The Humanity Project (20 page)

“Helper? You’re giving him your car and your bank information? Where are your glasses?” Leslie tried to keep her voice down. Marietta Draper and the Keoghs were advancing toward them. “Who is he, did he show up with Cherry Ames, Student Nurse?”

“There’s no need for you to be so unpleasant. Her name is Christie Schuyler, as you know very well. Now I know you think I can’t be trusted to wipe my own behind, but please stop rolling your eyes that way. You were never a girl who could think one thing and have her face say another. Marietta!” Her mother advanced, arms extended. “Alicia dear, and Sim! I don’t think I’ve seen you since the funeral!”

Since Alicia Keogh was staying behind to keep her mother company, there was nothing for Leslie to do except walk in with Marietta and Sim, talking pleasantly about the news of everyone’s children and grandchildren, and wondering what her face had to say about it all.

Place cards had been set out for them, and Leslie found her seat midway down the long table. Marietta was seated on her right, and to her left was a man who introduced himself as a researcher at UC Berkeley, a sociologist, which Leslie supposed had something to do with poor people and their terrible problems. Seated directly across from her was the man with the turban. Either this was her mother’s idea of being funny or else she had not given it any thought at all.

Christie Schuyler and the lawyer shared the space at the head of the table. They were thick as thieves, bending over a sheaf of pages and conferring seriously. The woman had the most annoying hair. It was that frizzy kind of blond that needs hair spray in the worst way, but instead she’d allowed it to grow out in all directions. Someone should tell her she was getting too old for the no-makeup thing. You saw women like her cruising the health food stores, buying organic beets and deodorant in the form of rocks.

Marietta nudged Leslie. “Is that her? The boss lady? She looks awfully—”

“Yes, doesn’t she,” Leslie whispered back.

Then Christie Schuyler stood up and started talking. Her voice was too soft for anyone to hear much. The room quieted, people leaning forward. “. . . wonderful opportunity,” she was saying. “And I’m sure we’re all very grateful.”

If any of it had been worth listening to, Leslie might have been distressed that she couldn’t hear. Maybe she was going deaf, like DeeDee. Someone, the lawyer probably, must have told the woman to speak louder, because her voice went up a notch, an earnest, straining treble: “So often we look around us and think, ‘What is my responsibility to the world at large? How can any one person make themselves felt in the tide of events that so often seems chaotic, insurmountable, wrong?’ Well, here is our chance. I intend to be worthy of Mrs. Foster’s trust in us, and I know you do also. Now I’d like to call on Mr. Kirn.”

Kirn, that was the lawyer. There was a bit of light applause when Christie Schuyler sat down, but most people were unsure whether or not applause was called for. Kirn didn’t stand up to speak. It wasn’t necessary for him to project himself, since he obviously loved hearing himself talk, and probably listened to tapes of himself while driving. He called their attention to the bylaws on which they would be voting, asking if there were questions or discussion. Leslie didn’t trouble herself with these; Roger and the others had read them over already, looking for tricks or traps, and had pronounced them unobjectionable.

The man next to Leslie, the sociologist, had a question. It was the kind of what-if, overcomplicated question you expected from somebody who wanted to show how smart they were. She let her attention shut down. She was so tired. She’d had to get up early to catch her flight. She’d spent the last three days packing, organizing, and making arrangements, since, in spite of what Roger and her son thought, a house did not run itself, and a refrigerator did not magically refill itself with groceries.

A little filtered sunlight fell across her face. She let her eyes close. Next week she and Roger would deliver their son to the University of Colorado, along with all the electronics and sporting equipment and wardrobe items that were necessary for his comfort, well-being, and enjoyment. There was also meant to be some provision for classes and study, but mostly you worried about your child getting beer-drunk and falling off a balcony onto his head, or getting arrested for drugs, or for molesting girls who would later change their mind about their willingness to be molested. Not that Josh was a wild kid, or a problem kid, given to bad behavior. But she’d been a mom for a long time now. She knew some things. Turn eighteen-year-olds loose for the first time in their lives and they were like, what was it, that movie where the boys were marooned on an island and became bloodthirsty little savages? Like the feral cats.

