I TOOK MY TIME CHANGING INTO DRY SHORTS AND A sweatshirt after the silent trip back to the dorm. The air had cooled off after the rain, making everything uncomfortably clammy, and I knew that I would have to come across with some answers for Kam. In a further attempt to gather my wits, I dawdled over making two cups of tea. I knew he wouldn’t wait for me to go through the whole ritual to create the coffee I craved so badly…
“Why are you here?” I asked finally. “Isn’t this a little beyond the reaches of civilization for you? I mean, you can’t even get cornetti e cappuccino up here.”
When I saw that flippancy wasn’t going to get a smile out of Kam, I said simply, “I thought you were still in Chicago.”
“I finished up and left for home early,” Kam said, removing the tea bag from his mug. He took a sip from his tea and wrinkled his nose at the stale flavor. “Brian caught me when he got stuck in Pittsburgh. He was going off his head when he finally caught up with me, and so to keep him from having an aneurysm, I told him I’d come up and see how you were doing. I’m glad I did too.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“It means that, obviously, you’ve had a series of dreadful shocks and we thought someone should be here for you,” he said. “Now, no more fooling around. Tell me what I walked in on back there.”
I gave him a marvelously succinct description of the week’s events, including the scene with Claudette Peirce at the church and the news about Pauline’s endowment.
Kam said nothing for a moment, sipped his tea meditatively, more out of polite habit than desire, I suppose. It wasn’t very good tea. “That was a pretty remarkable thing for Pauline to have done,” he said reflectively. “No more struggling. You’ll be able to do whatever you want.”
It worked precisely as he expected: I exploded. “You’re missing the point entirely! You just don’t get—”
Then I figured out what he was up to and shut up in a hurry. But it was already too late.
“What don’t I get, Em?” The infuriating man looked all innocence as he pulled out his cigarette case. It was silver, an antique, no doubt, but one I had never seen him use before. It suddenly occurred to me that things might be heating up between him and Marty.
The words came very slowly, reluctantly, but only because I knew he wouldn’t let me off the hook now. I stared, fascinated, at the etched detail on the cigarette case, seeing it and not seeing it, wishing I was anywhere but here.
“It will only make it harder,” I said slowly, “for me. To establish myself on my own terms.”
“Go on.”
I heard the snap of Kam’s lighter, smelled the smoke of the Dunhill he lit; there was no way I could meet his gaze now. It took me a minute to summon up the courage I needed to reveal my thoughts.
“I mean, first it was Oscar, right? He called the chair at Coolidge University to help me get into graduate school. I wanted to go so badly, I didn’t even think about what that might mean later on. Then the Caldwell job came up, and of course, it just happens to be near where Oscar did most of his really important work. Then the fact that Pauline had this amazing site on her property and let me excavate it. You see now?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, quite.” Kam exhaled and was veiled in cigarette smoke.
I frowned at him frustratedly; he was being obtuse on purpose. “All my professional life I’ve had everything handed to me on a silver platter!” I shouted. “Everything I’ve ever done has been because someone else has done or given me something! Just when I thought I was going to be able to do something, get tenure, get my program established at Caldwell on my own, all that, Pauline steps in again and paves the way. I mean, she even gave me the site, but I found the fort, at least that much was my work. And now this—”
“That rotten cow,” he offered with mock sympathy.
“Kam, I’m serious!” I slammed my mug down on the table. “How will I ever know that I was able to make it on my own!”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Emma! Don’t be such a horse’s arse!” Kam was usually as impeccable with his language as he was with his clothing. “What, were you hoping to live in a vacuum, so you could prove yourself?”
“That’s just my point—” I started.
“Shut up a minute,” Kam commanded. “Now, listen to me. Was Oscar the sort to tolerate flummery? Carry a dead weight?”
This was idiotic. I didn’t answer.
“Was he?”
Truculently. “No.”
