A Dollar and Love: The Maui Trilogy, #2

By Jill Engledow

Homeless on Maui?

Sleeping on the beach sounds like fun . . .

 

Until you have no other choice.

When single mom Carrie Ann Emerson and her little girl Rorie have to find a place of their own, they encounter one stroke of bad luck—or bad landlord—after another. Carrie Ann is beginning to wonder if they'll end up living on the beach. But then they find the home of their dreams in rural Makawao, and an adopted family as well.

Auntie Rose McKenzie, the kind old lady next door, needs their help and company as she finally faces long-ago memories of heartbreak and loss. Rorie loves the country life, Carrie Ann's career is taking off, and romance is on the horizon.

But when Auntie Rose receives bad news about her land, and a storm sweeps over Makawao, Carrie Ann must pick up the pieces, or once again, she and Rorie will be without a place to call home.

You'll love A Dollar and Love, because love--and a strong woman--always find a way.  Get it now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maui Island Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780976513698

Jill Engledow

Jill Engledow was born in England and grew up in Texas, Hawaii, and Guam. She moved to Maui in 1968, a time when the island’s old plantation-days rural lifestyle was fading. After a few years of raising goats, vegetables, and foster children, Jill moved on to write about Maui as an award-winning newspaper journalist and then as the author of nonfiction books on island history. Now she uses her extensive knowledge of Maui history in novels about women making their way on the island, juggling their desire for love with their need for independence.

Book preview

For Janie Taylor

1946-2021

Chapter One

Carrie Ann Emerson

January 12, 1973, Makawao

Carrie Ann stopped in her tracks, held her breath, and backed out of the kitchen, then hazarded another peek around the corner. Bea was kissing someone. In the kitchen. A man. A tall man, who stroked Bea’s slender back with one hand while the other tangled itself in her silky golden hair. They looked like they belonged in a tropical romance movie; Bea in her fetching halter-top sundress, the man tall and tan, his brown hair streaked by the sun. It was a disturbingly sexy sight that Carrie Ann really did not need to see.

Well, it had to happen, she thought as she tiptoed on bare feet back to her sewing room. Bea was gorgeous, a Southern belle transplanted to Maui. She was bound to attract a man.

Carrie Ann picked up the pinafore she’d been basting before she went for an iced tea, took a couple of stitches, then set the little garment on the table and stared out at the ocean. Bea obviously was having a wonderful time in there, and Carrie Ann should feel happy about that. A little jealous, maybe. That guy looked pretty cute, and it was a long time since anyone had kissed Carrie Ann that way.

But just as it always did when she found herself in a romantic situation, Carrie Ann’s imagination rushed Bea and the mystery beau from first kiss to holy matrimony. What if this got serious? What if that guy, whoever he was, moved in here? Where would that leave Rorie and Carrie Ann?

That reminded her. She glanced at the clock and stood up to check her hair in the mirror. That man’s sun streaks were better than hers, and Carrie Ann was starting from a honey-colored blonde. He must spend a lot of time in the sun. Probably a golfer. She pulled a T-shirt over her bikini top, tugged her too-short cut-offs down to cover her butt, then set a wide-brimmed hat on her head. Time to go get the kiddo from school.

Rose McKenzie

January 12, 1973, Makawao

I’m writing this down so I have a record of it—I saw that man in the red truck again, idling his engine as if he had nothing better to do, staring across my fence from the pasture next door, looking at my house. Looking at my land, the little fenced pastures, the chicken coop, the sturdy stable. Yes, they are half-empty these days, but that doesn’t mean I’m finished with them. Just because I was born in 1900 doesn’t mean I’m old and doddering—seventy-three isn’t that old, and I still have some life in me. I know who he is. Freddie Medeiros. He’s been a cowboy up at Ulupalakua for years, and he’s the only one of six brothers who doesn’t have his own land. I’m sure that grates on his nerves considerably. Well, he can’t have my land, no matter how often he stops by to look at it. It really doesn’t matter to me what he wants. I am not selling. This is my land, this is my home, and here I will stay.

