by Frankie Bow
CHAPTER TWENTY
I disconnected the call and went back inside. Davison had come out of his room and was back at the kitchen counter with Skye. Both men put down their beers and turned to me expectantly.
“Well, I just talked to someone at Mahina PD. They told me there’s already an alert out for Iulani Malufau.”
“Do you have a headset, Molly?” Skye looked concerned. “You shouldn’t hold the phone next to your head for extended periods of time.”
“I do, somewhere, but I don’t know where it went. Anyway, Mahina PD is doing what they can, it sounds like. They have an alert out for the ex.”
Skye nodded.
Davison scowled at his beer.
“By the way, Skye? I didn’t see the prison escape on the news. Was it reported anywhere?”
“Oh, you won’t hear about it in the news. It’s a private prison. Chronically understaffed. They’re more concerned about profit than security. These breaches happen all the time, but it’s not in their interest to publicize it, so they keep it quiet.”
“How did Gloria hear about the escape?”
“I’m not sure. Someone called her, I think.”
“Skye says you think it was him,” Davison said.
“Sorry, what was that, Davison?”
“Ugly looking faka, wit’ the blue truck. You think it was him?”
I considered asking Davison to watch his language, but I wasn’t sure whether he’d uttered a bona fide swear word.
“I did tell Skye I thought it might be the same person. Davison, you didn’t recognize him?”
“Nah. I dunno what he looks like. Aunty Gloria never like talk about ’em. I never even knew his last name till Uncle just said it today.”
“Well, we’ve notified Mahina PD, and Donnie will be home in a few hours. I really need to get back to work. Skye, Davison, you’ll be okay?”
Davison got up and retrieved two more green beer bottles from the fridge.
“Yeah, no worries. We’ll be right here.” Davison popped the top from one of the bottles and handed it to his uncle.
Skye chugged it gratefully.
I wasn’t going to get any work done at home with Skye and Davison there. I grabbed my umbrella from the hook by the front door and made the short walk to the public library.
A couple of hours later, I came back to an empty living room. I poured some wine into a furikake cup, found the mystery novel I’d been reading, and got comfortable on the couch.
“Did someone come in?” Skye emerged from the guest room, wiping the sleep from his eyes.
“Just me.” I set down my book and wine glass and sat up. “I still haven’t heard anything new about Gloria. No one’s called.”
“Oh. I’m all disoriented. Guess I fell asleep. My internal clock is all messed up from the travel. You know, it’s not good to cross time zones too fast. We’re not built for it.”
“Well, you’re awake now.” I stood up. “Want to help me set the table for dinner?”
When I’m a guest, I always appreciate being asked to help. Nothing’s worse than sitting there, beaming uselessly at your hostess while she tells you to stay put and “relax.”
“I wonder what Donnie’s going to say when he finds out Gloria’s gone.” Skye folded the paper napkins in half diagonally, smoothing each one down so the apex pointed left. “I know they’re really close.”
“Close? Donnie and Gloria?”
That hadn’t been my impression. If Donnie was in regular contact with his sister, it was news to me.
“You didn’t tell him already, did you, Molly?”
“No. I haven’t talked to Donnie since I saw you last. He’s going to be home soon, though. We probably shouldn’t hit him with the bad news about Gloria right away. Maybe when the conversation rolls around to the part where he asks you, ‘So Skye, what brings you to Mahina?’ You can tell him then.”
Skye patted a napkin into place and looked up at me.
“Molly, since you mentioned it. What brought you to Mahina?”
“It’s that obvious I’m not from Hawai`i?”
“Yup. Sorry, I didn’t mean it to be insulting. Nothing wrong with being a mainlander. I’m one too, you know.”
“No, it’s okay. No offense taken. You’re right, I didn’t grow up here. I moved here to take a job at Mahina State. . .I guess it’s been about eight years now.”
“Do you speak Pidgin?”
“What, me? No. Never. Why would I do such a thing?”
