by Frankie Bow
“Besides, why do I have to do that?” I said. “I’m not an entertainer. What happened to holding our students to high standards and expecting them to actually learn something?”
“Well, there’s your big mistake, Professor Pious,” Pat said. “High standards and learning? Nobody likes that.”
“What about the refrigerator joke?” Emma said.
“I’m not telling the refrigerator joke. That would get me fired for sure.”
“How about bringing in home-baked muffins?” Pat suggested. “Like what’s her name, in my department.”
“Ew,” Emma said. “The one who gives the students back-rubs?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Her students love her. If part-timers were eligible, she’d get the teaching award every year.”
“I don’t even touch my students,” I said. “I’m certainly not going to start giving them backrubs. I guess I could try baking muffins.”
“Molly, don’t you use your oven to store your extra shoes?” Emma asked.
“I could move them somewhere else. Hey, what about that ‘classroom innovations’ website that the Student Retention Office set up?”
“Ohhh, no. I tried one of the ideas off that website once,” Emma said. “The in-class poetry slam.”
“Really?” I asked. “How did that go?”
“All my students thought it sounded fun at first. But when it came time for the performances, no one wanted to do it. They all had stage fright.”
“Well, no teaching award for me, I guess. Listen, Pat, before I forget. I just got a paper from one of my students. I think you’ll be interested in this.” I handed him Honey Akiona’s latest revision.
“Isn’t this a FERPA violation?” Pat said as he took the paper from me and started reading.
“I’m sharing the paper with you because of your expertise in composition,” I said.
“Sounds plausible to me,” he said. “This is interesting. She has a pretty clear-cut sense of right and wrong.”
“I noticed that.”
“As long as she doesn’t wake up one day and decide that rolling a grenade into your classroom is the Right Thing to Do, you’ll probably be fine.”
“Is she the one who was sitting next to us at the dress rehearsal?” Emma asked.
“Exactly,” I said. “Anyway, Pat, look at the bibliography. The first entry. That website looked like the real thing to me, but I wanted to get your opinion.”
“Sure. Let’s take a look.” Pat pulled out his phone and typed in the address.
The website that Honey Akiona had cited did not look particularly impressive. It wasn’t optimized for a small screen, which made it awkward to navigate on Pat’s phone. On a black background was a list of electric blue links to downloadable files: Planning_Dept, Mayor’s_Office, County_Council, Police.
“Try click something,” Emma said.
“This is fantastic,” Pat said. “How did they get all this?”
He pressed the screen and waited.
“Look at this! It’s a video of a police interrogation!”
“It’s amazing what they have up there,” I said. “I just hope they don’t plan to post everyone’s driver’s license information.”
“Molly, I told you, you have no reason to be embarrassed about your weight.”
“I wasn’t talking about my weight, Emma. But thanks for assuming that.”
Emma’s dinner of rare prime rib arrived looking like a crime scene. The two mounds of rice shaded from white at the top to pink and then red at the base.
“It’s not blood,” Emma said to me, her mouth full of meat. I don’t know how she knew what I was thinking. “They pretty much drain the blood. The red liquid that you see on the plate is called sarcoplasm. It’s fluid from the muscle that’s released during cooking.”
“That’s very informative, Emma. Thanks.” I angled my chair so I didn’t have to look at her plate, and started on my fish and chips. “Now I’m going to forget all about plagiarists and cowardly deans and everything else stressful that happened this week, and enjoy my meal.”
“You know, Molly,”—Pat gestured at me with his veggie wrap—“I know why your dean wouldn’t let you punish your cheaters.”
“Eh, genius! You miss the part where she said she doesn’t want to talk about that right now?”
“That’s okay,” I said. “What’s your theory? Besides the fact that my dean is terrible?”
“I think he wants to shake down your entrepreneur friend for a donation to your college.”
“You mean Donnie?” I asked.
