by Frankie Bow
Social science research did have some built-in frustrations. Not only did ethical considerations and unimaginative human-subjects boards keep you from doing any really interesting experiments, but even with a completely kosher study, you couldn’t get all of the information you need.
Nothing on my spreadsheet told me which students genuinely did passing work and which ones squeaked by because the instructor felt sorry for them, or didn’t want to see them in class again. Or which ones passed because they got someone else to write their papers for them (although maybe I could construct a proxy variable by looking at the difference between their in-class and out-of-class performance). I could try to get access to the assignments they turned in to our LMS. I would just have to ask for access—
Access. That gave me an idea.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I PULLED UP THE UNIVERSITY’S online directory, but it was so out-of-date, Bob Wilson was still listed as chair of the history department. In fact, Bob had “voluntarily” retired. Right after he’d publicly opposed the administration’s plan to make our general education sequence more “customer friendly” by removing the history requirement.
There was no way around it. I was going to have to speak to an actual person. I picked up the phone and dialed.
“IT department,” answered a pleasant male voice. “Atticus Marx speaking. Help you?”
He was new, of course. Mahina State both underpaid and understaffed the IT department. The predictable result was the kind of employee turnover you might expect to find among the Borgia family’s food-tasting staff.
I introduced myself and asked where I might find an up-to-date employee directory. I didn’t want to ask for Melanie Polewski’s email address specifically. Her name had been in the newspaper, and Mr. IT Guy might recognize it and get suspicious. I just needed Melanie’s campus username. Once I had that, I could guess her password and get into her email. Going through her email would certainly be a better use of my time than suffering through her appalling attempts at narrative nonfiction.
“We’re working on the update,” he said. “Should be done by September.”
“Oh, dear. September is three months from now. Do you have a draft of the new directory you can send me?”
“If we had that, we’d be almost done. I have our list of updates, though. If you want, I can shoot it over to you. It’s a mess, I gotta warn you.”
“No, the update list would be perfect, thank you.” I gave him my email address, thanked him again, and went to my inbox, where his message was already waiting with the attachment. Gold! There she was. Melanie Polewski, assigned username mpolew10.
I pulled up an incognito browser window and logged into the campus email as mpolew10. After a couple of tries at her password, I was in. (It was Ph@llusinwonderland.) I congratulated myself on my clever solution. Not only might Melanie’s email contain some useful clues, but the medium would have discouraged the stylistic excesses that made her fiction writing so painful to read.
I didn’t find anything remarkable right away. There were some routine human resources-related messages in her inbox, and some back and forth with her new English department colleague Nicole Nixon about meeting for lunch. Then I clicked on her ‘sent’ folder and was surprised to see a message addressed to me:
Hey Molly your the first one im writing to from this email guess what this is from my new job! At Mahina State! One year VAP position but I hear they have a permanent opening fingers crossed! OK I know your really bad with email haha so ill call.
It was perfectly Melanie, all friendly up until the little poison barb at the end. And she had my email address wrong by one letter, which was why I had never received it. I was surprised to see I was the first one she had written to from her new work account. Nothing in her sent mail folder had an earlier timestamp. Melanie and I hadn’t been very good friends, but apparently she didn’t have any better ones.
I closed the email program and went back to my paper. I made some comments and changes in the text, and then emailed Betty with the revised paper and the output showing my statistical analysis.
I was fortunate to have Betty Jackson as a collaborator. We’d gotten our work into some decent journals already, and she had a nice, rich dataset we could squeeze a few more pubs out of. One thing that made Betty a dream to work with was her top-notch time management. This was a skill developed out of necessity. Every year, Betty got stuck onto about fifty different high-profile committees, each one wanting to claim “diverse” membership.
The conference paper was now back on Betty’s desk. I’d crossed one task off my short to-do list, at least for now. And I had looked through Melanie’s email account, if not her computer files, so there were at least one and a half things checked off. My feeling of accomplishment evaporated as I realized I had one more task:
I still had to call Donnie to let him know I was returning his key.
Had I given it some thought, I might have realized it wasn’t necessary to call Donnie on the phone. I could have just put his key in an envelope and dropped it into the mailbox. For some reason, this elegant solution did not occur to me at the time.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DONNIE ANSWERED ON the second ring; mid-morning was a slow time at Donnie’s Drive-Inn. Keep it neutral, I reminded myself. Businesslike.
Funny how businesslike came to be a sort of synonym for rational. As if businesspeople were not subject to moods, feuds, prejudice and pettiness. Having worked in a business school for a few years now, and interacted with the College of Commerce’s Friends in the Business Community, I truly had no idea why anyone thought that.
“Oh, hi Donnie, it’s me. I’m just calling to let you know I’m going to return your key. I can drop it off at your house today.”
So you don’t even have to see me, I thought.
Donnie was quiet for a long time. Finally, he said,
“Molly, do whatever you need to do.”
Whatever I need to do? Like this was all my doing?
“So it sounds like you’re perfectly happy to let this whole thing fall apart the first time we have a fight?”
