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DONNIE AND I HAD A comfortable after-dinner routine. While Donnie looked over the Drive-Inn’s daily sales reports, or perused Pacific Business News or Hospitality Hawaii, I settled on Donnie’s genuine Sottsass sofa and graded papers or caught up on my journal reading. We had been engaged in this agreeable activity for about twenty minutes when a muffled giggle broke the quiet.
“Sounds like Crystal’s still here.” I stopped reading and looked at Donnie.
“As long as he keeps it in his room.”
“Don’t you have a ‘not under my roof’ rule for Davison?”
“He’ll be fine.”
“Let me ask you this, Donnie. What if we had a daughter? Would you let her have a guest in her room?”
“What? Of course I—I’m not answering that question. Anyway, Davison’s a grown man. What am I supposed to say to him?”
“Look, we both know the horse is out of the barn. Maybe I could’ve phrased that better. But I think we should at least officially disapprove of overnight guests, shouldn’t we? I don’t think it’s good for parents to condone premarital sleepovers.”
“It would be a little hypocritical, wouldn’t it? What about the time you and I—”
“We don’t need to discuss this anymore. Davison’s your son, I’ll defer to your judgment. I need to get my lecture ready for tomorrow. They came out with a new edition of the Intro textbook, again, and scrambled all of the chapters around, so I can’t use last semester’s notes.”
“Intro’s the one Davison took from you, right? He told me he liked your class.”
“Marvelous.” What my stepson undoubtedly liked about it was the fact I wasn’t allowed to do anything about his flagrant cheating, thanks to my “student centered” former dean.
Intro to Business Management reminded me of one of those ten-cities-in-seven-days European bus tours, where you went careening from one business field to the next, covering everything in a single semester. The current topic was financial ratios, which for me—to stick with the European bus tour analogy—was the equivalent of visiting Oslo in February.
The giggling from Davison’s room abruptly escalated to a shriek. A door slammed. Crystal burst out of the hallway, stormed through the living room, and pushed out the front door, letting it bang shut behind her.
“Aw, c’mon baby.” Davison’s voice followed her exit. “Don’t be mad. It’s funny.”
Davison emerged into the living room wearing the cockroach costume. The glossy brown carapace covered only his torso, exposing his hairless, muscular limbs. He looked like some kind of arthropod superhero.
We heard a car start outside and screech away. Davison stood and stared at the front door, his antennae bobbing forlornly.
“Davison, why are you wearing my costume?”
“Was in my closet.”
“You didn’t hook the extra set of arms on.” I set my notes aside and stood up to adjust the costume properly. “They’re not just supposed to hang. There’s a loop you attach to your wrists. Like this. See? Now when you move your own arms, the other two move with them.”
“Aw, that’s cool.” Davison waived his arms.
“It seems like she didn’t appreciate the costume.”
“But it was funny, Dad. Cause look.” He spread all four of his arms out and waggled them again, as if to say, see?
“What’s funny to some people doesn’t always work for other people.” Donnie shrugged.
“Aw man. Now what? I gotta go kiss up, huh?”
“Davison, language.” Donnie frowned.
“Sorry. I gotta go suck up, I mean.” He sighed and adjusted his carapace. “Eh, Dad, you said you wanna talk to me? Guess I get some time now.”
“It’s about Randy Randolph,” Donnie said. I watched Davison’s face for any sign of guilt, but I saw only confusion.
“Did you hear anything about it?” Donnie asked.
“About what?”
Donnie looked at me. “Molly, do you want to tell him?”
I placed my pencil in the textbook to save my place, and briefly related the morning’s events.
“Nah,” Davison said, with as much delight as disbelief. “You saw ’em wheeling ’em out?”
“We saw a zipped-up body bag. According to Detective Medeiros, it was Randolph.”
“Stupid to bench press without a spotter. Four hundred pounds?”
“Right. Two hundred pounds on each side. Remember, it was exactly the weight he told you he could press.”
“I remember. Liar. No way he could press that much. Two hundred each side is more than four hundred pounds, too. ’Cause the bar by itself weighs forty-five pounds. Eh, I didn’t have nothing to do with it.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Donnie looked relieved.
“Between us, though? Baga had it coming.”
“Go change into normal clothes,” Donnie said. “There’s still a lot of your organic pemmican left if you’re hungry.”
Davison turned and plodded away down the hall.
“That really is a good costume,” I said to Donnie. “Whoever constructed it actually went to the trouble of making a segmented abdomen. It’s very realistic.”
“You want it back now?”
I thought about it for a moment.
“And wipe down inside of that costume with rubbing alcohol before you put it away,” I called out after Davison. “Other people have to wear it.”