That damn little goat got loose again this afternoon. Thank goodness Janet was home to help me. I just don’t get around the way I used to, I have to admit. Anyway, as long as Janet, or even Mele, is around, I can manage. I need to get someone to add some smaller wire to the pasture fence, just along the bottom where that little one slips out all the time. I gave Janet the bucket of oats and waited by the gate while she coaxed the kid through it, then quickly shut the gate and attached a rope to little one’s collar. I hate to tie goats, especially the kids—they are such experts at hanging themselves or wrapping around the nearest tree and nearly strangling to death. But this one must be controlled, and I don’t have any other way to do it at the moment, unless I lock her in the goat pen twenty-four hours a day. I’ll keep an eye out through the window, in case she gets herself tangled.

Funny thing. I wrote it down when that Freddie Medeiros came snooping around this morning, so I’d have a record if I needed it sometime in the future. I don’t trust him. Anyway, for some reason that has made me feel like keeping a journal again. I haven’t done it in years. I don’t have much to write about these days, but it will give me something to look forward to.

I am so frustrated. I spent hours looking for the deed Vaughn’s daughter gave me after Vaughn died. It’s the only proof I have of his deathbed gift to me of this property. I can’t believe I let something so important disappear, but then it never occurred to me anyone would question my right to be here. It’s been so long—literally half a century. I’ll have to keep looking, because Freddie Medeiros lurks in my mind, if not on my fence line.

I guess it won’t matter, once I’m gone. There is no one to inherit from me, except for my barely functioning nephew, so Freddie and his friends can do their worst.

The search did turn up a trunk full of odds and ends that included the diaries from my childhood years. I have not looked at them in years, but I never threw any away, and I must say they offered a pleasant afternoon. Funny how the memories you keep on paper are not the same ones you keep in your head. I’d completely forgotten how my old cowboy kahu used to crumble hardtack into my coffee—actually, it was mostly milk, with a little coffee and sugar for flavor. It was delicious on a cold Upcountry morning.

I wrote about coffee for breakfast, but not always of more significant things. Though they’re not in my diary, I’ll never forget hearing my kahu’s stories about how his family, his whole village really, died in the measles epidemic when he was a child. I remember so well our horseback rides out past Ulupalakua, where the tumbled stones of his ancestral village lay covered in drought-stricken grass. There’s nothing of that story in my childhood diaries, though it’s troubled my heart all these years. The diaries are about what chores I had done that day, a ride down to Makena when the boat came in, my teacher’s vagaries, and my favorite pony, Hoku.

It amused me to see that I’d rated each day, neatly summarized on a single page. On good days I wrote Hurrah! and drew a daisy. When things did not go well, I wrote, Drat!

At any rate, the hour I spent reading about my early youth inspired me anew. After all these years, there still are things, incidents I cannot imagine writing about. It was those traumatic events that stopped me writing so long ago. The diaries are now on a high shelf in my office, including the one I’d just begun to fill when Vaughn died. I haven’t been able even to open that one. Perhaps, if I pretend I’m writing a novel, I’ll be able to write about those days, what happened between us and what happened after. For some reason, I feel the need to put it all down, even though there’s no one to read it.

And it’s something to do.

Carrie Ann

Someone had told her that the name Lahaina meant cruel sun, and Carrie Ann could believe it as she hurried between one tree shadow and the next. So hot, and it was January! Growing up in the West Texas desert should have prepared her for this heat, but perhaps the intervening years in chilly San Francisco and then two years in humid East Maui had spoiled her.

Carrie Ann stopped at the edge of the schoolground and surveyed the swarm of small dark heads, looking for the blonde. Rorie was not the only haole kid in the school, but unlike most, her hair had not darkened much from its toddler platinum. She was easy to spot in a sea of brunettes.

Mommy! Rorie appeared, disheveled and beaming. Look what I drew!

Cool, baby. Your writing is getting a lot better, and I love these colors, Carrie Ann replied, examining the network of lines and blobs of color in her daughter’s artwork, signed in straggly block capitals: Aurora Emerson, with today’s date: January 12, 1973. We’ll put it on the bulletin board, okay? She took Rorie’s hand and headed back through the crowd of kids and parents. What else did you do in school today?

You know that Tommy Sato? He was being mean to the girls. He found a worm and was scaring them with it, but I wasn’t scared. And then, Mom, you know what he did? Rorie stopped and pulled free to stand, hands on hips, looking up at her with a frown. He squished it!

He squished the worm?

Yeah, he got a leaf and put the worm on it and squished the worm with the leaf. All the girls ran away, but I didn’t. I just stayed there and looked at the worm’s insides and told Tommy to stop being so mean. She paused and looked thoughtful. But, you know, Mom, the worm’s insides were kind of weird. They were just all mushy. Don’t worms have a stomach or something inside? Where does the food go when it eats? And what do worms eat, anyway?

