Quaranteam - 808 State Ch. 02-04

Author's Note: Again, mahalo nui loa to Corrupting Power (Devin McTaggert) for graciously permitting me to play around in a corner of his brilliant creation. And mahalo to my fellow Quaranteam Spinoff Authors -- BreakTheBar, AgathonWrites, SilverRyden, RonanJWilkerson, OtterlyMindblowing, The_Licentious_Laureate, 32inch, BronanTheLibrarian, lokisluckwriting, and those working on stories yet to be published. And, again, a special mahalo to BirchesLoveBooks, author of QT: Flyover Country, for his 'Operation: Breadbasket', which got me thinking about how Hawaiʻi could work its way into some early vaccine distribution.

Also, yes, there were a couple of errors in Chapter 1. Apparently, I probably need some remedial math and geography at the Zoolander Center -- but not the one for ants, since I can't fit through the door. Honolulu is about 250 miles northWEST of Hawaiʻi Island, not northeast. And as the quarantine lockdowns started in March, July is only 5 calendar months later. Both of those are totally my screwup -- DMcT and the other QT-spinoff authors gave me a bunch of notes to correct and I swear I thought I'd caught everything.

Finally, a quick question: I've gotten some conflicting feedback regarding the Glossary/explanation of the non-English words. Some folks have suggested that they dislike the non-English words and having a Glossary at the end of a chapter and want the explanation of a word in-line. (My personal feeling on the latter is that it breaks narrative flow, but if enough people want it, maybe I'll look for some lube.) Others have said they can largely figure out or guess at the meaning from context and are happy with the in-depth Glossary at the end. If I could do links, my stories would look like a Terry Pratchett novel with superscripts and footnotes everywhere, but... no can. So... more feedback is needed to help me decide how to handle the explanation of non-English words. Sound off in the comments, or shoot me a message.

Chapter 2

July 10th, 2020

The "cow move" went smoothly -- with the biggest issue being potty breaks for Katherine. During the socially-distanced breaks, the four adults chatted. Evelyn's two classmates (both young women in their early-mid 20s) Kirsten and Heavenlee turned out to be former Agricultural Science classmates of Evelyn's from undergrad.

Pre-pandemic, Kirsten had been working part-time as a large-mammal veterinary assistant, and full-time in the UH-Hilo pre-vet program, although work had dropped off sharply for the former, and become 100% remote for the latter, giving the tall, dirty-blonde girl from Arizona considerable anxiety about whether or not the year's coursework would be acceptable to Veterinary Medicine schools.

After graduating with her B.S. in AgSci, Heavenlee had resumed working full time at her family's papaya farm, which, she proudly related, had not failed to make a harvest or deliver a scheduled order even in the middle of the pandemic, thanks to her mother's exceptionally strict policies around PPE and distancing, "Which even Tatang follows, although at the start he rolled his eyes a lot. We've had a few of our harvesters drop out, which always worries Mom for days afterwards, but fortunately, it's never been more than one or two people at a time. But," the petite Filipina girl continued, "we haven't been able to reach any of them to see how they are, if they need any help, or when they're going to be able to come back to work." Her voice trailed off at the end.

Although everyone was standing several feet apart, they each unconsciously took another step away from each other after Heavenlee spoke. Just then, Kat called out, "Daddy! I need help! I have a klingon!" Mal looked to the sky, and the three young women burst out laughing.

Break over, everyone returned to their vehicles. Mal and Kat climbed into the cab of the hauler-tractor, and once Evelyn and her friends had the cattle moving through into the next pasture, Mal shifted the tractor into drive and followed behind. The women on the ATVs continued to chivvy the herd, looping out to head off any diverging cows before they could cause a bifurcation, while Mal wove slowly along behind, bringing up the rear and, once the herd was through a gate and headed for the next, pulling the cleared gate shut behind him. Meanwhile, Kat -- who had quickly grown bored of looking at the cows and pastures -- watched a dizzying array of princess movies on Mal's tablet. Although at one point, he was pretty certain he heard "... wants to be a cat," coming from her headphones when she adjusted them. Kat was leaning against the back wall of the hauler's cab, so he couldn't confirm his suspicion about which movie she was watching, but he fully expected the request for kittens to resume in the near future.

The group stopped for lunch -- again, socially distanced, to everyone's frustration, but especially Kat. The inquisitive little girl wanted to get a good look at what everyone was eating, and stamped her foot and stuck out her lower lip when told she had to stay put on her picnic blanket.

