Leslie beckoned her over. “Hey! You came back! When I thought about it, I wondered if maybe I’d scared you away. I do come on strong sometimes.”
Abby laughed. “No. I just figured you had a lot going on and we’d sort things out as we go. Except I didn’t ask a lot of relevant questions, like what time I should be here, or which entrance I should use, or who I should report to.”
“Eight thirty is fine, I’ll get you a key to the staff entrance, and me. You report to, that is.” Leslie kept moving as she talked, and Abby trailed behind, into the building, up the stairs. Instead of following yesterday’s route to her office, Leslie turned and led Abby down another hall to an extremely small room. “This is you. Sorry it’s so small, but with these old buildings, you use what you can. The computer’s pretty recent, and at least you have a window.”
Abby stepped into the space, which barely allowed room to move around the old wooden desk. There were modern shelves along one wall, stuffed with books, booklets, papers, videos, CDs, and unidentified junk. The desktop at least was clear—apparently her predecessor had managed to take her personal memorabilia with her, despite her precipitous departure.
Leslie was still talking. “Look, I don’t know what kind of shape Marian left things in. I’d say boot up the computer and see what’s there, then start with the piles. There must be a schedule there somewhere. Then why don’t you come see me about 9:30, and I’ll take you around, introduce you. The first tour starts at ten, and you’ll want to see that. And we can deal with all that paperwork stuff later. Okay?”
“Right.” Abby smiled, but Leslie was already halfway down the hall. Abby sat down in the desk chair and exhaled. She looked around her. What a mess! Out of the frying pan, into the fire, it seemed: no sooner had she made some kind of order at home than she was called upon to sort out somebody else’s chaos here. But at least it was only one room—and it was her own.
Maybe she should start with the computer. She turned it on and waited, praying that there wasn’t any sort of password or code she would need, since she had no idea who to ask, and wasn’t even sure if she could find her way back to her office if she left it. Luckily she found herself at the main directory page without any further action. People were trusting here, apparently. She started scrolling through folders.
An hour’s effort left her feeling much relieved. There were well-organized files for scheduled events, each with the contact people, group size, special requests for content, payment, parking, and so on. Marian had done a thorough job and left things in very good order. Abby wondered if she would ever meet her—poor woman. She hated benefitting from someone else’s misfortune, and she wished her well. After scanning the boilerplate information on the education programs (“12,000 students a year,” “over 500 programs and tours,” “hands-on activities,” “curriculum packets”), she turned to the event scheduled for this morning. It appeared to be a group from a local elementary school, which had requested information on colonial life. Curriculum materials had been sent. Follow-up materials had been promised, and Abby hoped whoever was handling today’s talk would know where to find them, because she didn’t have a clue. She looked at her watch: 9:25. She’d better start trying to find Leslie’s office.
After only two wrong turns she found Leslie in her office and on the phone. Leslie held up one finger, without interrupting the flow of words. Leslie’s office was not substantially neater than the one she had just left, but the accumulated things were more interesting. Some of them actually looked antique, and Abby wondered if they were from the museum’s collections or belonged to Leslie.
Leslie banged the phone down. “Finally! Some people just won’t stop talking! Found everything? Great. Let me introduce you to a few people, then we should head downstairs and help Caroline set up . . .”
Once again Abby found herself trailing in Leslie’s wake, stopping at intervals to nod, smile, and shake hands with some new person. Abby made a mental note to find a staff list soon, if she had any hope of keeping all these faces straight; maybe there was one on the computer. Leslie headed down the stairs and into a room adjacent to the main lobby, where another young woman was laying stapled packets of paper on each seat.
“Caroline, this is Abby Kimball—she’ll be taking over Marian’s job as soon as she learns the ropes. I told her she should sit in today, and maybe afterward you can show her where the materials are, stuff like that? Thanks.” And Leslie disappeared; Abby was surprised not to see a cloud of dust swirling behind her. She turned back to Caroline, who smiled.