She’d wanted Josh to stay home for a year and go to community college. She and Roger had argued about it. Roger said she was attempting to baby him, she didn’t want the last of the kids to go and leave her with an empty house. Oh didn’t she? She couldn’t wait. If it was possible, she’d send Roger off to college too. She wanted to wake up and go to sleep without a thought of anybody else in her head.

Anyway, Josh wasn’t going to community college, he’d decided himself. Fine. Roger could be the one to go pick him up when he flunked out of school for not going to class, or not turning in papers, or decided he hated his teachers. Not that you wanted distressing things to happen to your child just to prove your husband wrong. But say they did. Poor Josh. With her two older kids, she hadn’t been as vigilant, hadn’t seen the pitfalls so clearly . . .

Marietta nudged her and Leslie straightened herself in her chair. Had she been asleep? Had anyone noticed? No one seemed to be paying her any attention; they were still going on and on about the bylaws. It was only two or three of the board members keeping the discussion alive, batting questions around among them.

Sooner or later she guessed they’d vote, and then there was to be a series of reports and proposals. The meeting could go on for hours if somebody didn’t shut the yakkers up. Wasn’t there some kind of rules of order? Could you call for a vote?

Leslie hadn’t noticed him before, but the boy she’d thought was a caterer had come in and was standing against the back wall, where a coffee service had been set up on the buffet. Coffee, she was dying for some. Were you supposed to get up and serve yourself? She imagined that some of the others were wondering the same thing. And she was, after all, a kind of hostess. People might be waiting to see what she did.

She tried to catch his eye, not wanting to raise her hand and risk being called on by Kirn when all she wanted was coffee. The boy—how old was he? Josh’s age?—wasn’t being especially attentive. He seemed more interested in the bylaws discussion, which surely was not any of his concern.

Finally she managed to signal him over to her. “Could you bring me a coffee with cream, please? Marietta, did you want anything?”

“Yes ma’am,” the boy said, and returned with a small tray of coffee cups, saucers, spoons, cream, and sugar, unloading them with a clumsy kind of carefulness. His hands were rough-looking, with scabs across the knuckles and the white marks of old scars. You could tell he’d tried to scrub his nails clean, but they were still rimmed with indelible grease. Lord have mercy, where did her mother find these people?

But then it was time to vote on whatever it was they had agreed to, and Sim Keogh, who was the executive secretary, called everyone’s name and recorded their votes, and nobody said no. Well at least they were getting somewhere. People shifted in their seats. Across from Leslie the man in the white turban was trying to be discreet about cracking his knuckles.

Next they heard from Christie Schuyler about the new office—which they were all invited to visit!—in an undistinguished neighborhood in San Rafael. “We’ve been very budget-conscious, since foundations such as ours need to report the percentage of funds used for overhead. We’ve made six hires so far, with a seventh pending. We’ve been fortunate to find qualified personnel from some of the same populations we hope to serve—that is, underrepresented groups, and those with demonstrated needs.”

“We”? Who was “we”? The woman talked like she was Queen Victoria. And what did she mean, “those with demonstrated needs”? They found some homeless people who could type? She was getting into one of her moods. Now they were talking about projects, about assistance to food pantries and health centers and after-school programs. You didn’t want to be against such things, did you?

But she really, really did not like Christie Schuyler, and she would never understand why her mother thought she was so perfect.

From somewhere within Leslie’s purse, her phone buzzed. She pulled it out and read the screen. Roger. He wanted to check on her, make sure she was up to the job.

It pleased her to be able to ignore him. She knew he was worried about their own finances, and for that reason if nothing else, he didn’t want to see her father’s money pissed away. Not that they were anything like poor, or broke. Just undercapitalized.

Back in the palmy days when the real estate market could do no wrong, they had been considered wealthy. But it was a different world now. How many glittering office buildings and condo developments stood empty, with Roger’s firm’s green and white signs advertising vacancies? Leslie suspected that the company was in worse shape than Roger let on. He got irritated when she asked him questions about it, questions that she intended to be non-irritating, as opposed to the other kind.

