The Cursed Canoe

by Frankie Bow

  “No, doesn’t sound familiar. The hardwood’s still under there.”

  “And look at that chandelier! Are those candles made out of black leather? Isn’t that a fire hazard?”

  “They’re not real candles. They just look like it.”

  Donnie reached into the room and flipped a switch. The “flames” on the “candles” flickered mechanically.

  Donnie must have a real blind spot when it comes to Davison, I thought. An actual, literal blind spot. It was the only explanation. The rest of Donnie’s house looked like it sprang into three dimensions from the slick pages of an architecture magazine or a high-end furniture catalog.

  I think I keep my house clean and well organized. Pat and Emma would even say I take my penchant for tidiness a little too far. But then I go and spend time in Donnie’s perfect house, and I come away feeling like one of the Collyer brothers.

  “Gosh, Donnie, it’s a very different aesthetic from your...” I flopped my hands helplessly as I searched for a synonym for “good taste.”

  I finally came up with,

  “...your more understated décor.”

  “It’s only missing one thing now,” Donnie said.

  The severed horse’s head?

  “Davison.” Donnie put his arm around my shoulders and gave me an affectionate squeeze. “Now his room is the way he likes it, I think he’ll be spending more time here. He can come back and stay whenever he has a break from school. Summer vacation, spring break, whenever.”

  “Oh,” I faltered. “That’s, um, great.”

  “In fact, I’m trying to bring him back for a short visit before his school term starts. And Molly, I know you’re already teaching, but I think it would be nice if you two could spend some time together, and get to know each other better.”

  “Oh, I think I know Davison pretty well. Remember, he was my student. I mean, of course I’d be delighted.”

  At least the part about Davison being my student was true.

  “You know he’s calling himself ‘Dave’ now. It sounds more Californian, I suppose.”

  Donnie gave me another quick squeeze and released me.

  “Let’s go eat.”

  Even Donnie’s delicious pasta couldn’t soften the shock of seeing Davison’s bedroom. The new decor was hideous, of course, but I could live with that. I mean, I could always close the door. The problem was what Donnie had said about making sure Davison spent as much time here as possible, with me acting as some kind of mother figure. I allowed Donnie to refill my wine glass. Was this my second glass? My third? In my distraught state, I had lost track. And I still had to drive back up to campus after this. So much for my Mother-Figure of the Year award.

  I couldn’t think of anything positive to say about Davison’s new room, so I steered clear of the topic. Instead, I chatted about Emma’s upcoming canoe race. I mentioned I’d be going to the leeward side of the island with Emma to keep her company and enjoy the long Labor Day weekend.

  “I might have business over there,” Donnie said. “Where are you staying?”

  I told him.

  “Isn't that a coincidence.” He grinned. “I might be over there too. Should we plan to meet for dinner?”

  “What a wonderful idea." I smiled back. At least there wouldn’t be anything over on the other side of the island to remind him of how much he missed his awful son.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I RETURNED TO CAMPUS with a few minutes to spare before the start of the all-campus Student Retention Office faculty development session. I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of sitting through yet another SRO retreat, but I didn’t want to stay in my office either. Rodge Cowper, whose office adjoins mine, was playing his confidence-building recordings again. Pachelbel’s Canon, rendered on what sounded like a twenty dollar toy keyboard, wheedled through the thin wall separating us.

  “My intelligence, creativity, and potential is perfect and infinite,” announced the disembodied voice from Rodge’s office.

  Your subject-verb agreement is another story, I reflected.

  I dispensed a cup of coffee from my espresso machine and tried to ignore Rodge’s monotone affirmations. The first few times, I had considered asking Rodge to turn it down, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t be horribly embarrassing for both of us. So I did nothing, and now I was stuck. I couldn’t say anything now. Not after weeks of hearing Rodge assuring himself that he is a sexual, self-confident and dominant male.

  Emma pushed into my office, followed by Pat.

  “Ready?” Emma asked.

  “Almost. We still have a few minutes.”