“Energetic, isn’t she?”
“Definitely. Hey, can I help you with anything?” Abby gestured toward the pile of packets.
“Oh, sure, thanks. I need to check that the DVD player is set up. Just put one packet on each chair. If we counted right, there should be just enough.” Abby took the stack of materials that Caroline handed her, and then Caroline disappeared behind another door.
She had finished laying out the materials when she heard the unmistakable sound of a bus motor outside, followed shortly by a babble of childish voices in the parking lot. The class group had arrived. Caroline reappeared, threw Abby a bright, brief smile, and said, “Here we go!”
Abby retreated to the back of the room and watched as the school group filed in, and Caroline went into her spiel. First she showed a brief video, then she led the children out of the room and into the exhibits. Abby found she was enjoying herself. Caroline clearly loved her subject, and liked working with the children, who were reasonably well behaved and asked intelligent questions. In the back of her mind, Abby compared these kids to the inner-city Philadelphia children she’d taught not long before. There you could never be sure they’d had breakfast, or even dinner the night before, and you could never count on them to have paper or a pencil. Or even a coat in winter, in some cases. But some of them had been eager and had tried so hard . . . Abby was brought back to the present by the sound of clapping: apparently the tour was over, and the students were thanking Caroline. She checked her watch. Eleven thirty—where had the morning gone?
“So, what’d you think?” Caroline was collecting scattered pages left behind.
“You did a good job—the kids were really paying attention. And you’ve got some great stuff to work with.”
“Think you can do it by tomorrow?” Caroline had a wicked gleam in her eye.
Abby quelled a stab of panic. “Sure—just give me an outline and I can conquer the world.”
Caroline laughed. “Don’t worry—I’ll handle it for a couple more days. But you will be on your own by next week. You’ll do fine. Leslie said you’d taught in Philadelphia?” Abby nodded. “Then these kids should be no problem for you.”
“Marian left everything pretty well set up, as far as I can tell.”
Caroline’s face clouded for a moment. “Yeah. We’ll miss her—she was great to work with. But if you need anything, just ask—you’ll find a lot of help here. Well, gotta go—I’ve got a class this afternoon. See you tomorrow.”
As Caroline left, Leslie came back. “So, how’d it go? Did you find everything? Are you hungry? I usually take new hires out to lunch on their first day—and you never know when we’ll both be free at the same time again. What do you like?”
“Fine. Yes, lunch sounds good, and I eat anything. And I don’t know much about the town, so you pick.”
“Chinese, then—there’s a good place by the station. We’d better drive—saves time.”
Leslie headed out the door, waving at several people on the way. Once in the car, she pointed to places as they passed them: “good bookstore, independent; nice toy store; real pricy shoe store, but if you’re on your feet a lot . . . That’s the library—they renovated recently, and it looks great; some nice shops down that way . . .” It took no more than three minutes to reach the restaurant. Leslie was still talking. “Good market, over there, and that’s a convenient dry cleaners. Oh, but you don’t live around here. Waltham, was it? Bu
t you might still want to do your shopping and stuff here.”
Abby was beginning to realize that Leslie didn’t even expect an answer to most of her comments. She followed her into the restaurant, which was only half full. They settled themselves into a booth and ordered. Finally Leslie sat back and looked at Abby.
“So, what do you think?”
“I’m overwhelmed, but I like it.”
“Good. I couldn’t believe how you dropped out of the sky into my lap. It’s almost enough to make me believe in a benevolent deity. So, how do you know Ned?”
“I met him about two weeks ago on a house tour in Waltham.” Should she go into how she had all but collapsed in a heap, and he had revived her with tea and sympathy?
“Oh, yeah, another one of his pet projects. He’s really into local history.”
“Is that how you met him?”