"Do you like papaya, Kat?" Heavenlee asked. "Cause if you're a good girl, and stay on your guys' picnic blanket, I'll send you and your daddy home with a whole bunch of papayas!"

Vibrating with excitement at the bribe of one of her favorite fruits, Kat immediately sat back down and grabbed her sandwich, taking a monster bite. Mal looked over her head toward Heavenlee and mouthed "Thank you," to the young woman.

Heavenlee smiled back and said, "Aba, she's so precious, Mal! And her hair is incredible - those Shirley Temple ringlets! I don't know why, but hapa girls grow up to be so beautiful! Her mom must be stunning - Asian with curly hair, ah, I'm so jelly!" She twirled a lock of her straight brown hair as she spoke.

"My Mommy's hair is straight." Kat took another bite of her sandwich, as the women looked at Mal.

He flushed red and said, "Er, yeah. She gets it from me... When I forget to keep my hair cut short, I get ringlets."

"Why do I get the sense that you're more than a little embarrassed by your hair, Mal?" Kirsten teased.

"Well, let's just say that ringlets on a little kid are adorable to adults -- boy or girl, adults think it's 'precious', right? And when a little girl with ringlets grows up, no big... Ringlets on a little boy? Mortally embarrassing to that former little boy when he and his 10-year old friends find the photos in a closet. Especially when one of those so-called 'friends' sneaks a picture away and their older brother prints dozens of copies and they get plastered all over the Windward side of Oʻahu. I came across one when I was 16, up in Kaʻaʻawa, recently stuck on a telephone pole.

"I was in my 'metal phase' -- or as my dad used to joke-sing, my 'long-haired freaky people' phase." Seeing the confused looks, Mal explained, "there was a song my dad used to sing about signs, and the song starts with the line, 'The sign said, long-haired freaky people need not apply.' I think it was a 'Help Wanted' sign or something; the song was from, like, the 70s, I think.

"Anyway, it had been a few years since I'd seen any of those posters of ringlet-little-Mal, and figured it was just a super embarrassing grade-slash-middle-school event. I had grown my hair long, like mid back, but I always used hair spray to keep it from ringleting. I caught the bus up to Kaʻaʻawa to visit a friend who lived out that way -- there was a concert in Kahuku we were going to go to the following day. I got off the bus, and there at the stop was one of those fu -- er, one of those blasted posters. And it hadn't been there more than a few days." Mal's face twisted at the memory.

"I took it down, well, tore it down, then walked to the previous stop back toward Kahaluʻu. Called my friend from a pay phone, said I was sick and couldn't make it to the show. As soon as I got home, I cut off all my hair. Just couldn't... Seeing that damn poster... It brought back all that grade and middle school embarrassment all over again. I couldn't handle it. I played hooky from school a couple of days -- faking illness so I could stay home and mentally settle down. It sucked feeling like that.

"My folks probably figured something had happened, but they never asked me, nothing more than, 'So you decided to cut your hair short, eh? Need the back of your neck cleaned up a little?' My friends wondered if I'd gotten into some sort of buzz-cut sub-genre. Didn't really go into it either..." Mal trailed off. "Damn. Just realized. That's the first time I've talked about it. But I guess that's also the first time anybody's really ever asked about my hair. Sorry, I guess that was a bit TMI?"

Mal looked up, and then around at the young women, all three of whom had eyes glistening with unshed tears after hearing the story. Katherine piped in, "Daddy, you had long hair once? Like mine? That's so cool!" At that, the adults started laughing, and in the case of the three women, the tears began to spill down their faces.

Evelyn spoke first, "Mal, I'm sorry I can't give 16-year old you a hug, but I want you to know it's taking all my self-control to not break social distancing and give you a hug right now! I know how hard you and Gwen have worked to protect your family, and I won't risk that, but thank you for sharing your story with us, and I'm so sorry you were so lonely for so long!"

Kirsten chimed in, "I hope you'll forgive me for pressing you on it, but thank you for sharing with me! And Evvy's 100% right, I totes want to hug both you and the 16- and 10-year old yous and tell you it'll be okay!"

Heavenlee was quiet, tears streaming down her face. "Hey, H, are you okay," Evelyn asked the Filipina.

"I'm okay, just so much emotion! You're such a good dad, Mal, I can see that from how you've taken care of Kat, and you're such a good person to help Evelyn, and you must be such a good husband to Gwen, and I'm just -- I'm..."

*I'm just a jealous horny bitch,* she thought to herself.

