Helen of Pasadena

by Lian Dolan

  For someone with multiple ex-husbands and personal scandals attached to her name, Candy was surprisingly free of issues. If she thought I needed help, maybe I did need help.

  Damn.

  I had been so focused on Aiden, I never thought to consider myself. I’d even tried to talk Aiden into a summer camp for grieving teens but he smirked, “Yeah. Sounds fun, hanging out with a bunch of kids with dead parents.”

  Maybe I was the one who needed a summer camp? I didn’t even know where to start. I leaned up against my car and pretended to stretch out my calves.

  “Merritt’s sisters are cleaning out his closet today. I can’t even face his blue blazers. How can I face all …” I hung my head. “… all the rest of it?” “I’ll call around and get some names. Somebody good and experienced in grief counseling.”

  It surprised me that she would use that term. Candy had been so harsh about Merritt and the affair. It was almost like she was admitting that she had judged the situation too quickly. Had I, too?

  “Just talk to somebody a couple of times. It couldn’t hurt. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Candy climbed into her SUV and started the engine. Beyonce came blasting through the speakers. “You wanna be my date at the Symphony Gala this weekend? The PR person gave me an extra ticket. I bet Mitsy will be there. And maybe some nice older single gentlemen. And I do mean older!” Candy back to being Candy.

  “Darn. I’ll be at a water polo tournament. Have some sherry for me.” Me back to being me.

  “Will do. Cheers, doll.” And off roared my good friend.

  The office was quiet except for the low hum of the scanner and the sound of the radio in background. With Patrick out of town, I used the opportunity to wear jeans, listen to NPR and think about what Candy had said. Normally I was the type of person to over-think every decision, researching and mulling over a situation ad nauseum before acting.

  But since Merritt’s death, I’d done the complete opposite, reacting quickly, even rashly. I thought that was what I needed to do. Get the finances in order now, grieve later. Was I wrong?

  Maybe I should talk to someone. Just because my mother made a full-time job of therapy didn’t mean that I had to spend the next two decades finding myself. I bet a few quick sessions would do the trick. Or, I could start by opening up a few of the books about grief that Monsignor had sent over. I was a freshman in college the last time I read Kübler-Ross. I was lost in thought, completely ignoring Document Scanning Protocol Rule Number One: Focus on the work.

  That’s when I heard a terrible tearing sound.

  Oh, shit. I’d turned Page 122 of Notebook VI too quickly and torn it slightly. Okay, maybe more than slightly. Maybe three-fourths of the way down the page. Damn, damn, damn.

  What if Karen from Library checked the pages every day when I returned the notebooks? Please, please, please don’t let Karen from Library check the pages. I don’t want to lose this job.

  I don’t want to lose my life!

  Once, when I was 13 and was cat-sitting for our next-door neighbors, I locked one of the cats in the basement for a week by mistake. I made the illicit trip to the basement to check out the rumor that the Mills family grew shrooms down there. I expected to find boxes of dirt and fungi under Gro-lights. Instead I found the traditional crap stashed in basements: broken ornaments, old luggage, rusting barbecue grills. The Mills family did not appear to be shroom farmers, just pack rats.

  After my sleuthing, Snowball went missing. Six cats accounted for, one cat MIA. I just kept putting food in the Snowball bowl and pretending that he was eating, because I was too terrified to tell anybody that I’d lost Snowball. When the neighbors returned, they heard him mewing wildly from the basement and found an emaciated Snowball curled up with the Christmas decorations. I played dumb, as if Snowball had been bouncing around all week and must have just gotten trapped in the basement on his own.

  It was such a mystery, Mrs. Mills kept repeating. How did he get in the locked basement? Despite the clear trauma to Snowball, they bought my story. Stupid hippies. Maybe they were growing shrooms. I have felt guilty ever since.

  My plan with the ripped notebook page would be the same as the Snowball Incident. Play dumb. Deny all allegations. The notebook was already ripped when I scanned it, that was going to be my line. Wait? Can they do carbon-testing to determine the age of the tear? I was so screwed.

