The Blessed Event

by Frankie Bow

  I pulled up the Student Retention Office’s online form and signed into the records portal, the one we could only access from campus. I filled in the SRO form, attached screenshots of the assignments in question, and submitted it.

  There. Now all I had to do was dash back to my car without anyone seeing me. I hadn’t noticed anyone around when I came in, so I assumed the coast was clear.

  Unfortunately, Rodge Cowper, the new interim department chair (it had also been years since we’d had the funds to hire a permanent department chair) was lying in wait outside my office door like a rumpled, alcoholic spider.

  Rodge had “just a few” questions about how to do the course scheduling, and wanted me to “help” him. By “help” him, of course, he meant he wanted me to do the whole thing for him. He trotted next to me as I strode to my car, pleading for “just a couple minutes” as I kept walking, first to my mail cubby in the main office, and then back out to the parking lot.

  “I don’t have any fancy scheduling system,” I explained. “What I’ve been doing is I just go around and ask everyone for their time preferences. Then I look at what students have to take, and I try to make sure classes they might take at the same time aren’t scheduled against each other. Then I make a preliminary schedule and check it with the faculty. I go through several iterations until I reach something that doesn’t make too many people mad.”

  “But your system would take such a long time,” Rodge objected.

  “Yes, serving as interim department chair can be quite time consuming.” I did not mention how much of my own administrative time Rodge himself had consumed over the past couple of years. Rodge liked to think of himself as a professor who “connected” with his students. Rodge’s favorites (who tended to be female, Asian, and under the age of twenty) were not uniformly comfortable with so much “connection,” and occasionally brought their concerns to the department chair. I would then have to call Rodge in for yet another meeting, where he would once again express shock at the way his blameless behavior had been so grievously misinterpreted.

  “I can’t use last fall’s schedule.” Rodge huffed as he struggled to keep up with me, pieces of his gray hair sticking to his florid forehead. “Harrison’s on sabbatical. And before you tell me I can just hire a lecturer to replace him, I can’t. ’Cause when Harrison’s gone, Schneider has some deal where he gets first dibs on Harrison’s GM elective. But I don’t know if Schneider wants GM in the fall ’cause he’s not answering his email. If Schneider decides he wants GM, then I have to fill in whatever Schneider’s not teaching.”

  “Oh right, the coveted Gender and Management elective. Do you know when I was first hired here, Harrison was afraid I was going to take the GM class away from him? Because, as you know, I was the first Person of Gender in the management department. Maybe I should put in to teach it one of these days. Just to shake things up.”

  “Molly.” Rodge puffed. “Maybe you could just—”

  “Well, I sure wish I could stay and guide you through the whole course scheduling process.” I unlocked the car, swung the heavy door open, and slid into the bucket seat. “Unfortunately, I have to be at an important meeting across town.”

  I pulled the door shut, forcing Rodge to snatch his hand out of the way.

  My cell phone rang as I drove out of the parking lot. I pulled into an empty space and dug my phone out of my purse. The caller ID showed Davison Gonsalves. Davison didn’t generally call me just to chat.

  “Davison? What’s going on? Is everything okay? Did something happen to the house?”

  “Eh, no worries. How come you gotta sound so stressed out all the time?”

  “No one’s stressed out. What is it?”

  “Could you buy some vegetarian food while you’re out?”

  “Vegetarian food? Why? Did you convert to vegetarianism since this morning?”

  “Nah. Uncle Skye’s here.”

  “Who is Uncle Skye?”

  “Aunty Gloria’s husband.”

  “Aunty Gloria? Your dad’s sister?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And does your father know his sister’s husband is visiting us?”

  “I dunno. Dad’s at work. That’s how come I called you.”

  “Davison, listen. Is this person holding you hostage and forcing you to try to sound normal? Should I call the police?”

  “Nah. We’re cool. Oh, I hadda throw away the soup.”

  “My tomato beef soup?”

  “Yeah, Uncle Skye said the meat smell was making him sick.”