"I'm okay, just a little overcome by your story, Mal!" Heavenlee wiped the tears from her face and waved her hands in the air to show her friends she was okay.

Mal was a little flustered by their responses -- and that he had just spilled one of his most embarrassing life moments to these women he'd just met. "Well, thank you for the compliments, ladies, but I think, as Katherine has at last finished her 'sammich', that we should, 'roll 'em up, and move 'em out," as the cowpokes say, right, Miss Evelyn?"

The woman snorted, and then laughed, as she and her friends wiped the tears away. "Malcolm Pilchard, you must really want me to start talking about shooting you again - don't you ever use language like that in my presence, you dirt-grubbin', corn-huskin', varmint-cookin', chin-wagglin', slop-sided, colonizing haole-boy!" She was smiling and looking right at Mal as she overdramatically insulted and threatened him -- just so everyone, but particularly Kat, knew she wasn't serious.

Heavenlee sighed and finished wiping her face as the fivesome finished gathering up their four separated picnics. As she and Kirsten walked toward their ATVs, the latter girl spoke, "Goddamn, why do the good guys need to be taken already?"

Heavenlee didn't look, but replied, "Not helping, K."

The tall haole girl snorted. "The fuck I'm not helping. I just want you to realize you're not the only horny, someone-else's husband-lusting skank in this field today. Hell, even Evelyn wants to jump Mal's bones, and she only dates kanaka dudes. I think she makes them show their blood quantum before she'll go on a date."

Heavenlee chuckled a little, then replied, "Yeah. Thanks, Kirs. This putang-ina pandemic. I'm so fucking horny all the time, and I can't go meet anyone to even START dating, and then a good-looking guy... Who I already know is a good dad... I don't care if he's a little older than what I'd normally go for, my ovaries nearly crawled out of my body and lunged at him. I'm so jealous of Kat's mom."

"I know what you mean, but I'm not as jealous -- remember, Gwen and Mal and Kat have been living separately for months now -- so I'm not that jealous cause she hasn't even been getting it from Mal for months," Kirsten reminded her friend.

"That poor --" The last word was drowned out, and two women ended their conversation, as they started up the engines of the ATVs and set off to round up the herd again.

-=#=-

Glossary of non-English words:

tatang: Tagalog (Filipino) word for father.

klingon: A little piece of poop that doesn't come off. If it gets caught in your butt hair, it's a "klingon warrior". Before there was the Urban Dictionary, there were Rich Hall's Sniglets books. (A sniglet is a word that isn't in the dictionary but should be; submissions for the books were crowd-sourced.) It's been a LONG time, but I'm pretty sure that was where I first encountered the term in that usage. Obviously taken from the Star Trek humanoid species name due to the homophonicity. And, like the fictional ones, klingon warriors will make you HURT.

aba: Tagalog interjection, similar to "Oh!"

hapa: Part (Pidgin word, originally, "half", from Hawaiian word "hapalua" (half).) Commonly used in Hawaiʻi to refer to mixed-race people -- regardless of which races make up the mix.

haole: White person.

kanaka: A person of native Hawaiian descent. (Technically, the proper full term is kanaka maoli, but it's accepted that kanaka refers to an individual native Hawaiian person.)

putang-ina: Tagalog profanity - son of a bitch, fucking.

-=#=-

Chapter 3

July 10th, 2020

Mal carried his exhausted daughter into the house and put her in her bed. The little girl had skipped her nap, and dinner had been teri-spam musubi eaten in the back of the Prius, with the hatch open. Kat had wolfed down the first so quickly that Mal wondered if the four he'd brought would be enough, but midway through the second, she stopped, announced that she was "all pau with kaukau, Daddy," and climbed over the back seat and buckled herself into her carseat. Before Mal finished his second musubi, the little girl was fast asleep.

As he turned to leave her room, he saw a figure down the hallway -- Mal instinctively grabbed in his pocket for the mask he carried and fumbled it on while pulling Katherine's door shut.

"Gwen? What's wrong?"

*****

Evelyn turned off the shower, wrapping a towel around herself as she stepped out of the stall. The young woman stretched before grabbing a slightly smaller towel to dry her waist-length brown hair with. As she bunched up her hair, the faint strawberry-peach scent of her conditioner wafted to her nose. *Hmm, I wonder if Mal would like this?* The stray thought flitted through her mind, and she jerked upright and looked at herself in the mirror above the sink.

