by Frankie Bow
“Yeah, except if anyone really tried to follow all those rules? They’d never get anything done. So when we order something from the supply house, they don’t tell us the shipping cost to Hawaii until after it’s shipped. And sometimes not till after it arrived already.”
“They don’t tell you when you place the order?” I asked.
“No. ’Cause Hawaii, ah? We don’t get the standard shipping rates. And the grants office won’t cover the shipping because they need to have the exact amount in advance, otherwise they won’t reimburse.”
“What do you mean they won’t reimburse? Isn’t it your grant?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t work that way, Molly. I can’t just take my grant money into SunSport Paddling Supply and buy myself a new canoe. It’s what I mean by all those rules. So I had to set up a little da kine, on the side, to cover the shipping costs.”
“Emma, you shouldn’t have to break the rules to administer your grant. This is money you’re bringing in to the university. Can’t the university help you?”
“With what money?”
“Well if it’s just shipping costs, it can’t be much. Can it?”
Emma dug into her backpack, pulled out a crumpled packing slip, and slapped it down on the desk.
“Here’s my latest invoice. Cover glass for slides.”
I smoothed it out and read it.
“Am I reading this right? The shipping costs twice as much as the actual product?”
“Uh huh.”
“How are you supposed to—”
“Exactly. How am I supposed to do my job? Oh, and don’t forget, I’m lucky to find a supplier who will ship to Hawaii in the first place. So you gonna turn me in now? Give ’em something to add to the murder charge?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to report you. It’s just when Iker and I were looking into the university’s finances, your lab had these discrepancies. It’s the only reason I asked.”
“So, you satisfied, Professor Persnickety?”
“Look, I didn’t make up the accounting rules. Have you heard anything from your lawyer, by the way?”
“Nothing new.”
“This is ridiculous, Emma. No one who knows you would think for a moment you could have poisoned Kent. Poison’s not your style. If you wanted to get rid of someone, you’d push them out of a window or run them down with your car.”
“Exactly.”
Dan Watanabe stuck his head in the door.
“Molly, the reception’s starting downstairs. We need to get down there. Emma, you want to come? It’s open to all the faculty.”
“Oh hey, Dan. No offense, but why would I want to see your nice new classroom? I’m just gonna get all jealous.”
“Free food,” Dan said. “Molly, you should come anyway. There aren’t many of us around in the summer, and we need to show a good turnout for this. Either of you seen Rodge?”
“No,” I said.
“Thankfully not,” Emma said.
“Dan’s right,” I said to Emma, when he had gone. “You should come. They might have those brownies.”
“Oh, the ones that’re all crunchy on top and chewy in the middle? I’m in.”
The text alert on my phone pinged as we stood and collected our things.
“Margaret Adams just sent me a text,” I said.
“Who’s that?”
“She’s one of our students. Accounting major. Works at Fujioka’s Music and Party Supply. Two watches? Now that’s interesting.”
“Molly, what are you babbling about?”
“Marshall Dixon wears this gaudy steel and diamond watch—I don’t know, maybe it’s just a coincidence. It’s not like we have that many different stores in Mahina.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Emma said. “Come on, let’s get down there to your glistening new classroom before the brownies are all gone.”
“You know the diamond watch Marshall Dixon wears?”
“No,” Emma said.
“Well then just take my word for it.” I slung my bag over my shoulder. “They sell a watch just like it at Fujioka’s Music and Party Supply, so Iker and I asked our student to look into how many they’ve sold this year.”
“Why do you care what kind of watch Marshall Dixon wears? Eh, which way? Stairs or elevator?”
“Elevator’s still broken,” I said. “We can take the stairs. Wait, I almost forgot my phone. Anyway, remember what we saw at the retreat? With the kiss on the hand?”
“Ew, thanks for bringing it back up,” Emma said. “Along with my lunch.”
“Anyway, the watch doesn’t seem like something Marshall Dixon would buy for herself. Not at all her style. I was telling Iker, it had to be a gift from Kent. You know when someone buys something for you, and you feel obliged to wear it, even if you don’t like it? One Christmas my mom got me—”
A brisk knock interrupted my story. Serena, the dean’s secretary, stood in the doorway.
“Hey Serena,” Emma said.
“We have open house today, Emma,” Serena said. “New classroom. Emma, you better get down there before the brownies are gone. Molly, this will only take a minute.”
I sighed and put my bag down. I thought of asking Emma to save me a brownie, but she was already gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“Molly, I’m glad I caught you before you went down. I been trying to get ahold of you—”
Serena paused when she saw the textbooks stacked on my desk.
“What are those?” she asked, cautiously.
“I’m still evaluating the Biz Com textbooks. I have them narrowed down to four or five that I like. I know I should be further along by now. But there are so many of them, and it takes so much time to go over each one.”
“You’re still doing the Business Communication books?”
“I’m trying to find a decent one that’ll cost the students less than a month’s rent,” I said. “I don’t know why they have to be so expensive. Look at this one. It’s not any bigger than a magazine…What is it, Serena?”
