“What brought you back to Pittsburgh?” Nigel asked.
“Family,” Sean said. “I realized that if I met someone on Earth, I would never be able to talk them into living on Elfhome. Not after watching one person after another wash out of living in Alaska which isn’t nearly as isolated. Living separate from my family for a couple of years, that was fine, but getting married without my whole family there? My kids never knowing their grandparents? Their uncles? Their cousins? Shit, no.”
“You have a wedding ring on,” Nigel said. “You’ve met someone?”
Sean laughed. “Yeah, the girl I dated in high school and had been a complete idiot for leaving. We got married two years ago.”
Jane glanced toward Taggart as guilt stabbed through her. His parents were going to miss the wedding. Worse, she was about to immerse him in the full insanity of a Kryskill family celebration. That at this moment, her mother was charging about the city, overflowing with joy and plans. Her mom already purchased supplies for the thousands of cookies traditionally baked for a Pittsburgh wedding. She was probably descending on the priest and printer like an avenging angel, demanding schedules to be cleared. If she couldn’t find the names of Taggart’s parents on the Internet, she’d be calling for the information.
Jane had to warn Taggart. She made sure no one was in earshot and whispered the news. “I had to tell my mother about the wedding.”
“You did?”
“She caught me buying protection.”
He looked confused. “What kind of protection?”
She felt a blush burn its way up her face. “Condoms.”
“Oh! That kind of protection! Sorry, I’m kind of in the ‘fighting monsters’ mindset. I thought you meant ammo or flash bangs or big guns.” He’d turned to film her. “Yes, good thinking. I brought nothing. I wasn’t expecting to fall in love here.”
She didn’t scowl because she knew it would make her look worse on video. “I don’t like being on camera.”
He turned away to film an old railroad bridge sliding overhead. The twin smokestacks of the Queen barely fit under the crossing. “You’re so beautiful. I can’t help looking at you. Only where my eyes go, my camera goes. Sorry.”
“I suppose I should get used to it. You are a cameraman.”
“So — how did your mom take it?”
“She cried and then bought the store out of sugar and flour.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“It should keep her busy for the next few days.” She felt a stab of guilt again thinking about how his mother — if he had a mother — was going to miss the wedding. Did he have family? “I feel like you know everything about me and I don’t know anything about you.”
“I grew up in Hawaii on the island of Moloka’i. It’s actually smaller than Pittsburgh with only seven thousand people on it. Where I lived, on clear nights, you could see the city lights of Honolulu. Moloka’i is a beautiful place with a dark history. It had been a leprosy colony where people were rounded up on other islands at gun point and basically thrown off the boat to swim ashore with nothing but the clothes on their back.”
“Oh my god!”
“I understand the elves wanting to hold on to what they have. We were an island kingdom; my people had lived in isolation for nearly two thousand years. We had our own language and religion. When the Europeans first came to our shores, we embraced their technology. The palace of the king had electricity before the White House did. But the Europeans brought more than just technology. They brought diseases like leprosy and small pox. We died by the thousands until we were a quarter of our number. They brought rats and mosquitoes and invasive animals that decimated our native songbirds. They brought their riches from far away to buy up the land, imported indentured servants from Asia, and became more powerful and influential than any of my people. When the queen realized what was happening, she tried to pass laws that would protect us. The nephew of the United States President, Andrew Jackson, talked his uncle into sending a warship filled with marines. Once it was in Pearl Harbor, the white landowners stormed the palace and forced the queen to give up her powers. In the years that followed, they stamped out our language, banned hula which are dances that tell our history, and made us third-class citizens in our own country. There was no great battle. No epic fight that we lost. It was just a long, slippery slope down. You ask an American now about Hawaii and they’ll tell you that we were ignorant, naked savages that the United States ‘made a territory’ as if we had nothing, no government, no businesses, no international trade, not even proper houses. To this day, people will ask if we live in little grass shacks.”
“Grass shack?”
“It’s an old song which seems to be the full extent of some people’s knowledge.” He coughed to clear his throat and then sang, “I want to go back to my little grass shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii. I want to be with all the kanes and wahines that I knew long ago. I can hear old guitars a playing, on the beach at Hoonaunau. I can hear the old Hawaiians saying ‘Komomai no kaua ika hale welakehao.’”
Jane laughed in surprise. He had a beautiful baritone voice but she only understood half the words. “Well, that’s more than I know of Hawaii. We’re taught American history but most kids don’t feel like it has anything to do with us. We’re Pittsburghers.”
He nodded. “I grew up feeling so isolated. You can stand on a cliff’s edge and look out over the ocean. It’s water for as far as the eye can see, but you know there’s a full world out there. Too far to swim. Too far to sail by most boats. Too far for even small planes. I wanted to see new things. Explore new worlds.”
“You’re not going to feel trapped in Pittsburgh?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think so. Lately the world has seemed too big for a small island boy like me. I’ve thought about going back to Hawaii, but the reason there’s only seven thousand people on the island is because there’s nothing there. As kids grow up, if they want to be a scientist or engineer or television producer, they have to leave. The only jobs are fishing, farming, and being a native guide to tourists. Even on Oahu, I’d have trouble finding work.”
“What about your parents? Is it going to be okay that they miss the wedding? That you’re going to stay on Elfhome?”
“The problem of being from a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific is that when you leave, it’s usually for good. My family has had years to adjust to the idea that I’d marry a woman with roots elsewhere. They will be happy that I found someone; they were starting to worry that I never would.”
It should have made her feel less guilty but it didn’t. It was probably because she was so newly — and painfully — aware of how much more important the ceremony of a wedding was to her mother than to herself. Cummerbunds? She could care less what color they were! She disliked being the center of attention. It made her feel like she’d lost control.
Tinny music suddenly started to play loudly. It was like someone was playing a slightly off-key church organ. At first she thought it was coming from something crossing the bridge overhead but then realized it was coming from somewhere below deck.
“What the hell is that?” Jane shouted over the noise.
“I think its ‘Smoke on the Water,’” Taggart shouted. “Sometimes these things have calliopes.”
“Hal!” It had to be him. Faintly she could hear Geoffrey shouting at the man too. “Damn him! Roach, where is that thing?”
The bass chords started over again.
There was a sudden discord, as if all the keys were hit at once, and then silence.
“Ow!” Hal cried into the silence. “You could have just asked me to stop!”