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THE SUBDIVISION HAD no trees, just raw dirt and gravel. Most of the houses were still under construction, although two or three looked inhabited (in the normal way, not like the Brewster House). They were all single-story kit homes, in plain rectangular shapes, and came in light blue, sand, pale green, or grey. While they shared some design elements with the island’s older sugar plantation houses, like corrugated metal roofs and vertical strips of wood siding, they completely lacked the detail and charm of their earlier counterparts.
Each house in the new subdivision had a cylindrical concrete water catchment tank, meaning they were too far out of town to get county water. I knew several people who had catchment water systems and were perfectly happy with them, but I wasn’t ready to take on the responsibility. I didn’t like the idea of having to get water trucked up when rainfall was sparse. And I was not at all comfortable with the responsibility of monitoring my water filters to guard against Leptospirosis, Salmonellosis, and other things that can show up when rats use your water tank as a swimming pool.
Leilani drove to the end of the cul-de-sac and parked in front of a sand-colored house with a tan metal roof. Of the four, the tan-on-tan was my least favorite color combination.
“Utility poles hidden in back of house,” Leilani said. “I know you prefer. Gives unobstructed view.”
“The view is nice. You can see right down to the bay.” The view didn’t make up for the neighborhood’s charmless kit-home architecture and bleak gravel yards. We walked inside to find an interior designed to avoid offense. The floor covering was beige tile, and the kitchen counter was a brown granite-patterned composite. Someone had left a plastic cup by the sink.
“Pah! I throw away.” Leilani picked up the cup with a manicured thumb and forefinger, looked in vain for a trash can, and then disappeared down a hallway. Only the living/dining area had the tile; the rest of the flooring was cheaper wall-to-wall carpeting.
“Shame on who left this!” I heard her say from somewhere down the carpeted hallway. “Filthy! Ah, here.”
I heard the cup clatter into an empty trash can, and Leilani reappeared in the kitchen.
“Is open plan,” she said. “You like it?”
“It reminds me of something.”
“Ah. It means you like?”
“I’m not sure.”
My vague recollection didn’t have anything to do with the house, which by the way I did not like. Leilani’s throwing away the cup had plucked some string of memory.
Emma. At breakfast the day before, Emma had taken my paper cup. I pulled out my phone and angrily punched in her number.
“I saw you take my paper cup yesterday morning, Emma. Right before you left and went to the lab. Why?”
“Hello to you too,” Emma said.
“Emma, tell me. Yes or no. Did you have me drink out of a paper cup yesterday at breakfast, and then take the cup with you when you left the house?”
“What would I want with a used cup?”
“Great question. What would be on a used paper cup that could possibly interest you, a biologist with 24-hour access to the genetics core facility?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Molly. Where are you?”
“Way out of town, looking at some—” I stopped mid-sentence, not wanting to hurt Leilani’s feelings. But Leilani, probably accustomed to customers’ emotions flaring, had quietly slipped out into the gravel backyard to give me some privacy. I saw her through the window, checking her own phone. The sky was darker now, and the wind was kicking up, ruffling her long strawberry-blonde hair.
“—looking at some subdivision-of-the-damned out in the middle of nowhere. It’s within walking distance of nothing. It has Navajo White walls and vertical blinds and wall-to-wall carpet. It’s horrible.”
“Well, you should get back to your house-hunting,” Emma said. “I have to—”
“Did Donnie call you?”
“What?”
“Donnie knows you have access to the genetics core facility.”
“Molly, you’re being ridiculous.”
“No, I’m making sense of your otherwise indecipherable behavior. And Donnie’s sudden apology. Donnie asked you to compare the hair from Davison’s shower drain with my DNA, didn’t he?”
The line was silent.
“Emma?”
“What?”
“When we were arguing, I told him, test the hair for DNA if you don’t believe me. I guess he took it literally, and you went along with it. You called him and told him the results this morning. Didn’t you?”
“You can’t prove it.”
“I know your phone number and your carrier. Give me your password. I’ll look up your call records online. I’ll see if you called him or not.”
Emma sighed.
“You should know I chewed him out pretty good for even thinking you’d hook up with that little pisher Davison.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I’m telling you now. And listen, Molly, you’re not in any position to be mad at anyone. Just be grateful you have a friend like me.”
“Grateful? For what?”
It had started to drizzle, making it impossible for Leilani to continue pretending she wanted to stand in the backyard.
“Listen.” I lowered my voice as Leilani came back inside. “This is about trust. Donnie didn’t trust me. And you enabled his checking up on me just like he’d make someone applying for a fry cook job do a drug test. Can’t you understand how insulting this is?”
I heard the beep of my call waiting.
“I have to go, Emma. My parents are calling. I’m not done yelling at you, though.”
“Yell all you want,” Emma said. “I saved your—”
I pressed the call button.
“Hi, sweetheart,” my father said. “Listen, we’re in Kimo’s Coffee and Nuts, and we want to pick up a little present for Donnie. What kind of coffee should we get him? Does he like any of the flavored coffees? Hazelnut? Vanilla?”
“Do they have hemlock?”
My father was silent for a moment.
“Aw, Molly, sweetheart.”
“What’s going on? I heard my mother ask. “Did she change her mind again?”