Helen of Pasadena Page 17

  I was getting angry. Who did this guy think he was? “Because you wasted your time?”

  “No,” he said, looking straight into my eyes. “Because I wasted your time.”

  Now I felt like the idiot. I barely knew what to say.

  “Patrick, the last month wasn’t wasted. Truly. It was the fifteen years before that I wasted. But not the last month.”

  Silence. A big, fat, I-can’t-believe-I-said-that silence.

  Then, the familiar call of Sarah White, Press Officer with Extraordinarily Bad Timing. “Yoo-hoo! C’est moi.”

  I instinctively smoothed out Work Outfit #6 and fluffed my hair. Patrick recovered without any grooming necessary. “Come on in!”

  Sarah glided into the cottage. “I hope I’m not interrupting any important research. Or maybe I do, because that’s what I came to ask you about.” She laughed at her own joke, mostly from nerves.

  Patrick rebounded quickly, ease seeping back into his manner, almost as if he was relieved at Sarah’s appearance. “What can we help you with, Sarah?”

  “I just got a call from someone at that TV channel, the history one. I had to rush right over. From a producer on a new show called The Dirty Archaeologist! Isn’t that a great title? So racy!”

  “And they’d like me to co-host?” Patrick deadpanned. I laughed, despite the fact that I wanted to be mad at Patrick. Not that he deserved my anger. But it was a conditioned response, from years of post-tiff silent treatment with Merritt. But I couldn’t pull it off. It felt all wrong with Patrick.

  “No, apparently they were wondering about your research. Isn’t that odd? This producer knew about the Schliemann Journals project. He said he’d heard through the grapevine that there may be some astonishing news. And they’d love to break the story on the premier episode of The Dirty Archaeologist!”

  I was dumbfounded. As far as I knew, the only conversations about the Schliemann Journals had occurred between Patrick and myself. And he didn’t even seem that interested. Who else could have known about the affair? Maybe Patrick had talked about the research to others, but it seemed unlikely. He was so focused on raising money for the foundation. Quite a mystery.

  Sarah stared at Patrick, waiting for a response. I thought her Chanel headband might pop off her head with anticipation. “Well? What’s in those journals that has The Dirty Archaeologist so, so … excited?”

  “I’m going to let Helen tell you.” Patrick leaned back in his chair for emphasis. Was this payback? Oh, yes. He wanted to put me on the spot, like I’d put him on the spot with Annabeth. “Helen. Didn’t you come bursting in here this morning to tell me something about the journals?”

  I tried not to make a mess of it. “It’s clear from the diaries that Rudolph Schliemann and his very young step-aunt, Sophia, were having a torrid affair. And once they started sleeping together, you can forget any actual information about the excavation or the archaeological methodology.” I was trying to put it delicately, for my sake more than Sarah’s. Rudy’s journals were just downright dirty. Which, of course, made me think of Annabeth and Patrick in a Trojan trench. Any kind of confidence I felt as I walked in the door that morning was gone. Kaput. Replaced by a keen awareness of my own lack of sexual prowess, despite my animal-print belt. So I stalled and then offered, “Let me just say that in the journals, there’s a lot of heaving breasts, but not too much heaving of dirt.”

  Patrick shook his head. “Wow! That’s some serious scholarship.”

  “Really!” Shock registered on Sarah’s face. Was it the shock that her high-prestige research project had devolved into ancient adult entertainment? Not exactly the sort of thing that makes great press for the Huntington. But then, Sarah Longlegs surprised me. “This is fantastic! Talk about a dirty archaeologist! I love it. We were just saying at the board meeting last week that it would be great if we had some projects here that weren’t so super stuffy. Even the director said that we need something sexy. Sounds like we’ve got one!”

  I think I blushed a tad.

  “Your hunch was right, Helen,” Patrick conceded. “But let’s be clear, it’s not exactly going to change the entire course of Trojan history. That being said, it’s worth delving into a little bit deeper. There may be something that emerges, other than heaving breasts.”

  Definitely blushed at that. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly the academic breakthrough I’d envisioned for myself, but it was something. And it had gotten Patrick’s attention.

