The High Season(39)

“You already consulted an attorney?” Ruthie turned to Helen. “Helen, you brought me aboard. My last review with you and Carole was excellent. You said I was doing a magnificent job. You used the word magnificent, Helen! That was less than two years ago! How can you support this?”

“They didn’t use the right metrics,” Mindy said. “The review was not pro forma. Legally we’re in the clear.”

“I don’t know how this turned so acrimonious,” Helen said. “I brought such delicious cookies.”





21


HELEN FOLLOWED HER out to her car. She wore a chunky necklace made of resin blocks strung on colorful coated wire, and it rattled against her clasped hands.

“I feel terrible about that meeting,” she said.

Ruthie fished for her keys. She couldn’t make sense of her purse; it was like she was sucked into space and her hand was in a black hole. “I’m sorry you feel terrible, Helen. I’m the one out of a job, though.”

“I know how it must rankle, but—”

“Rankle? Rankle?”

Helen took a step back. “We’re in the heat of the moment right now. But Ruthie, you’re so good. People recognize that. We both love the Belfry and it will have a life beyond both of us, after all. It will continue to serve the committee—I mean, the community! Isn’t that the most important thing? That we meet the future with confidence?”

Ruthie looked at Helen, amazed. Her life was in tatters and Helen was giving her a chamber-of-commerce speech? She’d actually heard Helen say that last bit at the Spring Festive Fling a few months before. Helen looked supremely comfortable, or as comfortable as a person can be with three tons of resin strung around her neck.

    Behind Helen’s head rose the pure white form of the Belfry. Ruthie felt her throat constrict. She knew everything there was to know about the building. She knew the condition report. She knew she had to fix the air handler next year. She knew how the voices of the children echoed up from the education wing to the offices. She knew how cooling the breeze could be in late September. She knew that when she brought in food the platter could be cleared in fifteen minutes flat. She knew her employees, how Vivian needed to be encouraged, how Tobie was dealing with a husband with chemo, how Mark needed just a little room to spin before he came up with a brilliant idea.

There had been jobs that she’d liked, jobs she’d tolerated, jobs she’d loathed. She’d never had a job she’d loved. Standing here now, it felt as though something had moved through her and scoured out her insides.

Her hand found the keys. She clicked the lock open and swung behind the wheel. The car was a furnace. She started the engine and opened the window. To her dismay Helen didn’t step away. She leaned into the open window, her necklace clanking against the car.

“I tried to protect you,” Helen said. “But nobody says no to Mindy.”

Ruthie’s head swiveled. “What?”

“My doctor said, ‘You have to stop the oppositional stress. Give in or be dragged!’?” Helen fingered her resin. “Anyway, there’s no use looking back. We have to move forward.”

“But I’m the one under the wheels, Helen!”

“And just for the record, I was very much against holding that meeting with Catha.”

“There was a meeting?”

“I thought it was…unseemly. We can do better.”

    The air-conditioning blew in her face, and she welcomed the blast. “Helen, please step away from the car.”

Helen hung on to the car door. “We are still friends. I am going to continue to be a part of your life because I want to. You’re so gifted. I can see you taking your skills to the next level, maybe working with artists?”

“Where?” Ruthie asked.

Helen waved a hand, and cookie crumbs went flying. Some of them stuck to her shirt. “So many wonderful nonprofits in the area,” she said.

“Yes, I know all of them, and I know all of their directors. Most of the ones on the North Fork are cutting staff. I will have to move, Helen. Sell the house. Leave my community, my friends, take Jem out of school…” Ruthie fought against the thickness in her voice. “Do you realize that? When directors lose their jobs, they have to move!”

Helen looked down and adjusted the ring on her third finger so that the stone, pale yellow, slid to the exact center. “Catha thinks we should drop the ‘the.’ We might change the name to just Belfry. Or BM.”

“That is a terrific idea,” Ruthie said. “Do that!”

“I’m on the naming committee.”

Ruthie gripped the steering wheel, afraid she’d push the pedal to the floor. She remembered how when Jem was a toddler, she had to force herself to speak softly when she was thick with frustration and sticky with spilled juice. The titanic rage of mothering a toddler was nothing compared with this.

What could she say to Helen, a woman who had told her over the course of years that they were “family”? You are being a colossal shit. Your cowardice disgusts me.

When she’d decided to apply for this job, her first directorship, she’d called her old boss. What are the pitfalls, she’d asked him. “If you want to be a director of a museum, just know you’re going to get fired at some point in your career,” he’d said. “It won’t have anything to do with your job performance. It’s usually one person who wants to make a mark. They rope in a few others who want power. If they’re rich and nasty enough, they win. Boards are basically ovine in nature. One sheep says leap over the cliff, and next thing you know you’ve got a whole lot of haggis.”