Helen of Pasadena

by Lian Dolan

  “Hard at work already, I see.”

  Aiden had taught me his trick of switching web pages quickly when busted by a teacher during study hall, so I brought up the Huntington home page to hide my real activities. I don’t think I fooled the great archaeologist.

  “Just getting oriented,” I offered up, hoping to sound as if I had previous experience in this position and knew the ropes. “Do you want some coffee? And I brought some scones from a terrific local bakery down the street. Cranberry Orange. May I get you one?”

  Oh, for God’s sake, I sounded like a hostess in the first-class passenger lounge. Where was my snappy hat? Shut the hell up, Helen!

  “Wow, usually my research assistants are too hungover from a late night of dancing and drinking to bring baked goods.”

  “Well, you know, I’m a single mother. My drinking and dancing days are over. I am up early, now that everything is my responsibility. The bills, selling my house, raising my son. I just think that nothing beats fresh coffee and a good breakfast. That’s what I tell my 13-year-old. I mean, minus the coffee. Though sometimes, I do make him a little café au lait in the morning, especially since his father just died. I’m trying to create that moment of connection for the two of us, so he doesn’t sniff glue and drop out of school.”

  That really could not have gone worse. I think the only thing I declined to mention about my life was my failed attempt at grad school. That would probably come out by lunch.

  “So, scone, Dr. O’Neill?”

  “If you feel that strongly about scones, sure, I’ll have one. And you can call me Patrick when it’s just the two of us. No need to be formal here.”

  “I apologize. I’m nervous. I haven’t done this in a while.” I replied, handing him a cup of coffee and plate with scone, jam, butter and a cloth napkin. “Worked, I mean. Not… served scones.”

  “Understood.” Dr. Patrick O’Neill did appear to understand, judging by the sympathetic smile on his face. “Let me get settled in and then we can go over your responsibilities. And what I’m looking for.”

  “Roger. Check. Okay.”

  So much for my action plan.

  “Oh, and I’m sorry about your husband. Sarah told me about your situation. My condolences.” Patrick gave me a nod, indicating that he did not expect a response other than ‘thank you.’

  Of course Sarah White, in her dulcet tones, had said something. So that’s what I was: a situation.

  “Thank you.”

  By noon, Patrick had explained the expectations he held for this new research: absolutely none. As far as he was concerned, the next several months in California amounted to little more than a paid vacation and a chance to raise the money that his foundation desperately needed to continue his research at Troy by tapping into a new pool of donors. The Schliemann notebooks, touted by Karen as “a highly valuable source of new information on what might have been destroyed in the original excavation,” were, in his words, “a boatload of uniformed musings by a guy who didn’t know jack about archaeology.”

  “Rudy was young and inexperienced, and he never really took to archaeology. He became an engineer. He knew even less about preserving the site than his uncle. Hack and dig was their method. They dug a trench across the entire site at Troy with men and pick-axes. Even if he had seen something important, Rudy Schliemann would not have recognized it as such. Heinrich Schliemann plowed under thousands of years of archaeological evidence to get to what he thought was Troy. That evidence is gone forever. I don’t expect there will be anything in those notebooks I can really use, except a few colorful anecdotes about ol’ Uncle Heinrich, which are always helpful at fundraising cocktail parties. But the idea that there could be some truly important revelations about the site is pretty far-fetched,” Patrick said. “Still, the Huntington gave me the money and wanted me to come and check out the notebooks, so here I am.”

  And there went my chance for archaeological redemption. At least now I didn’t have to stress so much about my personal body oils jeopardizing an entire academic discipline. Just then, his iPhone came alive with the ring tone “Dig” by Incubus, which I thought was pretty clever, and I thought I was pretty clever to know, thanks to my 13-year-old.

  “You better dig it,” I said, in what I vowed would be my last archaeological pun. And I excused myself to clear the scone plates, resuming my comfortable role as helpmate now that my brilliant career appeared to be over before it had begun.

