Excerpt:

“Wait!” Davy shouted from across the room. Three other kids sat around his table all of them scowling at textbooks. “Do you know anything about Macbeth?”

“Yes.”

“Can you help us? We have to figure out how this dude telling stories adds to the suspense.”

“Davy, the lady is on vacation. She’s not here to explain Shakespeare to you,” Mak snapped.

Yeah, but it was a good excuse to hang around. “I don’t mind. It gives me a chance to use my degree.” Something she definitely did not do putting together press junket wardrobes. As she crossed the room, an itch formed in the middle of her back that could only be Mak’s gaze, one of the kids at the table pulled a chair from another table for her.

Mak appeared to provide coffee and snacks as they studied. The sound of the ocean outside mixed with the burble of voices, punctuated by the occasional “Oh!” She had worked with the group at her table through a worksheet on building suspense in the third act of Macbeth and they were in the middle of story boarding the act when a weird hush fell over the room.

“Hey Shona, what are you doing here?” one of the kids asked.

The woman didn’t answer because she was busy staring at Jami. Mak stood from where he’d been working with Kayla and her friends on their essays. He strode across the floor and grabbed Shona by the arm, hauling her through the kitchen door. Davy whistled. The hush broken, the kids laughed and turned back to their homework.

“Makoa in trouble now,” Davy muttered.

“Shut up.” Precious punched his shoulder. “What’s happening in this scene, Miss Jami? Can we make it one panel because then we’d be all done, and it’s just that dude talking, right?”

Ah, the distinct sound of someone changing the subject. The woman, Shona, was gorgeous. She looked like she should have been on a poster of Hawaiian beauties with a lei around her neck and flowers in her hair. She should be smiling too, but she had not been doing that. Instead, she had been glaring daggers. Should have stuck with the impulse to get out of here when Mak wasn’t pleased to see her.

“Is that woman Mak’s girlfriend?”

Davy snorted. “She wishes.”

Precious punched him again. The boy was going to end up very bruised before the day was over.

“She was his girlfriend, but they broke up when he left.” Julie closed her English book.

When he left. The memory of him imitating Stitch rang in her ears. “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind.” Jami nodded to make them think she understood. Unfortunately she had more questions now than she had before.

 

Jami doesn’t see it yet, but she’s already part of Mak’s ohana. This scene came about in part because I was working with a student on Macbeth, which is my least favorite Shakespeare play after I studied it three times in school and my group nearly burned down my friend’s house making a video for a class project. (We thought it was be more interesting to have our credits on a piece of paper and film it burning. We had water handy, but an ash did not fall straight down and landed on the carpet instead. Cue 5 girls screaming and stamping out a flame.)