Erased From Memory (7 page)

“So,” I pursue, “am I a nag?”

“How in hell would I know?”

“Why are you here, Professor Scott? At Egypt Regained?”

“Me? Here?” Somehow I’ve hit a nerve. “I belong here, Miss Woman Enthusiast. I’m a scholar. An Egyptologist. A linguist. I’m a specialist in . . .” Maybe he’s listening to himself; maybe it sounds overimportant.

“I read one article you wrote,” I say. “It was about sandals.”

Scott gives me a dirty look. I personally liked the eighteenth-dynasty Theban sandals article. Those sandals sounded just like last year’s Venice Beach items, with the same strap between the big toe and the rest of the foot. But I guess Scott is ashamed of the whole idea—not scholarly enough.

“And I hear you’re getting a Hartdale Grant.”

He doesn’t answer, but he pinks up. His sturdy tan face looks better when it has some red color.

After a brief pause I ask, “So what killed that man?”

He clears his throat. “You
are
a nag.”

“Just persistent. I have a father to feed.”

He surveys me. I remind myself that I do not like this Scott Dillard, that he reminds me of an old, unsuccessful boyfriend. And that I am flirting with him. This verbal poking I’m doing is a kind of flirting. It says,
Look at me
.

“Did he die twice?” I ask.

“Why not? Some famous people died more than that. What the hell is this?”

“What did he die of?”

“How would I know?”

“You know everything. You’re a fact-bank.”

“I don’t know what he died of.”

“I saw you romancing the guard. She’s
into
everything.”

“She says he died when his heart stopped beating. She says she had a cousin who died that way. No, sorry, it wasn’t her cousin, it was her husband’s cousin or maybe her husband’s brother’s cousin. But she’s a well-informed lady. In fact, a world-class expert. You’re right to be pursuing her knowledge. She knows.”

I ignore Scott’s sarcasm. “She was talking to the first-aid guys.”

“Oh, Christ.”

Scott isn’t going to tell me what the guard said. I guess I can ask her myself. “But you,” I say, “have an opinion. You’ve been trained as a doctor. What do you think?”

He stares at me. “Whoa.”

“I looked you up in Google,” I tell him modestly. In fact, I’ve just finished doing that, here in Egon’s library. “And Google quoted the
Brooklyn Intelligencer
, which asked you about your education, and this was long enough ago that you were really flattered to be asked, so you put it all in, which maybe you wouldn’t do now. After all, people don’t go to The Medical University of the Virgin Islands because they had high MCATs. They go there because they took so much pot in college they couldn’t get into school here.” I grind to a halt and wait.

Scott doesn’t say anything. His mouth turns down.

In the flip of a minute I decide I’ve been mean and underhanded. There’s no basis at all for my accusation about his MCATs, just some long-ago experience with my ex-friend Habitat. What apology can I offer?

“It wasn’t pot,” Scott says finally in a strangled voice. He clunks the recliner forward and struggles to his feet. Some papers spill out of the file he’s holding. A whole batch of them land in my lap.

I start shuffling his stuff up into a little pile. I make it clear I’m not reading, just organizing.

Maybe that assuages him some. Maybe he has a need to justify. “It was a girl. Her name was Danielle.” He hits her name hard and his face pinks up again as he says it.

I think, Oh, a girl who took pot. A girl who got pregnant? A girl who went to the Virgin Islands for a divorce? Romance, interesting. I love stuff like that. I’ll be here for the rest of the week. I can get this story out of him.

Danielle. My father mentioned a Danielle sometime or other.

I hand up his stack of papers.

“I was only there a year,” he says.

I decide his story isn’t true. Whatever it is. I’ll find out.

He’s still standing, looking irresolute. This idiot doesn’t want to talk, but he’s standing with his feet glued to the floor. Definitely, Danielle was important.

“A year is long enough,” I say, pulling the conversation back on its trolley. “You’ll remember some of that med training. What could Mr. Broussard have died of? Twice?”

“The nine-one-one guys said he had very low blood pressure,” he offers finally in a strangled voice.