  “So what is this one about again?” Pat asked.

  “What do you think it’s about?” Emma snapped. “Retention, retention, retention. It’s the Student Retention Office. They’re gonna tell us how we hafta keep our seats filled with warm bodies.”

  “I think we’re reconsidering the ‘warm’ requirement,” Pat said. “Too stringent.”

  “I walk with confidence,” the affirming voice intoned from next door. “Women are drawn to me.” I wondered whether Pachelbel’s Canon could go on forever on an infinite loop.

  “Isn’t that right, Molly?” Emma was saying.

  “Sorry?”

  “Retention is all about selection,” Emma said. “Get smart, wealthy students. They’re up to the academic demands, and they can spend time studying cause they don’t have to work. That’s how you get a high graduation rate.”

  “I reject those claims,” Pat said. “I refuse to agree with a system that reproduces privilege so blatantly.”

  “Sorry, Pat. You don’t get to pretend that something isn’t true just cause you don’t like it.”

  “We have to go to this thing anyway,” I said. “Let’s keep an open mind. Maybe this time they’ll actually teach us something useful.”

  “Yeah, maybe they’ll teach us how to be in touch with reality,” Emma said. “Even those of us who teach in the English department.”

  “Or maybe they’ll teach us how not to scare students away,” Pat replied pointedly. Emma’s introductory biology class has one of the highest drop rates in the university. It’s not her fault. The Student Retention Office had convinced Emma’s department chair to remove the course prerequisites in order to maximize enrollment. Hordes of hopeful and utterly unprepared students sign up every semester for Emma’s class. Her first midterm invariably plays out like the invasion of Normandy, only more bloody. About half the class drops right afterward, but by then it’s too late for them to get their tuition refunded.

  “I exude confidence, sex, power, and self-esteem,” announced Rodge’s affirmation through the wall.

  Emma snorted. “I can’t believe the sorry crew I have this semester. I wish I could scare them away. I’m never going to get them to drop because they ‘need’ my class. They all think they’re going to medical school. Do you know what happened to me today? I just gave them a little quiz, with a simple question about the nucleotide bases of DNA. So the quizzes come back, and I’m getting every letter of the alphabet!”

  She looked from Pat to me and back again.

  “You two have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? Never mind. The point is I’m worried I’m gonna have to dumb down my class even more than I already have, otherwise I won’t get tenure.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about tenure,” I said. “They’re using our online evaluations for tenure decisions now, remember?”

  “That’s right,” Pat said. “Crowdsourcing.”

  “Oh yeah? I’ll be okay then.”

  Emma, Pat and I had originally used the anonymous professor rating site as a source of entertainment. When our administration started to use it to evaluate faculty performance, we stepped up to power-user status, flooding the site with positive evaluations for ourselves and for one another. Thanks to this strategy, Pat, Emma, and I were the three highest-ranked faculty members at Mahina State University.

  “That reminds m
e,” I said. “My stock wasn’t very high at the Student Retention Office when Kathy Banks passed away, and I hate to think about what kind of notes she must have left for her replacement. Maybe you guys should send me a little ratings love, to give me some headroom.”

  “Right now?” Pat asked.

  “Not this minute. I think it’s time for us to head up there. Pat, are you coming?”

  “You don’t have to go, Pat,” Emma said. “Part-timers don’t have to do the professional development stuff.”

  “Nah, I’ll go. There’s free food, and I don’t have anything better to do.”

  “Good. It’ll be less boring that way.”

  I pushed myself up off my yoga ball and retrieved my laptop bag from my lower left desk drawer.

  “What did I tell you about the lower left drawer?” Pat said.

  “The lower left drawer is the first place purse thieves look. Look, this office is not exactly a tempting target. I think I’m okay.”

  “Yeah, look around, Pat," Emma said.

  With its stained, corroded ceiling tiles, bare fluorescent tubes, and rusty file cabinets, my office has little to covet. And any burglar who did manage to venture behind my desk would probably trip over my yoga ball on the way out.