  I heard Nubby Sweater’s voice change. It was definitely a woman.

  “Yup, I’m ready. See you then.” Patrick hung up and continued on with me, no explanation offered. I hated that. Not that I had any business knowing Patrick’s business. It used to drive me crazy when Merritt would take a long call without any explanation, and now this guy. As it turns out, maybe I should have asked a few more questions about Merritt’s calls.

  “So, Helen, here’s the deal. Let’s scan the notebooks, see what’s in there, transcribe the stuff, but don’t kill yourself. Glad to have your assistance for the grunt work.” Patrick sat casually back on the couch, stretching out his legs and conversing with complete confidence in his theory about the notebooks. He was treating me like a colleague. No wonder his students adored him enough to keep up his Wikipedia page.

  Oh, maybe there was a Patrick O’Neill Facebook fan page! I should check at lunch.

  I continued clearing the coffee mugs, trying to hide my curiosity about him and his phone call. “It’s just that Karen made the discovery of these notebooks seem so critical to your work.”

  Patrick laughed and, my God, he had some great looking creases around his eyes, the result of two decades on site in the glaring Turkish sun searching for history. “Karen is a librarian! She thinks every old piece of papyrus holds an ancient secret. That’s why she spends her days in temperature-controlled catacombs. Some old stuff is only valuable because it’s old, not because it’s important.”

  “Well maybe there’s something in there that’s useful.” I offered in my most hopeful, Tina-like optimism.

  “Maybe. Knock yourself out.”

  Just then a familiar voice rang out. “Hello, it’s me. Patrick?” Sarah White swept into the cottage, looking stunning as usual, in a terrific navy blue suit, white scoop-neck sweater and the sort of large, chunky cut-glass necklace that I would have neither the guts nor the height to pull off. So … Sarah White, available divorcée, was the mystery woman. Maybe she was just welcoming him on his first day of research, an official obligation, not social at all. After all, her work in PR was tied to high-profile projects, like what were now being called the Schliemann Journals.

  Why did I care?

  “Helen, congratulations on your first day. This project is so perfect for you and so fascinating. Patrick told me all about his work on Saturday night. We went to the Steak House. Big fillets, great booths. I love it there. Anyway, he filled me in on the intriguing notebooks while we shared the fillet for two. Are you settling in?”

  Okay, not official at all. Definitely social, which may have accounted for Sarah’s dramatic jewelry on a Monday, the day the Library was closed to the public and most employees dressed down. Sarah was bedazzled by Dr. O’Neill. Well, apparently he hadn’t told her what he’d told me about the notebooks. Patrick let her believe what the Huntington wanted to believe. He knew how to play the game. And so did I, thanks to so many years with Merritt. Score one for the research assistant.

  “I feel lucky to be here. Really looking forward to the next couple of months. Thanks for everything, Sarah.”

  And then, after a big smile to me, Sarah gave Patrick an awkward kiss on the cheek. Patrick responded stiffly, then gathered up his phone, his computer and his cashmere scarf.

  “Are you ready, Patrick?” Sarah asked, turning her back to me and making it very clear that I was not invited. “We’re off to that La Estrella place. I love the food there, too!’

  Liar, liar pants on fire. Sarah White had never voluntarily eaten a taco in h
er whole privileged life, unless it was prepared by Wolfgang Puck and served on catering china. She was after this guy big-time if she was willing to risk an outdoor taco stand for him. Well, fine. I had work to do, anyway.

  “Do you want to come with us, Helen? You must know exactly what to order.” Patrick asked, completely unaware of the look of shock on Sarah’s newly unlined face. Recent trip to the derm?

  “I’m going to get right at those notebooks. Plus, I brought my lunch!” I said, waving about my bright pink lunch bag, a table gift from a breast cancer fundraising fashion show last fall. Nothing says “downsizing” like a brown-bag lunch. Or in my case, a pink bag lunch.

  “You’re so thrifty, Helen. Good for you! Let’s go, Patrick.”