“Do I seem happy?”
“Then why haven’t you tried to contact me at all?”
“I didn’t want to push you. I know you don’t like being pressured. You’ve made that very clear.”
Sure. I was supposed to believe that the only reason he hadn’t called to apologize was because he was really concerned about respecting my boundaries. More likely his ardor had cooled when he found out that unlike his skinny ex-wife Sherry Di Napoli, I wasn’t really Italian.
“Do you even remember what we fought about, Donnie?”
“Of course I do. Davison was rude to you. His behavior was inexcusable. I had a long conversation with him after you left.”
“Well, okay, it’s a start, but here’s the thing. You’re not addressing the larger issue. Davison’s appalling behavior wasn’t some aberration. Davison, sorry to say, is spoiled. And it’s a shame, because that kid has every advantage in life. He could make something of himself if he had any guidance at all.”
“Molly, what do you want me to do? He’s almost twenty-one years old.”
“I don’t know, Donnie. Fix him. I mean, not like that, although now I think of it...okay, look. He’s still financially dependent on you. You have a lot of leverage.”
“I thought you hated the word leverage.”
“Only when it’s used as a transitive verb.”
“It’s not so simple, Molly. I don’t have as much influence as you think I do. Especially now. He’s been avoiding me.”
So Donnie was abdicating his responsibility again. He gave Davison a little talking-to, and as far as Donnie was concerned, that was the end of it. I was seething, but I didn’t want to give Donnie the satisfaction of staying calm while I ranted and swore at him.
“I’m very sorry to have bothered you at work. I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.” I managed to hang
up before I burst into tears of frustration.
So that was it. I said I would return the key, so now I had to follow through. Let myself into Donnie’s house, drop the key in some obvious place, and vacate the premises. Should I leave a note? No, I didn’t trust myself not to be melodramatic, and besides, there was a good chance Davison would find it first and read it. I couldn’t bear the thought.
At this point I still could have put the key into an envelope and dropped it in the mail. But again, this sensible solution continued to elude me.
I got dressed and drove down to Donnie’s neighborhood, where unremarkable mid-century ranch houses sat on three acre lots, bounded by chain link fencing. My mainland prejudice against chain link fences had not abated. Where I was from, houses surrounded by chain link fences were usually marked with graffiti, a clear signal to passing motorists to lock the doors and drive straight to the freeway onramp. Mahina was different. Chain link carried no stigma; it was a practical choice, one of the few materials capable of standing up to Mahina’s relentless rainfall.
I couldn’t tell whether anyone was home. Donnie had converted his open carport to a garage, and the garage door was closed. I knocked on the door and heard no reply, which was a relief. I really didn’t want to run into Davison. I took Donnie’s key out of the change compartment of my wallet, and let myself in.
“Hello?” I called out.
“Hello,” answered a cheerful female voice with an East Coast rasp.
“Hello?” I followed the voice to the hallway off the living room, where the bedrooms were.
And who did I see coming down the hall but a slim woman in an oversized black satin bathrobe, her corkscrew hair still wet from the shower.
We stood and stared at each other for a few seconds. Then she broke into a broad grin.
“Molly!” She held her arms out. “C’mere!”
I approached her warily and she clasped me in a damp hug.
I had been afraid of running into Donnie’s son. I hadn’t even considered the possibility I might encounter his ex-wife.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“NO ONE ELSE IS HOME,” Sherry said. “I was just gonna make myself some tea. You want some? Come on, we got some catching up to do. A lot’s happened since I saw you last.”
Sherry was positively glowing, I noted with dismay. Of course she was. As far as she was concerned, Donnie was fair game, and she had obviously wasted no time moving in for the kill.
She led me to the kitchen, chatting away about how great it felt to be back in Hawai`i, and how much she had missed canoe paddling. I trailed after her, mute with humiliation and shock, and sank into a chair at Donnie’s small kitchen table. I watched her fill the kettle and set it on the stove, the gas flame igniting with a whoomp.
Donnie’s gas range was something only a serious chef could appreciate. Gas was a luxury in Mahina. No public utility was going to dig gas lines into the volcanic rock, so if you wanted gas you had to get your own propane tanks and keep them filled. I’d always worried about Donnie’s propane tanks blowing up in the next volcanic earthquake. Well, that wasn’t my problem anymore.
“Regular breakfast tea OK?” Sherry asked.
She set out the tea, a quart container of milk, and a dish of sugar cubes. She seemed to know her way around the kitchen, I realized with a sick surge of jealousy.
“So,” I said, as she joined me at the table. “Back in Hawai`i.”
“It was a good time for me to move. Things weren’t working out too good with Mad Dog.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.” I thought I remembered Sherry had left Donnie to marry someone named Mad Dog, but I could be getting him mixed up with someone else. Cataloging Sherry Di Napoli’s greater and lesser ex-husbands could be a project for our advanced database management course.
