Helen of Pasadena

by Lian Dolan

  Wow! I surprised myself with my clear thinking! My tone and conviction seemed to impress Mitsy. She relaxed her arched right eyebrow and studied me. Then, she conceded, “I wish I could help. Unfortunately, the economic downturn has required me to make my own financial adjustments.”

  Did Merritt have something to do with that? Mitsy would never tell me something like that. “I would have gladly contributed to Aiden’s education, but now that is not possible.”

  Back to nodding for me. I wasn’t so sure she was being honest, at least about the “gladly contributing” part. She’d never made any grand gestures before, no college funds or trust funds set up in Aiden’s name. Mitsy espoused a belief in self-reliance, but I think she was just stingy, especially when it came to people.

  “Helen, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t advertise your situation all over town. Not that you have! It’s just, for Aiden’s sake, it would be better if you didn’t discuss the particulars with your friends and such.”

  I’ve noticed over the past fifteen years that wealthy people routinely engage in denial and illusion. Mitsy, an old-money maven, pretended that it would violate the rules of good taste to mention money, or lack thereof, to friends and distant family. The truth was, she just didn’t want anybody to know that her son’s widow and her grandson were now in a much lower tax bracket.

  Now I knew why she’d invited me.

  “It’s not my intent to ‘advertise’ my situation, but I will do what it takes to take care of my son. And if that means putting the house on the market, getting a job and applying for financial aid, that is what I will do. I grew up taking care of myself and my family. I’m not afraid to do that again.”

  Now Mitsy was trying to choke down the cardboard quiche. She looked up at me, her eyes wet, and she struggled to get a hold of her emotions. It was then I remembered that she was a mother who had just lost a son, imperfect as he was.

  “I know you will, Helen. I just thank you in advance for upholding the Fairchild name.”

  If Mitsy hadn’t been so clearly upset, I would have howled at the idea of upholding the Fairchild name, the irony thick, as it was Merritt who’d put the name in peril in the first place. But I realized that, for better or worse, in sickness or in death, I was a Fairchild, too.

  “Of course. For Aiden.” And we both nodded.

  I did not miss Merritt during the day. Between the painting and the packing and the selling off of my antiques, I was too busy during the day to think about him. And really, he’d never been part of my life during daylight anyway. We weren’t the kind of couple that talked a dozen times on, say, a normal Tuesday. Occasionally a question might come up mid-afternoon about picking up Aiden at practice or buying tickets to something, and I’d ring Merritt at the office. But usually, we practiced a communication blackout during the day.

  Which is why his homecoming at night was a big deal. And why the silence at 7 o’clock was now deafening. Aiden and I started watching The Simpsons to fill the void. No doubt, someday, Aiden’s college girlfriend, a pretty psychology major from Scottsdale or Houston, would have a field day with the significance of Aiden replacing his dead father with Homer Simpson. She’d blame me for allowing Aiden to process his grief so inappropriately. But seeing Aiden laugh in the moment was much more important to me than protecting myself from future blame.

  The only problem with Aiden’s devotion to The Simpsons was that it was on the Fox Network, as was Roshelle Simms. So every night, while Aiden and I ate the casserole of the day, we watched TV and I waited for the inevitable: My late husband’s mistress was sure to pop up sometime during the half hour to do a promo. Is this lingerie too sexy for TV? You be the judge at 10. Or, Is this pill the secret to a bikini body? The revealing before and after photos at 10. If the editorial content of Fox News seemed questionable before the Panda Incident, now I took its overtly sexual nature personally. Where is the FCC when you need it? It took every ounce of discipline not to throw my fork at the television. I’d come to think of her as Shelly Sleazy.

  “That woman has a weird face,” Aiden commented one evening (Can more action in the bedroom make stretch marks disappear? Take an undercover look at 10!) while helping himself to a large portion of Enchiladas Especial from the Gutierrez family. “What’s wrong with it?”