  Sarah White! Who knew she could play hardball like that?

  “Helen, I may not be back this afternoon. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for the scones.” And with that, my new boss left me alone in my office/honeymoon suite.

  I had three more hours to kill, I mean work, before I could go pick up Aiden. Maybe there was something in those notebooks.

  The sound of my cell phone snapped me out of my scanning stupor. I was so enjoying the slow, rhythmic monotony of the DSP that I’d completely lost all sense of time. It was Candy.

  “Hi. I’m at work!” I announced.

  She whooped an inappropriately high-energy whoop, like I’d just announced winning the lottery, followed by, “So …”

  “So?”

  “So is he married? What’s the scoop?”

  “Oh, I thought you cared about my professional fulfillment, but you just want the dirt. So to speak.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “No photos of gorgeous wives or girlfriends, no phone calls from Athens, no incriminating faxes. But he did appear to go out on a date with Sarah White. And now they are out to lunch together,” I reported to my gossip columnist friend—then immediately regretted my choice of words. Oh my God, what if Candy put that in her column this week? “Candy, please don’t print that.”

  “I wouldn’t. Nobody knows who he is, and Sarah White has been mentioned a lot lately, and she’s starting to annoy me with her perfect hair. You’re lucky I’m tired of her. But that’s the only one of those you’ll get. Don’t tell me stuff you don’t want me to use.” I knew she was joking. I think. “Anyway, I thought Sarah White and Tiny Tim Winston were an item.”

  “Tiny” Tim Winston was a short but world-renowned thoracic surgeon who was business partners with Candy’s second ex-husband, a short but world-renowned cardiologist, Sam Kennedy. Candy and Sam’s six-year marriage had produced two beautiful children, Mariah and Ian, and many hours of ranting and raving. Candy was not cut out to be a doctor’s wife; she couldn’t take the long, lonely nights and the weekends on call. And Sam Kennedy was not cut out to be anybody’s husband; he liked the ladies. They were the happiest divorced couple I’d ever seen. You’d never know that they were not together unless you'd seen the moving van come and take Candy’s white furniture to her new place on the other side of the Rose Bowl. At the kids’ birthday parties, basketball games and holiday programs, Sam and Candy came together and behaved better than most married couples.

  I’m sure Candy and Sam still slept together, too, but she had too much pride to let that slip.

  I think her interest in my archaeologist was really for my benefit, to get me back in the swing of things. “I don’t know about Sarah and Tiny Tim, but I can tell you, off the record, that Sarah claimed to love tacos, just to get him to go to lunch with her.”

  “Quelle horreur!” Candy said, using the only French phrase she knew besides mon Dieu. “Why don’t you just ask him if he’s married?’

  I didn’t know why. If Merritt had been alive, if I’d been a wife instead of a widow, I would have had no qualms about sussing out his marital status. But now it seemed safer to be ignorant than informed. “It seems so personal.”

  “Right, and we wouldn’t want to get personal! You’ve been a Fairchild too long!”

  I looked at my computer screen. It was time to get Aiden. “Maybe. I have to finish up here. Talk to you later, Candy.”

  “Bye, sweetie. Hang in there.” Click.

  Day one of work had come to a close. I hadn’t thought of Merritt and Shelley Sleazy in six hours.

  Victory.

  CHAPTER 8

  Millington School was built on the grounds of an old tuberculosis sanatorium in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley. The restored complex, built in the latter part of the 19th century, once housed respiratory patients who had relocated to Pasadena seeking relief with clean air and never-ending sunshine. The sanatorium fell into disrepair in the ’20s and stood empty for a decade, until Eustice Millington snapped up the property to create a K through 8 private school, just like the fine academies on the East Coast. Now that the air quality in Pasadena qualified as some of the worst in the country, it was the perfect spot for young children to learn, to thrive and to stay indoors at recess during fire season. Millington was more than 75 years old, ancient by California standards, and every time I entered the gates and drove around the circular drive, the perfect beauty of the place struck me.

