by Frankie Bow
There was scarcely a dust mote in evidence, let alone a glittering pair of pear-shaped diamonds or a gem-encrusted necklace. I shone the light behind the dresser, illuminating a light coating of dust on the wall. Alas, no jewelry. I shone the light around the floor again, with the same result.
I hadn’t heard Davison come in. He must have stayed out all night. This was my chance. If I found my jewelry in his room, I could just steal it back. What could he say about it? Donnie certainly wouldn’t approve of my snooping, so I’d have to do it when they were both out of the house. This was my chance.
The guest room door was ajar. I knocked gently. When there was no answer, I knocked harder, and then pushed the door open.
I stood, listening for Davison clumping up the front steps. Or Donnie turning his key in the door. What if one of them walked in on me? I would simply say I was tidying up or looking for a spare fire extinguisher or something.
I tiptoed into the room.
The air was heavy with cloying cologne and a ripe, meaty aroma. Someone would have to launder the pile of bedding. That someone would probably end up being me. Davison’s backpack lay in the middle of the floor, exactly where someone would be most likely to trip on it.
I picked up the backpack and shook it. It was disappointingly light. Inside I found a pen, a yellowed receipt, and a single sock, but no jewelry. I turned it upside-down, shook it again, and then searched for hidden pockets. Nothing.
Then I tried the chest of drawers. I rooted through the anarchy of socks and boxer briefs in the top drawer. Where better to hide something valuable? But I found nothing.
The next drawer down had a few rolled-up tank tops and a couple of pairs of shorts. The shorts pockets contained some loose change, lint, and a few crumbs of what looked like oregano. The next two drawers were empty. The closet was bare except for a few forlorn hangers.
There was one more obvious place to look. If Davison hadn’t already fenced my jewelry, it might be hidden under the mattress. I paused and listened, but didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. A car drove by; a lawnmower hummed in the distance.
I grabbed an armload of blankets and lifted them off the mattress.
I did not expect to see Davison lying on the bed in his boxer shorts.
I yelped and dropped the blankets back down on top of him. He pushed them out of the way and sat up, grinning.
“Eh, just let me brush my teeth first.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you were out.”
“What are you doing here, Molly?”
“I was looking for something.”
He held his arms out, displaying his hairless, laser-blotched chest and his bristling armpits. A baby beer belly pooched out over the top of his boxer shorts.
“You find what you’re looking for?”
“Stop it. Davison, why didn’t you say anything when I knocked?”
“How come you’re in my room?”
“I’m looking for a fire extinguisher. I don’t have to explain myself.”
I hurried out, slamming the door behind me.
CHAPTER NINE
A muffled ring sounded from the living room. I dashed over to my workstation and retrieved my phone. The Caller ID flashed Patrick Flanagan. Pat used to be a crime reporter at The County Courier. Now he taught introductory composition part time at Mahina State University, which was how I knew him. He also ran Island Confidential, Mahina’s newsblog.
“Pat. What a nice surprise.”
“Surprise? I hope not.”
“What?”
“Aren’t you dropping me off at the airport?”
“Yes, but that’s not till the fourteenth, right?”
“Molly, today’s the fourteenth. Are you okay? You sound out of breath.”
I peered at the calendar in the corner of my computer screen. To my surprise, Pat was right. Today was May fourteenth.
“I’m fine. I thought today was going to be a lot more productive than it’s been so far. I wasted a lot of time looking for some missing jewelry. Am I picking you up at your place?”
I hoped Pat would say no. He lived forty minutes up the mountain, at the end of a long dirt driveway, which during the rainy season turned into a rock-and-mud obstacle course. And on this side of the island, the rainy season was about fifty weeks long.
“I don’t want to make you drive all the way up the mountain to get me.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“No, I’ll park down at the university. I know they don’t have the manpower to monitor the parking lots over the summer, so I won’t be towed. Just meet me there.”
“Well, if you’re sure. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”
I pulled into the parking lot by the dilapidated portables that used to house our music department. I inched along the buckled asphalt to avoid scraping the underside of my car, not relishing the thought of having to hunt down another replacement muffler. The worst part would be the inevitable lecture from Earl Miyashiro of Miyashiro Motors.
All this decay did have an upside. The beat-up portables and cracked, weed-infested parking lot now attracted a particular type of photographer, the kind that worked exclusively in black and white and specialized in images of decay. Now and then, I saw an image on social media with a title like “Desolation” or “Despair,” with Mahina State University’s Parking Lot B clearly recognizable in the background.
I hadn’t been parked long before Pat showed up. I smelled Pat’s car before I saw it. Pat drove a diesel Mercedes, which had been converted to burn cooking oil. Everywhere Pat went, he wafted the fragrance of fried potatoes behind him.
Pat stepped out of his car and unfolded himself to his full six-foot-plus height. He was not an approachable-looking man. Tall and gaunt, with his hair cropped to stubble length, he wore a tattered flannel shirt, ratty jeans, and black work boots. His luggage consisted of an overstuffed, dirty green backpack.