“And what would cause that?”

“Shock. Trauma. Blood loss.”

“He wasn’t losing blood.”

“Internally.”

I try to imagine the man struggling around for a whole afternoon with something bleeding inside, not telling anyone, bumping into walls. “Wouldn’t that make you sort of crazy?”

“What are you? Madame Hercule Poirot?”

I say, “Oh, shit,” and try to organize myself for an exit. Now if he had just accused me of being Tempe Brennan or Kinsey Milhone or any one of the other thousand successful woman sleuths of the last fifty years. I am caught in the listening equipment and can’t get up.

“Egon left a printed welcome on my dresser,” I say. “It talks about our distinguished roster of scholars. It lists you and Rita and my father. Everybody’s history gets reviewed and their publications listed. You’ve got tons of those. And your field is Egyptian history. Specifically the history of the Middle New Kingdom. Dr. Scott Dillard, Memphis State University, Memphis, Tennessee.”

He interrupts, “I’m at Yale now.”

“Oh, is that better than Memphis State?” (Actually, Memphis State gives a degree in Egyptology; I checked that in Google, too.)

Scott stares. We’ve had a brisk exchange of insults this afternoon. I wonder if he has a sense of humor. Not about his career, I betcha.

I have finally gotten myself loose from the wires and am struggling up with my book. “We’re going to have a good time, aren’t we,” I ask, “talking about our work histories and our study histories and our articles? Of course, I’m not listed in Egon’s welcome document; I’m not a scholar, just the daughter of a scholar. They don’t make a category for that. But it’s very important, too. Don’t you think?

“Incidentally, did you know him?” I ask.

“Did I know who?” Scott stares and the muscles in his tan cheeks flex. I suspect that he’s perfectly aware that I mean Marcus Broussard.

“You’re not exactly making sense, Lady Blues Enthusiast.”

“See you at dinner.” I leave feeling that I’ve learned a couple of things, but I’m not sure what.

 
 
I’m on my way down the hall toward Daddy’s room when I run more or less head-on into Rita. I brace myself, preparing for another hysterical confrontation. But no such thing. Rita smiles. She says, in a high, little-girl voice, “Oh, hey, sorry.”

“Huh?” I ask, amazed.

“I mean, hey, I ran right into you.”

She is clutching a large purple orchid in a clay pot. She wears a silk turquoise shirt with a sequin outline of a swan on the front. Her hair is newly moussed, her face is washed; she sports one turquoise earring and a delicate smile. This Rita is a new person and not hysterical. Dressed, coiffed, trimmed. Changed, you could say.

In fact, an altered and reconstituted Rita. Remade and a bit scary for that reason. Because it’s been only a few days since I last saw her, screaming “Help,” and accusing my dad of murder. And here she is, someone who has altered her entire outer envelope. She wears a pale tasteful dab of lipstick and blusher, a tiny hint of eyeliner. Has she been having charm sessions with Cherie? She wears pale green pants. It seems that all this time she’s had pale green eyes. She is still plump, which looks sweet.

“My God,” I say.

She agrees, “Oh. Yeah.”

“You look great.”

“Kind of a surprise, huh?”

I remember that I was on my way to my dad’s room and turn to go in that direction, but she falls in beside me. She bounces the orchid on her hip. “This is for your father. I had it, but now I’m giving it to him. Does he like orchids, do you know?”

I can feel myself staring, mouth open.

“Unprecedented, right?” she interprets. The orchid gets shifted. “Well, I have manic-depressive tendencies. And I take meds. And sometimes I need help to get back on track.”

I’m sure there are appropriate responses, like, “I guess we all do, some,” or, “I had a good friend that had that.” But I’m still too astonished to say anything.

We arrive at Daddy’s room side by side, but can’t go in that way, because the door isn’t wide enough.

Rita enters first, orchid held out straight. “Here you are, Ed. Honest, I’m so sorry.”

“Why, my dear,” says my father. “What a beautiful color. Are you on your way to your plane?”