  Schools like Millington did not exist in central Oregon: ornate stucco buildings with a touch of Mediterranean flair, open-air courtyards and wisteria-covered walkways between classrooms, acres of manicured playing fields and jungle gyms, all surrounded by groves of olive and orange trees. Like so many places in Pasadena, Millington was camera-ready all the time.

  Every year in February, the Millington moms put on the week-long Word-Write Fest, a high-minded fundraiser that included theater performances, a public-speaking competition among the students, big-time author signings, a lecture series and, of course, the sale of thousands and thousands of dollars of books. The event was so well respected that even the other schools in the area attended the lectures. Signs outside the gates announced this year’s theme: Mysteries Revealed!

  I was going to swing by a committee meeting for a few minutes before picking up Aiden. I’d been in charge of Word-Write when Aiden was in lower school, and now I held a sort of emeritus position, using my acquired know-how to help with any crises that arose. Chairing Word-Write had been my entrée into the upper echelons of Millington moms. When I got the call from the head of the Millington Parents Association (MPA), asking me if I was interested in running Word-Write, I was thrilled. Even Merritt was impressed.

  “Helen, we have full confidence in you. You seem to read a lot of books,” Nan Mitchellson, the MPA president, had told me over the phone, without a trace of irony. “You could really add something to this event.”

  I threw myself into organizing a dynamic week of authors and speakers like I was mounting a presidential campaign. Our theme that year was “The Final Frontier,” and I scored a huge coup by securing the local glamorous geek squad at the Jet Propulsion Lab, the team that had just landed the Rover on Mars a few weeks before the event. The project manager went live to Mars onstage with some of the first pictures of the Red Planet, a Word-Write coup that garnered national press attention. Needless to say, the presentation was a huge hit and secured my place in the pantheon of Word-Write chairs. Along with the Rover, I booked astronauts and science-fiction writers with abandon. Astronaut Sally Ride did a special panel for middle-school girls on pursuing their science dreams. Ray Bradbury thrilled or upset the parents, depending upon their party affiliation, by comparing the Bush Administration to the Firemen of Fahrenheit 451. And of course, we sold thousands of dollars of books, a new event record.

  Nowadays, the Word-Write Fest happens in the Fairchild Performing Arts Center, a gift from Merritt and myself during a capital campaign and after a particularly good year in 2006. We made the donation in honor of Merritt’s parents, and Mitsy had stolen the show on the day of the dedication. She attended the ceremony dressed like a modern-day Queen Elizabeth and declared that the next 100 years at Millington would outshine the Elizabethan Age. Frank
ly, I thought that was quite a bit of pressure to put on a bunch of fourth graders and their underpaid English teachers, but I said nothing. She was in her element, on stage in the spotlight.

  More than once since Merritt’s death, I wished I had that donation back. But money doesn’t work like that.

  As I strolled through the Millington campus, I could feel myself start to relax. I was at home here. I knew the secret code to the office copier. I had a key to the supply closet on my key ring. I even knew where the Diet Coke stash for the staff (and me) was hidden. I welcomed the waves and nods of the mothers lingering in the courtyard, waiting for their little guys. There was Hattie Thompson and Cheryl Knowles, both super-skinny runners who were constantly in training for something. I mouthed hello to Donna and Shihfeng, chatting away in Mandarin, the chess club moms who used trays of orange chicken and pork dumplings to lure kids to practice after school. Camille Dryer was violating the “no cell phone in the courtyard” policy, speaking loudly enough for all of us to hear about her kitchen remodel. Even the headmistress Adele Arnett wandered through the courtyard at that moment.

  Adele gave me a swift hug, her good tweed jacket smelling like Chanel No. 5 and Play-Doh. “I’ve just been in with the kindergarten. They get cuter every year. Do you have a second? I was going to call you today.”

  “Sure, I’m on my way to a Word-Write meeting, and then I’ll swing by your office. Will you still be here?”