“I didn’t realize that toddlerhood involved quite so much throwing yourself off of buildings,” she told him solemnly.
Kaleo grinned, pointed, and wiggled to get down.
She set him free, having learned by this point that retaining her hold on him once he started wiggling would result in a frustrated shriek right in her ear.
It was a couple of hours before he allowed himself to be strapped into his stroller again, at which point Akemi drank the last of her tepid coffee and tossed the smushed end of her pastry.
“Auntie Laurie should be at the bookshop by now,” she told her son. “Should we go say hi?”
He responded with a lilting string of sound that she took foragreement.
Laurie was quick to pull him out of his stroller, and for her he behaved like an angel. She read him one board book after another, and he was entranced.
Akemi loaded a whole stack of them into the bottom of the stroller, hoping that they would have the same effect if she read them to him at home that night when the rest of the house was trying to sleep.
When Laurie refused to let her pay, she dropped the cash into Mia’s tip jar instead.
Eventually, Kaleo’s patience waned. Laurie went back to work on her laptop, and Akemi let her baby loose in the backyard.
A few wild chickens scratched in the dirt near the fence. Kaleo shrieked with excitement and ran towards them. Not easily startled, they stayed just slightly ahead of him as he continued to chase them around as fast as his tiny toddler legs could carry him.
Akemi snapped a photo and sent it to Lorenzo.
The chickens moved around the side of the building and into the next lot.
There was an old wooden plantation-style house next door, with no fence separating it from the bookshop. It was a cute place, if a bit run down, with an overgrown backyard and a big covered lanai out front.
It didn’t look like anyone was living there; two of the windows were boarded up.
As Akemi herded her toddler away from the street, wheels began to turn in the back of her mind.
“Does anyone live next door?” she asked when they eventually wandered back into Paradise Books.
“No, it’s been empty a while now.” Laurie closed her laptopand looked at her with curiosity. “Why? Are you looking for a place to rent?”
“Maybe… Do you know who owns it?”
“Auntie Kua. She owns this building too.”
“And you don’t want to live there? That’s a real short commute, and it’s a lot bigger than the ‘ohana you’re in right now.”
“I like where I live now. It’s the right size for us. Anyway, it’s nice to havesomeseparation between work and home.” She tilted her head to one side. “Do you want me to put you in touch with Auntie Kua?”
“How do you think she’d feel about a café?”
“A café?” Laurie repeated. “You want to turn it into a coffee shop?”
“Maybe. What do you think?”
“Are you kidding?” Laurie grinned. “A coffee shop right next door, run by my little sister? I wouldlovethat.”
“They would be good neighbors,” Akemi said, encouraged by Laurie’s enthusiasm. “A café and a book store.”
“It’s a match made in heaven. Just about everybody who came to one place would want to pop into the other.”
Akemi grinned, relieved that her pragmatic sister hadn’t shot her down.
“Does this mean you want to stay a while?” Laurie asked.