He climbed into my front seat and placed the backpack between his feet. His filthy shoes were leaving dirt smudges on my floorboard carpet, but by the time I noticed, the damage was done. I’d have to clean it up later.
“So, what was stressing you out this morning?” Pat buckled in as I backed out of the parking spot and steered carefully to the exit. I told Pat about my missing jewelry and my unsuccessful search of Davison’s room.
“I don’t understand you, Molly. Why didn’t you just tell Davison you were looking for your jewelry?”
“Because Davison would complain to Donnie. And then Donnie would get all upset at me for accusing poor innocent Davison of theft.”
“Well, you snuck into his room and snatched off his blanket. What do you think he’s is going to tell Donnie now?”
“I don’t know. I told him I was looking for a fire extinguisher.”
Pat chuckled.
“Wow, you two have some serious sibling rivalry going on there.”
“What are you talking about? Who two?”
“You and Davison. You’re worried about him telling on you. Like two kids fighting in the back seat. It’s like you and him are in this ongoing competition for Donnie’s approval.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
We were at the main road now, left-turn signal ticking, waiting for an opening in the traffic.
“You know the thing you need to remember about your missing jewelry. When stuff like this happens, it’s never who you think it is.”
“Who else could have taken it? No one else was in the house. Unless it was the weird guy who was following me.”
“A weird guy was following you?”
“Not really. Well, maybe.”
I pulled out of the parking lot onto the road. “I was pulling out of Fujioka’s and this guy was standing in the parking lot, just staring at us.”
“Lots of people stare at this car.”
“And then we bumped into him downtown. Same guy.”
“This is Mahina. You always bump into the same p
eople. Any idea who he was?”
“He did look kind of familiar.”
“He did? So you’ve seen him before?”
“No. Maybe. I’m not sure now. He didn’t look unfamiliar.”
“Just promise me you won’t get into any trouble while I’m gone. I hate missing all the fun.”
“You won’t miss anything. It’s going to be a perfectly boring summer. And the fact that you’re going out of town will make it even more boring.”
“You’re a respectable married woman now. You’re supposed to have a boring life. Anyway, are you sure there isn’t anything exciting going on around your home and hearth?”
I didn’t want to tell Pat that Donnie and I had been talking about starting a family. Pat wouldn’t be sympathetic. Pat was a lapsed Catholic and a devout misanthrope. As far as he was concerned, the sooner the human race died off, the better.
“Not really. I thought I’d like working at home, but I’m already getting cabin fever.”
“Cabin fever? You’re not enjoying your fabulous new remodel?”
“You mean Donnie’s fabulous new remodel of my house.”
“Ooh, territorial.”
“It’s true.” I gunned the accelerator to make it through the yellow light, then slammed the brake when it turned red. “I won’t deny it. I never realized how territorial I was until I got married. It’s really my issue, not Donnie’s. I have nothing to complain about. Donnie’s a perfect roommate.”
“A roommate who comes in and changes around your entire living space.”
“We had to remodel. We couldn’t live with just one bathroom. Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to get all my work done at home—”
“Molly, don’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“No matter how bored you get, do not go into your office during the summer. Trust me on this.”
I passed the Aloha gas station, a sign that we were nearly at the Mahina airport.
“No, I know. The minute you show your face, they rope you into doing unpaid administrative work.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, at least I’m not interim department chair anymore. Rodge Cowper gets to deal with it now. All the grade challenges and faculty grievances and paperwork for the Student Retention Office.”
“They put Rodge Cowper in charge?” Pat turned to stare at me. “How can you sound so happy? The guy’s completely useless.”
Roger Cowper, “Dr. Rodge” to his students, taught only one course: Human Potential. HP was a wildly popular and utterly undemanding class Rodge designed himself. He gave no midterms or finals, and assigned no homework. Most of the class time was taken up with entertaining videos. To my knowledge, Rodge had never given a grade lower than an A-minus. Every year, the Student Retention Office nominated Dr. Rodge for the campuswide teaching award.
“Oh, I have no faith in Rodge’s leadership abilities. But our department has so few resources and so little clout, he can’t do much damage. And honestly, the less free time Rodge has on his hands, the better.”
“Isn’t he the reason you all have to keep your doors open when you have a student in your office?”
“Yes. The Rodge Cowper Rule. And enforcing it is no longer my problem. So exactly where are you going on this trip?”
“I’m renting a car at the airport and spending a few days in the City.”
“Which city? San Francisco?”
“That’s what I said. The City. Then I’m driving up through Oregon and Washington.”
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Investigative reporting.”
“Let me guess. Oh, I know. Northern California. Summer. You’re doing an expose on the Bohemian Grove.”
“The Bohemian Grove? No way. I don’t want my headless torso to turn up in some motel bathtub.”
“What then?”
“I’m doing a piece on Hawai`i expats on the West Coast. People who had to move away to get jobs. It’s an important piece of the complicated story of Hawai`i’s immigration and emigration patterns.”
