North Star

08 | shave ice

Leaning back in my seat, I kicked my legs out and closed my eyes. With my hand draped out of the wind so it could catch the breeze, it was easy to imagine the tension in my body releasing into it, dissipating as easily as it had built up inside me.

"Maybe some shave ice for the road?" he asked, and he didn't need to ask twice.

...

Kaneshiro's Shave Ice—never shaved ice in Hawai'i, as I was taught very quickly growing up—was a small family-owned shop on a side street in town, which was one of two locations that they owned. (The other was in Haleiwa next to their surf shop.) Kanani had brought me there one day when we had ditched school because she found out it was owned by a married lesbian couple and who could ever say no to that?

Since Haunani claimed to have more self-restraint, she usually watched the Haleiwa store while Nick went into town more. The latter had been caught closing shop early too many times so she could hit the waves on those days when they called out to her. While I was a casual surfer who would never survive working in a surf shop, though I guess I would eventually learn if I tried, I likely would have ended up in the same scenario as her. Working in a place where I never spent money myself proved to be useful as far as my wallet was concerned, and I also wasn't enticed to jump ship in the middle of the day.

(Generally speaking, I was enticed, but I never went through with it since I valued having a paycheck.)

Luckily for us, it wasn't that much of a detour, technically speaking, even though it still required us to jump off the H1 at one of my least favorite exits for no particular reasons other than I always seemed to catch the red light directly after even if I wasn't the one driving. Whatever the case, we were happy to sit at it when it meant two right turns and one left turn later and we would be right at heaven's front door.

Nick looked like she had an even worse day than I did, and that was saying something since one of my customer's threatened to drive to the store and throw the absolutely incorrect and not at all what I ordered sofa pillow at my face. (She sent me a photo of it.) (I emailed a picture of the matching floor model sample back to her and didn't receive a response.)

"The universe really said fuck y'all today, huh," Keali'i remarked after greeting her.

Nick and I shared a look before she said, "I'm also on my period so I get bonus points."

"Damn." I grabbed a pack of hi-chew from a box next to the register. "I wanted to hold my wallowing over everyone else. How am I supposed to do that now?"

She looked between us. "The usual?"

We nodded and she turned around to make our shave ice.

"Isn't Lei supposed to be graduating this year?" She asked with her back turned toward us.

"If she doesn't keep ditching school, then yes."

Nick laughed as she started pouring liquid gold-colored syrup over the mound of ice in her hand. Keali'i always ordered the piña colada flavor.

"Eh, she'll come around. They always do."

"That's what everyone told me before I dropped out and got my GED," I laughed.

Since working at the shop was second nature to her, Nick finished making both shave ice cups in no time. Keali'i paid without asking and dropped a few dollar bills into the tip jar with a Maneki-Neko figurine in front of it. Once we were armed with our sweet treats, we trekked back outside and, without expressing any verbal communication, sat on the curb in front of his car.