Chapter 9 Shopping Trip

Wednesday morning there was a knock at my door. I peeked out the kitchen window. A female uniformed police officer stood on my porch.

I cracked the door a few inches. “Yes?”

“Good morning ma’am,” she said. “I’m Officer Bautista. May I come in? I have a few questions.”

I held the door for her. A glance at Pearl’s condo told me they’d affixed yellow police tape across her door in the shape of an X.

“What’s this about?”

“You’re aware that your neighbor, Pearl Corvelli, was killed sometime early Monday morning,” said Officer Bautista.

I nodded. “I found the body.”

“We’re canvassing the neighbors to see if anyone saw or heard anything unusual Sunday night or early Monday morning. Can you think of anything at all that might shed light on what happened to her?”

“I’m sorry. I was asleep by nine that night. I’d been unpacking all day and was exhausted I slept very well and didn’t hear a thing. It wasn’t until I joined the ladies at the pool Monday morning …” 

I closed my eyes and pressed my hand to my mouth as the horrible image of Pearl’s dead body flooded my mind.

“Ms. Corvelli had a high level of pain killers and alcohol in her system when she was killed. Did she have a substance abuse problem?”

“I really wouldn’t know. I never even got a chance to meet her before … you know.”

Bautista nodded. She handed me a card. “If you think of anything, please call this number and speak to Detective Shiraishi.

***

 Ten a.m. found me on a rock-hard seat in the Catholic Charities van, wedged between Esther and the wall. The van created a deafening racket as it rattled pot-holed road.

“I’m glad I don’t have dentures,” I yelled in Esther’s ear. “They’d be jarred right out of my head.”

“Say what?” she shouted back.

The van made a hard right, jostling Esther against me, pinning me to the wall and cutting off my breath. Someone’s cane skittered down the aisle with a loud clatter.

We pulled to a stop in front of Foodland.

Esther managed to right herself and get her weight off me. I took some deep breaths.

With the help of the Polynesian driver—whose gender was dubious—our group managed to exit the van safely, a little worse for wear. While the driver unloaded Mae and Violet’s walkers, I took in the small, dilapidated shopping center. It must’ve been in this spot for well over half a century. Besides the grocery store, there was a Long’s drugstore, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, McDonald’s, Bank of Hawaii, a diner-type restaurant, and a beauty salon.

“Alright, Aunties,” the driver said. “You get ninety minutes for shop and den you bettah be back on da van. ’Kay?”

Coralee, Francesca, Sylvie, and Mae—pushing her walker—trooped into Foodland while Tiare, Violet, and Kaulana headed for Long’s, next door.

“Let’s go to Long’s first,” Esther told me. “I like to buy my groceries last, so the ice cream don’t melt.”

“Good thinking.”

We entered through an automatic glass door and found ourselves in a spacious, well-lit store. Tiare’s caftan swished and her cane tap tap tapped against the tile floor as she took off at a brisk pace toward the far end of the store. With a green plastic hand basket on the seat of her walker, Violet threw Esther and I a quick look before disappearing down one of the center aisles.

Kaulana rested her oversized purse in the basket of one of the store’s scooters. She took her time settling her rump on the seat and adjusting her long mu‘umu‘u around her legs before motoring down the nearest aisle.

“I don’t need a shopping cart—I’m not buying much,” Esther said to me. “But maybe you should take one to lean on. Unless you want a scooter …”

“A cart will do just fine.” I pulled one out and set my handbag in the kiddie seat. “You lead the way.”

We entered the first aisle just as Kaulana’s scooter made a right turn around the end of the row of shelves.

“They got everything here,” Esther said, “but the prices are a little higher than Walmart. The van takes us to Walmart once a month, so just get what you really need today.”

“Louise took me to Walmart when I moved into my condo,” I said. “I’m still pretty well stocked up, but it’ll be fun to take a look around.”

We turned into the next aisle and came upon Violet. As she reached for a box of blonde hair color, she took a furtive look around. When she saw us, her hand dropped back to her walker—guiltily, it seemed to me. As if she’d been caught at something. She did an about-face, and hurried away without the hair color. Could Violet be our resident kleptomaniac?

I waited till she was out of earshot, then whispered to Esther, “Was she trying to steal that hair color?”

“I don’t think Violet’s a thief. But she likes to brag about how she gets her hair done at some fancy salon—by a French guy named Maurice—when I know for a fact she colors it herself.”

That explained that.

I said, “I guess when you shop as a group, there are few secrets.”

 “We do our best to spread out and give each other privacy. But you’re right. By now I know who’s constipated, who wears dentures, who uses a personal lubricant, who’s got hemorrhoids and feminine itching, …”

She turned down an aisle that held an array of medical supplies. I was still trying to imagine which of the women might need personal lubricant—and for what—when Esther stopped in front of the incontinence products.

While she took her time studying the various packages of adult diapers, I slipped out the end of the aisle and into the next. 

When Esther caught up with me she was clutching a fat pack of Depends. Before I could avert my eyes and feign interest in something on the shelf, I noticed a big M on the side of Esther’s package.

She’d picked up medium diapers. Esther was not a medium-sized woman by anyone’s standards. She must’ve been distracted by my presence and took the wrong size. Should I point out her mistake and save her the further embarrassment of having to exchange them later, or pretend I hadn’t noticed at all?

While I enjoyed Esther’s company, I sorely wished I’d taken a cue from the other women and insisted on shopping alone.

“Can I just set this in your cart?” Esther asked.

My mouth worked but no sound came out. My panic no doubt showed in my eyes. There’s little I wouldn’t do for a friend like Esther, but I’d die before I let the other women see me with a package of Depends in my cart. From this day on, every time they looked at me they’d imagine me with a diaper under my clothes.

Esther laughed out loud at my dismay. “These aren’t for me.”

“Oh, no … I didn’t think … I didn’t mean to …”

“It’s okay. Really,” she said, continuing down the aisle with the diapers tucked under her arm. “A friend pays me to buy these for her because she don’t want nobody to know she needs ’em. Me, it don’t embarrass me one bit. I see peein’ as a natural function of the body God gave us. Ain’t no shame in that.”

“Why doesn’t your friend just have them delivered?”

“She says she don’t want her neighbors to see the UPS guy bringing big, plain brown boxes to her door on a regular basis. I mean, everybody knows what’s in those boxes, right?”

“Well, I suppose …”

“I make sure I bring them to her discretely, when no one’s lookin’.”

The next aisle held a display of Hawaiian knickknacks, macadamia nuts, Kona coffee, guava and lilikoi and jellies. Thankfully the subject of incontinence was dropped. I looked at greeting cards with lovely scenes of hula dancers, then sighed. I had no one to send such things to. I put a small jar of guava jelly in my cart and started to move on.

On second thought, I selected a card for my daughter and one for my grandson who was about to turn twenty-three. I’d write each of them a short letter about my new life in Hawai‘i—of course leaving out the part about discovering a dead body in the hot tub my first time at the pool.

I followed Esther to the checkstands, where Tiare and Violet each stood in separate lines. I saw that Violet had gone back for box of hair color, and felt bad for having invaded her privacy while she shopped.

Esther set a hand on my cart to hold me back. “Let’s wait here till they’ve paid for their shopping.

Violet stared straight ahead. Tiare looked over her shoulder and met Esther’s eye, giving her a quick nod before setting her basket on the conveyer belt. Could the Depends be for Tiare?