  Rodge’s eight-bit version of Pachelbel’s Canon swelled. Deedle deedle deeeeee, deedle deedle deeeee...

  A wave of nausea engulfed me as I reached for my purse. We were only going up to the Student Retention Office. I’d been there a million times. What was wrong with me?

  Emma was next to me, holding my wrist. “Molly, what is it? You just went white, and your skin feels clammy.”

  “She’s actually kind of greenish,” Pat observed helpfully.

  “Women are drawn to me,” Rodge’s affirmation added. “I am a self-assured, confident, sexual and dominant male.”

  I could feel rebel forces gathering in my stomach. This wasn’t going to turn out well. Emma glanced down at her wristwatch. “Molly, your pulse! Nineteen beats in ten seconds.”

  “What does that mean? Why are you taking my pulse with the metric system?” I felt myself sway. Emma grabbed my shoulders to stabilize me.

  “Molly, where’s your prescription?” Pat sounded a little panicky. Pat never sounds panicky.

  “No prescription. Please. I don’t want to swallow anything. Especially not some pill from Doctor Glassy-Eyes.”

  I reached for the handle of my laptop bag. For some reason, I couldn’t grab it. My hands refused to obey me. Then the room started to lurch. Out of the corner of my eye, I could catch it shifting.

  “You know what, Pat? I changed my mind. Can you hand me my bag? Quick.”

  My office had started to spin, and it was picking up momentum. I was about to be sick. Anything was worth a try. I fumbled in my purse, hands shaking, and found the wrapped samples in the zipped side pocket.

  “Here, Molly.” Pat gently removed the pills from my grasp. “Let me do that. How many are you supposed to take?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember! Two? I think?”

  Pat unwrapped the pills and handed them to me. I gulped them down with warm coffee.

  “You haven’t had any alcohol today, right?” Emma asked.

  “I had wine at lunch.”

  “How much?” Pat demanded.

  “I don’t know. Donnie and I shared a bottle. So I guess a half-bottle?”

  Pat and Emma exchanged a glance.

  “You’ll be fine,” Emma assured me. “If anyone’s liver can handle it, yours can.”

  “What’s that supposed to—”

  “You okay now, Molly?” Pat took my elbow and hoisted me to my feet with one hand. “Come on, ladies. Let’s not be late.”

  “I hope these pills don’t make me sleepy. I still have two more meetings after this SRO thing.”

  “I read and meditate every day,” said the voice from Rodge’s office. “I possess all the knowledge in the universe.”

  “What are we waiting for?” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I am well groomed,” added Rodge’s affirmation. “And my hair is attractively styled.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EMMA, PAT AND I MADE our way up to where the new Student Retention Office complex loomed over our decrepit campus like some warlord’s compound. It seemed bigger than the last time I was there. This probably wasn’t an illusion. They’re constantly adding on new wings and remodeling the old ones. The chilled air hit us as soon as we walked through the sliding glass doors, and I felt better immediately.

  “You okay now?” Pat asked. “Your color’s back.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess it was just a passing thing.” I inhaled deeply, smelling drywall and new carpeting.

  SRO Conference Room Five had several hundred seats and a fancy audio system that was overkill for the few dozen faculty members in attendance. These meetings were supposed to be mandatory, but there was no way to enforce that. Yet.

  We stopped at a side table and loaded up little plates with brownies and melon slices. I waved to Iker Legazpi, who was sitting in the front row. He beamed at me and waved back. Pat, Emma, and I took our seats near the back and I started to relax.

  Conference Room Five had recently been remodeled in the new school colors (as decided by student vote): red, green and gold. Dozens of last year’s chairs were going to go into surplus. When Central Supply’s next auction rolled around, I would line up with dozens of other faculty members, hoping to get a good deal on the Student Retention Office’s throwaways. The mauve color wasn’t my favorite, but the chairs were top of the line, and nearly new. There’s no way I could afford to buy one otherwise.