“Well, I’m sure Dean Vogel appreciates you doing all of this work. It’ll really be helpful for the future. The thing is, Molly, the dean has been so busy, and I guess somehow this fell through the cracks, so I hope you understand. I found out about it just now.”
“What is it?” I backed away from Serena and sank back onto my yoga ball. “Am I teaching in the fall? My contract got renewed, right? I’m not fired, am I?”
“No, Molly, you didn’t get fired. You’re gonna be taking over Rodge Cowper’s classes in the fall.”
“What?”
“Intro to Business Management and Business Planning. They’re yours now. Congratulations,”
“I’m teaching IBM and BP? Serena, fall semester starts in a month. How am I supposed to—”
“Excuse me?” came a tiny voice from behind Serena.
The young woman looked vaguely familiar: petite, prettily made-up, smooth black hair. Not one of my students. Where had I seen her before?
“Hi, are you busy?” asked the young woman.
“Ah, yes, I am,” I said. “I’m in a meeting right now.”
“Are you Miss Barda?”
“Faculty aren’t on duty during the summer,” Serena said. “If you can wait a moment, I’ll be right with you.”
Serena moved to shut the door, but the girl stepped into the doorway and stood firm.
“I want to talk to a professor. I’ll wait.”
“So I have to do what now?” I asked Serena. “Why can’t Rodge teach his own classes?”
“They want Rodge to teach all sections of HP,” Serena said. “It’s real popular you know. There’s always a waiting list to get in. That’s how come the Student Retention Office made us open up more sections. And they told us make sure Rodge was the one teaching it. So with Rodge teaching all those Human Potential sections, we had to give his other classes to someone else.”
“Well, great,” I said. “I guess I s
hould consider it a vote of confidence, that they can throw two completely new preps at me at the last minute.”
My visitor was still standing in my doorway, frowning at her sparkly pink phone as if she weren’t listening to our every word.
“So if I’m taking on Rodge’s classes, what happens to my Biz Com classes?”
“We’re gonna transfer Biz Com to a part-time lecturer.”
“Wait a minute. Why not give Rodge’s old classes to the lecturer and leave mine the way they are? I’ve already spent most of the summer going over all these books, prepping for fall. Plus, I’ve never taught BP or IBM.”
“It was way easier to find a part-timer to take over Biz Com,” Serena said. “Alls you need is a PhD in English. There’s so many of those who are desperate for work, you know. And Dean Vogel says no one in their right mind would agree to take on IBM and BP at the last min—”
Serena cleared her throat.
“Well, anyway, we know you’ll do a great job. Okay, let me know when you’ve decided on a textbook for Biz Com, and I’ll pass it along to the lecturer.”
“Can I get desk copies of Rodge’s textbooks?” I asked. “Since I’m not going to have much time to prepare my new classes, I’ll just use whatever he’s been using.”
“Rodge doesn’t use textbooks,” Serena said.
“Very helpful,” I said.
“But if you want to assign textbooks for those classes, make sure you get me the ISBN numbers by the end of next week so I can get the order in to the bookstore.”
The young woman watched Serena leave. Then she put away her phone and walked into my office uninvited.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“Hey, Professor.” The girl sat down in my visitor chair. “So what are all these books for?”
“I was evaluating textbooks for my fall Business Communication class.”
“Oh, but they’re giving that class to someone else now, right? I heard what you were talking about. So you did all this work for nothing?”
“Did you have a quick question? I have an important meeting downstairs.”
The brownies were probably all gone by now, and the oatmeal raisin cookies probably weren’t far behind. If I waited much longer, all that would be left for me would be the horrible banana bread, which is always undercooked in the middle.
“I have to retake Business Planning.” She reached into her pink backpack, which matched her pink phone, and pulled out a stack of forms. She shoved my books aside to clear a space and placed the papers on my desk.
“You have to retake Business Planning? You failed Rodge Cowper’s class? I didn’t think that was—how did that happen?”
“I got a A-minus.” She rested her hands on the papers and looked me in the eye. “I have to retake it so I can get an A.”
“Well, Rodge won’t be teaching it in the fall. The honor, as you heard, falls to me.”
“So you’re exactly the one I need to talk to.”
“Evidently. So how did you manage to get an A-minus in Dr. Cowper’s class?”
“Well, I was having a super busy semester, so I wasn’t really able to make it to class.”
“You didn’t show up to class at all, and you got an A-minus? I see. I think your best bet is to work something out with Dr. Cowper. I don’t think retaking BP with me is going to get you a better grade.”
“Please, Miss, I really want to do this. Not just for the grade. I wanna learn how to write a business plan.”
“You want to learn?”
I regarded her with renewed interest.
“I want my business to be successful. I’m serious about this. I know I’m gonna be entering a really competitive industry.”
“What kind of business?”
“It’s a clothing boutique.”
And then I remembered why she looked familiar.
“You’re Ashleigh?”
“That’s right. Ashleigh Ueda.” She was beaming now. “Did Dr. Rodge tell you about me?”
“No, you came by Rodge Cowper’s office with Skip Kojima. You’re a history major, right?”