“No, of course not,” Kam said, unmollified by my acquiescence. “He had a reputation for being an exacting son of a bitch, did he not? I seem to remember Brian being rather intimidated the first time he met your grandfather, and we both know what it takes to daunt Happy Boy, right? So Oscar must have thought you had something to offer, or he wouldn’t have bothered. Don’t you intercede on behalf of talented students?”
“That’s different—”
“Oh come now, Emma!” He took another long drag on the cigarette, as if fueling his argument. “If it were really just a favor to your grandfather, the department at Coolidge needn’t have given you all that funding all those years, need they? If you were the drooling imbecile you seem to imagine you are, they could have just let you pay your tuition and flunk out, yes?
“And what about Pauline?” he continued. “Did she suffer fools, gladly or otherwise? We both know the answer to that, don’t we? And while we’re on the subject, what about your husband and friends? We’re not ninnies, so why would we waste our time loitering with someone who was?”
Suddenly Kam calmed down, and while his words were no less forceful, at least he was smiling to take some of the sting out. “Look, you. You’ve got your share of faults: You can be pigheaded, selfish, and didactic. I’m not denying that. You make revolting puns. You are an amazing slob, and I can’t imagine what kind of survival skills I’d need to deal with you before eleven in the morning,” he added.
“Hey, have a heart!” I protested.
But Kam grew serious again. “But you are also a brilliant, beautiful, kind woman, with a drive that scares the dickens out of most everyone you meet. That and your generosity and your curiosity will make you into the kind of person you are so afraid of not being. It is for those reasons that you have people rushing to do you favors. So forget proving yourself to the world, the world is convinced. Here endeth the sermon.” He leaned back and calmly swallowed some more of his tea.
I wasn’t pleased with most of his lecture, but the kindly ending made me feel even worse. Tears started oozing out of the corners of my eyes again, and I brushed at them impatiently. The hard wood of the bench was starting to wear my butt flat and I was getting tired, but I wasn’t done.
“There’s something else,” I said.
“Tell me.”
I finally said out loud the thought that I had been too loath even to think. “It’s Pauline. I can’t help feeling responsible…I’m convinced it was Tichnor who killed her, and he wouldn’t have ever bothered her if I hadn’t been there first.” I took a deep breath. “It’s my fault Pauline’s dead. All of this stuff, everything, has happened since I got here. Bodies, site robbers, Billy, arson…murder…” I lifted my hands helplessly.
“Don’t be such a git.” Kam sighed and stubbed out the tortured cigarette. “From all that you’ve told me, Pauline should have called the sheriff, not tackled this guy on her own. Most people would consider it extraordinarily foolish to approach a violent trespasser, with a criminal record yet, unarmed and alone.”
I flushed angrily and stood up, ready to leave before I had to listen to any more of that.
Kam pulled me back down onto the bench. “Calm down,” he said exasperatedly, as he dug out another cigarette. “I’m not blaming her at all. I’m only pointing out that there are a lot of ways of looking at this. She could have stayed in Boston, she could have stayed inside the house. Tichnor could have run when he saw her, he could have stayed in bed that day. And yes, you could have dug someplace else this year.
“But blaming yourself is an exercise in self-glorification. There are too many random occurrences that make up the circumstances in any one day for you to take the blame for this particular chain of events. Chances are, he would have been wandering around looking for artifacts or what all even if the dig weren’t on her property, right?”
I shrugged and looked away impatiently.
“I know what she was to you,” Kam said, grabbing my hand to emphasize his point. “Emma, I know. And I am damned sorry. But what would she think about anyone, anyone at all, trying to take responsibility for how she lived her life?”
That made me smile.
“Right,” he said. “And if anything, she is probably haranguing the devil himself to make sure that rotten little sneak thief gets an extra portion of whatever they’re doling in hell. So you’re straight out of the running. Don’t give it another thought.”