"What the hell? Why am I wondering if Malcolm Pilchard would like the smell of my conditioner? One, he's married, two, he's got a kid, three, he's not kānaka, four, he's MARRIED." *But damn, he's not half bad looking for a haole guy, nothing wrong with a little fantasizing, now is there?*

Her hair only partly dry, Evelyn's hand crept downwards to slip under the towel wrapped around her body. She parted the lips of her pussy, sliding her finger up toward her clit. *Jeez, I'm wet. Damn, thinking about Kamalei never got me this soaked... It's gotta just be proximity. That and I haven't had ANY dicking since this fucking pandemic started. Yeah, that. Def that... Okay, so just use it -- but fantasize about Kama instead.*

Evelyn imagined her boyfriend's lean form, with his brown skin, picturing him riding a surfboard as she alternated flicking and rubbing her clit. Kamalei rode the wave until it faded to ripples, his momentum carrying him for a bit longer before he jumped off and splashed through the shallows toward her.

Her concentration slipped as she tugged on her labia, a pre-orgasmic shudder running through her body. Refocusing, she now pictured her paniolo lover shirtless in jeans, just climbing down from a horse, his dark wavy hair falling down over his eyes. In her mind's eye, Kamalei caught hold of her hand and pulled her to him, their lips meeting; a surge of passion rose in Evelyn and she rubbed her clit faster, dipping the tip of her finger down to her slit periodically to rewet it.

The young kanaka woman jerked and clutched at the vanity counter as her orgasm hit. She sank to her knees, gasping as she released her held breath. "Damn it, Kama, why the fuck haven't you texted me back yet!" *He can't -- my memories are the only place I'll see him anymore.* Slumping back against the vanity, Evelyn began to sob as she continued trying to come to terms with the truth she didn't want to accept -- her boyfriend, her grandparents, her cousins, her uncle, her mother, her father -- all lost to the pandemic. She was the last Kopua, last surviving inheritor of the formidable kuleana to mālama ʻāina her family's heritage -- to protect and nurture the land, the ʻāina her 4-times great-grandfather, the konohiki Kopua, had been allocated in the Mahele of 1848, then successfully registered two years later.

Kopua and his descendents, Evelyn's family, had carefully maintained the acreage, and over the decades turned it to ranchland and expanded and protected it from colonizing haole outsiders and businessmen. Evelyn had looked forward to doing the same with Kamalei, who had joked that the only hesitation he had about taking her family name if they got married was that he wasn't sure how his resulting initials would come across to the haole they did business with. The young woman cried as she felt the weight of her historical obligation -- alone.

Evelyn sat there, in the bathroom, still wrapped in a towel, her partially-dried hair lying free on her shoulders and lap. For how long, she didn't know -- long enough for the tears to be spent, again. Evvy didn't know how long she could keep it up, how long she could run Kopua Ranch alone, but she knew she had at least one more day in her. *Mama, I know you always said we have to be grateful for our kuleana, and I am, but... Mama, this is much more than I ever thought I'd have to face alone.* She shivered, and gathered her hair towel to her to finish drying it enough for her to sleep.

*****

Gwen stood at the end of the hallway, sobbing. Mal rushed to her, enfolding her in his arms, his chin brushing the top of her head. "I can't do this anymore, Malcolm. I can't live alone, cut off from you and Katherine. It doesn't matter anyway. They told us not to come in anymore. We're getting some severance, those of us that are left anyway, but I'm unemployed!"

Gwen clutched at Mal, as her tears soaked his shirt.

"It's okay, Gwen. It's okay. We'll be okay. Thank you. For refusing to quit when I suggested it. For being the strong woman you are. But especially for coming to me now." Mal held his wife, enjoying the feel of having her in his arms again as he tried to comfort her.

"But how will we survive? You're not working, I'm not working, the chickens and the garden helps, but doesn't actually provide enough to feed the three of us. How will we pay the bills and buy food?" Gwen was still sobbing, but her analytical mind was already considering their situation.

"I don't know. I may not be getting work, and I've run out of the County's online training courses, but we're still getting my County paycheck. I haven't felt good about that -- but I'm not the only one, so I'm not inclined to throw myself under a bus. We'll be okay for a few months, I promise. Maybe longer. We can expand the garden. Maybe now that we're not living separately, you can keep Kat home and I can see about doing some handyman or welding jobs. I should be able to find someone with something that needs doing -- and can be done safely -- even if it's for barter. We'll figure it out. I'm just glad you're here -- gods, woman, I've missed you so much!"