Dead End Street

by Sheila Connolly

  “Would you mind explaining just what your area of expertise is, and how it fits in the academic universe? I’ve read your résumé, of course, and it’s in the board packet, but you’ll have to translate some parts of it for me. It’s been a long time since I studied anything academic.”

  “Of course. Penn offers an interdisciplinary program within the College of Arts and Sciences, at both the undergraduate and graduate level. That means we can draw on faculty members across the university, and also reach out to others in the city. The subjects in which we offer classes range from urban industry to race relations to poverty and public policy, and also include such things as architecture and class, music and art. We encourage independent study projects involving a wide spectrum of subjects.”

  “Wow. In a way I’m jealous—I wish I’d known about such things when I was in college. I was an English major, which doesn’t help a whole lot in my current position.”

  “I’m sure the grammar in the documents you send out is impeccable,” Eliot said, struggling to keep a straight face.

  “Thanks a lot. So, given what Penn offers, what do you think the Society can do that would fill a niche?”

  “Are you planning an exhibit?” he asked.

  “No, we don’t do that anymore. I was thinking of a booklet, or a series of small studies of the different neighborhoods, showing how they’ve evolved and changed over time, that could be combined as a single booklet at some future date. That we can support with our own collections.”

  Eliot nodded. “That sounds appropriate, and manageable with your resources and staffing. My department might be able to arrange an internship, if you need the help.”

  “And of course we already have Lissa, although we’ve been keeping her busy anyway. She’s been a great asset.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Lissa is a very hard worker, and she knows her material well. But do allow her time to finish her degree work.”

  “Of course—I don’t want to hold her back. So, to return to this concept, is it appropriate to start with North Philadelphia? I’m asking not only because of my own experience there, but because it’s so close to all the nicer parts of the city, the ones that tourists visit, but it feels like it could be on another planet.”

  “I think starting there makes sense, and it would be historically appropriate. What’s your time frame?”

  “I have no idea, since I just came up with this. I haven’t really talked to the rest of the staff, and I don’t know the details of what we have in the collections.” If this was going to go forward, I needed to involve Latoya ASAP, I reminded myself. “But there’s another piece, and I don’t know if or where it fits: What’s happening right now? Who is looking at this problem, and what solutions or plans have they put forward? And are they all on the same page, or are they fighting with each other?”

  “And willing to shoot someone to further their plans? A very interesting question, Nell. And one for which I have no quick answer. I study the history and the policy. The people who are trying to reclaim the neighborhoods for ordinary people rather than gangs are on a different page.”

  “You mentioned something about policy. Can you find me a quick survey of what’s going on, and who is involved in it, in the city government and independently?”

  Eliot laughed. “You don’t ask much, do you? Let me ask around among my colleagues. I’m not sure this has been set down in writing, but I’m sure they’ll know who the players are. Find yourself a friend at the City. Talk to Tyrone, if he’s willing. In an ideal world there should be no conflict of interest among these groups, but this is Philadelphia.”

  “I know what you mean,” I told him. We talked for a bit longer, and then we left the restaurant to go back to our respective jobs. I had a lot to think about, but I was still determined to do something about the problem, if I could.

  CHAPTER 13

  By the time James picked me up after work on Thursday—three days after an unknown someone could have killed me—I had to acknowledge that I was still rattled. Oh, I was trying to put on a good front: going to work on time every day and looking busy; handing out variations on oh, shucks, I’m just fine, thank you very much to well-wishers; and pretending everything was normal. The reality was, I was not fine and things were not normal. Only I didn’t know what to do about it. Denial wasn’t working, although I had no idea what the standard timetable for denial to take effect was. Should I try therapy? A long vacation on a beach with James?

  Speaking of James, he wasn’t pushing me to do anything in particular. Part of me was happy with that. After all, I was a big girl and I could take care of myself. Another part of me was pissed: the little girl inside me was having a tantrum and crying for help—that I didn’t know how to ask for. What was I going to do? Just wait it out? How long would that take?

  “Nell?” James’s voice interrupted my internal dialogue.

  “What?” I snapped, then backtracked. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. Take your pick.”

  “Something wrong at work?” he asked carefully.

  “No, work is fine. Work is the easy part. Except this whole mess had got me wondering if we’ve been seeing the world through rose-colored glasses for the past century or so.” I turned to face him, as far as my seat belt would allow. “I was an English major, remember? I never took more than the intro art history class. I never did graduate work in business management, or the theory of arts administration. I kind of backed into my current position, as you saw. Before that I was writing impassioned, grammatically correct letters asking people for money, or grant proposals, either of which was certainly a better fit with my skills. But things happened so fast and so oddly that I never had time to think through what I was doing, or wanted to do with the position.” Breathe, Nell, breathe.

  “And now something has changed?” James asked.

  “Yes. Maybe. Look, don’t get me wrong. I love the Society and its collections. It’s a privilege to have access to them up close and personal, and it’s also a privilege to make them available to the public, all the while preserving them. That works for me. But there’s never enough money to do it right, and frankly, there’s no way to change that, unless some multitrillionaire shows up and gives us a blank check. We make tough decisions all the time: Can we do that? Should we not do that or put it off for another year or decade? And I’m supposed to be guiding that process.”

