“I always wondered who bought this expensive almond flour.” I watched Donnie place a small and astonishingly pricey bag of it into the hand basket. Natural High had green baskets, presumably because green plastic looked more environmentally responsible than other colors of plastic.

  “I always had this image of college students living on instant noodles and bad coffee,” Donnie said.

  “They’re supposed to.”

  Davison had emailed his shopping list to Donnie early in the morning, right before he got on the plane. I thought it was rude and entitled (also perfectly in character for Davison). When you’re a guest at someone’s house, it seemed to me, you eat what they put in front of you, and you say thank you.

  And Davison’s new diet plan was expensive. Organic vegetables, butter and beef from grass-fed cows, and cold-pressed olive oil were on the menu. Cheap staples like rice, canned meat, and instant noodles were out. You couldn’t put together a more costly shopping list if you tried.

  As luck would have it, Crystal Phoenix from the yoga studio was working at Natural High that day. She made a beeline for us—for Donnie, really.

  “Well hi Molly,” Crystal gushed, gazing into Donnie’s eyes. Her golden hair was pulled back and pinned into a messy bun, exposing a graceful jawline. “And of course, I remember your husband. Donnie, it’s so nice to see you again.” She took Donnie’s hand and held it, instead of letting go, as one would do with a normal handshake.

  “It looks like Davison is coming back to Mahina for a visit,” I said.

  “We’re doing some grocery shopping for him,” Donnie added.

  “You should bring him by the studio for a free yoga lesson. Molly, did I give you my card?”

  “Yes, you did.” I spoke to Crystal’s profile since she was still gazing at Donnie. “So it seems he’s developed some very specific dietary requirements.”

  Donnie gently pulled his hand free from Crystal’s grasp, set the basket down on the edge of the produce table, and read from the shopping list. “Coconut oil, olive oil, and butter are fine, he says. Yellow oils are off limits.”

  “Isn’t butter yellow?” I asked.

  “No, I know what he means. No industrial oils.”

  Donnie caught my expression. “It’s only for a few days, Molly.”

  “I didn’t say anything. I’m just looking at the avocados here.”

  I picked up an oversized green specimen from the bin and dropped it into our basket.

  “No meat?” Crystal inquired hopefully.

  “Meat is on the list,” Donnie said, “but it has to be pastured or grass fed. Eggs need to be free range, preferably local, and supplemented with Omega-3. Cheese and other low-glycemic dairy products are acceptable as long as the milk comes from A2 cows.”

  “And it has to be served on a satin pillow stuffed with unicorn feathers,” I added.

  “Your son is taking good care of his body.” Crystal aimed her cool green eyes at Donnie. “What about you, Donnie? Are you taking care of yourself?”

  “Uh,” Donnie said.

  “I can tell you have a powerful fitness practice.” Her eyes wandered up and down his torso. “I’m a certified personal trainer, too. I’d love to—”

  “He doesn’t need a fitness practice,” I said. “He gets plenty of physical activity already. From working all day at the restaurant, I mean. Donnie, I know you don’t have time for any extracurricular activities.”

  Donnie patted my hand, which I realized I had placed on his bicep. Okay, maybe I was acting a little possessive. Who would blame me?

  “You’re probably tense with such an intense work schedule,” Crystal murmured. “I do massage, too, First session is free.”

  “Wow, Crystal, you are really multitalented.” It didn’t escape my notice that she hadn’t offered me a massage. “So Donnie, we should probably get this shopping done sometime before the sun cools.”

  Donnie smiled a little, as if something was funny about the situation, although if there was, I sure couldn’t see it.

  “So you think Davison’s making a good choice here?” he asked.

  “Your son is being very wise,” Crystal said. “Let food be thy medicine.”

  Oh, come on, I thought. I was as pro-healthy-eating as the next person (actually no, I wasn’t), but my mother was a medical doctor, and I’d heard enough stories about people who thought they could throw away their medication as soon as they were feeling a little better.