  “Davison, you threw away my soup?”

  “Eh, did what could, ah? It was making him all upset.”

  I rested my forehead on the cool Bakelite steering wheel.

  “Okay. I’ll be home soon.”

  I drove up to Donnie’s Drive-Inn, and circled the block twice before I found a parking spot to accommodate the Thunderbird. It was the height of lunch hour in downtown Mahina. The red picnic tables were full, and behind the windows, I saw the workers racing to and fro.

  I waited in line at the ordering counter. When my turn came, I didn’t have to ask for my husband. The young woman in the red polo shirt knew who I was. She disappeared, and a moment later, Donnie emerged from around the back of the building, wiping his hands on a white dishtowel.

  “Sorry to bother you when it’s so busy, Donnie.”

  “No worries. This is a nice surprise. What’s the occasion?”

  “Davison just called me from the house. Someone named Skye has turned up on our doorstep, and he apparently made Davison throw away my tomato-beef soup.”

  “Skye Chaney?”

  “I didn’t get a last name. Do you know a Skye Chaney?”

  “He’s Gloria’s husband.”

  “That’s what Davison said.”

  “Is Gloria there too, or just Skye?”

  “I don’t know. Davison didn’t say anything about Gloria. Oh, but Donnie? You know when she called a few days ago? I might have said something about how she was welcome to visit.”

  Donnie looked distracted. “Okay. Listen, I need to get back.”

  “So should I go pick up some kale and soy dogs, or what?”

  “No need. I’ll bring home a vegetable chow mein tray. Nice of you to offer.” Donnie kissed me absently on the forehead, and was gone.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I came home to find Davison sitting at the kitchen counter with a stranger. The man had pleasant, boyish features, chunky black glasses, and short, sandy hair. As soon as I was through the front door, the stranger set his beer on the counter, jumped down from the barstool, and approached me with his hand extended. With his madras shirt and his stylish stubble, he wouldn’t have looked out of place in a nautically-themed fashion spread.

  “Hey, you must be Molly. I’m Skye, Gloria’s husband. Sorry to just pop in on you like this.”

  “Not a problem.” I clasped Skye’s outstretched hand. Definitely from the mainland. No one who grew up in Hawai`i would greet a family member with a mere handshake. At the very least, there would be a hug, and probably a big wet kiss, too. “Do you have a suitcase or. . .?”

  “I put ’em in the other guest room,” Davison interrupted. “Next door to mines.”

  “How very helpful, Davison. Thank you. Skye, can I get you something to drink—oh, right, you’re all set.”

  “I got us beers,” Davison said. “Uncle, come sit.”

  Not to be outdone in the hospitality department, I emptied some raw almonds into a bowl, which I set out on the kitchen counter. Then I got myself a glass of water from the tap and seated myself in the empty barstool between the two men.

  “So what brings you to Mahina?” I asked.

  Skye paused.

  “Gloria’s missing,”

  “Missing?” I exclaimed.

  “Huh?” Davison echoed. “Uncle, what?”

  “Does she have a phone?” I asked. “Have you tried calling?”

  “Oh, no, we don’t
carry cell phones. The electromagnetic radiation. You might as well put a microwave next to your head.”

  “But you think she’s in Mahina?” I asked.

  Skye closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “I don’t know.”

  “Does Donnie know?”

  Skye shook his head.

  “I didn’t call Donnie. I didn’t want to worry him. I thought I was going to find her here. With you.”

  “How long has she been missing?” I asked.

  “Two days. Since Sunday.”

  “Why didn’t you call us right away?”

  “We argued.”

  My sympathy for Skye shifted to suspicion. Maybe Gloria was running from her husband, and she wanted to disappear. Thanks a lot for welcoming this guy into my house, Davison.

  “Arguing about what?” I asked.

  Skye looked pained. “Iulani Malufau is out.”

  “Malufau.” Davison stood up, looking like bad weather. Without another word, he marched back toward the guest rooms. We heard him slam the door.