I mulled it over for a minute. His reasoning was logical, maybe even convincing, but it wasn’t entirely comforting. “Okay, you win,” I said tiredly. “Where’d you get your degree in psychology, anyway?” I wasn’t ready to thank him just yet.
“Oh, you know, Himalayan lamas and all. Same place I learned to sustain a woman in a continuous state of orgasmic pleasure for hours on end. The usual.” He leered pleasantly over the cigarette as he lit up again.
“Oh yeah. Marty told me all about that.”
Kam choked on the inhale and began coughing violently.
“Just kidding,” I added.
“Hmmm. Well, I know for a fact that you’ve driven Brian to distraction on more than one occasion with this nagging self-doubt of yours.” Kam had recovered himself for the moment and continued in a jocular tone. “Frankly, I’ve always recommended a good sound beating, but he seemed to think that he could reason with you. Maybe hearing it from someone who doesn’t have his obvious biases will help. Otherwise I’ve got the leg irons and the riding crop in the car,” he said, and stretched indolently. “Nope, no more of this soft, lovey-dovey Western nonsense for you, m’dear. As Brian’s best man, it is my duty to help him through these little ups and downs.” Kam sounded smug and secure in his evaluation of the subject.
I smirked. I’m sure you think you’re a real terror, you big muffin, I thought, but Marty’d knock you sideways if she ever heard you talk like that.
Aloud I said, “So what else has Brian told you that he shouldn’t have? You two are the worst gossips.”
“Well, he never told me about that fellow down by the church,” Kam said lightly. “Emma, you were scaring me. Who was he?”
I swore inwardly. I had hoped that because I left out any reference to Billy, Kam would have forgotten about him. Looking back on the situation, I marveled at how far out of hand I had let myself get. The problem was that I understood completely why I had welcomed that confrontation. I chose my words carefully, now convinced that Billy’s drives past the site had more to do with his erstwhile friend Augie’s death than anything about me.
“Billy and I had a…run-in…ages ago,” I said. “He’s mean, he’s stupid, and he’s vindictive, and since then he’s believed—still believes, I guess, if he actually remembers me too—that I wronged him. He’s probably certifiable. After the week I’ve had, when he nearly bashed into me, something just…snapped. The fact that it was him, that he is such a maggot, just made the prospect of…lashing out…so much more tempting.” I shrugged, downplaying the affair as much as I dared. “What can I say? I lost it. Sorry I snarled at you. Like I said, it’s been a rough week.”
“I see,” he said, nodding. “And once again, someone stepped in and did what you thought you should have been able to do yourself. But my God, Em, he must have had fifty pounds on you, and who knows what kind of previous experience! Unless you’ve had a secret life scrapping in biker bars, you could have been killed! What were you going to do, debate him, barehanded, into submission?”
“Well, not entirely barehanded.” I went back into my room and brought out the light summer suit jacket I’d worn that morning, drawing forth my “surprise” to show him. It was an antique hat pin I’d been wearing as a stickpin, eight inches of its shaft and razor-sharp point concealed in the lapel of my jacket. I twirled it around so that the deep blue stones, in the shape of a fleur-de-lis, shone in the dull light.
Funny I should have this today, I thought. I wore it for Pauline.
I continued out loud. “Don’t forget he was drunk out of his mind too, and I was really wound up. Besides, this is a non-issue. You showed up, my knight in shining armor, and whether I got to bash him, and despite my sarcasm, I am glad to see you.” I kissed him quickly on the cheek, and squeezed his arm.
Kam received that tribute, as all else in life, with equanimity.
“Besides,” I said, “what made you think you could take Billy, aside from your insufferable male ego?”
“Besides the fact that I did? You forget, woman, that I learned—”
“Yes, yes, I know, from Himalayan lamas…” I laughed, anticipating another line of charming bullshit.
He leaned back and stretched luxuriously. “No, impudent one. At Oxford, I earned my blue pummeling weak-chinned youths from Cambridge. C’mon, put on some real clothes, and I’ll take you to dinner before Brian gets in.”