  Just then somebody knocked on the door and I was 13 again. The irrational thought of Karen hearing the rip clear across the Huntington grounds zoomed through my stressed-out brain.

  “Umm, just a second,” I yelled in a shaky voice. I knocked over a tasteful leather pencil holder and a box of extra-large paper clips in a rush to hide Notebook Number Five. I shoved the notebook under the couch pillows, readjusting the fleece throw to hide the bump. My heart was pounding.

  Relax, relax. Was that breathing at the door?

  Another knock, this time louder. “Helen, are you in there?’

  Thank God, it was Sarah White, not Karen. I could feel my heart rate slow. I flopped down on the couch, hoping Sarah would buy my casual repose. “Oh, sure, Sarah, come on in!”

  She entered cautiously, looking around the cottage for signs of Patrick. When it was clear the true objective of her visit was absent, she focused on me, lounging on the couch in the middle of a workday, no work nearby. Her face registered disgust. “What are you doing?”

  I popped up, praying that the notebook did not fall to the floor. “Just taking a break. Want some coffee?”

  “No, thanks.” That was a relief because I didn’t have any made and my hands were shaking so much, I wouldn’t have been able to measure out the beans. “I’m looking for Patrick. Is he around?”

  So, Patrick hadn’t told Sarah about his trip to Santa Barbara? Perfect. Now I was on the hot seat. “No, he isn’t. I don’t expect him in for the rest of the week.”

  Yes! That was good assistant language. Very neutral, but indicating that I am not at liberty to discuss.

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  “Why? Where is he?” Now Sarah White wasn’t playing fair. Conundrum. If I told her where he was and she tried to track him down, he might get annoyed. But if I pretended I didn’t know and Sarah found out that I did know when he returned, she would get annoyed. So, I opted for the halfway solution.

  “He’s working in Santa Barbara. He’ll be back on Monday. That’s why I have to get back to work.” I loosely pointed my desk, hoping Sarah wouldn’t notice that there was no actual work on the desk because I’d stuffed my one allowed notebook under the couch to hide its disfigurement.

  “What is he working on in Santa Barbara?”

  I shrugged my shoulders in a dramatic fashion, “Bronze Age trade routes. He has my cell phone for an emergency, but I don’t have his.” There, I think I shut down that line of inquiry.

  Not so fast. Sarah did not seem entirely satisfied. She moved in closer. “I noticed you two were gone all afternoon yesterday. Field trip?”

  Was Sarah White stalking my boss? “Lunch, a long lunch. Patrick has been filling me in on all his research so I’m up to speed. Helps me to put this project in context,” I explained, quite satisfied with my tone. “It’s taken a few days, but now I’m fully on board.”

  Lots of good mumbo jumbo in there. I sounded like a pro.

  Sarah was now circling Patrick’s desk, pretending she wasn’t reading the few papers left there. “You know, we’ve been out a few times. Has he mentioned me”

  Now it was Sarah’s turn to act 13.

  “We’ve just been talking about Troy. I don’t ask a lot of personal questions. That’s not the relationship I have with Patrick.”

  “Of course not,” Sarah bristled, brushing imaginary lint off her tailored cream-colored suit. “I thought I just might come up, you know, in the course of conversation.”

  If this is going steady in midlife, it doesn’t seem much different than going steady in middle
school. That depressed me. “He doesn’t say much about his private life.”

  “You know his ex-wife is Susanna Ashford, the fabric designer? Marimekko and Laura Ashley rolled into one? Apparently, they fell madly in love for about six months and had a child, but then she fled back to London when she realized that Patrick cared more about his work than her work.”

  Of course he’d been married to Susanna Ashford! Why wouldn’t he have a fabulous first wife? That explains the dirt and the creature comforts comment to Ted at the bar. Still, I was shocked that Patrick would reveal something so … so self-aware to Sarah over tacos. “He told you that?”