“I care about Mad Dog a lot,” she continued, “and he’s just the sweetest guy you’d ever wanna meet, but I think he was starting to get into some stuff not exactly on the right side of the law, ya know what I mean?”
“What awful news. Who could have predicted?” I poured some milk into my tea, then lifted the teabag up, squeezed it against the side of the cup with the back of my spoon to get the last of the tea out, and placed the bag onto the saucer. One little task after another. I would get through this.
“How’s the tea?” Sherry asked.
“Nice. Thank you.”
The tea was good, strong and milky. It might have been pleasant to sit and chat, if I could manage to ignore the part about what Sherry had just been doing with my ex-fiancé.
“Yeah, me and Mad Dog have been on and off for so long. You know how it is, when you never really get over someone?
“I haven’t experienced what you’re talking about. My own defunct romances are all pretty well dead and buried.”
Before Donnie, I had dated Stephen Park, chair of the theater department. At the time, I had thought him brilliant and fascinating. I’d even felt a little inferior because he had remained true to his craft while I had sold out my literature training to teach business communication in the College of Commerce. Stephen’s amazing cheekbones probably hadn’t hurt his appeal either.
Now I found Stephen insufferable. I’d always hated his smoking, and no matter what he said, clove cigarettes were still cigarettes. Putting them in a Norma Desmond-style cigarette holder didn’t make them any less noxious. After a stint in rehab (don’t get me started on that whole episode) Stephen had managed to pick up yet another addiction—food. He’d been showing up to department chair meetings wearing a cape, which was probably meant to conceal his now-portly figure.
“I’m thinking about going back and finishing my college degree,” Sherry said. “It’s hard to find work here without one. Even if you just wanna wait tables, you gotta have a bachelor’s.”
“The job market here’s not great,” I agreed. “But Mahina State’s accepting applications for fall, if you want to come back.”
“A lot of the want ads say ‘off-island degree required.’ What’s an off-island degree? Does Mahina State have ’em?”
“Oh no, you’re still seeing the OID ads? It means, you need to have a college degree from anywhere except Mahina State University.”
Sherry choked on her tea and then dabbed her mouth with a paper napkin. I could see she was trying to suppress a laugh.
“Rude. What’d you guys do?”
“What happened was, the granting agency that funds our Student Retention Office wanted to see a big increase in our graduation rates. So our administration thought it would be a good idea to remove a whole bunch of academic requirements to push students through faster. And yes, technically our completion rate went up, but the local employers had bad experiences with our graduates. That’s where the OIDR disclaimer came from. I thought we’d fixed it already.”
“So Mahina State’s out.” Sherry got up and refilled the kettle from the sink. “Maybe I could start my business. Do something online. Then it wouldn’t matter where I was working from.”
“True, unless you had to ship something. I’m sure you could put together a great plan.” I was unconsciously reverting to Encouraging Professor mode. “Listen, I actually have to get going. I just came by to drop something off.”
“Well now I’m back, we’ll hafta hang out. Yeah, I gotta get dressed and get outta here too. I don’t wanna to be around when you-know-who gets home. That’d be awkward, huh?”
Sherry had a complicated history with her stepson, whom she had abandoned when he was only eight years old. Of course anyone who wanted to avoid Davison Gonsalves in his current incarnation had my full sympathy and support.
“It was really nice to see you,” I blurted out. What a dumb thing to say. It was the opposite of nice. But what was I going to say? Was I going to confess to being heartbroken and mad with jealousy? It really was over between Donnie and me. He still wanted Sherry. After all the talk of marriage and children and even getting to the point of planning our wedding, Donnie had chosen
her. Sherry Di Napoli, who had walked out on him and left him a single father. That hurt.
“Yeah, you’re looking good, Molly.”
“You too,” I admitted.
It was clear Sherry had partied hard in her youth, and maybe spent a little too much time in the sun. But she had good bone structure, and her laugh lines made her look friendly and approachable.
“I better look good.” She laughed and fluttered her lashes. “Just finished fixing up the paint job.”
I tried not to imagine how her makeup got messed up in the first place.
I placed the house key on the little side table as I left, next to the jade-green ceramic bud vase. The vase was empty today; it usually held a sprig of orchid blossoms or a single crimson anthurium, its turgid yellow spadix poking skyward. I could just imagine what a field day the phallus-obsessed Melanie would have had with the anthurium; she and I might have even shared a laugh about it.
I closed the front door behind me and hurried down to where my car was parked, not daring to look back at Donnie’s house. I slid behind the wheel of my car, let the heavy door slam shut, and sat fuming. My gloom yielded to a bitter sense of unfairness.
I had spent the last couple of years being a Good Catholic Girl and a Perfect Lady and all of the rest of it, and what had it gotten me? I had been looking forward to marrying Donnie, and it wasn’t because I was yearning to file joint tax returns. But Donnie and I had one argument, and next thing I knew, Sherry Di Napoli came swooping in out of nowhere and helped herself. Virtue was its own reward, all right. There sure didn’t seem to be any other rewards. I turned over the engine and lurched down the street.