Um, I don’t really know, honey. Maybe we can get a book from the library and find out. Rorie was always coming up with these amazing questions for which her mother had no answer. Children could be so resilient, she thought, listening to her daughter’s chatter as they trudged through Lahaina’s heat. For all her questions, Rorie never asked about those lost months, only a couple of years ago, that Carrie Ann could never forget.

Home felt wonderfully cool, with ceiling fans stirring the air that flowed through open windows. Rorie rushed off to pin her latest artwork to the bulletin board in their bedroom. Carrie Ann paused, hearing soft laughter coming from the kitchen. Did she dare go in there to fix Rorie’s after-school snack? She didn’t want to disturb another smooching session. After a moment, though, she heard water splashing from the kitchen faucet. Unlikely that Bea and whoever her friend was would be washing dishes while making out, so it seemed safe to go in.

The kitchen smelled delicious, with something garlicky bubbling in a pot on the stove. Bea looked up from chopping bell peppers, and her new beau paused in his dishwashing and turned from the sink to give Carrie Ann a grin. Not bad looking, she thought, a nice straight nose, white teeth, lots of hair. A good match for Bea.

Carrie Ann, this is my friend Rob; Rob, Carrie Ann is my niece Mimi’s best friend, my housemate, and the multitalented seamstress who designs and makes the top-line outfits in my store. Bea flashed her gorgeous smile. The smooching must have done her good.

Rob and I met at that Rotary Club meeting I went to a couple of weeks ago, Bea said, casting a flirtatious look at the grinning Bob. There I was in a room full of men, and my host decided we should sit next to this good-looking guy. Wasn’t that lucky?

Rob laughed, his eyes fastened on Bea’s Marilyn Monroe beauty, showcased by a pretty sundress that emphasized her tiny waist and generous bosom. And I am the only single man in the club, as it happens, he said, so I was quite happy to have this lovely lady sit beside me.

Nice to meet you, Rob, Carrie Ann said, smiling at the obviously smitten pair. I see Bea has put you to work.

He’s a volunteer, Bea said. In fact, Rob is something of a gourmet cook. Wait until you taste the dinner we’re making tonight.

Lasagna, Rob said. I learned this recipe from a guy I went to high school with, who runs a little Italian restaurant in New York. At one point, I almost went to work there, but my dad persuaded me I’d make more money in the construction business, and I could still cook when I felt like it. Good advice, as it turns out.

Rob is a contractor, Bea explained. Well, a retired contractor, I guess, except for the house he’s building up in Kaanapali. It’s going to be lovely.

It is indeed, if it ever gets finished. Sure is hard to get building supplies here, out in the middle of the Pacific.

Mommy, can I have my snack? Rorie, who was already in her swimsuit, ready for the beach, stopped in the kitchen doorway and stared at the tall newcomer. Rob bent to offer his hand. This must be the famous Rorie I have heard so much about, he said.

Rorie, this is my new friend, Uncle Rob, Bea said. Can you shake his hand?

Rorie stuck out her hand, never taking her eyes from Rob’s smiling, sun-tanned face. Handshake complete, she turned to Carrie Ann and announced, Okay, Mom, I’m ready for my snack. The adults exchanged grins, and Carrie Ann went to the pantry to find graham crackers. It was obvious this pair did not need their company, so she poured two cups of juice, left Bea and Rob to cook and flirt, and headed for the beach with Rorie skipping ahead, munching on a cracker.

Carrie Ann settled on the warm sand under the shade of a coconut palm, and watched Rorie guzzle her guava juice, wipe her mouth, then run to splash in the little waves at water’s edge. Thank God for Bea and her decision to move to Maui, to set up shop in Lahaina, and to rent this wonderful old house by the beach.

But now, with Rob in the picture, Carrie Ann wondered if their time here might be limited. What if he wanted to move in? Or what if Bea decided to move in with him? Should she start looking for a place for herself and Rorie? The vibes between those two were pretty strong.

Bea’s Atlanta background and that sexy Southern accent certainly gave her an advantage when it came to flirting. And she still looked as good as she had when her roommate Mimi introduced Carrie Ann to her Aunt Bea five years ago in San Francisco. You’d never know she had two grown children.