  “Oh, not all of it. Just that he had a daughter. So I googled Cassandra O’Neill, the daughter, which led me to Susanna Ashford, which led me to an interview with her in The Guardian. She didn’t mention Patrick by name, but when she said ‘my first husband, the archaeologist,’ I knew it was him. Apparently he inspired her new line of bedding. The ancient design, I mean, not the concept of sheets.”

  That was a relief. I didn’t really want Patrick opening up to Sarah, but I didn’t know why. I felt a little disloyal, so I added, “He’s an interesting man. I’m sure you have a lot in common.”

  That was nice of me.

  Apparently, Sarah didn’t think so.

  “I’ll let you get back to your work,” Sarah said. My loyalty dissipated. “If he calls, can you tell him I stopped by?”

  And once Sarah White made her exit, I got back to my “work,” trying to minimize the damage I’d done to the notebook. I remembered what Patrick had said: objects are not inherently valuable because they are old. Or something like that.

  Maybe these notebooks would really turn out to be useless. That would be great.

  I was propped up in bed, trying to transcribe the scanned documents. It was slow going trying to slop through Rudy’s century-old handwriting. I was about halfway through the first notebook, a fairly tedious description of the logistics of the trip to Troy. Train, boat, caravan. Even a detailed packing list, which I’m sure some scholar would find fascinating, but not me. It didn’t look that much different than Aiden’s list for summer camp.

  Except the dried venison jerky that Rudy Schliemann was taking by the barrelful.

  Though the transcription was painful, I was finally putting to use that typing course my guidance counselor had made me take in high school. “Just in case that Latin thing doesn’t work out,” Miss Tetherow had winked, bedecked in a burnt-orange pants suit, trying her Mary Tyler Moore best even in central Oregon.

  I felt a little nauseated when I realized that maybe Miss Tetherow was right.

  I closed the computer and shut off the bedside lamp. A glow came from the closet, now half empty. I’d taken to sleeping with the light on. I pretended that it was for Aiden, in case he wanted to come in at night and sleep on the floor. But it was for me, too.

  Being scared of the dark was a new feeling for me.

  I turned on the light, opened my laptop and started typing up more of the transcribed journal. What the … ? All of a sudden, Rudy’s description of packing lists turned to his fantasies about the young Sophia Schliemann and what she might be wearing when he arrived on site. Or not wearing, that is, as he described her “naked, slender ankles, absent of boot or stocking.”

  Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, you bad boy, you.

  CHAPTER 11

  Aiden and I had debated the merits of a shirt and tie most of the morning. I thought he should wear one for the Ignatius interview. He disagreed. “Mom, it looks like I’m trying too hard,” he argued.

  “A shirt and tie simply says you care. You’ll have to wear one every day for four years when you get in. What’s the big deal about wearing one to the interview?” I hissed in that special mother hiss. Honestly, his moods were all over the place these days—understandable, given what he’d been through. But why, why, why pick a fight over a shirt and tie? I pulled the car into the school parking lot, observing the high ratio of Mini Coopers and old Volvos in the student spaces.

  Compared to the lush, green surroundings of Millington, Ignatius was as urban as Pasadena could manage. The old stone buildings, originally a Jesuit seminary and retirement home constructed in the 1920s, were covered in ivy and jammed up against a freeway onramp. A small chapel, with a stained-glass window featuring the names of Jesuit colleges, stood off to the right. The pool and sports fields rolled out beyond the chapel, an endless rectangular strip of green and concrete alongside the freeway. A brand-new football stadium, complete with a million-dollar turf field, press box and deluxe locker rooms, was at the far south end of the campus. (One very loyal, very successful former third-string quarterback had donated the entire stadium. Benchwarmer’s revenge, Merritt had laughed at the dedication ceremony.)

  The campus was not beautiful, but it reeked of tradition: the broad stone steps in front where students gathered in the morning; the worn wooden crucifix touched for luck by a thousand boys a day as they entered the gates; the drafty dining hall where the seniors lead grace before meals. Ignatius, despite its Catholic heritage, was the closest Southern California came to the elitist prep schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The big difference was that it wasn’t actually elitist.

