by Frankie Bow
I watched the twins hurry out of my office, then bounced up from the yoga ball to a standing position. Unfortunately I miscalculated, launched up too fast, and banged my kneecaps on the underside of the desk. I kicked the ball and it rebounded, hitting me in the knees and nearly bowling me over.
I didn’t hear the knock on my door frame. Another one of my students, the round young man with the red baseball cap, poked his head in and found me punching the ball angrily.
“Eh, Professor,” he said, “I heard class was cancelled.”
I pummeled the ball into submission and plumped down on it before it could attack me again.
“Yes. No. Class is not cancelled. We are having class. As usual. This is a normal day, and we will have a normal class session.”
“You wanna blow off steam you should beat on one heavy bag. They get ’em up at the gym. I can show you how if you like try.”
“That’s very kind of you to offer. I think I’m okay for now.”
“Eh, you wearing your new bra? Looks good, Professor.”
My phone rang.
“I have to get this,” I said. “I’ll see you in class, uh…”
“My name’s Micah, Miss.”
“Micah. Of course. I’ll see you in class, Micah.”
He tipped his brim and left.
I didn’t answer the phone right away. I didn’t want to seem too eager. Two rings, three rings, okay, now.
It wasn’t Stephen calling. It was Emma.
“You doing the two-rings thing in case Stephen calls?”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been way too busy to think about Stephen. I’ve had students in and out of here all morning.”
“That’s my girl. How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I said.
“That’s a relief. I was worried about you. Yoshi said he practically had to pour you into the car.”
“It was very nice of him to drive me home. Wait a minute. Yoshi drove me home. Why was my car in my carport this morning?”
“I followed him over in your car, and we drove back together. Eh, I never drove your Thunderbird before. Felt like trying to steer a sofa.”
“That was considered the height of luxury in 1959.”
“You made it through Mount Textbook yet?”
“I’m making progress.” That was optimistic of me. The pile looked taller than ever.
“When’s your Biz Com class?”
“It’s starting in a few minutes.”
“Let’s go to lunch after,” Emma said. “We got some time before the search committee meeting this afternoon.”
My right eye started to throb.
“That meeting’s today? I was hoping to go home and rest a little after class.”
“Eh, isn’t your class all the way out at the old Health building? You better get a move on if you don’t wanna be late.”
Emma was waiting at my office door when I returned from class.
“Man, you look terrible.” She put her hand on my forehead. “All clammy too.”
“I don’t feel great.” I groped in my bag for my office key. “At least I managed to hold it together in class. When they asked why I was keeping the lights off I told them natural daylight helps you learn faster.”
“You gotta learn to handle your liquor, Molly. So what about lolo boy? He come back?”
“No. Bret wasn’t there today. But you know that kid Micah? He was working the cash register yesterday at Galimba’s Bargain Boyz? When I walked in he whispered something to the girl next to him. Then they both smiled at me and she gave me a thumbs-up.”
“What was that about?”
“I’m not sure. But it made me kind of self-conscious.”
I let us into the office and set down my pile of books and papers.
“Hope you brought lunch,” Emma said. “Cafeteria’s closed today.”
I ducked under my desk and retrieved my lunch from my little office fridge.
“Fortunately I have food. Let’s not eat in my office, though. Too hot.”
“Yeah, feels like the A/C’s out in your building again. You should buy one of those little air conditioners.”
“Sure. It’s on my list, right after the fancy coffee machine. I think I need to win the lottery.”
“You wish. No lottery in Hawaii, you know. That’s how come we all go Vegas. Lunch in the theater then?”
The theater was one of our favorite lunch spots. Whatever the weather, the theater was always comfortably cool. There was only one problem with the theater.
“What if Stephen’s there?” I asked.
“Stephen already ruined your birthday,” Emma said. “You gonna let him ruin your lunch break, too?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Emma and I hurried along the uncovered walkway, hoping to reach the shelter of the theater before the drizzle turned to a downpour.
“The last I heard from Stephen was when he texted me last night,” I said. “What if he was in an accident, and he’s in the emergency room right now?”
“Then you can bring him flowers. Hey, you look like you spilled wine all over yourself.”
I looked down and saw that my red silk dry-clean-only blouse was stained dark with streaks of rain.
“Oh, great.” (I might have said something less polite, but let’s go with “great.”)
Unfortunately, there’s no way to get from one side of campus to the other without getting rained on. You’d think in a town that gets four times as much rain as Seattle, they would have put in covered walkways.
I’m told that the reason our campus’s architecture is so poorly suited to our climate is because of a quirk in our procurement process. Namely, that the architect hired to oversee Mahina State’s building boom back in the 1970s hailed from sunny Honolulu and had no idea how to build for wet weather. And also happened to be the brother-in-law of one of the trustees.
“Weren’t they going to get this walkway covered, finally?” I asked. “I thought I saw an announcement.”
“That was before the latest budget cuts. You coulda brung an umbrella, you know.”
“Then I’d have to carry around a wet umbrella all day.”