  “What about letting medicine be your medicine?” I asked. “I mean, it’s not like the secret cure for every disease on earth is hidden in, what?”

  I peeked at the list in Donnie’s hand.

  “…fish oil and fermented soybeans?”

  “Don’t buy into the propaganda, Molly. You can’t believe everything Monsanto tells you. Anything you get from the pharmaceutical industry has a better equivalent in nature.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Why was I even engaging her?

  “I’ll show you an example.” Crystal led us over to a computer terminal in the back of the store and pulled up a website with photographs of a plant that looked like spearmint with yellow flowers.

  “It acts directly on the hormonal system,” Crystal explained. “It can be used to treat bipolar disorder, and it’s very energizing. Molly, this might even help you.”

  “I’m fine. Really. But thank you for the information. So, Donnie, we should get moving if we’re going to meet the plane on time.”

  Davison’s plane actually wasn’t due for another four or five hours, but I wanted to wrap it up and get out of there.

  “That’s the girl who wanted to meet Davison?” Donnie asked once we were out on the sidewalk in front of Natural High. Each of us held a reusable shopping bag full of pastured, organic, free range, Omega-3-rich comestibles that pound for pound cost about as much as cocaine.

  “She’s the one. Although it seems pretty obvious to me she’ll settle for père in the event that fils isn’t available. Oh good, the rain’s stopped.”

  “Who’s available?” Donnie asked. “Did you say something about a pear?”

  “Crystal was flirting with you.”

  “Do you really think she was—”

  “Oh, come on. She was. At least she has good taste. Where did I park again?”

  Across the street from the termite-eaten row of clapboard storefronts, the ocean sparkled. Small waves splashed playfully onto the black lava rock shore.

  “Up there. Right around the corner. Remember?”

  “Right.”

  Donnie took my grocery bag. I dug into my purse for my keys as we walked.

  “She’s a little out there,” Donnie said.

  “A little.” I nodded.

  I could tell Donnie was thinking something over. We walked quietly until we reached the Thunderbird.

  “Ouch.” I ran a finger over the gleaming paint. I need to go to the carwash. You can see every crumb of dirt in the sun.”

  “The situation with Sherry’s been really hard on Davison,” Donnie said. “I don’t think it’s healthy.”

  “I thought Sherry got back together with one of her ex-husbands.”

  “That’s just it,” Donnie said. “I don’t think Davison’s over her”

  Donnie’s ex-wife Sherry had walked out on Davison’s eighth birthday. Davison and his former stepmother had reconnected many years later, neither one aware of the other’s identity. By the time things were sorted out, it was too late. (As Sherry had put it, “Whaddaya want me to do? He’s not a light bulb. I can’t unscrew him.”)

  “Davison is an adult,” I said. “We shouldn’t mix in.”

  “I’m not saying we should mix in. But we can encourage him to meet some other people while he’s here. Like this girl at the health food store. What was her name? Chrysalis?”

  “Crystal.” I slid the key into the lock. The trunk lid bounced up, revealing a spacious storage area, empty except for the spare tire propped up in the center. You really could fit a body or three into these old trunks. “Crystal Phoenix.”

  Donnie placed the grocery bags into the trunk, and I pushed the lid down, using most of my upper body strength to get it to latch.

  “Phoenix?” Donnie gave me a skeptical look. “What kind of name is that?”

  “A made-up one, I’m sure.”

  “Well, it’s a little strange. But on the positive side, she’s employed.”

  “That’s the spirit. Aim high.” I was already walking up to the driver’s seat, and I don’t think Donnie heard me.

  Chapter Twelve

  I had a revise-and-resubmit due Monday, so after Natural High, I dropped Donnie off at his car, loaded the cockroach costume into my trunk, and drove up to campus. If Donnie wanted to chase around every grocery store in Mahina looking for all the things on Davison’s magic list, he was welcome to it. I had to get my revision done and uploaded before the weekend was over. I’d learned the hard way a deadline of noon, East Coast time meant the crack of dawn in Hawaii.