  The children of the rich, the poor, the immigrants and the powerful of all colors and creeds came to Ignatius from all over Los Angeles County. Long before prep schools grew endowments to cover financial aid for needy students, Ignatius had prided itself on a “write the check” admissions policy. If the son of a gardener or cop or mechanic was deemed qualified to attend, some alum would simply write the tuition check on behalf of that student for four years. It started 60 years ago with Father Michael at the helm and continued today with Father Raphael. The beloved Jesuit would scan the alumni directory and pick up the phone. The lawyer or real estate mogul or judge would never meet the kid he sponsored. And the student hoped to someday repay the debt in the same way. It was quiet and discreet, and it built the most loyal alumni in the area. Most Ignatius Crusaders considered their high school allegiance to be even deeper than their college or fraternity connection.

  I wanted Aiden to have that connection. I felt like I could still give him that, even if so much else in his life had changed.

  As I redid my lipstick in the rearview mirror, I took one last stab at Aiden. What was wrong with him? “It would be a sign of respect to school tradition to wear a tie.”

  “Fine. Just… whatever, fine.” And he put on the tie and a dramatic scowl.

  Super, I noted to myself. Terrific day to come down with Attitude.

  And it got worse from there.

  Hank Pfister, the director of admissions, ushered us into his cramped office. Humility in all things, the needlepoint pillow on the couch advised. So I’ve learned lately, I thought.

  “So Aiden, what are you reading in English this quarter?” Mr. Pfister offered up as his first question. I knew that he knew exactly what an eighth grade student at Millington would be reading this quarter: Romeo & Juliet and To Kill a Mockingbird. Twenty-five boys from Millington had applied to Ignatius; Aiden was the last to be interviewed. Only about a half-dozen would get in. Aiden was a legacy and a decent kid who had just lost his dad, but his grades were not good. He needed this interview. I got the sense that Hank Pfister knew that, too.

  I appreciated the softball question.

  “Umm, umm …” Aiden started, not looking up from the floor for a second of eye contact. Then the fidgeting began, leading to the chair twisting. “Umm, Romeo and, umm, Juliet. That’s pretty good. And then that one about the lawyer dude defending the African American guy. The Mockingbird one.”

  The lawyer dude? Shakespeare is “pretty good”? Who is this kid?

  “Oh, Aiden,” I fake-laughed, hoping to diffuse the growing discomfort in the room. “I’m glad you think William Shakespeare is pretty good.”

  “Tough audience,” Hank Pfister responded, playfully jerking his head toward my son. God bless you, Mr. Pfi
ster.

  Then playtime ended.

  “If you can’t understand a single word the guy writes, how great can he be?” Aiden snapped, his voice full of defiant energy now. “I could read that crap all day long and still it wouldn’t make any sense. What’s the point?”

  There is no sound in the world quite as deafening as the sound of all hope leaving a room. Please, Aiden, please pull it together. But I could see that he was just getting started with his Angry Young Man phase.

  We struggled through another ten minutes of questions and answers. Even the routine questions about water polo failed to elicit a civil response from my son. Eventually, it was Mr. Pfister and me talking about Aiden while Aiden checked his imaginary watch. We carried on the charade, including handshakes and wishes of good luck, until the end of the interview, but we all knew one thing for sure: This Aiden was not Ignatius material.

  My mother was very good at silence. It was her greatest parenting asset. Of course, it made me crazy as a kid when she would call out in front of my friends for “a moment of silence and meditation” if we got into an argument over the rusty trampoline in our backyard. “Let’s all close our eyes and take a deep breath. Exhale the dark energy,” my long-haired mother in the flowing skirt would instruct my bewildered church-going friends. “Breathe in the light.”

  She would remain very still for about a minute while my friends tried not to laugh and I tried not to die of embarrassment. Then, she’d return to the moment with a big smile and a solution. I think the solution was that the horror of the mediation made everyone involved in the “dark energy” completely forget what the fight was about. Nevertheless, we were all calmer and the trampoline play continued without incident or need for further meditation.