  “Can I tell them the interview is a go? Is there enough in the journals to make for a scintillating story?” Sarah asked, staring directly at Patrick. Clearly, I was not going to be part of the PR plan. He was the telegenic Ph.D.; I was just the research assistant in khaki. “Will you be ready to shoot with them in six weeks? Can you pull something semi-academic together by then? That’s the date they need to do the interview.”

  “Will we be ready, Helen?” Patrick challenged me.

  “I’ll need to finishing scanning the journals and transcribing them, but I think I can get you up to speed on everything you need, Dr. O’Neill.”

  I added the “Doctor” for effect. It had none.

  “If Helen can finish scanning the journals and pulling some things together for me, I can make this work. We may need some extra help doing the grunt work so I can put Helen on some additional research.”

  Sarah looked very pleased. “Whatever you need. This and the benefit honor. You’ve certainly created quite a buzz for yourself, Patrick. I’ll call the producer. Get ready to get dirty. Oh, and we’ve scheduled your Distinguished Scholar lecture here at the Huntington for the middle of May, right before you go back to Athens. I’ll send you an e-mail with the date. I’ll copy Helen, too. So exciting!” With that she practically skipped out the door.

  Patrick’s delightful demeanor vanished as soon as Sarah was gone. Obviously, my secret resume was still on his mind. “We have a lot of work to do. It’s a juicy story, yes. But I’ll need to work hard to make the fact that Heinrich Schliemann was nothing but a cuckolded husband relevant to my research. I’m sure you can see that. We can’t really afford any distractions over the next few weeks.”

  By “distractions,” Patrick clearly meant long lunches with wine, drives by the ocean and make-out sessions in the parking lot. Hopefully, it meant early morning “meetings” with Annabeth, too.

  “Got it. Of course. I understand,” I said with what I hoped was a care-free, I’m cool-with-that attitude. The exact opposite of what I was feeling. “I wonder who the Dirty Archaeologist is? And how did they find out about what was in the journals?”

  Patrick crossed his arms over his chest, looking smug. “You didn’t guess?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s Annabeth. And you told her.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “You are shrinking before our very eyes. It’s like you’re a college girl in love.” Tina huffed, as we pounded around the Rose Bowl in our matching black tights, white hoodies and baseball caps.

  I colored self-consciously. I hadn’t breathed a word about my kiss with Patrick to Candy and Tina. Patrick, I maintained to all, was my boss and nothing more. Frankly, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the whole Merry Widow scenario myself. Any hint of indiscretion could get completely blown out of proportion in a town like Pasadena. Even though Candy and Tina knew about Merritt’s affair, the rest of my social circle, including my in-laws, did not. And hardliners on the subject would still want an acceptable year of mourning before any other dalliances, especially for a woman. Plus, there was Aiden, always Aiden. So what made Tina say that? Did she know somehow?

  Candy barked in agreement, “Yes. I’m sorry for your loss and all that, but look at you! Fabulous.”

  Phew, a comment about my body-fat percentage, not my guilty conscience.

  Candy continued, “Oh! I just thought of a great slide show for candysdish! Dramatic Death and Divorce Weight Loss pictures! People would love that. Have you seen Suzy Ivers? She is a stick sin
ce Bill left with his law partner. Same with Jamilla Hopkins after Beau split. Down like four sizes. I saw her in the petite section at Nordy’s the other day. Look at me, she screamed in the dressing room. I’m shopping with all the Asian women! I look like Jada Pinkett Smith! You look just as good, Helen. I have my camera in the car. Would you mind?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I was flattered, but not enough to be lumped in with Suzy Ivers. Yes, I had seen Jamilla at Whole Foods (I was just buying the store brands!) and she did look fantastic. I suspected an eye lift along with the weight loss, but I kept that to myself. Candy would put that on candysdish.com as a blind item in the “Surgeries We Suspect” column. Furthermore, Suzy had lap-band surgery post-divorce and that didn’t seem in the spirit of the Misery Weight Loss method. “This is not exactly my best look!”

  Tina agreed. “Get some shots at the benefit. You’ll be dolled up. Have you gotten your dress yet, Helen?”