“Shouldn’t you try to learn the language of a place when you move there?” Skye said. “Hawaiian Pidgin is a language.”
I handed him a stack of four dinner plates.
“I see what you’re saying, but it’s not like trying to learn French before you go to Paris or something. If you’re not from here, and you try to speak it, it comes off sounding like you’re either trying too hard, or you’re mocking people, or something. You know, Donnie doesn’t even speak Pidgin.”
“Donnie doesn’t?”
“At least I’ve never heard him. Then again, there’s my friend Emma who teaches in the biology department. She speaks Pidgin. Although she kind of slips in and out of it, and she throws in some Yiddish too, now and then. In fact, I’ve noticed when Emma and Donnie are talking to each other, Emma dials up the Pidgin, and Donnie won’t speak it at all. They both grew up here and they’re both Hawaiian. Go figure.”
Skye set out the last of the plates. “I asked Gloria if she would teach me. She laughed at me.”
“I think Donnie would laugh at me, too if I—oh, hey, here he is now. Let’s see. Donnie, what would you do if I asked you to teach me to speak Pidgin?”
Donnie paused in the front doorway, balancing a stack of three foil trays in one hand.
“What?”
“Should I learn to speak Pidgin?”
Donnie laughed and shook his head. “These are still hot. I’m going to take a quick shower, and I’ll be right back out. Hello, Skye.”
Donnie set the trays down in the kitchen and disappeared into the bedroom to shower away the day’s sweat and frying oil.
“Told you.” I smiled at Skye.
Donnie, Skye, Davison, and I sat down to a dinner of vegetarian chow mein from Donnie’s Drive-Inn. I did not care for the Drive-Inn’s interpretation of chow mein. It contained crunchy carrot slices, stringy celery chunks, and bitter bamboo shoots, all coated in a salty white goo. Of course it was thoughtful of Donnie to bring home a vegetarian dinner, so no one else had to go to the trouble of cooking. I certainly wasn’t going to complain.
Donnie was an amazing chef, at least when he cooked for us at home. But the people who frequented Donnie’s Drive Inn weren’t looking for culinary genius. They wanted gigantic portions of fried, sweet, and greasy, with big scoops of rice and macaroni salad on the side.
Skye had a shaker of powdered seaweed next to his plate, which he sprinkled all over his food. I wondered if it made the bland chow mein taste better or worse.
“So, Skye,” Donnie said, “what brings you to Mahina?”
Skye and I looked at each other. This was our cue to give Donnie the bad news about his sister. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, we heard a knock on the door.
Donnie excused himself and went to answer it. I heard friendly conversational noises between Donnie and an unidentified woman. Then Donnie stepped back and let her in.
She was short and comfortably built, with straight, shoulder-length black hair and a round, impish face. She wore a white peasant blouse, snug jeans, and steep platform mules that made her tiny feet look like hooves.
“Hel-lo everyone,” she sang out. Donnie walked in behind her, carrying a hard-sided animal-print suitcase.
Skye pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet. “Gloria.”
“Oh, hey, Aunty. Howzit?” Davison didn’t bother to get up. He’d been frantic with worry, but now that Gloria was safe, Davison was too cool to let on.
I stood up, too, and appro
ached her.
“I’m Molly.” I took Gloria’s hand and then submitted to the inevitable hug. “I am so glad to meet you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I watched Donnie roll Gloria’s suitcase back to the guest room.
“Would you like something to drink?” I asked her.
“Just water, thanks, Molly. What’s for dinner?”
“It’s from the restaurant,” Skye said. “But there’s no meat in it, at least.”
“Oh. Vegetarian. Great.”
I ran her a glass of water from the tap. “We’re having vegetarian chow mein. From Donnie’s Drive-Inn.”
I brought her the glass of water, a plate, and a pair of chopsticks. Skye picked up her glass, sniffed it, and took a tiny sip.
“Is it filtered?” he asked. I thought I saw Gloria roll her eyes a little, but it might have been my imagination.