  “You’re not alone in this. What about the board?”

  “What about them?” I replied. “Nice people, mostly older men, who think that at this point in their lives they should give something back to the city or the cultural community. I applaud that. But for the most part, we meet a handful of times a year. I send them a stack of documents an inch thick before each meeting—reports, proposals, statistics—and half of them don’t even read those documents. Some of them have their own agendas, or their own pet projects, and will make a case for those rather than looking at the bigger picture. I understand all that. It’s typical of our kind of institution.”

  “But?”

  “Who is the Society responsible to? The board? The self-selected membership? Researchers? Or the general public, who sees very little of any of what we have to offer?”

  James didn’t reply immediately, and I had run out of steam. Finally he said, “Nell, you’ve been through a traumatic experience, maybe even a life-altering one. But you can’t fix everything, and certainly not overnight.”

  “You’re saying I shouldn’t try?”

  “Of course you should try. But give yourself a little time, and think through what you can do, under the circumstances. Reality being what it is.”

  I knew he was right, but I was impatient. “You’ve been shot at, right? And I know all too well that you’ve been stabbed. Did any of that change you?”
>
  “Over time, yes. I carry a weapon at all times, as you know. I seldom draw that weapon, and when I do, I don’t do it lightly. Nor do my colleagues, I hope. I appreciate the value of life, my own and other people’s. My work is to keep the world, or my small corner of it, safer and more honest, I guess you’d say. What’s yours?”

  I didn’t answer quickly, because his question deserved a serious answer. “To keep history alive. To help other people see the past and how it is part of their lives now and why it matters.”

  James nodded. “And that’s a worthy goal. Do you want to stop doing that?”

  “No, not really. But I guess after seeing North Philly, I feel like we’ve been polishing up and showing off only the pretty stuff, not the whole package.”

  “Let me ask you this: Who’s going to pay the entrance fee to look at slums? Abandoned factories? The history of gangs?”

  I slumped back in my seat. “Well, that’s the problem. We give people what they want to see, or we give them what we as administrators have been indoctrinated to believe is what they should see. But there’s so much more out there!”

  “If it means that much to you, Nell, then come up with a plan. Figure out how to sell the idea to your board, even if it takes adding a bit of sugar to make them swallow it.”

  “Hmm,” I said. Then I started to think. In so many parts of Philadelphia, the past had been a whole lot nicer than the present, but there weren’t many people around now who remembered that. It might be tricky to present that particular past in a way that didn’t underscore how badly things had gone wrong since, or paint the current situation as hopeless. It couldn’t be: the city and its citizens couldn’t just put a torch to it all and walk away. There had to be a solution, or at least one to work toward. And we at the Society had ammunition, if we chose to use it. I reached out and laid a hand on James’s arm. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  By the time we got home, I was calmer. “Listen, can we do something tonight that doesn’t involve thinking? Like play Scrabble or watch a silly movie? No more earth-shattering concepts?”

  “Of course. You want to go out to eat?”

  “Not really—I think decent food would be wasted on me right now. And I don’t want to get drunk. I just want to unwind and let my subconscious do the dirty work for me.”

  “I might have some ideas,” James said drily.

  “I bet you do.” I smiled at him.

  We followed my own prescription to the letter. We threw together a random meal and watched something that made us both laugh, and then we went upstairs and found other, equally satisfying things to do. Then I treated myself to a long bubble bath in our deep claw-foot tub, feeling relaxed and content. I couldn’t change the world, but I could change a little piece of it. It might take some time, but then again, it might work eventually, with patience and persistence. And it was definitely worth trying.

  * * *

  The next morning I awoke feeling refreshed and focused, a pleasant change. James was already downstairs in the kitchen, so I stretched and plumped my pillows and tried to organize my day in my head. I had no plan—yet—but I had a plan for a plan. I wanted to call my staff together and see what they’d found about Philadelphia neighborhoods and what we, as a collecting institution, could do to present them in a reasonably favorable light. I knew the employees had widely varied backgrounds and interests, not to mention access to different parts of the collections, so I would be interested to see what they came up with. I wouldn’t worry about seeking donors or outside support until I had an idea firmly in hand, and there was no deadline. If the city’s neighborhoods had been crumbling for more than half a century, then a couple more weeks wouldn’t make a lot of difference.

  Cherisse’s death was still a dark spot in my mind. Since I hadn’t heard anything from Detective Hrivnak, I assumed there was nothing new. Maybe there never would be. Or maybe I could go over to Cherisse’s office and poke a stick into a few holes and see what crawled out—what people said about her. Had she had any enemies at work? Outside of work? Obviously I knew nothing about her personal life; would her colleagues? Who do you think you are, Nell—Nancy Drew? that annoying responsible grown-up voice inside said. I listened, but I knew I had a legitimate reason to visit the Licenses and Inspections offices, even if I wasn’t going to go through channels and wait three months for an appointment: the Society still owned a property in North Philadelphia. I had every right to ask about that property—its current status and how to resolve its ownership going forward.

