Chapter 49 Room Full of Angels
A couple of miles deep into the lush Manoa Valley, Aly pulled her Toyota into a driveway. I parked the Bronco on the street, Meka slid in behind me in her Volvo. We piled out of the cars.
"This is nice," Hawk said looking at the house with it's tastefully lit sculpted Japanese garden.
"Yes it is," Aly said, "but my place is outback. The front house belongs to—"
"Oshi and Brian two retired university professors," Meka finished for her.
"You know them?" Aly asked.
"Yeah, Brian and Oshi are art patrons and I bump into them every now and then," Meka said.
We followed a path of flat, evenly spaced rock slabs embedded in the ground that led us along the left side of the big house. Motion sensors activated path lights as we advanced. Aly's little house around back was a quaint yellow vinyl sided structure surrounded by a jungle of banana palms, ti plants and ferns. The house was on stilts and seemed sunk into the hillside behind it. Aly led the way up the two flights of wooden stairs to get to the front door. She opened the door and clicked on the lights revealing a surprisingly spacious living room. An impressive collection of small carvings were scattered everywhere in the room. Hand sized bronze, silver, brass and wooden statues took up every available flat space, there must have been close to a hundred of them.
"This is my collection," Aly said, "I can't help buying them. It's kind of a sickness really."
She picked up a delicate little bronze angel with crystal wings. "It cost me a fortune to ship them here."
"They're all angels," Meka observed.
"And female," Hawk added.
Aly picked up an angel made of white stone. "Pick them up if you like. They're fun to touch."
I picked up a tallish snow globe that rested on a shelf and automatically shook it. Artificial snow settled on a tiny angel statue at the center flanked by palm trees surrounded by, of all things, a graveyard.
"This is a little creepy," I said with a frown. A feeling not unlike the one that had descended on me at Hawk's archaeological dig on Maui, enveloped me.
"Yeah I know, freaky thing isn't it," Aly said, "The landlords, Oshi and Brian, gave it to me as a house warming present after they saw my collection. She's kind of sad stuck behind all that glass."
Meka took the globe from me and I was happy to be rid of it. She shook it then gave it a good critical look.
"I know this place," Meka said in wonder. "It's the entrance to a grave yard in Makiki Heights across the street from my house. I've photographed that very angel many times."
Meka handed the globe back to me but I refused to take it so she put it back on the shelf I got it from.
Aly pulled open the curtain in the living room. The large picture window overlooked the front house. Below, lights illuminated a swimming pool and screen enclosed pool deck.
"This place is awesome," Matt said,
Aly nodded. "I scooped it up the moment I saw it. Come see the rest," She led us down a hallway passed a tiny galley kitchen. Photos and framed reproductions of famous angel painting crowded the walls of the hall. Among the angel stuff was an unframed eighteen by twenty four inch painting that looked out of place for there clearly was on angel in it. It was done in an impressionistic style that made me thing of Camille Pissaro. I stopped to get a good look. The painting was dark and shadowy with two figures at the center in odd crossing orange beams of light. Both figures were female, one nude with dark brown skin, the other pale with dark hair dressed in black clothing.
"This is an odd one," I said to Aly.
Aly nodded in agreement. "I got it at a craft fair in Waipahu three months ago. I stopped at a booth to look at it and the woman there just gave it to me.
"Really?' I asked. "She just gave it to you for free? This is skillfully done."
"Yep," Aly said. "I tried to turn it down but she insisted, saying it was my destiny to own it. She was a little crazy I thought. I only took just to get away from her."
"I wish crazy people would give me art," Matt said.
"Gwen gives you art all the time," Hawk said to him.
"I'm not lolo," I said and punch Hawk in the arm.
Aly waved us along to continued the tour of the house. "Bathroom, guestroom, study, master bedroom," she said as we passed doors all on our left. At the end of the long hall (the place didn't look that big from the outside) was a glass door and the only one on the right side. The glass door was delicately inlaid with geometric patterns of frosted green and white glass. Aly pushed the glass door open, hit the light switch and led us in the room.
Hawk summed it up in one word.
"Righteous."
We stood in a room dominated by a raised wooden hot top. The floor was solid cement and felt coarse under foot. The the tub looked seasoned and well used. One wall was made entirely of glass. The space had a distinct Japanese feel to it.
"Watch this," Aly said. She walked to a control panel off in the corner and hit some switches. Lights came on outside the glass wall revealing a lush growth of banana trees just a few feet out. "This place is built right into the hillside. You should see it in the morning,"
As we paraded back into the living room, Aly said, "I got Merlot, Cabernet, Mums champagne and Coronas." She went to the fridge and got out a bottle of champagne.
"Lecturing must pay well," Matt said.
Aly laughed. "Normally, you guys would be drinking just beer but the landlords gave me a case of everything on the drink menu as a moving in present. Would you believe it?"
"I would," Meka said. "Your landlords are loaded."
"This sure beats faculty housing," Hawk said as he settled onto the suede leather sofa.
"And the dorms," Matt added.