“No.” I sat back down at the table. “But our county water is clean. I actually sent it in for testing, and it’s quite safe. I think it tastes pretty good, too. Sorry, we don’t have any bottled water.”
“Oh, no. We would never drink bottled water. It’s such a waste. All of the petroleum used in manufacturing the plastic bottles isn’t healthy, not to mention your water is sitting in the plastic for weeks, with all of the poison leaching into it.”
“You know what?” Gloria snatched her water glass back from Skye and set it down firmly. “I’d like some wine. Whatever everyone else is drinking.”
Donnie emerged from the guest room.
“Excellent choice.” He went to the kitchen and returned with a red-wine glass.
Before Donnie had moved in with me, I’d been perfectly happy to drink my wine from a repurposed furikake jar or even a coffee mug. Donnie didn’t share my broad-minded approach to stemware. He had proper drinking vessels for every conceivable occasion. In addition to red-wine goblets, we had white-wine, dessert-wine, and chardonnay glasses, along with a set of what I assumed were either aperitif glasses or eyewash cups.
Now that we were all safely eating dinner, no one seemed inclined to bring up our earlier concerns about Gloria’s safety. Donnie had no idea she had been missing at all, so obviously he wasn’t bothered.
It seemed odd to me that Gloria had flown to Mahina without telling her husband. But who was I to question how other people conducted their relationships? There were things about me Donnie would probably never know. And Donnie didn’t tell me everything, that was for darn sure.
“Skye, baby.” Gloria reached over and patted Skye’s hand. “Who you got watching the shop now?”
“Matthew and Alyssa can cover all the shifts for this week. But we should try to get back as soon as we can.”
“Nah, nah, nah, they’ll be fine. They know what to do. Long as I’m here, I like stay a while. See my brother, spend some time with baby boy.” She reached over and squeezed Davison’s stubbly cheek, which he seemed to take in stride. “And this is the first time I ever met my sister-in-law. Molly, it’s the weirdest thing, you know who you remind me of—”
“Gloria,” Donnie interrupted. “Do you have everything you need to stay the night?”
“We can make a run to the store if you like,” I said.
“You don’t have to drive us around,” Skye said. “I rented a car. I was lucky. I got their last hybrid. Hey, it’s great of you guys to let us stay here. I’d love to stay up and ‘talk story’ with everyone, but it’s close to midnight my time. I think I might turn in. Gloria, what do you think?”
“You go ahead, baby. I’ll be there soon.”
“The bathroom’s there, between the two bedrooms.” Donnie pointed to the doorway leading to the guest rooms.
“I’ll show you where the towels are.” I led Skye to the guest bathroom and opened the floor-to-ceiling storage closet. “Right here. Towels, extra toilet paper, wrapped toothbrushes, little toothpastes, tiny floss. Every time we go to the dentist we get a bag of goodies, so we store them in here for guests.”
“Thanks, Molly. I brought my own toothpaste. You probably want to think about investing in fluoride-free. You should look up the effects of fluoride.”
“Good thing Gloria showed up when she did. What a relief.”
“Yeah.” His voice was devoid of enthusiasm. He should have been ecstatic about his missing wife showing up safe and unharmed. Maybe he was just tired.
“Do you think her ex might try to follow her here?”
“I don’t know.”
If I had been in Skye’s place, I’d have been dying to know where Gloria had been. But Gloria was still chatting away happily at the dining table. It was almost as if she were trying to avoid having a one-on-one conversation with her husband.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Sure.” Skye nodded glumly. “Thanks.”
When I returned to the dining room table, the conversation had turned to cars.
“I think you should save up for your own car this time,” Donnie was telling Davison. I silently cheered. Donnie had paid for Davison’s truck, but when his son moved to the mainland, Donnie let him pocket the proceeds from the truck’s sale. I was happy to see Donnie trying to encourage some financial self-sufficiency in his spoiled kid. Better late than never.
