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“DETECTIVE MEDEIROS stopped by? Uh-oh.” I dropped onto the couch.
“Molly.” Donnie eyed me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get a glass of wine.” Donnie turned away.
“It’s a little early for you. Isn’t it?”
“I sense I’m going to need it. Would you like one?”
“Yes, please.”
Donnie brought a bottle and two glasses.
“I didn’t want to spring it on you while you were at work,” I said. “I figured a tree crashing through my window was enough bad news for one afternoon. What did Detective Medeiros tell you? Do they know who the victim was?”
“He didn’t say. I had a bad feeling about you driving all the way down there. At least you weren’t alone.” Donnie poured a glass of wine for me, and then one for himself. “This isn’t the first time someone’s biotech crop has been vandalized. Those activists can be unpredictable.”
I took a sip. “You did say that. I remember.”
“I’m just glad you’re not hurt.”
“On the bright side, I’m sure our other interviews will go a lot better than this one.”
“Molly, you’re not going to keep working on this grant after what happened this morning, are you? Aren’t you worried?”
“I’m a nervous wreck. Of course I am. Donnie, you know me. I’m not a thrill seeker. I’m cautious, bordering on cowardly.”
“Good,” Donnie said.
“But this didn’t have anything to do with Emma or me. We just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I know this grant is important to you. But it’s not worth your life.”
“Donnie, I realize you’re worried about my safety, and I appreciate it. Really, I do. But I have to keep my research going. I can’t just opt out. How about this? From here on out, Emma and I won’t go anywhere remote. We’ll talk to people right here in town, or we’ll do our interviews by phone.”
“Molly.” Donnie took my hand. “You don’t know who did this. How do you know they won’t come after you next? You have to get as far away from this as you can.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” I pulled my hand away, picked up the wine bottle, and refilled my glass. “We can’t just give the grant money back.”
I wasn’t sure it was true. But after all it had taken to get the grant, and how much work we’d already put into it, I had no intention of giving the money back.
“I thought you said there wasn’t any money,” Donnie said.
“Not in the form of a paycheck, but it helps us pay for recording equipment, conference travel, publication fees—”
“Publication fees?” Donnie set down his wine. “Are you telling me you have to pay to publish your articles? Aren’t they supposed to pay you?”
“Not academic journals. You never get paid for an academic article. And more and more journals require pub fees.”
“All this time I thought you were getting paid for publishing. Are you telling me it’s been costing us money?”
“Donnie, it’s not costing ‘us’ money. You and I still have separate bank accounts.”
“I know. We still need to sit down and figure it all out.”
Donnie and I had been having trouble working out the details of our shared finances. Specifically, there was the delicate matter of Donnie’s awful son Davison, whom I wouldn’t trust anywhere near my hard-earned money. Of course, I couldn’t tell Donnie outright. Davison was my stepson now, and for Donnie’s sake, I had to pretend to like him.
Before I met Donnie, young Davison had been enrolled in my Intro to Business Management class. There, he had distinguished himself as a remorseless cheater and a world-class suckup. While those qualities probably boded well for his future business career, they didn’t make a great impression on me.
“I need to publish my research to get tenure,” I said. “It’s a requirement of my job. You’ve heard of publish or perish?”
I poured out the last of the wine, dividing it between us.
“Doesn’t it seem like a racket to you?” Donnie said.
“It probably is. Donnie, listen. You don’t need to worry about me. Emma and I are going to be very careful.”
“I don’t want some crazy person cutting your brake lines,” Donnie said. “Or firebombing my restaurant.”
“Emma and I are just asking questions. We’re neutral. We’re not the ones growing things or telling people what to plant. No one’s going to come after us.”
“Okay,” Donnie said, in a tone that signaled that he might have lost the battle, but we would see who’d win the war.
“Anyway,” he said. “I do have some good news.”
“Wonderful. I’d love to hear some good news right now.”
“I talked to Davison this morning.”
“Oh?”
“Looks like he’ll be able to come out to visit us for his session break.”
“Oh, great.” I drained my wine glass and stood up.
“Where are you going?”
“To go open another bottle of wine.”
“Molly, we’ve already finished a whole bottle between us. Do you really think you should—”
“Donnie, I’ve had a really, really bad day. No, you’re right. I shouldn’t be drinking this much on a weeknight. Maybe I should go up to the yoga studio. If I leave now, I can catch the last session of Restorative Yoga.”
“Is the kid going to be there?” Donnie asked. “The one who used to be your student?”
“Oh, Primo? No. I told you. I’m not taking any more classes from him.”
Far from being a “kid,” Primo Nordmann was, in fact, pushing forty, despite his surfer-y blond good looks.
“One of the two sisters will probably be teaching, either Sharon or Sharla. When I went in the one time, I didn’t realize I was taking a class from one of my former students until it was too late.”
When Donnie had picked me up after the yoga session, the extroverted Primo had come over and introduced himself. The shirtless and well-built Primo had proceeded to say a number of complimentary things about my innate yoga talent, rattling on about how flexible I was and how I was one of the few women he knew who could throw her legs behind her head. It didn’t sit well with my conservative husband.
“Good,” Donnie said. “I don’t trust him.”
I stood up.
“Donnie, I already said I’m not going to take any more classes from him. What else do you want me to do? Is this how it’s going to be? You’re going to disapprove of every single thing I do?”
“No, Molly, I—”
“What I do for my job? What I do for exercise? What I do for fun? Oh, wait, I don’t do anything for fun because I have no spare time because I don’t have tenure yet, and despite my teaching load, I still have to publish my brains out, which apparently is something you don’t approve of either. So what’s the plan? You’re just going to keep at it, drip, drip, drip, until I get fed up and leave, just like—”
I stopped myself before I said something irreparable. Donnie’s first wife, Sherry, had walked out on him years earlier, leaving Donnie to raise Davison alone. Their history worried me a little, to be honest. At moments like this, I wondered if I would end up following suit.
“Molly, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I—I’m very proud of you. You should know that.”
I sank back down onto the couch.
“Sorry for getting snippy. This really hasn’t been a good day.”
“I know.” Donnie put one arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. “Go to your yoga class. I’ll get dinner started.”
“I don’t really have the energy now. I don’t want to get back in the car and drive all the way back up to town. And I still have a pile of papers to grade. Oh, can I help with dinner?”
“No, no,” Donnie said quickly. “Get your grading done. I’ll take care of dinner.”