  I got up, dumped my water into the sink, and refilled my glass with wine. Then I sat back down at the kitchen counter.

  “If I might ask the obvious question, who or what is Malufau? What are we talking about?”

  “Iulani Malufau is Davison’s biological father,” Skye said.

  “Ah. I did not know.”

  I had known Davison was Gloria’s son, but Donnie had always been evasive on the subject of Davison’s paternity. In the absence of concrete information, I’m afraid I’d entertained some lurid theories. It was a relief to find out the father was just some guy I’d never heard of before.

  “He’s out? Like he came out of the closet?”

  “He escaped from prison,” Skye said.

  “Prison?”

  Skye nodded.

  “And he was in prison for. . .?”

  “He was serving time for the robberies, I think. They couldn’t make the murder charges stick.”

  “Murder charges? So where was he, the big facility on Oahu? What is it called?”

  “You’re thinking of Halawa. Actually, he was sent to the mainland. You know Hawai`i ships its prisoners out of state.”

  “So, he’s escaped. And now Gloria is missing. I can see why you’re worried.”

  “Malufau was bad news. Terrible temper. Gloria told me she once saw him run a guy over. Backed up his truck and ran over him again. She watched it happen. Couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

  “Wow. And Gloria’s afraid he’s going to come after her now?”

  “No.” Skye rested his forehead in his hands. “No. She should be afraid. That’s what we were arguing about. Gloria’s fearless, and I love her for it, but sometimes. . .” He trailed off.

  “Skye, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but did Gloria give Davison up for adoption to get him away from this guy?”

  “She didn’t give him up. She hanai’d him. You know the Hawaiian practice of hanai is much more open than our Western system of adoption. And Donnie was her closest living relative irregardless. She didn’t have many options when Malufau was convicted.”

  I refrained from correcting Skye on his use of the non-word “irregardless.” You’d think people would appreciate getting helpful guidance about word usage from someone with a Ph.D. from one of the top ten literature and creative writing programs in the country, but I haven’t found that to be the case.

  “I know it would have been hard for Gloria as a single mom, but didn’t she just put Donnie in the position of being a single dad? I don’t understand how it was fair for Donnie to get responsibility for Davison.”

  “She didn’t have much of a choice. Gloria was in a really bad place.”

  “Well. Lucky Donnie was there for them.” I felt annoyed at Gloria. Thanks to her, I was now imagining Davison as an innocent toddler, and feeling sorry for him. “Skye, do you know this Malufau person? Would you recognize him if you saw him?”

  Skye shook his head.

  “I believe it’s best to leave the past in the past. When you hold a grudge against someone, you’re letting them live in your head rent-free.”

  I realized why the man in the green football jersey had looked familiar, even though I had never met him before. Not feature for feature. But something about his chest-out, chin-up, punch-first-and-ask-questions-later posture.

  The man in the green football jersey was an older version of Davison.

  “Molly, are you all right?”

  I looked down to see shards of my wine glass sparkling on the floor, in a pool of dark red cabernet.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  As I scrubbed wine from the light wood floor (Why couldn’t I be fonder of Chardonnay or some other colorless, non-staining beverage?), Skye told me more about his wife’s disappearance. Gloria had heard the news of Malufau’s escape, and had given Skye a story about having to visit relatives in Honolulu. Next thing he knew, she had packed her bags and disappeared. I kept thinking about the man in the green shirt, and especially about his hand on my shoulder—uncomfortably close to my neck.

  “So Donnie and Gloria have relatives in Honolulu?”

  “No. It looks like Gloria invented the Honolulu relatives for my benefit. The only family of Gloria’s I know of is here in Mahina. It’s why I came.”

  I wiped the glass fragments into a paper bag and dumped the wine-stained paper towels in after them. Then I rolled up the bag and dropped the whole thing into the kitchen trashcan.

  “I think he’s here, Skye. Gloria’s ex. I think he’s in Mahina.”

  “He’s here? Why do you think he’s here?”

