people still setting up. Because they think everyone will be late
Alvin and his wife, Nohea, as she introduced herself, were there, of course, and they’d set up some portable tables and folding chairs. When I walked in, Alvin was setting up a hibachi, and Nohea was putting out paper plates, chopsticks and forks, napkins, and some pupu items including poke, boiled peanuts and soybeans, and a sushi platter.
Alexa played Hawaiian music, Miss Lucy’s favorite, as I might have guessed.
“You need one beer?” Alvin asked as Nohea took my bean salad over to the table.
“Oh, no, I brought,” I said, holding up my little cooler.
“Pop one open and come sit,” said Alvin, as he returned his attention to the hibachi.
I opened a beer and sat in a low lawn chair by his side.
“My sister, she loved a good party,” he said. “In the old days, we used to have them all the time, when my kids was young and had all the young nephews and nieces. But when everybody gets older, the kids get married, have their own families, and then party with the new group.
I nodded and sipped.
“Too bad she never got married, my sister, yeah? I tell you, she would have been one good mom.”
“I’m sorry to hear she never married,” I said, which was an interesting comment coming from a long-ago confirmed bachelor.
“She would have,” said Alvin, “but the guy she wanted for marry got killed. Vietnam. Lucy never got over that.”
“Oh man, I’m very sorry to hear that,” I said. “That’s true love for sure.”
Just then an elderly Japanese man and a haole woman came through the gate. Nohea greeted them as if she knew them. She and Alvin did. They were a couple from church, although as I found out, Alvin and David had also grown up together.
“Speak of the devil,” said Alvin, getting up and going over to shake hands with the man and hug the woman.
“Come, sit,” said Nohea. “You need something to drink?”
“I brought beer,” the man said.
“Could I please get some water, Nohea?” said the woman.
“Lanning,” said Alvin, “This is Claire and David Ching. We all go church together. Same church Lucy, me, and David grew up in.”
David opened a beer and joined us at the hibachi, while Claire and Nohea disappeared into the house.
Alvin said, “David, I was just telling Lanning about George. Lanning,” he said looking over at me, “George is the one I was saying Lucy wanted to marry. David is George’s younger brother.”
“By just ten minutes,” added David. “We were twins.”
He and Alvin laughed.
I said, “I’m sorry to hear about your brother.”
“Ah,” said David, “that’s life, right? Stuff happens. I made it back. Could have been me. Heck, could have been both of us. Over there, you never knew if you were going to make it to the next day. Plenty of guys didn’t.”
Changing the subject, I said, “So did you know Claire back then, too?”
“No no, we met at U.H. after I got back from Nam.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “Did you both have the same major?”
“No, I was in Religion, she majored in Econ. We met in a Linguistics class. We used to sit next to each other.”
“Ah,” I said, “was it love at first sight?”
“Yeah, well, maybe I guess,” said David.
The way he said it surely didn’t sound like it was love at first sight. And for some reason, it didn’t even sound like love. At least not the kind of enthusiastic comment I’d expect from someone talking about meeting the woman he would marry.
“Honey, honey,” Claire called, sticking her head out the door. “Come in the kitchen and cut up those Costco chickens.”
“We picked them up on the way here,” said David. “Excuse me.”
When he was gone, Alvin said, “So David, Lanning, he was in love with Lucy, too. But George had her.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s pretty sad.”
“Yeah yeah,” said Alvin. “Growing up, he was always jealous of George. I think he hated him plenty.”
“Geez,” I said, “I can’t imagine that kind of feeling. I mean in to be in love with your brother’s girlfriend, plus not liking your brother because he’s going out with her. That feels like a terrible way to grow up.”
“Lanning, it’s not that he never like him. I mean he really hated him.”
“Wow, that’s awful,” I said.
“Well,” said Alvin, “if you think that’s bad, when he came back he tried to get together with Lucy, but she never like him. I think it kinda killed him. So he settled down with Claire.”
“Ah,” I said, “I see.”
“You know,” said Alvin, lowering his voice another notch, “what’s even more worse, they was in the same unit in Nam. And you know what I think –”
Just then David came back out and sat with us.
“So I was just telling Lanning,” said Alvin, “that you and George was together in the war.”
“Yeah,” said David, “we served side by side. Two brothers fighting together. It was tough to see him die.”
Alvin shot me a look. A chill shook me.
David said, “Yup, for George, well, it was just his time to go, you know? When your number comes up, your number comes up.”
Lanning Lee 