  Unfortunately, the air conditioning on campus was turned off on weekends, so I sweltered through my revisions, even with my desk fan rattling away on the highest setting. I had no one to blame but myself. I got the revise-and-resubmit back from the journal a month ago, and I’d kept putting it off. A major part of the revision (besides “add more tables” and “make it shorter”) was the recommendation by one reviewer that I cite the relevant and outstanding work of a certain scholar. I was having a little trouble squeezing that work into my paper, as I didn’t think it really pertained to the topic, but if it was important to someone who was going to decide whether my paper got published, it was important to me. (I also now had a pretty good idea who that anonymous reviewer was.)

  I managed to finish, check my paper over, and get it uploaded while it was still light outside. One more errand, and then it was off to Donnie’s for a joyous reunion with my stepson. Hooray.

  Stephen looked up from his desk when I knocked on the open door of his office. Stephen had never been a terribly neat person, but his office was even messier than I remembered. Colorful gowns, headdresses, swords and plastic firearms hung from the coat rack. Costumes were heaped over the backs of his visitor chairs. Boots, curly-toed elf shoes, and stiletto heels were piled along the wall. A painted plywood palm tree, taller than the height of Stephen’s office, was wedged against the wall.

  Stephen himself looked gaunt and sickly under the fluorescent lights. His uniformly black hair (dyed, I’d bet money on it) was scraped back from his pale, angular face.

  Stephen had spent some time in rehab a while back, and when he got out, he had started eating compulsively, substituting one addiction for another. After gaining seventy pounds or so, he had become an exercise fanatic, going up to the campus gym first thing in the morning and running on the treadmill for hours. He’d lost all the added weight (and then some), and now had the stringy, hollow-eyed look of a marathon runner.

  “I just wanted to return this.” I held up the bagged cockroach costume. “Thanks for letting me use it. I didn’t see you at the Chancellor’s Welcome and Halloween party.”

  “I had a lot to do.”

  Stephen didn’t get up. He may not have been feeling well. Or perhaps he was just being rude.

  “Well, it’s too bad you missed the festivities, Stephen. You could’ve taken credit for my remarkable ensemble. By the way, I met Miss Dorothy Pfaff. Marshall Dixon has her on the hook for some major bucks.”

  “Ah. Did she sign your Alice Mongoose t-shirt?”

  “No, but Emma told her all about it, much to my mortification.”

  Stephen had an issue of Variety spread out on his desk. He turned a page, and then another one, looking at nothing in particular.

  “I’m sure you made a great impression on our benefactress, Molly. That’s the most important thing.”

  Stephen was doing the thing he knew enraged me, positioning himself as the Morally Pure Artist, counterpoint to me, the Business School Sellout.

  “Well, our funding from the state’s been cut by forty percent. It’s almost impossible to get grants with our crumbling infrastructure, and we’re not allowed to raise tuition. So unless we all want to end up working for free, we’d better make nice with the local philanthropists. You know all this, Stephen. You go to the same budget meetings I do.”

  “Indeed, I do. Did your Friend from the Business Community accompany you?”

  “Yes, Donnie came with me. He didn’t have anyone thoughtful enough to provide him with a spectacular costume like this one, though, so he just wore his regular business clothes.”

  Stephen flipped open the carved wooden case on his desk, drew out a cigarette, clamped it into a wire cigarette holder and lit it. He closed his eyes and sucked in the smoke so hard his cheeks hollowed. One habit he’d never managed to kick was smoking his Indonesian clove cigarettes. Despite the campus-wide tobacco ban, Stephen’s office still reeked of Gudang Garam smoke.

  Stephen blew out a spicy cloud of exhaust.

  “Of course he went with you. Can’t let the little woman wander off by herself.”

  “Is there anything you need to talk about, Stephen?”

  “How was the costume? Did it fit?”

  “It was perfect,” I said. “In fact, I’m going to miss the extra pair of limbs. They were quite useful. Should I just hang it over here?”

  “Keep it.”

  “What?”