“No, actually, we met at a college party our junior year. He was at MIT, and I was at Harvard. God, that was a while ago! We were engaged for a while, after college, but then one day we looked at each other and said ‘no way.’ We’re just too different. I figured I’d rather hang on to him as a friend than marry him and drive him crazy. So here we are. You’re not married, right?”
Abby was trying to process what she had just heard. Even though she knew relatively little about Ned, she had a hard time picturing him with Leslie. “Uh, no. I’ve been with this guy—Brad—for a couple of years. Actually, we’re engaged, and we moved up here together, and I guess we’ve sort of talked around marriage, but we’ve never set a date or anything.”
“Ahh, no hurry—you’re what, twenty-five, twenty-six? No need to rush into anything. You like Waltham?”
“What I’ve seen of it. Brad’s working in Boston, so I don’t know where we’re going to end up—we’re sort of looking around, getting to know the place. Concord seems nice.” If slightly haunted, she added to herself, remembering the cemetery.
“Sure. If you don’t mind the mild liberal snobbery and the housing prices. Anyway, it’s a great place to work. So, here’s how I see the education program . . .”
Half an hour later, Abby had to admit she was impressed. Leslie might not hold still for long but she clearly understood her field, even down to the details. I could learn a lot from her, thought Abby. If I can keep up! At any rate, her enthusiasm was infectious, and Abby found herself popping with new ideas and plotting new directions for the programs.
“Well, we’d better get back. We should get you into the system, if you ever want to get paid, and get you set up with insurance.”
Abby sighed inwardly: maybe the salary was low, but she liked the place, she liked the people she’d met so far, and she would be glad to get back to teaching kids again. She was not about to kick serendipity in the shins, if that was even possible.
“That’s fine.”
“Good.” Leslie stood up, paid the bill at the desk, and they were off once again.
The afternoon passed in a blur, and Abby was surprised to find how quickly five o’clock came. She gathered up her belongings and found her way out to the parking lot. It wasn’t until she was halfway home that it struck her: if Ned had been engaged to Leslie, he probably wasn’t gay. Guess you were wrong there, Brad. And the same little voice went on, And if he held his own with someone like Leslie, he must have hidden depths. Interesting . . . Abby wasn’t sure if she’d mention that to Brad.
14
Brad was already home when Abby arrived and greeted her enthusiastically at the door. Grinning like a small boy, he took her hand and led her into the kitchen, where he ceremoniously presented her with a bouquet of flowers.
“For your first day. I thought we should celebrate—you’ve been kind of quiet, down in the dumps lately. We can go out for dinner . . .”
Abby kissed him. “Brad, that’s so sweet! And I’d love to go out. It’s been a busy day, but I had so much fun! You want to go now?”
“Yeah, just let me change into something more comfortable.” Brad bounded off toward the bedroom, clearly pleased by his little surprise. Abby carefully cut the stems of the flowers and filled a vase with water to put them in. She was touched—she couldn’t remember the last time Brad had done anything like give her flowers. She carried the vase into the living room and set it on a table. Brad still hadn’t reappeared; Abby could hear him whistling in the bedroom. She wandered toward the door and leafed through the mail Brad had dropped on the table next to it. There was a large padded envelope addressed to her in what she recognized as her mother’s loopy scrawl. She must have found something in the family papers! Abby itched to open it, but Brad reappeared at that moment.
“You ready, babe?”
With a regretful pat, Abby laid the envelope down with the rest of the day’s mail. It was probably for the best: she should wait and open it when she had time to go through it slowly and carefully. And given how much preparation she had to do this week, she wouldn’t have time for it until the weekend anyway. She turned to Brad.
“I’m ready. Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s try something new. Bill told me about this great place a couple of miles out on Route 20 . . .”
Abby followed obediently. She was still full from lunch—she wasn’t used to eating a real meal in the middle of the day—and her head was spinning with everything she’d seen today and everything she needed to do in the next few days. It was a nice feeling, she reflected, having something real to do again. Leading a class of thirty kids for an hour or two was going to be a whole lot easier than trying to control a room of forty kids for a full day. And she had some ideas about possible grant funding for some of the programs she’d seen go by. She wondered who at the museum handled grant proposals, and if they could work together.
