More Bitter Than Death (2 page)

Carla didn’t answer but hustled down the stairs, which were dimly lit with nothing but bare utility lightbulbs that seemed to draw warmth from the space rather than add light. The dust, gum wrappers, and cigarette butts told just how often the hotel staff expected the stairs would be used: It was more of a de facto lounging area than a working exit.

We stopped abruptly at the door to the second-floor mezzanine. Carla smoothed down her skirt, adjusted her shirt, then tilted her head back so I could see straight up her nose.

“Any Buicks in the garage?”

“No Buicks, nor bats in the belfry, and neither are you in need of a hankie.”

Carla nodded thanks, then shot me a look that was a question that she wasn’t asking, yet. “Great. Let’s get ourselves to the ballroom. Thank God we only had to come down the one floor. My feet are killing me already.”

As we strode down the hallway, we passed clumps of our colleagues who called out with promises to catch up later. We paused in the ladies’ room just outside the ballroom, which we had all to ourselves. Carla hogged the mirror, trying to tame her frizzy ash-blond curls back into a respectable knot. I made a pit stop; an hour and a half can be a surprisingly long time if you’re not prepared for it, especially if you’re trapped up onstage for all the world to see.

“You know,” she said. “You know” came out more like “ooo oww;” Carla was making a mouth, messing with her lipstick. “I was looking out my hotel window this morning when I see this little red car pull up in the parking lot. Someone’s running late, I thought, then I realized: Emma’s local. She didn’t need to come until today, when things get started.
Zipping around with all that panache, I couldn’t believe it was you. That can’t be Emma, I told myself, but no one could miss that red hair of yours, even from the third floor—the short hair looks cute by the way. It’s even shorter than last time, but you can carry it off. Anyway. Pretty snazzy car. Not what I picture you in, usually.”

My faithful Civic had finally given out last year, and I treated myself to my first brand-new car. “I like the Jetta; red was the only color the dealer had left.” I didn’t tell her that rather than wait for a more sedate model, I had also agreed to take the sports package for a reduced price, secretly anticipating a little oomph in my driving. It was a good deal, I had reasoned aloud to Brian. I think he knew better; he can usually see right through me.

“Yeah, well, whatever; the attitude, it was great to see. Made me want to cheer whoever it was, and I was delighted that it was you. Not like that other schmuck who pulled in, right after you did.”

Something was going on here, but I wasn’t certain what. Carla looked, well, uneasy. Unsure, and that wasn’t like her. She fiddled with mascara, ignoring the time constraints that she’d cited in dragging us down that dusty stairwell. Every time she added makeup, she always went a step further than I would have, applied it a little more brashly. She pulled out brushes and mechanisms that reminded me of medieval torture devices. One of these she used to curl her eyelashes.

I had less to do. I combed my hair, but since it was only about three inches long now, it actually looked better a little tousled. Eyes, nose, still there, still inoffensive. I tried a lipstick that my friend Marty had made me buy, just to keep with the spirit of the moment, and checked my teeth for food.

Carla opened eyes wide while she used another brush to touch up her eyebrows—I wasn’t even aware such a step existed. “No, ma’am,” she continued, “that other guy, he was a
turd bag. I could tell by the way he tore around the parking lot—”

“You just got done telling me that I was zipping around like I owned the world.” I watched her fussing over her appearance: Carla fusses with things when she’s nervous.

“Emma, you followed traffic lanes. You had both hands on the steering wheel, at ten o’clock and two. Shit, you signaled before you pulled into the parking space, and there wasn’t anyone else in the lot! Not like this dickweed—”

Why was Carla getting so wound up about this guy?

“Nope, he obviously cut across the parking spaces because he couldn’t be bothered to steer any harder with only one hand, the other being firmly clamped to his cell phone. And he wasn’t going the speed limit, not even just a little bit above. He was tearing around like he was the only driver in the universe. Until he got to a pothole, and then he slowed down, so he wouldn’t hurt the suspension of his SUV.” She paused. “And you know how I feel about vanity plates, right? I mean, if you have to announce your presence to the world on your car, then how sad must you be? Well, this was the worst: XCAV8. Get it?”