  High Def and collagen are a lethal combination.

  I clicked the mute button and changed the subject. It was one thing to be stoic in the face of infidelity; it was another to be blasé.

  “You know, you have your Ignatius admissions test coming up in a few weeks. I scheduled some test-prep classes today.” Because that’s what parents in Pasadena did, shelled out hundreds of dollars on all sorts of academic extras, because that’s what everyone else did.

  “Please don’t make me go to that guy with the freaky hair.

  ” Guilty as charged. Aiden had endured some Spanish tutoring from a Donald Trump look-alike named Señor Tom. Neutron Mel had said Señor Tom was “the best in town.” Unfortunately, the hair had proved to be such a gigantic distraction for Aiden that his grades went down, despite Señor Tom’s $75-an-hour fee. Some days, Aiden would get into the car after class and his gag reflex would kick in just thinking about the comb-over. “No más Señor Tom!” Aiden had begged.

  So I started throwing a few extra bucks Emilia’s way if she’d go over his homework, a much better solution. But the damage was done. Señor Tom remained a dark memory for Aiden, and his resistance to tutoring was steadfast.

  “No Señor Tom. You and Lilly Chau-Swenson are going to go together to a totally normal college kid who’s going to give you some tips, just pointers. It will be fun.”

  Why did I say that? Of course it wouldn’t be fun. “Rock Band” is fun. Grammar is never fun if you are Aiden. At least Aiden liked Lilly, and she was smart as a whip. A top test-taker.

  “Okay. If I have to.”

  Aiden was a C-plus student. After years of being threatened and tutored and attending an “academically rigorous” school, he was still an average student. In a world of seemingly extraordinary 13-year-olds who play perfect violin, make the traveling team for volleyball and compete at Mock Trial, all while thriving under the intense academic pressure of their parents and teachers, an average student like Aiden was nothing special to a high school admissions director. Hence the test prep.

  I had come to terms with Aiden’s totally average performance in the classroom. I would have loved to have gone to a school like Millington with rigor, rules and hours of homework. But Aiden shrugged off the work, turning out a maddeningly uneven academic performance. When it came to school, I was Sisyphus and he was the rock. Why couldn’t he just care a little more about his GPA and a little less about Legos, I’d whine after another average report card.

  Merritt had mocked my worry. “The kid will be fine. The Asians may get all the As, but Aiden will get the girls in high school.”

  Even Tina Chau-Swenson had concluded the same.

  “Of course our kids get better grades. What do you expect? Your people want your kids to be popular. We don’t care if our kids go to birthday parties. We want them to go to Yale.”

  Tina had a point. Aiden was born into a certain life, and his future seemed to include a free pass into a decent high school, a pretty good college and a respectable career, if he could just hold it together and not do drugs, get into a car accident or get some girl pregnant. Aiden didn’t need the Ivy League; he was a Fairchild. Up until New Year’s Day, his life had been a series of expected steps on a clear path, just like I’d wanted at his age. In December, I hadn’t been worried about Aiden getting into Ignatius. That’s why he’d applied to only one high school. But now? He was just some average kid with a dead father and no economic influence, as Neutron Melanie had so clearly illustrated to me. He needed to get into Ignatius now more than he did a month ago.

  But first he had to nail the standardized test.

  “Yes, you do have to do the tutoring. You want to go to Igna
tius, right?”

  Aiden shrugged. Didn’t he want to go to Ignatius? Of course he did. Merritt had been taking him to Ignatius football games since he was little. He loved his Ignatius T-shirt. It was his dream to play water polo for Ignatius, wasn’t it?

  “Aiden, I know right now it may not seem that important, but next September, you’ll be glad you made the effort.” I could see by the look on his face that “next September” might as well be a million years away. He clicked the unmute button. The conversation was over.

  The Shelly Show was back. Is your teen sexting while at school? Tune in at 10 and see what’s really happening on your child’s cell phone.