“Earth to Abby!” Brad’s voice broke in. “Were you planning to get out of the car?”
“Oh, we’re here already? Sorry, I was thinking.”
Brad squired her into the restaurant and they were led to a table. He made a great show of asking her opinion about what she wanted to eat, to drink. Usually he just said something or other looked good, and Abby ordered what he did, but tonight she took the time to read the menu and picked a seafood dish.
When the waitperson had retreated, Abby sat back and smiled at Brad. “I had such a great time today. In the morning, I had to get into the computer and find the files for the programs. Oh, and I have my own office, but it’s really small. But the computer is pretty up to date, and the woman who had the job . . .” Abby couldn’t seem to stop herself, as she recited step by step the events of the day, including her lunch with Leslie. Brad was fairly quiet. In a corner of her mind, Abby watched Brad. In the beginning, he seemed sincerely interested in what she was saying, throwing in a relevant question now and then, making a suggestion, or laughing appreciatively as she described what one of the kids had said during the tour. After about ten minutes of this, she noticed that his eyes were beginning to wander around the room. He interrupted her once to flag down the waitperson and ask for more water, and when were their meals coming? After fifteen minutes he had stopped smiling and was openly fidgeting. When the food finally arrived, he nearly snarled. “About time.”
Abby smiled sweetly at him. “Are we in a hurry? After all, it’s not a school night. Or maybe it is—we’ve got two groups coming in tomorrow at the museum. Caroline says I’ll be on my own by next week.”
“Yeah, sure, good.” Brad was very busy buttering a roll. “Too bad it doesn’t pay better. Hell, you’ve got a degree from a good college, and teaching credentials. You should be doing better than that.”
Abby felt a chill. “Brad, this is a small nonprofit—none of them pays very well. Besides, it’s something I want to do. I’m not in it for the money. I just want something that I enjoy doing, that I can feel good about.”
“And you can’t feel good while you make money?” Brad’s tone was snide.
What was this about? Abby wondered.
“Is the
re some reason we need money? We’ve got enough. You’re getting a good salary.”
Brad’s contempt was obvious. “You are so clueless. You’ve got to think strategically, take the long view. You’ve got only forty or fifty years until retirement—have you thought about how you’re going to save for that? And what about if we buy a house—how much mortgage we can carry is going to depend on our combined incomes. Besides, people judge you by the kind of salary you can pull down. You know that. That’s why I left Philly—they flat out weren’t going to pay me what I was worth. At least here somebody values me, even if I do get stuck with the scut work for the guys with the corner offices . . .” And he was off and running. Abby studied him as though he was an anthropological specimen: Brad in full rant. It wasn’t pretty. He sounded both whiny and self-righteous. She hoped he didn’t sound like this at work. But then, how could he, and still suck up to those guys in corner offices who controlled his future? That was where she came in: she was the vessel for all his bitching and moaning, so he could go back to work the next day and smile, his canines gleaming. Funny, she’d never seen her role in that light before.
Wait a minute—wasn’t this supposed to be her night? Somehow they’d slipped right back into their usual places at the table, Brad complaining while she smiled and nodded and soothed. Well, she didn’t feel like putting up with that, not tonight. It was time to seize the conversational reins again.
“I had some ideas about funding sources for some of the museum’s programs—I’ll have to see what they’ve done about that.”
Brad looked startled by the interruption. “Huh? Oh, yeah, right. Sure, that’s a good idea—show some initiative. Way to go. Hey, this chicken thing is really good.” He poked at his plate.
Abby gave up. She’d had her few minutes in the sunshine of Brad’s attention. The thought had been sweet, anyway. Maybe he just had a very short attention span. Or maybe he really isn’t interested in me, in what I care about, a little voice inside whispered.
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