That’s when I knew what she was saying, because
I
was the one who’d come up with that particular plate, back when I was an undergraduate, back when I thought announcing my presence to the world seemed like a fine idea, the only logical thing to do. You needed to give the world a head’s up, right? I felt my mouth go dry, a reflex, even though I knew what she was trying to do.

“And you know that joke about the difference between porcupines and SUVs? About the pricks being on the inside? Well, this jerk was the living embodiment, in his big old Suburban Assault Vehicle—”

Carla drives an SUV too, but at last I knew what was going on. I put my hand on her arm. “Carla, it’s okay. I knew
he’d be here. He was out at the site today. God knows why.”

“No sir, I didn’t like the look of him a bit. He probably ran over a few baby fur seals on his way here. Ran them over and backed over them once or twice.” But Carla looked relieved, now that I understood what she was trying to tell me.

It was kind of her to be concerned, after so many years, but it also made me wonder what people, the ones who knew about my past with Duncan, really thought of me, that I might be that fragile or had behaved that badly about it. Well, I had been fragile and I had behaved badly, once upon a time, but it had been years ago and a lot of water under a bridge that had been burned long since. Maybe that was why, because it had been so long since that last, bad time. Thing was, there were only a few people at this conference who were there for that last one, so many years ago, and I was thankful for that. I wouldn’t have nearly the same audience, and not everyone would remember, and of those who did, very few would be expecting me to freak out. That was the good news.

“He’s here. So what? I haven’t thought about him for a long time, not until recently, so don’t you think about it either.” I put on a braver face than I felt and infused enough enthusiasm into my words to be convincing, and then slung my bag over my shoulder. “You ready there, gorgeous, or what?”

“Or what.” She packed up her makeup, which she’d been able to spread far over the vanity in a remarkably short period of time. “Come on, let’s get this eulogy over with.”

I had to pause there. “Doesn’t it seem a little hypocritical of us? Presenting these papers when we don’t even
like
Garrison?”

Carla shrugged and threw the lipstick in last. “It’s tradition. Bastard gets old enough, you have a party for him.”

I frowned at my reflection. “Yeah, well, nothing says we have to perpetuate it. I finally decided that I could do the
presentation because he’s made genuine contributions to the field. But I can’t stand him.”

“No one says you have to kiss him, Em. Now if you’re done rationalizing…?”

“Let’s go.”

We met up with the rest of the panel backstage. Carla had a quick look around. “Where the hell is Garrison? The man is late for his own party.”

I spied Scott Tomberg, who was shaking a pen like it was an old-fashioned mercury thermometer. Carla fussed and organized things when she was upset, but pen abuse was Scott’s barometer. “Dr. Tomberg.” I gave him a hug, and though he was about my age, addressed him by his formal title just to give him a cheap thrill. What are old friends for?

“Dr. Fielding.” Scott was a small caveman with big hands, wide shoulders, and a square head on a thick, muscled neck; when he hugged me back, it was like being hugged by a tank. Old-fashioned glasses, black plastic over the brow with silver earpieces, helped jazz up his look, which was also modernized with a crew cut, mostly pepper and lots of salt at the temples. He was still pretty fit, and wearing what he always wore, jeans and a button-down shirt, but had added a navy blazer for the occasion.

“And how are we today?” I asked.

“We are sucky,” he said, frowning hugely. “Our guest of honor is nowhere to be seen—he got in late last night, like most of us. He went on the tour out to your site?”

I nodded. “I bundled him back onto the bus myself, so he’s somewhere around here.”

He flicked the pen button a couple more times. “Well, there’s that. Now that you and Carla are here, we just have to hunt him down. I sent someone up to his room—he wasn’t answering the phone. To top it off, the airline lost my luggage yesterday. I’ve been wearing the same pair of shorts for two days now, since I left home yesterday.”

I made a face. “And that is officially more information than I needed. Did you ask someone if they could spare a pair for you?”

“I’m not going to wear someone else’s underwear!” Then he looked sheepish. “No one here’s going to have anything that wouldn’t look like a thong on me. There wasn’t a pair that might fit to be had, for love or money.”

“And with whom have you been trying the love?” I said.