“Yeah!” Emma exclaimed. “Pat’s right. You’re not gonna get a big donation from Donnie if you bust his kid for cheating.” Emma swallowed her mouthful and continued, “Hey Pat, you should do a story about that!”
“Please, Pat, do not do a story about that. Do you think Vogel knows that Davison is Donnie’s son? I mean, Gonsalves is a pretty common name.”
“Of course he knows,” Pat said. “That’s his job. He can’t let you—”
“Pat!” I saw Donnie Gonsalves and another man get up from a table a few feet away. How long had they been here? I hoped the sound of the ocean had drowned out our conversation. This is what happens when you gossip about people using their real names. I have to stop doing that. Using real names, I mean.
Donnie caught my eye and started toward our table. He greeted Pat and Emma, and the three of them traded some chit-chat about our evening at the Pair-O-Dice. I was surprised that everyone else seemed to have such pleasant recollections of last night’s trivia tournament. I thought the evening had been a disaster. Then Donnie lowered his voice and leaned toward me.
“I tried to call you this morning at your office,” he said. “I wanted to invite you to lunch at my place next week.”
“What time should we be there?” Emma said.
“Sorry,” I said. “This invitation’s just for me.”
We agreed on a time, and Donnie went out to meet his dinner companion, now waiting at the door. Both were dressed in the standard business uniform: reverse-print aloha shirt, tucked into black dress slacks.
As they walked out, Emma said, “He’s handsome, yah? Donnie.”
“He smells like a hamster cage,” Pat said.
“That’s cedar, babooz,” Emma snorted.
“I like it,” I said. “It’s better than that stinky sweet stuff some of the boys wear. Why do they do that? Do they think it smells good?”
“Nah,” Emma said. “No one thinks that stuff smells good. They only use it ’cause it covers up the smell of pakololo. So when a boy comes into your office reeking of that stuff? You know he’s probably high as a kite.”
“Good to know,” I said.
“If Donnie’s so great,” Pat said, “why is he single?”
“You’re single,” Emma said.
“I’m not that great.”
“So Molly,” Emma asked, “you think it’s gonna go anywhere?”
“You know, I don’t know. He started working right out of high school. He never went to college. I mean, not that that should make a difference.”
“No college?” Pat exclaimed. “Ooh, rough trade!”
“He really seems to like you. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“I can’t imagine that I’m really his type,” I said.
“Why not?” Emma said. “You’re pretty and smart. Why wouldn’t he like you? Don’t be so modest.”
Pat chimed in: “She’s not being modest. She’s thinking, how could some untraveled, uneducated, small-town petit-bourgeois who doesn’t even listen to NPR possibly appreciate me, with my cosmopolitan glamour and sophistication?”
“Oooohhh, Molly, is that true?”
“Of course it’s not true! I just made a date to have lunch with him!”
Sometimes Pat really gets under my skin. I ordered another glass of wine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
My lunch with Donnie was scheduled for midafternoon, aft
er the lunch rush at Donnie’s Drive-Inn. The late time worked well for my schedule, and also ensured that my appetite was sharp. Actually, I was starving. As I approached Donnie’s address, the houses thinned out and the lots became larger. By the time I reached his immediate neighborhood, each house sat on a three-acre lot. The expansive yards featured well-kept avocado, papaya, and mountain apple trees. Anthuriums and orchids bloomed in the shade. The houses themselves were unexpectedly modest, considering how pricey this neighborhood was. (I knew the prices and acreage because I’d looked up the recent sales online that morning.)
I drove past Donnie’s house and stopped the car on the street a few houses down. I didn’t want my distinctive turquoise and white T-Bird sitting right in Donnie’s driveway, in case someone I knew happened to drive by.
The subdivision had no sidewalk. Front lawns shaded into the ragged asphalt of the narrow street. The ground was muddy from recent rain, so I walked in the road and kept an eye out for traffic. There was none. The homeowners’ association apparently allowed chain-link fences. Most of the houses in the neighborhood had them. I didn’t like the idea of living in a house with a chain-link fence.