  I got out of bed, dressed quickly, and went down the back stairs, to find James ready for work, lacking only his jacket (and his weapon) as he sipped coffee and scanned the headlines of the Inquirer.

  He looked up when I entered the kitchen. “You’re looking better,” he said.

  “I feel better, sir. Your ministrations are very therapeutic. Thank you. Is there more of that?” I nodded toward his cup.

  “Of course. And you’re welcome. Anything on your plate for today?”

  “The usual.”

  “No word from the detective?”

  “Nope. Even if she can keep her foot wedged in the door to keep this case open, I’m sure her higher-ups want her to give it low priority. What will be, will be.”

  “A sensible approach.”

  “I thought so,” I said cheerily, and helped myself to coffee.

  * * *

  Eric beat me to work, so as soon as I had greeted him I said, “Can you send out a quick e-mail and ask everyone to meet me in the downstairs boardroom? Nothing urgent—don’t let them think there’s a crisis!—but I wanted to throw out an idea and see what people think. Say, nine fifteen?”

  “Should I plan to be there, too?” Eric asked.

  “Of course. You’re a relative newcomer, both to the Society and to the city, and because of that your perspective might be helpful. I promise I’ll keep it short. Why don’t I go get myself some coffee while you do that?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Eric said, and turned to his keyboard.

  No sooner had I sat down at my desk with my coffee than Marty Terwilliger appeared and sat down. Ah, sweet normality! “Good morning to you,” I greeted her. “Haven’t seen much of you since Wednesday.”

  “I want to talk about the Oliver place,” Marty said.

  “So do I. Look, I’ve called an impromptu all-hands staff meeting in about fifteen minutes, and actually, that property might fit into the discussion. You can come along and explain what’s going on there.”

  “Okay,” Marty said cautiously. “You seem awfully upbeat this morning. Happy pills?”

  “No, nothing like that. I guess I’m coming to terms with what happened earlier this week, and now I’m trying to find a way to use it for good. If someone is going to shoot at me, I want it to mean something, and this was kind of a wake-up call.”

  “You aren’t planning to quit or anything?” Marty asked, looking anxious.

  “Nope, I’m planning to dig in. You’ll see.”

  Marty and I were downstairs waiting when the staff trickled in shortly after nine. They looked uniformly bewildered at being there on such short notice, for the second time in a week. I smiled at them all, trying to put them at ease. When most people had arrived, I figured I should get started.

  “Good morning, everyone. Before you panic, there’s no bad news. First, I wanted to thank you all for being so supportive this week. I guess I was more upset than I wanted to admit, and you helped me keep it together. I have to say, the whole thing has given me a new perspective on how the Society should operate, and I want to enlist you to help.”

  “Didn’t we already talk about this on Tuesday?” Ben asked. “We haven’t had a lot of time to hunt up anything.”

  “Yes, we did, Ben, but I’m hoping to focus our efforts so we don’t waste time and energy. And there’s another proje
ct that Marty described to me after I talked with you that sheds a different light on it.”

  In as few words as possible I reviewed my epiphany about the dead or dying neighborhoods of Philadelphia: why Tyrone and Cherisse had asked me to come with them, what I’d seen, and why I thought the Society had some sort of responsibility to do what we could to help things change. After I’d finished my summary, I said, “I know some of you haven’t been here very long. And I’m sure you’re all aware how hard it is to change the direction of a venerable institution like ours. Kind of like turning the Titanic.”

  A few people laughed at my attempt at a joke, so I pressed on. “As I said, Marty brought to my attention a different project, the acquisition and maintenance of a colonial estate outside the city limits. We visited there on Wednesday, and I’ll admit it’s beautiful, and in surprisingly good condition. And it’s exactly the kind of opportunity our traditional members and supporters would expect us to pursue. But is it the right thing to do?”

  Shelby spoke up. “Nell, I’m not sure I follow. What’s your point?”

  I surveyed my staff. Some of the people around the table I’d worked with for a decade now. They were all here because they cared about history—they probably could be making more money somewhere else. They were smart and hardworking, and I wanted them to see what I was seeing now, after Monday’s events had ripped the blinders from my eyes. “Look, everyone. I’ve just started thinking about this, so there’s nothing like a plan in place. Even the board doesn’t know about it, except for Marty here. I’m laying this out for you now because I want to know what you think. If you tell me I’m way off course, I’ll accept that. I need your help and cooperation to make either idea work.”

  Latoya spoke for the first time. “Let me see if I have this right. You’re saying we have a choice right now. Either we direct our resources toward this Save the Neighborhoods concept, or toward the Save the Mansion idea? I assume we don’t have the capability to do both.”

  “I think that’s what it comes down to, Latoya. Both are deserving projects, no question. I don’t have facts and figures about what either would require, but I think what matters right now is what we as a staff think we should be doing. We talk and write about preserving history, but which history? The long and ongoing evolution of one of the nation’s great cities, even when it includes slums and crime and decay, or the maintenance of a beautiful and demonstrably historic home of a single rich family at a particular point in the past? Which is more important? Which fits the Society’s mission better?”