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Chapter 14

“Teddy, party of eight,” (if you count the cats), “your table is ready.”

Duncan brought wine. His crew, his employees actually, had only the work clothes on their backs. They were brothers, so they said.

So we all sat there, beers both cold and warm, booze, ice, a cooler we dug out of the garage. Cats on the table. The smell of soot and gasoline. The shower would be busy tonight. The brothers spoke only Italian and English. The helper spoke only Samoan. Mario spoke both Italian and English, sometimes both at the same time. Duncan spoke English and Spanish and I spoke English and Hawaiian. I could talk to the Samoan guy, at least, enough to get by with. He was happily babbling away thinking I understood everything, but our languages weren’t that similar, and I wasn’t exactly proficient in Hawaiian, either. We both managed some pidgin quite well, though.