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PATRICK FLANAGAN AND Emma Nakamura were at my front door the following morning. Emma pushed in first and plunked down on my couch. Pat followed her in, and quietly eased his lanky frame into an adjacent chair.
“Easy on the furniture, Emma. I’m going to want to sell it when I move into the Brewster House.”
“This stuff? Whaddaya think you’re gonna get, fifty bucks for the whole set?”
“I’m not going to get anything for it if you break it.”
I’d bought my leather living room set when I first arrived in Mahina with almost no savings and a hefty student loan payment due each month. The pieces were serviceable and easy to clean, but the leather was stiff and cheap.
“Eh, you still gonna go after the Brewster House?” Emma asked. “After the tsuris yesterday?”
“I’m sure any house that age has had people pass away in it, Emma. I’m not going to let what happened change my mind.”
“Did you say tsuris?” Pat asked.
Emma gestured at my window, with its view out to my wildly overgrown backyard. “You’re gonna let their famous garden turn into a big mess. You can’t even keep this under control.”
“That’s because I only have the guy out here once a month to cut things back and mow. But if Donnie and I move into the Brewster House, we can use Donnie’s yard service.”
“Yeah, Donnie’s place always looks nice.”
“I hate the idea of hiring other people to pull your weeds,” Pat grumbled. “People shouldn’t have a lifestyle that requires servants. I don’t.”
“Pat, not everyone can be as dedicated an anti-capitalist as you.”
“Everyone should be like me. The world would be a better place.”
“Oh yeah?” Emma challenged. “What, cause you think paying for a haircut is a bourgeois waste of time and money, we all gotta shave our heads?”
“Yes. I think that would be a splendid solution.”
“You still have to buy razors, Pat.” I gazed out onto my ragged garden. “Personally, I’m fine with putting a few dollars into the local economy now and then. Anyway, no one pulls weeds. All they’ll do is spray.”
“That’s even worse than pulling weeds,” Pat groused.
“So I guess we’re down to you, now, Molly.” Emma clapped her hand onto my shoulder.
“What about me, now?”
“Melanie was gonna paddle with us, and now we’re one down.”
“Me, paddle? That’s hilarious, Emma.”
“I know you’re not in very good shape, Molly, but having you on the crew would probably better than having an empty seat.”
“Absolutely not. I get seasick, and besides, I’m not sure I could actually wedge my backside into that narrow canoe.”
I’d come to realize I had to be firm with Emma, who could be shockingly bossy. Her problem was that her non-threatening appearance emboldened her. As a fetchingly curvy five-foot-nothing with big, brown eyes, Emma could get away with pushing people around.
“My `okole’s bigger than yours, Molly, and I fit in the canoe. You’re just making excuses.”
“You found me out, Emma. I am making excuses. Because I don’t want to paddle.”
I went into the kitchen to make fresh coffee.
“Eh, you freaking out about Melanie, or what?” Emma called after me. “You don’t look too good.”
“I didn’t sleep too well last night. I’d been looking forward to having my house to myself again, but I sure wasn’t counting on it happening like this. I hope the rest of my summer is less eventful. Maybe it’s a good thing my summer classes didn’t make.”
“Yeah, I’m not teaching either. I’m gonna be in the lab full time, though.”
“And I’ll be working on my book,” Pat interjected.
“You’re writing a book?” I asked.
“You gonna write about the karaoke murders?” Emma asked.
“I’m not writing true crime. I’m writing a career advice book.”
“You? Writing a career book?” Emma snorted, displaying her usual level of tact (none). “Well, hey, if that big fat fraud Doctor Whatsis can write a diet book, I guess an unemployed newspaper reporter can write a career book.”
“That’s the idea.” Pat shrugged.
Pat used to be a crime reporter at the County Courier. After the layoffs he took a part-time position at Mahina State, teaching introductory composition. He kept a hand in journalism with his newsblog, Island Confidential.
“So do you have any career advice for me, Pat?” I asked.
“What about me?” Emma chimed in.
“You don’t need advice, Emma. You just got tenure.”
“Was kinda close, but.”
It was true. Emma Nakamura was a good teacher and an amazingly productive researcher and grant-getter. But she was also outspoken enough to have made some enemies. It was probably her NSF grant that saved her. No one in the administration wanted to lose Emma—or more to the point, her 50% returned overhead on half a million dollars a year. As Pat pointed out, a quarter-million dollars a year was nearly enough to pay for another assistant coach for our last-place football team.
Tenure wasn’t a guarantee of a job for life, but it did mean the administration couldn’t fire you without making up a reason first. At Mahina State, you had to go up for tenure after six years. At that point, it was up or out. If you got tenure, great. But if you didn’t, there was no do-over. You were out of a job, period. And if you didn’t make tenure at Mahina State, good luck finding employment anywhere else.
I was still untenured. And I didn’t have any grants, so I had to be nice to everyone.
“I have some advice for both of you,” Pat said. “Based on a whole bunch of research. For maximum career success, make sure you’re tall, WASP-y, and male—”
“Well, lucky you’re covered, Pat.”
“Patrick Cathal Flanagan is not WASP-y,” I corrected Emma.
“Really, Emma. Anglo-Saxon Protestant? I think you just mortally wounded me.”
“Any other advice?” I asked. “That doesn’t require me to wear stilts and a fake moustache?”
“Be an extrovert. Extroverts are better at getting raises and promotions.”
“Well, that’s it,” I sighed. “I’m out. Where are you finding all this depressing stuff anyway?”
“In the library. Your management journals, in fact.”
“Well I’m not a tall WASP-y guy. I’m a neurotic lady introvert. Anything else?”
“It helps to have a wife and a couple of kids. Not more than two children, though. Otherwise people might think you’re some kind of dirty Catholic.”
“I hope your book’s gonna be more helpful than this,” Emma said.
An impatient knock on my front door interrupted our conversation.
Detective Medeiros, along with a young policeman in uniform, had come to collect Melanie’s effects.
“Help yourself.” I walked over to the guest room, tried unsuccessfully to fling the door open (it caught on a stray boot), and let the two men take in the chaos. Melanie’s hot pink luggage was heaped in the corner, clothing was piled on the bed, water bottles teetered on every flat surface, and shoes and boots were scattered all over the floor.
It was just like Melanie to bring woolly boots to Hawai`i. Melanie wouldn’t bother to read the weather report. Why would she, when the world and its climate systems revolved around her?
“Pretty much anything you can pick up and carry out is Melanie’s,” I said. “Just the furniture and the bedclothes are mine. Here, we can help.”
Emma, Pat, and I helped the two officers carry Melanie’s things out to the car. Even with five people working, moving Melanie’s belongings out of the spare bedroom and the bathroom (and the living room and the rest of the house, where she had scattered her things) took several trips and the better part of an hour. Fortunately the police car was a large American make with a spacious trunk.
“What about those shoes?” Emma whispered to me. “The platforms with the ankle strap? They look like your style.”
“Emma, how could you? Steal shoes from a dead woman? Besides, they’re way too small. I can’t even get them on my feet.”