“Ah. In other words, you’re visiting old friends in San Francisco and Portland. And you’ve figured out a way to make it tax deductible.”
“Hawai`i’s brain drain is a good story,” Pat insisted. “The kind of thing that brings a lot of traffic to my site.”
“You should look up Emma’s brother, Jonah, while you’re there. He’s living in the Pacific Northwest now.”
“Bellingham, Washington. He’s on my list.”
I pulled into the roundabout drive that serviced Mahina airport’s single terminal, and slowed when I saw the security line.
“Stay safe,” I said to Pat as he climbed out of the car.
“I should say the same thing to you. Later, girlfriend.”
I watched him amble over to the security line before I drove away.
CHAPTER TEN
Donnie had offered to take the morning off to accompany me to my appointment, but I’d assured him it wasn’t necessary. I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but I suspected it might not show me to my best advantage. I wanted to hang on to my aura of Feminine Mystery for just a little while longer.
First thing on the agenda was a quick and painless pregnancy test. Then came the expected probing and prodding. Finally, I was allowed to change out of the paper gown and back into my clothes for a sit-down chat with the doctor. I would have preferred a female OB-GYN, but Mahina didn’t have one. My HMO had assigned me the youthful and chipper Lane Ishimaru.
“You shouldn’t be disappointed because you haven’t conceived yet.” Doctor Ishimaru patted my hand. “You know there are only a couple of days a month when you’re fertile. And if even if conception is successful, it doesn’t mean we can relax. You would be what we call elderly primigravida. That means—”
“Did you say elderly?”
“Oh.” He laughed. “It’s not what it sounds like. It’s just a medical term for a woman who becomes pregnant for the first time after age thirty-four. This shows fertility by age.”
He pulled out a laminated chart. It looked like a graph of AIG’s stock price during the 2008 financial crisis.
“You should expect for it to take a while for you and your husband to conceive.” He held up the chart so I could see the plunging line more clearly.
“Okay, I get the idea—”
“You can see here that at age twenty-two, you have a twenty-five percent chance of conceiving in a given month. By age thirty-two it’s dropped below twenty percent, and by your age, it’s barely—”
“Yes, I see. So what are our next steps? Just keep on, um, doing what we’re doing?”
“Well I just said it might take a while, but we don’t know when lightning will strike. I’d like you to set up regular appointments with my office. Best to be prepared. My nurse can schedule the times for you. And I want you to buy some prenatal multivitamins at the pharmacy on the way out.”
As soon as I walked out to the clinic waiting room, a familiar voice hailed me from the pharmacy window.
“Hey, Professor. Howzit?”
The friendly pharmacist waving at me from behind the glass was a former student. Peter was one of our success stories. After graduating from the College of Commerce, he had gone on to earn his Pharm. D. His continued employment must have been due to his pleasant personality. It certainly wasn’t his steadfast adherence to patient privacy laws.
“How’d the acyclovir work out?” he called across the waiting room.
A white-bearded man sitting in the waiting area lifted his head from the newspaper he was reading and looked me up and down. I hurried over to the window.
“Hi, Peter. It worked beautifully. Thanks for asking. The shingles disappeared in two days.”
“Awesome. Yeah, I heard shingles can be a bummer. No fun getting older, ah? You know Mildred Shigeoka had probably the worst case I ever seen. All over the trunk. Both sides.” He rubbed his hands up and down the sides of his white coat by way of illus
tration. “Remember the Shigeokas? They used to own Modern Jewelry. I think it’s how come they retired in the end, too much stress. So what can I do for you today?”
“Oh, I was supposed to pick up some vitamin—actually, I don’t need anything today. I just came over to say hello. Nice to see you again, Peter.”
When I was in graduate school, back on the mainland, I could walk around town secure I would never encounter my students. The undergraduates traveled in their own circles. Those generally revolved around frat parties, football games, and a local sports bar with a famously laissez-faire attitude about checking IDs. My fellow grad students and I frequented indie bookstores and dive bars well away from campus, in places like Silverlake and Highland Park. (If that sounds pretentious to you, well, it was.) We never ran into professors or administrators. They, in our imagination at least, were busy dining at five-star restaurants and entertaining dignitaries during those brief interludes between international conferences when they were actually in town.
Of course, an important ingredient in maintaining our social segregation was our “town” was a megalopolis with ten times the population of the entire state of Hawai`i.
It was a different story in Mahina. I could scarcely leave my house without running into a current or former student. There was the cheerful and chatty young man who signed up for every one of my classes and always sat in the front row. He also worked as a cashier at Galimba’s Bargain Boyz, a discovery I made one day only after I’d pulled up to the cash register with a cart full of bras and booze.
There was the quiet international student who couldn’t find work in her home country. She returned to Mahina and found a job as a receptionist in my therapist’s office.
A few of my accounting majors ended up working at my bank, so they all knew exactly how much money I had.
And of course, there was Peter. As my student, he would cheerfully derail class discussions with rambling digressions about the personal lives of his friends and relatives. Now he had access to everyone’s medical records.