Not that anyone had asked me to. After all, Donnie and I were only having lunch. My mother would never have approved of my accepting a date on such casual terms, or such short notice. She would take a dim view of my visiting a man’s house unchaperoned, in any case. I reflected that my mother was thousands of miles away and didn’t need to know everything.
As I approached Donnie’s house I saw that the backyard was bounded by a chain-link fence. Keep an open mind, I told myself, noting that the front yard was a lovely manicured arrangement of green ground cover around black lava rock formations. I recognized Donnie’s spotless charcoal gray Lexus in the carport. A blue and white Kamehameha Schools window decal provided the only dash of color. The space next to Donnie’s car was thankfully empty. No sign of his son Davison’s gigantic black pickup truck with the boar-hunting sticker on the back window.
The sound of a metallic crash froze me in midstep. I flashed back to the sound of the dropped tray in the campus cafeteria. Snarling shapes hurled themselves against the fence, bulging it outward with each body blow. They gnashed at the rattling metal mesh, but the chain-link fence stood firm against their fury. It seemed like forever, but it was probably only a few seconds before Donnie came out to order the dogs back to whatever smoking hellhole had disgorged them.
This wasn’t exactly how I’d envisioned our lunch date starting off.
Donnie closed the front door behind us softly, as if he were trying to avoid jangling me any further. Thoughtful.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Those are Davison’s hunting dogs. They’re wary of strangers.”
“Just doing their job, I guess.” I tried to sound humorous and breezy, and hoped Donnie didn’t notice the quaver in my voice. I slipped off my shoes and padded into the living room still wearing my expensive opaque hose. I knew I was supposed to remove my shoes before entering someone’s house, but what about stockings? I couldn’t exactly wiggle out of my Wolfords and leave them in a crumpled wad by the front door. I hoped I wouldn’t get a run.
The living room was so clean that I felt like I was viewing it in high definition, and so beautifully arranged that I wondered if it had been staged by a professional designer. Framed posters hung on the pale yellow walls: Commedia Del’Arte, Django Reinhardt Paris Swing, a past season of the Honolulu Symphony. A low-slung sofa in gunmetal leather with black seat cushions sat on a squat frame of chrome tubing.
“This is lovely,” I exclaimed. “I like the sofa. It has that mid-century Memphis thing going on.”
Why did I say that? I had to name-drop furniture designers now? What was I trying to do, show off my big-city sophistication? I felt like a jerk. Why couldn’t I just say, “nice couch”?
“Good eye,” he said. “It is an Ettore Sottsass. Nineteen eighty-six, though. A little past midcentury.”
He headed to the kitchen, comfortably barefoot. I took another look around the room. On a quarter-sawn oak side table stood a slender celadon bud vase holding a spray of red cymbidium orchids. It was hard to imagine Davison Gonsalves, with his tough-guy tattoos and pirate earrings, in this setting.
I followed Donnie into the kitchen and perched at the counter, watching him pour and stir.
“Does Davison live here with you?” I asked.
“M-hm. His room is right down the hall. I hope you like risotto.”
If I lived someplace this nice, I would keep Davison locked outside with the Rottweilers.
“Just you two?” I asked.
“M-hm.”
I waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t.
“Well, sounds great!” I said. “The risotto, I mean.”
I actually didn’t care for risotto. Every time I’d tried it, I thought it tasted chewy and undercooked. I glanced around the kitchen. The copper pans hanging from the ceiling had the rainbow patina that comes from repeated heating. The stainless steel range was gas, which meant that Donnie had gone to the trouble of installing his own propane tank somewhere on the property. On this volcanic island, there are no gas lines. This was a functional kitchen, not a decorative one.
“I’m just sitting here,” I said. “Can I help?”
It smelled like someone had forgotten to take out the garbage.
“No, just relax,” Donnie said.