We pulled up to the sheltered theater entrance.
“Well, we’re out of the rain now. Come on, let’s go inside.”
Emma pushed through the glass double door, and I followed.
“So what are you gonna say to Stephen if he’s here?”
“Why do I have to say anything?”
We made our way across the empty lobby, our wet shoes squelching on the carpet. Emma pushed open the door to the dark auditorium. Down in front, a red spotlight shone on a bare stage. Emma and I slipped in, and I eased the door shut. We felt our way down the row of nubby chairs in the dark.
“Yeah, covering the walkways,” she whispered. “It was part of the deferred maintenance bill. They were gonna upgrade the chemical storage in my building, too.”
“So what happened?”
“Oh, the usual,” Emma said. “Honolulu legislators don’t think it’s worth spending any money on our crappy little island, so they blocked it. Someone should store leaky old chemical containers next to their offices. That’d get ’em moving. How about here? Right in the middle?”
The red spot on stage faded, and then bloomed again in a shade of blue-green. We heard shuffling and clunking as set pieces were moved around, and then a woman’s voice called out something about a “hot spot.”
Emma pulled out her lunch and started to eat. I smelled starchy, meaty, and fishy smells intermingled.
“What are you eating?” I asked.
“Spam musubi. What’d you bring?” She leaned over and squinted at my lap. “Cheese sticks and apple slices? What is that, the preschool diet?”
“It’s easy to pack,” I said. “And cheap.”
“Nice and cool in here, yah?”
“It’s cool all right. I think I can feel an ice crust forming on my blouse. Why is it so—”
“There he is. That’s him, right?”
I felt my stomach clench as I recognized Stephen’s familiar silhouette. The fight-or-flight anxiety didn’t make any sense, but it was unmistakable.
“If he was in the emergency room last night, he sure made a miraculous recovery,” Emma whispered. “You gonna call him out?”
“No. He’s right in the middle of working. Anyway, I don’t want to deal with this right now. Let’s just eat our lunch and then we can go to our stupid meeting.”
My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I could make out the back of Stephen’s head, down in the front row. His glossy black ponytail hung down over the back of the seat, and a curl of cigarette smoke rose and dissipated in front of him. A blonde girl walked out from the wings holding what looked like a script. She sat down next to Stephen and they bent their heads together in quiet conversation.
“Who’s Blondie?” Emma whispered.
“I’m sure it’s just his stage manager or something. Anyway, who cares? I don’t care.”
“That’s the spirit, Molly. Moving on. Finally.”
“Yeah, I guess. I wonder how they’re going to handle the water this year.”
“The what?”
“For Stephen’s play. The part where they do The Deluge and everyone sitting in the front gets splashed.”
“Oh. We’re talking about Stephen again. Okay. Hope he remembers to get the permits this time.”
“I’m sure some conscientious woman will do it for him.”
Blondie stood up and made her way to the control console in the center of the auditorium. She spotted us, acknowledged our presence with a nod, and then turned her attention to the vast panel of knobs and sliders. The blue spotlight faded, replaced by two discs of white light on the stage.
“Did you see how close she was sitting to Stephen?” Emma whispered. “I think they have a thing. Know what I’m talking about?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. She looks really young. I don’t think Stephen would get involved with an undergrad.”
“Aw, ’cause he’s so upstanding and moral? I thought you said he thinks the rules don’t apply to him.”
“No, not because he’s so moral. Because messing around with an undergraduate would be so cliché.”
“I bet she knows where Stephen was last night.”
“Shut up,” I suggested.
The young woman got up and returned to the front row, sat down next to Stephen, and whispered something to him. I saw her lips brush his ear. Stephen glanced in our direction and quickly turned his attention back to the stage.
“I mean look at them down there.”
“I’d rather not.”
Emma peered at her watch. “Ready to go?”
“Already?”
“We got five minutes till the meeting starts.”
I stuffed the last piece of string cheese into my mouth, although I wasn’t hungry. We rose from our seats and slipped out. Emma exited the auditorium first. I may have forgotten to ease the door closed behind us. It slammed shut with a bang.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“There’s Pat Flanagan,” Emma exclaimed, as if the lone occupant of the otherwise empty classroom might have somehow escaped my notice.
He was better looking than I remembered, lean and broad-shouldered, with pale blue eyes set in dark lashes. He was sitting in a middle row, working on a stack of papers.
“Thank you, Emma. I can see him too. Why does his name sound so familiar, though? It seems like I’ve heard it somewhere before.”
“In your dreams.”
“Stop it.”
I climbed up the side aisle, edged into the row, and sat down next to Pat. Emma followed me in and pushed past both me and Pat to sit on his other side. I thought he seemed glad to see us, but he was probably just grateful for the interruption.
“Are those the same papers you were grading the other day at the retreat?” I asked.
“Yep. Guilty. This summer class is turning out to be a lot more work than I expected. I thought I was gonna get a grader or a TA or something to help out.”
“I never had anything like that. I do all of it. Emma, do you have teaching assistants?”