  “How long until this thing starts?” Pat took out his phone and started typing. “We have a couple minutes, right? How’s this: Dr. Barda’s coffee mug is carved from the thigh bone of the first student who ever plagiarized an essay in her Business Communication class.”

  “Is that for the professor rating site?” I asked. “It’s perfect. Can you tell on your phone if I’m back up to a smiley face?”

  “Why are you asking me? Don’t you check it yourself?”

  “I try not to look unless I have to.”

  “Yes, you’re back up to a smiley face,” Pat said. “And of course you have a chili pepper, because you’re hot.”

  “Gross,” Emma said. “That chili pepper thing creeps me out.”

  “Me too. I’d prefer my students to think of me as a disembodied brain.”

  “Sorry to nitpick,” Emma said, “but Pat, your coffee cup thing is impossible. Even if you didn’t need a handle, how could you carve a coffee cup out of a femur? It would be way too narrow, and the bone is too porous—”

  Pat was unfazed by Emma’s criticism.

  “I’m writing for a scientifically illiterate audience. Now here’s one for you, Emma.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “Professor Emma Nakamura changed my life. I was gonna drop out of school but now I’m gonna be a famos scientist, spelled f-a-m-o-s.”

  “Not even funny,” she sighed.

  “The SRO will love that one,” I said. “Oh, and speaking of.”

  A woman with cascading copper-colored hair and watery blue eyes stepped to the podium in the front of the room and picked up the microphone. The room resonated with screeching feedback. She covered the mike with the end of her sari to quiet the noise, and started over.

  “How come they get a lecture setup?” Emma muttered. “They’re always telling us to step away from the podium and be the Guide on the Side and not the Sage on the Stage, blah blah blah, but look, that’s exactly what they do. Bet you a hundred dollars no one’s gonna honor our Unique Ways of Knowing.”

  The brownies were delicious, I mused as I took a bite. I wondered how the baker had achieved the crisp, glossy layer on top. I settled in and listened to the Student Retention Officer greet the room full of college professors as if we were all four years old. Her singsong cadence soothed away the
last of my anxiety.

  These were the best brownies I’d ever tasted. I wished I had taken a stack of them. Why hadn’t I ever noticed the high quality of the refreshments at these SRO sessions? It was the fresh-baked cookies, the chewy brownies, and the rich Kona coffee that made these events bearable. I regretted the restraint I had exercised during my first pass at the refreshment table. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go up there again without drawing attention to myself. I was sitting in the middle of a row, and the session was well underway.

  The Student Retention Officer had started her slide show, which I think was supposed to illustrate how to engage students and parents during a campus interview. There was the familiar “think outside the box” illustration with the nine dots and four connected lines. After think-outside-the-box came the graph purporting to show that people remember ten percent of what they read, twenty percent of what they see, and so on, all the way up to recalling eighty percent of what they do. Betty Jackson from the psychology department once told me this popular claim isn’t based on any research or evidence, but it sounds right, so people keep repeating it.

  Compared to my office, Student Retention Office Conference Room Five was dazzling. High-end recessed lights studded the vast ceiling. The cushioning of my green chair sproinged agreeably when I bounced against it. I felt strangely buoyant. Everything in this room sang of newness and promise and an unlimited budget.

  Maybe these Student Retention Office sessions weren’t so bad. I must have been feeling the sugar buzz from the excellent brownies, I decided. I felt both relaxed and alert. No, better than alert. Aware.

  My thoughts percolated brightly on opposite sides of my brain. From my right and left hemispheres, the strands of my consciousness flowed together like two streams, joining in a bright white river of enlightenment rushing over my hippocampus like a glittering waterfall.

  A river! We’re all one, I realized. Pat and Emma, seated on either side of me, smirking and sulking, respectively. The copper-haired Student Retention Officer with her hypnotically-swaying bronze earrings and sparkling sari. Even the hulking campus security officer who’s always posted by the door now, ever since that one incident. Each of us a tiny human tributary trickling into the mighty—