In front of me there was a glass bottle of what looked like olive oil. Tartufo nero. Product of Italy. Black truffle (infused) oil. I unscrewed the top and sniffed, and realized where the smell was coming from. I quickly put the cap back on and screwed it tight.
“Actually, Molly,” he said, “could you get the salad ready? It’s over there by the sink.”
I slipped off the stool and went to the sink, glad to have something to do. I popped the top off the plastic shell that held two small heads of delicate hydroponic lettuce and turned on the water.
“You don’t need to rinse those off,” Donnie said over his shoulder. “They’re already washed.”
“I always wash ‘prewashed’ lettuce. Someone had to touch it to get it into the container, right?” I rinsed both heads thoroughly, and then started tearing little pieces into the salad spinner.
“You probably don’t want to know what goes on in the average restaurant kitchen,” he said.
“I’m sure your kitchens are spotless.”
“They are.” He smiled. “I said the average restaurant kitchen.”
“Where did you get the truffle oil?” I asked.
“I bought it the last time I was in Honolulu. They didn’t have the hundred-milliliter bottle, so I bought the two hundred milliliter. I had to check my bag to bring it back. I hope it was worth the humbug.”
“When were you in Honolulu?” I asked.
“Right before the breakfast. When you sat next to me. Remember?”
“I sat next to Mercedes Yamashiro,” I said. “You happened to be there too.”
“Well, I’m glad I was. I came right over from the airport, so the oil was sitting in my car out in the parking lot the whole time. You’re supposed to keep it away from heat and light.”
“It seems to have retained its potency,” I said.
By the time the risotto was ready I was hungry enough to tear into the chunk of Parmesan sitting next to the stove. Donnie ladled the risotto onto two large white porcelain plates and carried them out to the small round dining table. Two places were set with white cloth napkins, precisely folded. I followed him with the salad bowl. He pulled out one chair for me, and then seated himself and poured some Sangiovese into my glass. I took a bite of the risotto.
“Donnie, this is incredible!”
I wasn’t even saying that to be nice. It was delicious.
He smiled. “Glad it’s acceptable.”
“Have you ever thought about extending your brand?” I asked. “I mean, you know, opening a more formal restaura
nt and serving food like this?”
“I looked into it. But our research showed that that’s not what the local market wants. No ‘foodie’ restaurant has ever survived here.”
“What about Sprezzatura?” I asked. “I really liked their food.”
“Sprezzatura went out of business after eight months.”
“They didn’t even last a year? I never realized that.”
“People here like their food a certain way,” Donnie said. “Lunch means mac salad, two big scoops of rice, and a thirty-two-ounce soft drink.”
“Too bad. It would be nice to have some variety.”
“Not if no one’s going to buy it. You know what they say, Molly. The customer is always right.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve heard.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“So what’s Donnie’s house like?” Emma asked. “Does he have an air-conditioned dog house and solid-gold toilets and stuff?”
I had come back to my office right after lunch. I could have worked from home for the rest of the afternoon, but it’s always good to put in face time. Plus, I’m not entirely comfortable having Emma and Pat in my office when I’m not there, and they always seem to turn up whether I’m there or not.
“No solid-gold anything,” I said. “There are dogs, though.”
“Are they cute? I really want to get a dog.”
“The dogs are not cute,” I said. “They’re the opposite of cute. Donnie’s house is nice, though.” I said. “He has good taste.”
“Ha, of course you’d say that,” Emma said.
“No, really. Plus, he really knows how to cook. I tried truffle oil for the first time.”
“So?” Emma leaned forward expectantly. “Are you two a thing now? Is he worth missing office hours for?”
“Well, he’s very different from Stephen—wait, did you say missing office hours?” I glanced at my watch. A bad word slipped out before I could stop it.
“Sister Ignatius would rap your knuckles for that,” Pat said.
“Isn’t Sister Ignatius a fictional character?” I asked.
“I had a real Sister Ignatius in sixth grade. That was her name. And boy did she have an itchy ruler finger.”