“Do you really need a car here, baby?” Gloria squeezed Davison’s hand. “This place is so close to everything. You can walk right down to the Bayfront in ten, fifteen minutes. You get a car, you gotta make car payments, pay the insurance, get your safety checks, so humbug. And as Skye would make sure to remind us, the less fossil fuel you burn, the better for the health of our planet.” Gloria took a big swig of her wine.
“Ho, Aunty, you should tell Molly.”
“What did I do?” I took my seat and reached over to the wine bottle. It was empty.
“I’ll get another one.” Donnie went to the kitchen and retrieved another bottle of Vino Nobile.
“Molly got a fifty-nine Thunderbird, Aunty.” Davison lifted his bushy eyebrows for emphasis. “Three hundred horsepower. Eleven miles to the gallon. An’, Aunty, guess what. She never let me drive it.”
Gloria clucked and shook her head good-naturedly.
“If you need a ride somewhere important, like to a job interview, I’ll be happy to drive you,” Donnie said. “And I think Molly would be, too.”
“To a job interview? Of course. I’d be delighted. Just let me know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Andy De Silva was late to my Diversity Seminar the next morning, so I didn’t have a chance to talk to him until the break. I approached him as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the glass carafe on the side table.
He pulled a Styrofoam cup from the top of the stack and offered it to me.
“Thank you.” I hadn’t planned to drink the Motor Vehicle break room coffee, but I couldn’t turn it down without seeming rude. “We had a little missing-persons drama at our house last night.”
“Oh yeah?” De Silva tore open a packet of powdered creamer and shook it into his coffee. I related the events of the previous day, starting with Skye’s arrival.
“And guess who showed up at our door, safe and sound, just when we were sitting down to dinner?” I concluded with a dramatic flourish. “Gloria.”
“Hm.”
“You don’t sound very surprised.”
After seeing Andy De Silva pestering Donnie for information about Gloria, I had expected him to show a little more enthusiasm.
“Most of the time, the missing person turns up safe.”
“I understand you’re on the lookout for her ex. He escaped from prison on the mainland, right?”
De Silva nodded.
“Any progress on finding him?”
“Not yet.”
So, Gloria was safe for now, but her ex was still out there somewhere.
“I wouldn’t recognize him if he came to our house looking for Gloria. Do you have his picture?”
In fact, I was pretty sure I knew what Gloria’
s ex looked like. I just wanted confirmation.
“Not on me. But yeah, we been running ’em on TV.” De Silva took his coffee back to his seat. I followed him.
“You have?”
“They been showing it on the news.”
I took the empty seat next to De Silva.
“I stopped following the news when school let out. It’s always so distressing, and I can’t do anything about any of it. I thought I might be more productive during the summer if I kept my mind clear.”
“Well, we been putting out alerts.” De Silva took out his phone and checked his messages, which seemed rude.
“Gloria and her husband are staying with us now. I don’t know how long they’ll be in town, but if you want to stop by and say hello, please come by any time.”
De Silva nodded.
The break was drawing to a close, and my not-so-eager pupils started to take their seats around the U-shaped conference table.
“You know, Officer De Silva, I think I might have seen him. Malufau. Gloria’s ex.”
De Silva looked at me as if I’d finally said something worth his attention.
“You did? When?”
“May thirteenth. I remember the date because it was on my receipt from Fujioka’s Music and Party Supply. He was in the parking lot of Fujioka’s. He watched my stepson and me drive away. And later we saw him down on the Bayfront road. I’d definitely recognize him if I saw him again.”
“One week ago.” De Silva looked listless again. “He could be anywhere by now.”
“Sorry if that wasn’t helpful. Anyway, if you have time, why don’t you stop by for dinner? You and Gloria can catch up. I mean, we already have five at the dinner table. May as well make it an even six.”
“Thanks anyway,” De Silva glanced up at the wall clock. The break was over. “I think everyone’s ready to get started, Professor.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Dinner was just the four grown-ups. Davison had skipped out to spend the evening with friends. I felt a little indignant on behalf of Skye and Gloria. Not only were they our guests, but you’d think Davison would want to spend some time with his biological mother.
