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IT WAS THE END OF THE workday, and I was relaxing in the back seat of Donnie’s car while he braved the traffic. Davison and I had both caught a ride into town with Donnie that morning. I thought I’d give carpooling a try. Gas wasn’t getting any cheaper and my Thunderbird got eleven miles to the gallon. Every trip between Mahina town and Donnie’s house out in Kuewa cost me real money.
Davison had tagged along at the last minute, hoping to find Crystal at work and patch things up with her.
“It’s nice to be a passenger,” I said, as we idled on the single road out of town, stuck in the remains of Mahina’s evening rush hour. “I can relax and look out the window.”
“At what?” Davison groused from the passenger seat. “All the brake lights in front of us?”
Apparently, things hadn’t gone as planned with Crystal.
“Donnie, how did your restaurant inspection go today?” I asked. “I’ll bet you got a perfect score. It’s my favorite thing about Donnie’s Drive-Inn, you know. It’s always sparkling clean.”
“You mean the food isn’t your favorite thing about it?” He caught my guilty expression in the rear-view mirror and smiled. “I know it’s not really your taste, all the fried meat and the big scoops of rice.”
The traffic began to flow again, and I saw what the problem had been. One car had been waiting to make a left turn onto a small side street. Mahina’s planners (assuming there had been planners at some point) apparently didn’t believe in left turn lanes.
“I’m still not used to getting rice and macaroni salad on the same plate,” I said.
“It’s not just the Drive-Inn. Every place with plate lunches does it. Merrie Musubis, all those guys.”
“It’s how come everyone getting so fat now, with diabetes an’ da kine,” Davison said. “All the rice an’ mac salad an’ soda. Killing people.”
“Are you saying I’m killing people with the food I serve at the Drive-Inn?” Donnie asked.
“Nah. Just handing ’em the loaded gun.”
“Just because you’re in a bad mood, Davison, you don’t have to take it out on everyone.”
“So what happened with the inspection?” I asked.
“We passed, with a ninety-nine.”
“Not a hundred?”
“It was Norris this time.”
“Oh, the one you were telling me about? Never smiles?”
“He won’t give anyone a perfect score. I think he wants to look like he has high standards. Anyway, ninety-nine is good enough. We can keep our green placard. So it was a good day. How about you?”
“Class was fine. I’m a little worried about Lars Suzuki. My extra chatty student. I think you met him at the Halloween party.”
“The one who wore his pants really long?”
“Yes, him. Today in class, he was contributing a lot to the discussion, which was fine, but then he got up, walked to the front of the room, stood next to me, and started lecturing the other students. I had to tell him to sit back down.”
“Do you think he’s dangerous?” Donnie asked.
“No, but his behavior’s odd. I think I might send in a referral to the counseling center. Oh, and I got some bad news today.”
Donnie slowed down and moved over to the grassy shoulder.
“I’m not sure it’s so bad you need to stop driving,” I said.
A police cruiser screamed by, lights pulsing.
“Sorry.” Donnie moved back onto the road. “What’s your bad news?”
“You already know one of my department members voted against my tenure package.”
“But you told me you meet the criteria.”
“Right. Or so I thought. Well, you know the senior faculty in my college. Apparently, last year they got together and voted to increase the requirements to get tenure. And they were supposed to send out a notice, but someone forgot. So, even though Hanson Harrison hasn’t published anything except letters to the editor in the last three decades, and Rodge Cowper’s never written a blessed thing as far as I can tell, I apparently have to clear this new bar. It’s amazing how people love to have high standards as long as they’re applied to someone else.”
“But you have a lot of publications, don’t you?”
“Well, I thought I had enough, but now, with the new rules, it’s kind of a squeaker. It turns out being a co-investigator on a federal grant gives me just enough points to meet our brand-new benchmark.”
“How come we’re pulling over again?” Davison grumped.
Two yellow fire engines zipped past us, sirens wailing.
“What kind of unlucky person has a fire in the middle of rainy weather like this?” I looked after the emergency vehicles.
“Could be a grease fire,” Donnie said. “Or an electrical fire. Water only makes those worse.”
“Molly,” Davison said. “You get tenure, it’s a sweet deal, ah? Guaranteed job for life?”
“It’s not a guaranteed job for life, but it does mean you get some form of due process. So at least they can’t fire you without making up a reason first.”
Donnie pulled slowly back out onto the road.
“And you know what’s really infuriating? Hanson freakin’ Harrison who voted for the new guidelines decided to vote against my tenure bid anyway. Because he doesn’t like the way I approach my research, even though my research got me onto a grant, the presence of which ensures that I meet the guidelines he voted for—gah, this is making my head hurt.”
“This Hanson Harrison seems to have it in for you,” Donnie said. “What’d you do to him?”
“Nothing. He’s been difficult from the minute I was appointed chair. At our first department meeting, he started blathering on about how everyone in our department should start using some teaching method he liked, and according to him, I, as the new department chair, was supposed to come up with the money to send everyone to this expensive training. So then Larry Schneider claimed the method had been totally discredited, and no one should be using it at all, much less spending taxpayer money on it. So I said, ‘Look, if you want me to get money for something, you’ll have to help me make a case to the administration. Back up your claims with evidence, just like we always tell our students.’ So Harrison started huffing and puffing about how we’re living in a postmodern world now, and my empiricism was outdated and misguided. Meaning, basically, he didn’t want to have to justify his demand for the money. So I told him, ‘Look, Hanson, you can’t just come in here like, I’m Silverback McGreybeard and everyone has to do what I say because I’ve been teaching here for a hundred years. If you want something, you need to do your homework just like everyone else.’”
“Well,” Donnie said carefully, “whatever the outcome of this tenure application, I’m here for you. We’re in this together.”
“I appreciate it,” I said. “Thank you.”
Donnie slowed down and signaled a left turn. Now we were the ones backing up traffic. We had no choice. There was no other way onto his street, and the highway didn’t have a left turn lane. A space cleared in the oncoming traffic, and Donnie gunned his Lexus through.
“Anyone smell smoke?” Davison asked.
“This is where all the fire trucks were headed.” I said. “Your street. I mean our street.”
We pulled up behind the line of emergency vehicles, which surrounded the smoldering ruin that had been Donnie’s house.