“Yes I am. Very nice to meet you.” She offered a tiny hand. “Marshall Dixon? The vice-president? She wasn’t supportive of my business idea for some reason.”
“Hm. How did the rest of Skip Kojima’s visit go?”
“Okay, I guess. We were gonna take him out for dinner, but he remembered he had to leave early for another meeting.”
“So. You want to open a clothing boutique? Here in Mahina?”
I knew little about running a clothing store, but from what I had seen, it wasn’t easy. In my short time in Mahina I had seen them appear, with names like Lingerie Lady and Downtown Diva and Beaut-tique, full of optimism and the owner’s life savings. Then six or eight months later, I’d drive by, and notice where the shop used to be was now one more desolate storefront with a sun-faded “For Lease” sign propped behind a dusty window.
“I love fashion,” Ashleigh said.
“I don’t think loving fashion is enough, Ashleigh. You’ll be running a business. Doing all the—you know, all of the business stuff businesses do.”
I had a lot of brushing-up to do before I taught Intro to Business Management in the fall semester.
“Look,” I said. “Here’s what I do know. I know people here who own their own businesses. Mercedes Yamashiro, who runs the Cloudforest Bed and Breakfast. Tatsuya Masumoto, from Tatsuya’s Moderne Beauty. They’re always working. It’s hard, and time consuming, and risky. The day-to-day seems to be mostly unrelated to doing what you love.”
“Linda says if you follow your dreams—”
“You’ll never work a day in your life. Right. Because that field’s not hiring.”
Ashleigh blinked.
“But I’m good at it. My friends all ask me for advice on what to wear and stuff.”
“Look. I don’t know who told you doing what you love was a good career plan, but the person lied to you. The money will not follow.”
“But Linda says—”
“Listen to me, Ashleigh. Let me tell you what happens when you follow your dreams. You might love language, for example. And writing. You might be really good at it. Good enough to get accepted into one of the top ten literature and creative writing programs in the country. A program so selective, they might admit two students in a year. And you’re good enough to stick it out, and make it through, and earn your PhD. Now you have ‘Doctor’ in front of your name. Fantastic, right? A dream come true. And you know what happens next?”
“No.” Ashleigh looked a little worried.
“Nothing. Unemployment. That’s what happens.”
I took a breath and steadied myself on my yoga ball.
“Where was I? Right. You just got your doctorate. And now you’re realizing, a little too late, that a lot of other people love the same things you love, and there’s a thousand other poor suckers applying for every job opening you’re applying for. And they have fancy PhDs and sparkling CVs and world-famous dissertation advisors, too. So you broaden your horizons. And you apply to places you’ve never even heard of. And when you finally, finally land a job, at the Mahina State University College of Commerce, what does your dissertation advisor say about it? Is he happy for you?”
“I don’t know?” Ashleigh hugged herself and shrank back in the chair.
“No, he is not happy for you. Because not only do you have to move to the, uh, bottom end of nowhere, I’m paraphrasing here, but you’ve committed the unforgivable sin of ending up in a Business School.”
“But I’m not—”
“So instead of saying congratulations on getting a real job with health insurance, he tells you, ‘Teaching a roomful of slack-jawed baseball caps how to pad their resumes is a grievous waste of your fine critical mind.’ And all you can say to him is that your ‘fine critical mind’ is telling you after an entire year of fruitless job-hunting, it’s time to start earning a living wage.”
“But I—”
>
“A year, Ashleigh. Sure, do what you love. But don’t ever expect to get paid for it. Listen, I have to get down to my meeting.”
She stood up, gathered her things quickly, and hurried out of my office without saying goodbye.
“I hope this was helpful,” I called after her. “See you in class?”
CHAPTER FIFTY
I hesitated at the door of the classroom. Crowds make me nervous. The fact that many of the people in the room were at some point going to decide on my tenure application pegged the needle on my panic-meter. Linda from the Student Retention Office was there, of course, flanked by a few of her SRO henchpersons. Vice President Marshall Dixon hadn’t arrived yet, and the chancellor was a no-show, but I recognized a few of the other administrators. My faculty colleagues were clustered around the refreshment table.
Fortunately, Emma had been watching for me.
“You have to see this.” She grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the classroom. There was no trace of her earlier envy; she was all schadenfreude now.
“Emma, what’s going on? Why do you seem so happy?”
“Molly, look at it. Just look around. It looks like a preschool.”
I stared around the room, incredulous. She was right. Circular tables had replaced the desks, and brightly colored construction paper covered the walls. Without desks, lectern, or podium, it was impossible to tell where the front of the room was.
Emma shoved my shoulder cheerfully. “Molly, don’t look so shocked. What’d you think, the Student Retention Office was gonna do something good to your classroom?”
“I don’t understand. This was supposed to be—What happened?”
“I’ll tell you what happened, Molly. Kindergarten is the last time those SRO dimwits felt smart. So they’re trying to make the university just like kindergarten.”
“Well that’s a provocative hypothesis.” I shook my head to clear it. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”
Emma followed me over to the refreshment table.
“Molly, what I just described is a theory, not a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a specific, testable proposition.”