  Hey, Shelly, F-U! Try this promo: Is your husband sexting me while driving? Watch out for that panda at 10 o’clock!

  Oh my God, did I just say that out loud?

  “Mom, are you okay? You were talking to yourself.”

  “Lots on my mind. More enchiladas?”

  CHAPTER 5

  “I have to be honest. I have nothing for you, because you’re not really qualified for anything at the executive level, even junior executive,” said Elizabeth Maxwell, a tall, striking African-American woman in her early 30s. I was mesmerized by the most beautiful family photo I have ever seen, displayed prominently on her sparkling desk in her sparkling office at Maxwell and Mathers Executive Search, Inc. Elizabeth’s cool voice forced me to focus. “I have out-of-work MBAs who can’t even get interviews for entry-level jobs. There’s nothing on your resume that screams, ‘Hire me.’”

  The only reason she didn’t hoot and howl at my situation was because I was a friend of Tina’s and a fellow Millington mom. The new widow bit was a plus, too. Her use of the word “resume” was the tip-off. My “resume” consisted of a list of charity activities compiled by me and jacked up by Tina to make my years as a mother, wife and community volunteer sound like actual work experience. My time on the decorating committee became “design and branding expertise.” Tina transformed my years as room mother into a position requiring “team-building skills” and “negotiating contracts.” (With whom? The charter bus company for field trips?) And the many charity dollars I brought in for various organizations were re-purposed as “raising capital” and “budgeting P&L.” My abandoned graduate studies at Berkeley had been redefined as “master’s track coursework.” The woman on the paper was someone with a career.

  I had never had a career.

  I had nothing to “go back to” but a half-finished thesis. I had no law firm like Tina or marketing department like Neutron Melanie to return to on a part-time basis. Instead of building a career in my twenties, I was building a family: getting married at 25, having Aiden at 27, happily staying home and being a mother. Now I was trying to pretend that all those experiences amounted to a job.

  All those experiences amounted to a life, but not a job.

  Even my new Banana Republic suit (on sale in size 8!) felt a little ginned-up for the occasion; I never wore tailored shirts or stockings during the day. And the bright pink silk scarf around my neck? Tina said it would make me look younger.

  “If you refuse to use fillers like the rest of the women in town, then you’ll have to do something to cover up that neck!”

  I’d rejected the traditional 40th birthday gifts of Botox, Restalyne or tummy-tuck surgery in favor of a nice dinner with friends. Tina had thought I was crazy. Apparently, my punishment was this scarf. I thought it screamed “Clinique Salesgirl at Bonus Time,” but what did I know?

  Elizabeth Maxwell was not fooled by the resume or the outfit, but she was kind. “I‘ve seen a lot of women like you in the past few years, going back to work after the kids get older. Maybe they need money for college or the husband has lost a job or taken a pay cut. Honestly, your prospects are really grim. You’re capable of doing a job in marketing or communications. And I think your real-life experience is worth as much as any MBA. But corporate America doesn’t see it that way. You’ll end up making less than your housekeeper.”

  Not for long, because I have to let Emilia go, but I knew she was right.

  As I studied the young, successful Elizabeth Maxwell, I wished for the hundredth time since Merritt’s death that I could have a do-over of the last fifteen years. Obviously, I would never trade Aiden, but why wasn’t I more ambitious for myself? Don’t cry. Do not cry.

  “Do you have any advice?” I squeaked out, hoping I didn’t sound too pathetic.

  “You’ve done a lot of volunteer work at the Huntington. Maybe there’s something there in the development office or public relations. They know you, so your dedication to the institution will make up for your lack of job experience. You’re bright, articulate, connected in the community. You just have no street cred in the real world. Start with the Huntington. You need to get your foot in the door and get some real experience.”