  I love my friends, I thought. I truly do. But they had absolutely no idea what the last three weeks of my life had been like. It had been a rollercoaster of preparing serious academic work and navigating unusual emotional territory. Trying to analyze the Schliemann Journals and preparing all the backup material for the producers of The Dirty Archaeologist while feigning disinterest in Patrick every time he showed up in another nubby sweater (how many could one archaeologist own?) was exhausting. Throw in the everyday stress of packing, moving, working through Rita the Armenian’s punch list, fielding daily phone calls from Mitsy about Ignatius and dealing with a teenager facing an uncertain academic future, and the result was complete stress.

  Another dress size down.

  I was a machine with no time for contemplation, except for the 45 minutes where I excused myself to “take a power walk” around the gardens at work so I wouldn’t have to face the awkward lunch hour with Patrick. I was determined to adhere to the “no distractions” policy. Lunch equals distraction. So I let him go to Veritas alone while I tried to walk away my impending sense of doom:

  What if the sexy theory damages Patrick’s reputation?

  What if Annabeth uncovers flaws in my research?

  What if Patrick finds me doodling “HF hearts PO” on my notebook?

  The fact that I could squeeze in the time for today’s three-mile trip around the Rose Bowl was a testament to friendship, not work/life balance. So, no Tina, I haven’t summoned the energy to contemplate evening wear.

  But clearly, Tina had.

  “Hello? Helen, have you gotten your dress yet?” Tina demanded, knocking me out of my reverie. “All the good ones may be gone. You are going with the guest of honor. You will be photographed. Guaranteed. And not just by Candy. By actual press.”

  “Hey, I’m actual press!” Candy fired back. “As much as Us magazine, anyway.”

  “Maybe the black one with the rhinestone buttons will work?” I suggested. A dress I’d worn nine million times over the past decade. It had the timelessness of a St. John’s Knits, or so I thought. And the miracle fabric seemed to grow and shrink along with my waistline.

  Candy’s response? The eye roll/groan combo with uplifted hands.

  Tina stopped dead in her tracks, risking a knee injury for the cause of fashion. “No. No, no, no. You are not hauling that thing out of your closet. Not when you look so great and you have such a hot date. In fact, when you move, you are leaving that for the Gays. I’m sure their lovely 65-year-old mother will enjoy wearing it to movie premieres. I will take charge of this. I need something to take my mind off the fact that the admissions letters will be arriving on Saturday. This is perfect. I’ll be your personal shopper. Leave it to me.”

  Ah, yes, Saturday was D-Day in Pasadena. Decision Day. Private-school admissions letters—from preschool to high school— would be arriving in mailboxes on Saturday. Every school in the area mailed the letters on Friday, a result of collusion, or as the admissions directors preferred to call it, “a long-standing agreement.” Thanks to the most efficient postal service in America, on Saturday, the word would be out about the chosen few and the not-so-chosen many.

  I’ll never forget the day Aiden got his acceptance letter to Millington nine years earlier. Merritt had only allowed me to apply to one school, Millington, his alma mater. I thought it was risky, considering that Aiden was a wiggly boy and everybody knows that schools like placid, dull boys. By mid-afternoon, still no letter. I was so distraught that I tracked down the mailman two streets over, demanding my mail. The Millington envelope was large and thick. I felt a gigantic sense of relief, then a tiny bit of smugness once the good news set in. I’d been so worried that Aiden might be rejected because of his average “fine motor skills” and reckless “hopping on one foot” during the kindergarten testing.

  Merritt comforted me with mocking. “Really, Helen. This is Pasadena. It’s not a meritocracy. He’s a Fairchild. They don’t give a fuck if he can hop. They give a fuck if we can donate a lot of money.”

  But as I’ve learned over the last few months, being a Fairchild isn’t a guarantee for a charmed life. And despite the fact that I’d pulled out all the stops after Aiden’s disastrous interview with pleading calls to Ignatius alum and trustee Billy Owens and the all-powerful Monsignor at St. Perpetua’s, I was still on edge. And Mitsy’s daily phone calls reminding me of the great Fairchild tradition didn’t help. But what was Tina worried about? “Tina, Lilly will get into Martindale. You know she will. She’s a lock.”

