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THE FOLLOWING MORNING found me perusing the online job announcements. I wasn’t really planning to launch another full job search. It was a distraction, something to keep me from thinking about Donnie.
The ads looked less promising than I had ever seen them. Few teaching positions were listed, and fewer still were full time. For every faculty job I counted at least ten administrative positions. Not that Vice-Deans of Campus Engagement and Associate Directors of Service Learning weren’t important in their own way, but it would have been encouraging to see universities hiring a few professors as well.
Then a phrase jumped out at me: Mahina State University. Where Your Future Begins Tomorrow. Mahina State was advertising a full-time position in the English department. It was the job Melanie had been angling for. And it was exactly the kind of position I imagined I would get when I earned my Ph.D. from a top-ten literature and creative writing program. Mahina State wasn’t exactly the kind of place I’d hoped to end up. It wasn’t in the Top Ten of anything. But English professor was the job I had trained for; it was where I belonged. I got dressed quickly, completing my ablutions in under an hour, and drove in to campus to do some reconnaissance.
I let myself into my office and started to make myself a cup of coffee, but found my coffee drawer empty. Pat and Emma had consumed the last of my coffee when I wasn’t there. They would deny it, of course, so it wasn’t even worth accusing them.
The silver lining to my unexpected coffee stockout was I now had a good excuse to walk over to the building where the old beverage vending machine was, and where the English department also happened to be.
The old vending machine looked like it had been installed sometime before Hawai`i had been admitted to statehood. A handwritten Out of Order sign had been taped to its faded wood-grain face, but it was plugged in and humming. In return for my four quarters it dispensed a cup of tan liquid so hot I was amazed it didn’t melt the Styrofoam. I made my careful way down the hallway, blowing furiously over the top of the coffee to try to cool it down. A few of the English professors’ offices were closed for the summer, but most had the doors propped open, the occupants busy at their computers. I knocked on Pat’s door but there was no answer.
Across the hall, the door of the adjuncts’ office was ajar. Pat had his own office, but the newer part-timers were forced to cram into a single space. Pat had actually offered to share his office, pink hairdryer chairs and all, but so far there had been no takers.
Nicole Nixon was the only one in the adjuncts’ office today. She looked up from her computer, glad for the interruption. I set the hot coffee down (carefully) on one of the unoccupied desks. We hadn’t spoken since the day of Melanie’s death. Nicole had heard of my legal troubles (just about everyone had by now), so she said some supportive things about how she was sure the situation would be cleared up quickly, and wasn’t it all just awful. Then, to lighten the mood, we went on to chat about our respective gardens.
Finally, I decided to broach the topic of the open position. Although Nicole Nixon was an adjunct, her husband Scott was chair of the English department. She might have heard something about the search that wasn’t printed in the position announcement.
“Hey,” I said, as if I had just thought of it. “I saw your department is hiring—”
Without warning, Nicole Nixon burst into tears.
I quietly closed the office door, pulled a tissue out of my purse, and handed it to her.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffed.
“Do want to talk about it?” I pulled over a chair from a vacant desk and sat down.
“It’s my last chance.” Her voice cracked.
“Your last chance?”
“This job. Scotty told me he made sure it was written so I fit all the MQs and DQs. And it’s on a really short timeline, too. The candidate has to be ready to start on the first of August. It seemed perfect.”
“So you’re applying for the job. I see. It starts August first? That should narrow down the applicant pool. It would be hard for someone on the mainland to make the move in time.”
“Right? But we’ve already had three hundred fifty eight complete applications, a lot of them are from top programs, and some of these people have amazing recommendations and unreal pubs. How am I supposed to keep up when I’m teaching five sections of comp?”
“When is the closing date?” I asked.
“Not till the end of the month. So we’re going to get a lot more.”
“Well.” I tried to force an encouraging smile. “It sure won’t hurt to have the chair of the department on your side. And you meet the MQs and DQs? That’s amazing. You hardly ever see a candidate who has all the desirable qualifications.”
“I should be grateful for the opportunity,” she sniffled. “And I am, I really am. But I kind of feel like Scotty was just trying to ease his guilty conscience. I think this time he’s really gone and... sorry. Never mind. I’ve just been under a lot of stress.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, Nicole.” I was unable to suppress the petty thought that getting arrested for murder was at least as stressful as whatever Nicole Nixon was going through.
“You’re so lucky, Molly.”
“I am?”
“You’re on the tenure track. Do you know only a third of faculty members are tenure track now?”
“At Mahina State?” I asked.
“In the United States. You don’t know what it feels like to be a second-class citizen, Molly. You know what your classes are going to be more than two days in advance. You have a steady paycheck. You’re allowed to go to the Campus Christmas party.”
She began to sob again. I handed her a fresh tissue.