Carrie Ann wished she had that kind of bubbly self-confidence. She knew she was pretty, with big hazel eyes, sometimes blue, sometimes green, and a figure that looked good in a bikini. But she didn’t have Bea’s ability to flutter her eyelashes and cast sideways glances, all the while smiling in such a way that the gentleman in her sights knew it was part of a delicious game.

No, Carrie Ann tended to throw herself headlong into a relationship with any man who seemed interested. Take Jack, for instance. He was her high school boyfriend, so she guessed that at one point he was interested. But did he ask her to follow him to San Francisco when he left to join a rock band? No. Carrie Ann did it anyway, catching a ride with her old friend Willie, who was driving his Volkswagen bug to go to school at San Francisco State. Jack let her move into his room in El Paso House, a crumbling old Haight-Ashbury mansion occupied by several people from their hometown.

Then Jack got his draft notice and left for the wilds of Canada, once again without inviting her to go along. Neither of them knew then that Carrie Ann was pregnant with Rorie, and she’d never been able to find Jack to let him know he was a father. Too bad for him; Rorie was obviously his daughter, with the same deep dimple in her chin and those amazing ice-blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes.

Jack was bad enough but falling for Michael was her worst move in many ways. At least she had gotten Rorie from the otherwise unsuccessful relationship with Jack.

Electricity had surged through her body the first time Carrie Ann saw Michael. Tall, handsome, and even rich, by the standards of the hippie world where they lived, he seemed the perfect answer in her quest to find an old man, a home for herself and Rorie, even (if Carrie Ann was lucky) a husband. Now, two years later, she was embarrassed to remember how she’d had to beg him to let her move in when she needed a place to live. The sex was so good, Carrie Ann was sure he must love her. And if he wasn’t quite as sure, she thought, she could make him love her, if she just worked hard enough.

Eventually Carrie Ann realized that Michael was using her as a convenience, an unpaid housekeeper and cook who was good in bed. The commitment was all on her side.

You’d think she would have figured it out sooner. Like, say, that time she hitchhiked into town, hoping her food stamps would be at the post office. The guys in Michael’s band went through the meals Carrie Ann cooked like ravenous locusts, but they rarely brought home groceries. There was nothing for that night’s dinner, so she decided to hitch, since Michael’s VW van was broken down, and he had gone somewhere on his motorcycle. She left Rorie with the girlfriend of one of the band members, who lived in a shack on Michael’s property, and hiked up to the highway.

The first driver to pull over was an old man in a rusty truck. No sooner were they on the road than he reached over and pulled up her dress. You get panties? he asked. You wearing one bra? Somehow, her response was to bark, rather than whine, Let me out right now! and it worked. She found herself by the side of the road, quaking in the hot sun, hoping for a better ride. Lucky for her, her friend Chuckie had showed up. Even though Carrie Ann hadn’t seen him since the day he found out she’d been dating him and Michael at the same time, he acted like that had never happened, and they had a nice conversation as he drove her safely to Paia.

Later that afternoon, when Carrie Ann finally dragged herself and the groceries up the back steps, Michael’s only concern was whether she’d brought home a loaf of bread so he could make a peanut butter sandwich. When she told him about the lecherous old man, he shrugged it off, as if her safety and her feelings didn’t matter. She could have been dead in a ditch, and all he cared about was his damn sandwich.

She should have left then. Instead, she stayed with Michael, trying to make it work, far longer than she should have. Fortunately, she would never have to see him again. Michael had left the island, and Carrie Ann was on the beach in Lahaina, watching her baby play in the surf, while someone else cooked a gourmet dinner. Things had worked out pretty well so far. She’d have to keep the faith and believe that they would continue to do so.

Chapter Two

Carrie Ann

Hold really still, Rorie, I’m almost done. Carrie Ann traced the fingers of Rorie’s left hand against the wall, looped around the thumb and ran the pencil along the arm, stretched high as if to bat a ball. Maybe she would hang a bright red ball from the shop ceiling for the silhouette child to reach.

Carrie Ann sat back on her heels. "Okay, baby, we’re done. And that’s the last silhouette. All pau. You can relax from your modeling job."

Finally! Rorie rolled her eyes and stepped away from the wall. Now can I color?

How about you put the yellow in those daisies? Can you stay inside the lines?

Uh-huh. Rorie took the yellow crayon and knelt next to a bright green baseboard that sprouted the outlines of a pretend meadow, its grassy leaves and flowers waiting to be filled in.