  “She should, but you never know. There are only 47 spots.…”

  Oh, here we go: Admissions Math. Parents all over town played this game, a statistical analysis of available spots based on hearsay, innuendo and flat-out misinformation. Admissions Math factored in a complex set of variables including, but not limited to: grades; gender; race; test scores; teacher recommendations; parents’ job titles; mother’s willingness to head up school auction; whether older sibling got into Brown; minutes played on club soccer team; years of violin lessons; current and previous zip codes; degree of separation from any Hollywood figure; and/or large pool in backyard for school swim parties. Tina had a doctorate in Admissions Math. She’d been handicapping school placements for years with remarkable accuracy. But the stakes were high now that she was computing Lilly’s chances.

  “… and I heard this year they had 22 siblings applying. Believe it or not, some of the siblings are actually smart, except the mayor’s triplets, but they have to get in. So that leaves 25 open spots, and at least six of those will go to scholarship kids. Then I heard half the cast of Desperate Housewives is applying their girls, so we’re down to, like, fifteen spots. And everybody I know with a half-Asian girl has suddenly decided they want to go to Martindale because of the new Chinese immersion program, so Lilly Chau-Swenson is just one of many halfsies,” Tina panted. “For the rest of the spots, I heard Martindale was only looking for lacrosse players, Hispanics and daughters of lesbians.”

  “Is that a box you can check now on the application? Daughter of Lesbos? I wish I’d known, I would have gone lesbian to get Mariah into Raleigh,” Candy cracked. Or, maybe it wasn’t a joke, because Candy is the type to go to that extreme for the right high school placement. Candy wanted back in the good graces of the Rose Court. Mariah’s admission to Raleigh was the first step in her master plot to have her daughter follow in her footsteps. Candy would never admit it, but she wanted to ride down Colorado Boulevard one more time on New Year’s Day. Mariah ascending to the throne was the next best thing.

  I laughed at Candy while I reassured Tina. “She’ll be fine. Lilly is a smart girl with great test scores, award-winning piano skills and an alumni mother. And she’s raising money to build schools in Malawi for all the kids that Madonna couldn’t adopt. What more could Martindale want?” Lilly was a perfect a Martindale girl, through and through. No doubt she would publish a novel by 19, change the world by 22 and get married and trade it all in for a big house in Pasadena by 35. “I kinda think anyone who can pay full tuition h
as a good shot at getting in these days.”

  Tina and Candy shot me a look. Had I broken some code, stating the obvious and not playing into their Worry Fest?

  “I’m just saying …”

  There was an uncomfortable silence for about 1.8 seconds.

  “Well … we’ll all know in a few days,” Tina covered. “I promise to call you guys if you’ll call me when you get the letter.”

  Tina was referring to the common Code of Silence that en-shrouded Pasadena on D-Day. Communications between parents, schools and students, so frantic in the days leading up to D-Day, went underground. The schools shut down for a day or two after the letters were mailed, claiming “in service” days so they didn’t have to answer the phones or talk to disgruntled parents of the unaccepted. Parents shared information with only trusted friends, but not until the acceptances and rejections were sorted out and rationalized. Some kids even stayed home from school if the news was bad, waiting out the initial few days of their schoolmates’ elation, before they returned to class.

  “I’m sure we’ll all get good news, right?” Candy added. “Our children are perfect.”

  We all laughed. Uncomfortable moment forgotten. I knew Tina and Candy would know the outcome of the entire Millington graduating eighth grade before sundown on Saturday.

  “You know what else is arriving on Saturday?”

  “PMS?” said Candy.

  “Zappos?” guessed Tina.

  “My mother,” I said.

  CHAPTER 15

  The mail hadn’t arrived, but Nell Castor had.

  “I’ll just come down to keep you and Aiden company. You must be lonely,” my mother had said over the phone, when she shocked me by announcing her itinerary and flight numbers. Usually I had to pull her away from central Oregon for a visit to Pasadena. She had the gallery to run and my father to manage. And there was always some Sisters Arts Council symposium or speaker series that she was hosting. And of course, there were her meetings and the fact that she was a sponsor to about half the recovery population in town. In the past, I’d made all the arrangements because she had not fully embraced the paperless-ticket concept. Or air travel in general, preferring buses and Volkswagen Vanagons. But this time she had even booked the flights herself. “What good is global warming if the winters just seem to be getting longer?’