“Sure,” Emma said. “Johnnie Walker, Jim Beam, and Old Grand-Dad.”
“Hey Emma,” Pat said. “Sorry about all that mess with your brother.”
“Who told you about my brother?”
“Emma,” I said, “even my hairdresser knows about it.”
Emma folded her arms and slouched in her seat.
“This sucks. If Island Confidential hadn’t of run that story on the exact day Kent got himself killed, Jonah would never be in trouble now.”
“Emma, whose fault is that? You’re the one who sent the story in.”
“You send a tip like that to a newspaper, they’ll publish it,” Pat added.
“Wait, newspaper. Now I know why your name sounded familiar. You’re Patrick Flanagan.”
“Patrick Flanagan.” Emma punched Pat’s shoulder. “County Courier. I seen your byline!”
“I was a reporter at the County Courier. Before the layoffs. You guys subscribe?”
“My parents used to,” Emma said. “They’d go for the obituaries first, the garage sales, and the Tuesday food ads. But now all that stuff’s online for free.”
“I don’t subscribe anymore either,” I said. “I did for a while when I moved here, but the copies kept piling up. And driving the papers down to the recycling station didn’t seem like a net positive for the environment.”
“Yeah, not in your big blue boat,” Emma added.
“The online classifieds killed us,” Pat said. “That’s my theory.”
The classroom door opened. Betty Jackson stepped into the classroom, looked around, and then came up and sat down next to us. She wore her hair natural and ultra-short, which can look really elegant if you’re tall and slim like Betty.
“The candidate isn’t here yet? I thought I was late. Hey, Pat.”
“Pat was just telling us how much he loves teaching intro comp,” Emma said.
Betty laughed. “I’ll bet it’s almost as fun as teaching stats to psychology majors. Hey Pat, what’s with all the mud on your shoes? You hike down here from the mountain?”
“Just working on my car.” He lifted a huge, muddy boot for Betty’s benefit. “My driveway’s just dirt, and it rained again, so…”
“Betty,” I asked, “how do you and Pat know each other?” Before she could answer, the classroom door opened again, and Linda from the Student Retention Office glided in. Two of her young sidekicks trailed into the room after her.
“We’re just waiting for Bob Wilson.” Linda went to the front of the room and started twiddling knobs on the A/V panel. “When he gets here, we can begin.”
She turned and said something to one of her assistants, who shook his head. He in turn said something to the other assistant. The young woman shrugged.
“Is anyone familiar with the AV equipment in this room?” Linda called out.
“I’ll go,” I muttered. “I need to do some impression management.”
“Is that b-school for sucking up?” Pat asked.
“Yes.”
I slung my bag over my shoulder and went down to help. Linda stood aside to supervise me as I punched buttons and twisted dials on the A/V control panel.
“Can you manage, Professor?” the young woman asked.
“There’s a setup like this in my classroom.” I tried not to be irritated by what sounded like her presumption of either frailty or incompetence. “But I think this whole panel might not be connected. Let me check.” I kneeled down and peered under the table. Sure enough, hanging from the underside of the panel were bundles of wire looped and fastened with twist ties. The setup looked like it had just come out of the box.
“It’s not hooked up,” I said.
“Put in a work order,” Linda commanded. “Expedite charge goes on
the Student Success Account 6609.” The young man immediately pulled out a phone and rushed out of the room.
I stood up and smoothed my skirt. “Oh, so Linda, I was wondering if there was any news on the Student of Concern report I filed?”
“It doesn’t ring a bell. Of course I can’t remember every piece of paperwork that comes across my desk.”
“It was Bret Lampson,” I said. “Remember? The student who pulled out a weapon in class? It was on Monday.”
How often does that kind of thing happen at Mahina State anyway, I wondered?
“You have to allow the process to proceed, Molly. Our office is very busy. You need to be patient.”
“I’m a little concerned because he didn’t show up to class today. I hope he’s not planning some kind of—”
Bob Wilson came rushing in, his bald head shiny with sweat.
“Ah, Bob is here,” Linda said. “Good. We can begin. Molly, let’s continue this conversation after we adjourn.”
We arranged ourselves into something like a circle, which was awkward with the classroom’s stadium seating. Bob Wilson welcomed the members of the Associate Dean of Learning Process Improvement Search Committee to our first meeting of the summer. He pulled a stack of papers from a battered brown briefcase, set it in front of him, and read us the same HR boilerplate we’d heard last semester. Then he updated us on our progress: Unfortunately, our top alternate candidates were no longer available. Even our second-tier candidates had already found other positions or withdrawn. Because of the delay resulting from the committee’s top choice not passing his background check, we were down to a few alternates.
Linda and her two henchpersons cornered me as soon as the short meeting was over. That was too bad since I had hoped to talk some more to Pat Flanagan. I watched him leave with Emma and Betty.
“I talked to Dan about your idea, Molly,” Linda said.
“You talked to my department chair? Which idea was this, now?”
“About your initiative for the student-directed curriculum.”