Carrie Ann turned back to the wall where she had drawn Rorie’s outline. This one would be a boy. Around the store, other silhouetted boys and girls played on the store’s sky-blue walls, each the size and approximate shape of Rorie.

Now if we could just get the outside of this place to look as good as the inside! The whole town of Lahaina could use a coat of paint. Bea had arrived, wafting Chanel No. 5 as she walked past Carrie Ann to dump an armful of binders on the shop counter. This is so cute, Carrie Ann. You have really stepped up the old place.

Bea bent to ruffle Rorie’s hair. And how nice that you have a helper. Rorie beamed. Rorie, do you want to watch the store while we have our meeting?

And sit on the tall stool?

Yep, right up against the counter. If somebody comes in, you give them a big smile and tell them welcome to our shop.

Sure, I know how to do that.

Okay, we’ll leave the office door open, in case you make a sale, Bea replied. Pretty soon you’ll be good enough at arithmetic to handle sales yourself. She winked at Carrie Ann.

I’m here! Sorry I’m late, Aunt Bea. It was Mimi, looking gorgeous as usual. It amazed Carrie Ann that aunt and niece, both so beautiful, could be so different. Where Bea’s vibe read as Marilyn Monroe, Mimi was more Sheena of the Jungle—statuesque, almost six feet tall, with glossy dark-brown hair that reached the hem of her short shorts. Like the silky minidresses she used to wear when she was a legal secretary in San Francisco, the shorts showed off her long legs admirably.

But while her looks said Sheena, Mimi was anything but wild, a calm, organized person who’d been a stabilizing influence for Carrie Ann since the day they met.

The parking in Lahaina is getting terrible, Mimi said. I had to walk more than a block from the nearest spot. She hugged Bea, Carrie Ann, and finally Rorie, who stood up to return the hug. Mimi was really into hugging. Also into giving advice by way of philosophical sayings. She set her bag of beading supplies on a shelf and pulled her hair into a knot, then joined Bea and Carrie Ann at the table in the little office that they used for a desk and workstation.

Scarce parking is actually a good sign, Bea said. It means there are a lot of tourists in town. And that means we might get some customers.

We could use some of those, Mimi agreed.

Well, it’s almost March, Carrie Ann pointed out. Last year things really perked up by March.

True. It’s those autumn months that are the hardest, Mimi said.

Something I wish I’d known before we opened in October! Bea said, shaking her head. But, yeah, it did pick up in the spring. Meanwhile, girls, I suggest you close the store and go to the beach if it gets too slow.

And I don’t get paid if I do that, Carrie Ann thought. Generous as Bea had been, charging her only fifty dollars a month for rent, Carrie Ann felt guilty at the thought. She couldn’t expect Bea to subsidize her with hourly pay when there were no customers. But Carrie Ann remembered proudly the last visit she’d had with her social worker.

You did it, Carrie Ann, he said. I was worried about you for a while there, but you’ve shown amazing growth in the past year, and your paychecks prove it. And that was the end of food stamps and welfare for her, a giant step after depending on public support since Rorie was born. She didn’t want to go back there, ever. She’d just have to work harder on her sewing, maybe branch out into women’s wear and find retailers to sell it.

Mimi was storekeeper today, so after the business meeting, Carrie Ann headed home to her sewing machine. It was near noon, a hot time of day for walking several blocks of Lahaina’s Front Street business area. With Rorie trailing behind, she stayed close to the store facades, keeping to the shade cast by overhanging awnings or the jutting extensions of second-floor lanai.

A few tourists wandered the narrow sidewalk, peering into windows, and a couple of guys in clothing stained by the red dirt of the sugarcane fields climbed out of a dusty pickup and went into Yamamoto Store, where a soda fountain served hamburgers and milkshakes. Front Street’s old buildings, with their faded paint and big front windows, faced the ocean, a daily but marvelous sight. Hot as this place was, Carrie Ann couldn’t believe she got to live here and to work in a sewing room that faced that same ocean view.

When they got home, she’d make a quick lunch, take a dip in the ocean with Rorie, then spend the afternoon sewing. She was feeling encouraged, because she had made a big sale the week before, three dresses made in one of her original designs.

Her designs had been the inspiration for Bea’s decision to open a children’s clothing store, but they were not its top sellers. The average tourist was