The income from her trust fund had paid a lot of the kids’ college bills, and in time the trust would pass to her children, and to their children, in smaller but still shiny nuggets. Roger had hinted around at changing this. She’d like to see him try.

In fact—her phone jingled, he’d left a message—who said she had to share any of her father’s money with him? She allowed herself the pleasure of imagining Roger surprised that no fat check had been deposited in their joint account. Then anxious, then mad, and then . . . Well, it would be cutting off her nose to spite her face if they really needed money. But he was going to have to be a lot nicer to her.

Of course, this assumed there would be any money left after her mother and Christie Schuyler ransacked the estate.

Leslie hadn’t been paying much attention to the talk going on around her, only wanting the meeting to be over so she could change out of her pantyhose and wash her face and sit her mother down for another attempt at a reasonable conversation. Tardily, she became aware that the lawyer, Kirn, was beaming at her, singling her out. “. . . and maybe Mrs. Hart should have the honor of starting us off.” What?

“I’m sorry, would you mind repeating . . .” Marietta was trying to whisper something.

Kirn was smiling his fake jolly smile.

“Humanity,” Kirn said. “What it means to each of us. In light of the Foundation’s goals.”

“I was never very good at pop quizzes,” Leslie said, which was just funny enough for people to laugh, and to buy her a moment’s time. Oh screw you, Kirn. What did he mean, honor? Was he making fun of her? He was one of those guys who liked reminding everybody they were in charge.

“Humanity,” Leslie said, waiting to see what would come out of her mouth next. Why was Kirn’s face so pink? It looked like a big boiled ham. “Humanity is people I don’t know. Who are they? What do they want? It’s something different for every different person you ask. Humanity is very confusing to me.”

They were waiting for her to say more, but she didn’t. “Thank you,” Kirn said after a moment. “Now that we’ve got the ball rolling, I wonder what other perspectives are out there?”

Leslie sat back and traded glances with Marietta. Marietta pulled her mouth into a humorous, sympathetic shape, as in, What was all that about? Leslie shook her head slightly. Other people were making speeches now. Humanity was this or that. A recognition of their shared blah blah blah. The challenges they all faced in blah blah blah.

She guessed they all thought they could come up with something better than she had.

They hadn’t used this room for normal meals when she and Deirdre were growing up. Most of the time the dining room table was piled with stacks of mail, school projects, craft projects, folded laundry, whatever migrated from other parts of the house. For holidays or company, her mother had bundled the mess away and set the table with all the grand dishes and serving pieces. Certain foods appeared that they did not eat except on such occasions: roast turkey, a Brussels sprouts dish involving chestnuts, a fancy custard. It was like eating in a church or a museum, some place where more was expected of you besides simple eating. So that in one sense, it was not as jarring as it might have been to sit in this room in the company of so many strangers, since it had never been a place of familiar comforts.

But where was there such a place? Her old room had long since been turned into a combination guest room and storage room, its bed piled with boxes. The kitchen had been redone, with upgraded appliances and black granite countertops and artful skylights. She couldn’t steal away to her father’s basement domain; the wildest of the wild cats lived there now, defecating in corners and clawing through the ceiling tile to hide in the insulation.

It was sad, really. Everything changed. Kids grew up. Old people got older, and if you took your eye off them for the space of a second, they were gone. She wished that when Kirn had called on her, she’d said something about her father. Told them this was his house, he’d built it, and that was his seat at the head of the table. Marietta and Sim had known him. She could have at least made them remember him. But the moment had passed, one more thing gone.

The meeting seemed to be over. People were scraping their chairs back from the table, standing, stretching. Marietta said, “I’m going to have to run right out the door, I have to pick up Jordan. How long are you in town? Call me, maybe we can have lunch. I think this is off to a really good start. Whoever humanity is, they should be pretty happy they’re getting all this attention!”

Leslie said good-bye to the sociologist, and to Sim Keogh. The boy who had served the coffee was cleaning up. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled to just below his elbows, and Leslie noticed how brown his arms were, a deep, burned brown, his face and throat also. One of those blond boys who spent so much time in the sun, they looked like a photographic negative. He must have felt her staring at him. He raised his eyes to hers and Leslie glanced away, pretending to be preoccupied with something else.