  Among the moms at school and on the sidelines at games, I’d built up a reputation as a Scholar Lite, thanks to my academic past and my hours volunteering at the Huntington. The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens—the official name, though no one in town ever called it anything but the Huntington—housed one of the finest rare book and document collections in the world, in addition to spectacular gardens and a first-class art and furniture collection. The Huntington was established on the former estate of Henry Huntington, railroad baron and book collector, and his lovely wife, Arabella, philanthropist and visionary garden designer. It stood on a marvelous piece of property on the border of Pasadena and San Marino, a quieter, even higher tax bracket to the south.

  In addition to being a tremendous public space, the Huntington was a world-class research facility, thanks to the rare books and papers in its collection. Only select scholars were granted access to the collections for research. They repaid the Huntington by giving lectures on their esoteric areas of study. I served them tea and cookies.

  Over the past ten years, I’d worked my way up the volunteer food chain, from Preschool Docent to Scholar Hospitality, by virtue of the fact that I was a quasi-academic and about 25 years younger than most of the other volunteers. The lovely retiree volunteers tended to talk the ears off the visiting scholars and curators, so my attentiveness minus the need to tell everyone about my grandchildren made me a favorite to staff the public lecture series. Tea and cookies were always served to those who could attend the midday talks. Sometimes, I was even allowed to introduce the speakers, giving out their long lists of credentials as if I was their equal. I loved it.

  For the mothers at school, I did my own lecture series. I could take an hour-long lecture by a Distinguished Fellow of Historical Minutiae at Impressive East Coast University and boil it down to a couple of salient facts for busy women who didn’t have time to go to talks on a Wednesday afternoon. Sociability in the British Enlightenment (Who knew the entire study of science started with well-connected British guys who could entertain the ladies with amusing stories of the natural world!); the Reign of Charles I (Disastrous king! The George Bush of England. Pious, but bloody. Executed as a result of civil war!); Money Talks: Commerce, Classics and Taste in Late Imperial China (Wow, those women of the Ming dynasty were every bit as label-conscious and conspicuously consumptive as the Hollywood wives. Think Late Imperial In Style magazine meets Architectural Digest). Those lectures, and my retelling, kept me intellectually stimulated, staving off the boredom of motherhood. And earned me the nickname “Professor Fairchild” from the Millington mothers.

  In all the years that I’d volunteered at the Huntington, it had never occurred to me to work at the Huntington. Thank you, Elizabeth Maxwell.

  “I’m going to steal that phrase for my interview. ‘No experience but much dedication to the institution,’ that’s me!” I chirped a bit too brightly.

  “Please do.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you ever consider giving up your job when you had your kids?” I nodded toward the photo of the whole famil
y in the shallow surf in Hawaii. Two adorable girls in hibiscus print suits and Elizabeth in a big floppy hat and pareo. Cute husband, too.

  “My mom was a single mom. I believe in work.”

  “Simply put. Thanks, Elizabeth. I appreciate your advice.”

  “No problem. Will I see you at the book fair?”

  “Maybe. I could be running the development office at the Huntington by then.” I laughed. So did she.

  “Yes, you could.”

  “Mom, what are you doing here?” Aiden said, climbing into my Audi wagon in the carpool line. “And why are you dressed like that?”

  I had to hand it to him. He could be very observant when he wanted to be, just not when looking for his backpack or water polo gear.

  “I am here to pick you up. It’s time for me to get back into the world,” I declared, slowly pulling away from the curb, grateful that I didn’t bash into the SUV in front of me that suddenly stopped. “And I have just come from my first career counseling session.”

  “What career?”

  “Yes, exactly, what career? I believe you are more qualified to get a job than I am. At least you have your lifeguarding certification.” I looked over at Aiden, who was smiling for the first time in three weeks. I went with it. “Would you mind dropping out of school and lifeguarding to support us?’

  “No problem. As long as I get to drive Dad’s BMW to the pool.” And we both laughed, really laughed, together for the first time since Merritt’s death.

  Then, Aiden asked me the question that I’d been preparing to answer every night when I lay in bed and prayed for guidance.