  I told Skye of the two encounters with the man I thought might be Gloria’s fugitive ex.

  “Skye, how does a guy who just escaped from prison manage to get on a flight to Hawai`i? Every time I fly, they ask for seventeen pieces of ID and a note from my mother.”

  “Those guys can get documents forged.”

  “An escaped prisoner with forged ID. Wow. And here I was hoping he was just interested in my car.”

  Skye got up and went to the fridge for another beer.

  “If you ask me, I think he wanted to see Davison. He thinks he still has a right to his son.”

  “So what do you think he’s planning to do now?”

  “Planning to do?” Skye pressed the chilled beer bottle to his forehead. “What if he’s already done it? What if he followed Gloria here, to Mahina? What if he—I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “Okay, first of all, he might not be the man I saw.” Although I was certain he was. “But if this guy really was this Malufau person, he was already here in Mahina last week. Gloria called our house after Davison and I saw him. So he couldn’t have followed her here. He was here before she arrived—if she came here at all.”

  Or maybe she had followed him to Mahina. Looking for closure, or something else?

  “Gloria called here?” Skye removed his hands from his face. “When? What did she say?”

  “She wanted to talk to Donnie. We didn’t really chat.”

  “Why did she want to talk to Donnie? What was it about?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Skye. I don’t have a terrific memory. I can’t even remember which day we—wait a second.”

  I retrieved my purse, pulled out my wallet, and leafed through my receipts until I found the one from Fujioka’s Music and Party Supply.

  “It was the thirteenth. Davison and I saw Gloria’s ex, assuming this man was Gloria’s ex, on the thirteenth of May. Have you contacted the Mahina police?”

  “No.” Skye took a gloomy swig from his beer. “Just Los Gatos PD.”

  I went to my workstation and found the envelope from the Mahina Police Department, the one I’d picked up from my office. A phone number for Officer Andrew De Silva was on it. I dialed it, and a woman answered. I gave her a brief summary of what Skye had told me about Gloria’s disappearance.

  “Is the husband there with you?” The woman as
ked.

  “Yes. And another thing you should know is—”

  “Just a minute. Is this person familiar to you? Are you sure this man is who he says he is?”

  I glanced at Skye, who was distractedly eating almonds.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Skye. I took my phone out onto the lanai, closing the door gently behind me. After what Skye had just told me about avoiding cell phones, I imagined electromagnetic waves cooking my brain as I spoke.

  “My stepson seems to know this man,” I said, once I was safely outside. I related the conversation about Gloria’s ex escaping from prison, and her bogus story about visiting relatives in Honolulu.

  “Do you have any corroboration of this man’s story? About the prison escape?”

  “Well no, but—”

  “What is the name of the missing person?”

  “I don’t know my sister-in-law’s married name. Her maiden name would have been Gonsalves. Gloria Gonsalves. Wait a minute. It’s Kealoha. She goes by Gloria Kealoha. It must be a business alias. Her husband’s name is Skye Cheney.”

  “Alls you know is Gloria’s husband is pursuing her. You don’t know anything else about him.”

  “Well, what should I do? Do you think Gloria’s in danger?”

  “Of course, the decision is yours. But in general, we recommend not getting involved in a domestic dispute. In most cases of missing adults, the person has disappeared of her own volition. In all probability, she’ll turn up, and she’ll be fine.”

  Sure, just like my necklace and earrings. Thanks a lot, Officer Helpful.

  “So you don’t think it’s worth having the police keep an eye out for her or something? Whatever you do in a missing person case?”

  “Who was the other party? The one you think might have harmed her?”

  “Oh, what was it again?”

  I opened the front door and poked my head in. “Skye, what’s the name of Gloria’s ex again?”

  “Iulani Malufau,” Skye called back from the kitchen.

  “Did he say Malufau?” The woman’s voice softened. “You shoulda said so.”

  “Well I—”

  “We already got an alert out for him. I’ll pass this along, but. Good luck with your sister-in-law, ah? Hope she’s okay.”