“No, Ed.” She positions the orchid on a table and stands back appraisingly. “I guess I was real bitchy, right?”

“I don’t think so,” Daddy says. “Let us sit down. What do you mean by
bitchy
? Isn’t that a handsome flower?”

Rita sits, exposing silver socks and turquoise strap sandals. Definitely, she’s been getting schooling from Cherie.

My father silences the television with the remote. He turns; he smiles a delighted smile. “My dear. What plane is it?”

She says, “No, Ed.”

“So hard on us. Travel. There was a book where they talked about simply putting you in a capsule. You could sleep the whole way. Wake up in Kazakhstan.”

Rita waits a minute. She digs something out of her pocket, a silver and ivory comb, and twiddles the comb-teeth to make it sing. “I guess I’m finding this interview sorta upsetting?”

Yeah
, I think.

She snaps and unsnaps the comb.

“I would sure like it if . . .” Kazoom, a fingernail down the edge of the comb.

Maybe what we’re getting here is the original precollapse Rita. Low-key, nervous, anxious to please.

“Oh, hell. Everybody’s entitled to one bitch-day once a month during a bad PMS bout. Am I right? Right. The hell with all you clones.” Kazoom some more.

Well, not
that
anxious to please. “Rita, cut it out.” She flashes me a good smile and sticks the comb in her pocket.

My father says, “I think someday there will be an implosion of undifferentiated factoids.”

“Seems likely,” Rita examines him. “Some of the basic Ed is still there.”

“Much, my dear.”

“You always were a handsome bastard.”

I do a reassessment. Daddy is sprightly, trim, sturdy. Is he handsome?

Rita fixes on me. “This the way it usually is?” She flexes an eyebrow in Daddy’s direction.

“It varies.”

“Boy, did I ever adore him, once. When we were on the dig in Thebes. A great scene; maybe I should tell you. But maybe not.”

I wait.

“Ah, the hell with it. It’ll wait. You’ll be around here awhile?”

I tell her yes and she says, “Dinner calls, acid reflux falls, keep cool,” and exits in a flurry. Her hair still wants to stand up straight.

It is going to be an engrossing few days at the museum.

Chapter 7

A hassled Egon Rothskellar is trying to induce the right atmosphere around his dinner table.

The right atmosphere would be one of sophistication and intelligent discourse, rising above the fact of Marcus Broussard, whom everybody at this table saw spread-eagled and, we are told, finally dead in Egon’s garden just three nights ago.

“Any news, Egon?” Scott asks.

Egon jumps. “News, Scott? I don’t think so. What kind of news would that be?”

“Studly is fishing to find out if you heard something about Marcus,” Rita says, jabbing a piece of lettuce. “Like, what did it to him? Who did it to him?”

Egon is desolate. “Marcus. Oh, dear. So dreadful.”

“Stud is Mr. Energizer Bunny,” Rita says. “He never stops, you know, on the intellectual quest? You’ve heard of it? Fill up your brain with facts?”

“Hey, Rita, cut it out, huh?” Scott says.

Rita says, “Why?”

Egon says, “Oh, dear.”

“Any more little tchochkes missing, Egon?” Rita asks. “Maybe Stud’s been collecting them.” She turns to me. “You heard about it. They’ve been disappearing at the rate of—oh—one a day. Right, Egon?”

“Alas,” Egon says. “Yes. And we are so careful. Rita, dear, settle down, please.”

Rita, who has been poised on the edge of her chair, surprises me by subsiding. Maybe it’s the presence of the extra person at the table, Mrs. Bunny Modjeska, that does it. Bunny is the guard. (“Just call me Bunny. It sure is easier than Modjeska.”) She leans forward now, exhibiting fat shoulders and flattering interest. She views the visible enmity at the table. “Wow.”

Rita settles back. “Pass the mashed potatoes, please.” Egon waves a hand over his beautiful table and its crystal, china, linen, platter of tasty-looking roast chicken. Tonight’s menu is American. There is a printed menu card, labeled AMERICAN DINNER.