CHAPTER 10

.10.

In the stories my father reads, time is a series of dates on a timeline. In the stories I wanted to write, it’s a fast-paced murder mystery. But that summer, time was just a long, honey-colored blur that tasted of salt and Kona coffee.

Jimmy stayed. He didn’t just stay; he transformed. In three months – July, August, September – the "Danish Prince" peeled off his Hollywood skin and replaced it with something that looked a lot like kamaʻāina.

He started by checking out of the Royal Hawaiian. He traded the "Pink Palace" and its gilded atmosphere for the Halekulani. Back then, it was a grouping of simple bungalows tucked into the greenery, the kind of place for people who didn't feel the need to shout about price tags. It offered unpretentious food and a quiet that felt like a sanctuary.

I couldn't help but notice the irony. Earl Derr Biggers had stayed at the Halekulani when he wrote House Without a Key, breathing life into Charlie Chan. I walked past the cottage where the first "pulp" detective was born and felt the universe – or maybe Pele – giving me a sharp nudge in the ribs.

Jimmy didn’t just sit in the shade, though. He pulled a Leica out of his trunk and started taking photos. At first, I thought it was just a hobby, the "rich kid" playing at art. But when I saw the first prints, I stopped talking. There was an honesty in his lens that I hadn't yet found in my Remington. Jimmy didn't see the postcards anymore. He saw the lines in a fisherman's hands and the way the light hit the taro patches in the early morning.

"Show me more," he challenged. "Show me the parts they don't put in the brochures."

I took the bait. I became his guide, his Kahu, in a way I hadn't expected. We spent our days exploring the red-dirt roads of the interior and our evenings at the Waikiki Tavern, sitting among the beach boys and the locals until the moon was high.

By September, we’d found our rhythm. Our first article appeared in the Sunday edition of The Honolulu Advertiser. I provided the ink, and Jimmy provided the light. It was a serious, non-fictional look at the islands, and it achieved the impossible: it won my father’s approval. He was happy his son had traded "sensationalism" for "documentation." He didn't realize that sometimes, the truth is the most sensational thing of all.

Even my mother fell under Jimmy's spell. She started calling him "the sad, beautiful boy," and I realized she was looking at him as the brother she’d never been able to give me. She made him sit for a portrait – a painting that still hangs in my parents' study, the colors as warm and vivid today as they were that summer.

Then came the day Jimmy finally went back into the deep. He swam past the buoys, past the reef, with the steady, quiet stroke of a man who had made his peace with Nāmaka. He wasn't a guest anymore; the ocean had embraced him as her own.

For a moment, I actually believed that was the story. The fire and water of the islands had defeated the Hollywood tinsel gods. Pele and Nāmaka had won. I thought we were writing a happy ending.

Then, on the last day of September, the world remembered who he really was.

A telegram arrived at the Halekulani. It was short, cold, and heavy enough to sink a ship. 

JEPPE KARLSEN SENIOR DECEASED. RETURN IMMEDIATELY.

The Royal Danish Pastries King was dead. The Prince was being summoned back to the court. 

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