Scott’s face lightened up. “There he is now!”

I looked where Scott was looking. “You tried to borrow underpants from Garrison? You’re a better man than I—”

But I didn’t get to finish the line because Scott had all but fled in his haste to greet his tardy guest of honor.

Garrison was looking a bit dazed, a stewing chicken of a man whose suit hung off him. He had a nose so sharp you could cut cake with it. Petra Williams, who brought him down, lingered by his side. She and Scott conferred for a moment and nodded. Garrison seemed to be shaking off his confusion, and he put his hands up in protest—no, he was fine, he would go on, I imagined he was saying.

I stiffened when he batted at Petra, a stout little porcelain doll with Dorothy Parker bangs and a bun. She had to stand on tiptoe to take off his ever-present black beret and smooth his hair. She batted back at him, an ex-wife’s prerogative. He said something heated, and she handed a retort right back to him, no less angrily, taking her time to get him just so, and only then let him go. Garrison walked past us, not saying hello to anyone. He grunted at Scott when he showed him the way to his seat. He sat and flipped through a pile of index cards that he took from his pocket.

Scott came back for the rest of us—me, Carla, and the others—and showed us up to the stage.

“Ladies,” he said with a flourish, showing Carla and me where to sit.

“Where?” Carla asked, whipping her head around.

I shook my head; it was time to play grown-up and get down to business.

As president of the East Coast chapter of the ASAA, it was Scott’s party, so he was moderating and introducing the panelists as well as presenting.

He began his own paper, “Julius Garrison and American Archaeology,” the big biographical paper. Scott had slaved under Garrison for too many years as a graduate student and then research assistant. He was perhaps the only person I knew who could have done it and survived with his sense of humor and humanity intact. Having put up with that much scurrilous abuse, he had dedicated the rest of his career, when he was appointed to a department in Georgia, to being as laid-back as possible while still remaining in the field. Nothing could faze him anymore; he was settled into life with his Savannahian wife and their three Southern children.

I always liked listening to Scott; he has that great way of giving you a lot of high-level information in a casual way that doesn’t feel like you’re being talked down to. It was a painless history of our branch of the field, as shaped by Garrison, and I couldn’t wait to see a copy of it in print. It would be a great research tool for the students, for anyone. Much as I disliked Garrison, you had to give the devil his due. He was officially retiring and was essentially doing a victory lap around the region, collecting lifetime achievement awards. This was just one stop among many.

After Scott’s introduction, he brought on Professor Thomas Roche, a colleague of Garrison’s who was covering Garrison’s prehistoric contributions in the northeast. If it had been ten years earlier, I bet they would have had my grandfather Oscar up there, which would have been interesting to watch, if he’d agreed to do it. Oscar and Garrison had hated each other with a white-hot passion, professionally and personally.

Roche laid it on thick, proposing that Garrison’s office be
donated to the Smithsonian, and after Carla discussed the early osteological studies, it was my turn to talk about the early historic-sites work he’d done. Then it was an old friend of mine and Garrison’s both, Frank Lawrence. The last speaker was Garrison himself.

“Thank you, Frank.” Then Scott introduced Garrison, who coughed, paused to shuffle through his cards, and then, it seemed to me, simply put them aside.

“In the course of a lifetime—and apparently, it’s been a little too long, to judge by the length of the papers given here tonight…” He shot a sharp look at those of us sitting on the stage.

There were nervous titters in the audience; I frowned. We hadn’t gone over long enough to warrant a crack like that.

“But I’ve managed to do a lot, and perhaps it wouldn’t be immodest of me to think that I’ve made a few contributions along the way. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some fine archaeologists. I’ve made a few friends, and more than likely, a number of enemies. I’m content with that. That’s all anyone can ask of this life; and that’s what we’re talking about here, isn’t it? When people start doling out the lifetime achievement awards, it’s usually because they expect you to die soon.”

There was a reaction of distaste from the crowd at Garrison’s words; they struck a little too close to the mark. Typical of him, I thought.

He continued. “Well, maybe. Maybe. The important thing is I can say I’ve learned a fair amount, in the course of my career, and even some of it had to do with archaeology.”