  “Keep the costume. I don’t have any place to store it. I don’t have a prop room anymore.”

  “What do you mean you don’t have a prop room? Isn’t it just over—”

  “That space houses the Office of Student Engagement now.”

  “Your prop room? They took it away?”

  “The Student Retention Office concocted this space reallocation plan over the summer when most of the faculty were off campus. They didn’t notify the theater department, of course.”

  Stephen rested the cigarette holder on the edge of his ashtray—a heavy vintage number from the sixties, molded out of golden glass—and looked directly at me for the first time.

  “They piled all of my props and costumes in the hallway and moved in some new deanlet with his clutch of minions. So, keep the costume. Have fun. Re-enact The Metamorphosis for your accounting majors. I’m sure they’ll enjoy it.”

  “Okay. Well, I guess I’ll find some use for this. Thanks, Stephen.”

  I left Stephen in his dark office, sitting in a pool of sallow light from his desk lamp.

  Donnie’s house was still empty when I got back. The stew Donnie had started earlier was starting to smell delicious, although the savory meat aroma was mingled with a smell like suntan lotion. Maybe Donnie was trying out some new coconut-scented air freshener in anticipation of Davison’s arrival.

  I hung up the cockroach costume in the coat closet and found some simple white dishes in one of Donnie’s cupboards. I put out three place settings on the dining room table, poured myself a glass of wine, and was just sitting down at the kitchen counter to read the day’s paper when I heard the front door open.

  “Guess who’s here?” I heard Donnie sing out. “Molly? Are you home?”

  After the draining experience of dealing with Stephen Park, I really didn’t feel up to facing Davison. But I couldn’t exactly hide and pretend not to be home. One, Donnie would be disappointed if I didn’t show, and two, my distinctive Thunderbird was parked right in front of the house. I got up as Donnie came in through the living room, with Davison behind him. Donnie took Davison’s duffel bag and gave him a little push to propel him toward me. I put down my wine and allowed Davison to squeeze me in a tight hug, enveloping me in the sour body odor that inevitably develops over twenty hours of uninterrupted travel.

  “Long time, Molly.” Davison pressed a stubbly kiss into my cheek. I wasn’t crazy about the fact that my new stepson (and former student) was calling me by my first name. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to come up with anything better. I certainly wasn’t going to let him call me “Mommy.”

  “Go to your room and change.” Donnie handed back Davison’s bag. “Then we can have dinner.”

  Davison had his own room in Donnie’s house, which was one reason I couldn’t feel entirely at home there. A couple of years ago, Donnie had given him a furniture catalog and a blank check and told him he could pick out his own décor. The result was like The Masque of the Red Death as reimagined by a mob decorator, all red plush carpet, black and silver rococo furniture, and electric chandeliers with black leather candles. If the door happened to be ajar when I passed, I’d pull it shut.

  “Oh, Molly, thanks for setting the table.” Donnie went over to examine my work. He quietly gathered up the silverware, put it away, and brought out different flatware from another drawer. Then he rearranged everything on the table. When he was finished, he brought over a wine glass and sat next to me at the kitchen counter. I picked up the bottle of wine and poured for him.

  “How was it?” I asked.

  “Traffic wasn’t too bad. I didn’t recognize Davison right away. He was standing in front of me, and it still took me a second. Has he been gone that long?”

  “It hasn’t been that long. I think you didn’t recognize him because you made him get all his tattoos lasered off before he left. What was wrong with the place settings?”

  “Nothing,” Donnie said. “I just like to do it a certain way.”

  “Could you explain your system to me? Maybe next time I can replicate it and save you the trouble of redoing it.”

  In fact, he could explain it, and he did. It had to do with which things could go in the dishwasher with which other things, and how many of each kind of place setting was on hand, and which pattern was still being manufactured, and which would be hard to replace, and some other parameters I didn’t quite commit to memory. By the time he wrapped it up, it was nearly eight o’clock. I hadn’t eaten since lunch, and my stomach was starting to make noises like a spoon caught in a garbage disposal.

 

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