A Student of History, page 5
“That Waverly Stone,” said Mrs. W— beside me, rather loudly. “Well, no one ever accused her of being classy.”
Then the same fancy-hat lady came back to the mic and talked about the new wing, the architecture, the anonymous donor, and as she spoke the lights of the courtyard went out, leaving only the new building and its grand three-story lobby in lights, like a beacon in the darkness; like a brilliant new planet. The effect was dramatic, and there were gasps.
“. . . and the fact that this was made possible by the generosity of an individual,” the lady said, “someone who is driven not by a need for recognition, but by a love of art, and a commitment to social institutions in Los Angeles, well, that is truly remarkable. We cannot know who this donor is, or if he or she is even with us tonight. But whoever it is, please know that the museum, our patrons and members, and indeed the entire city, are forever in your debt.”
It was a bit over the top, and I could see why Waverly Stone might be annoyed. Who wouldn’t be if they donated something worth untold millions only to be upstaged by some invisible rival? These games were beyond my ability to understand—competitions of an entirely different world.
Mrs. W— was nodding through all of this; she seemed pleased by the proceedings. Though when the ceremony was over and people were invited to tour the new building, she declined.
“I’ve seen what I came to see,” she said. “I can tour the building later, when all these damned people are gone.”
* * *
On the ride back to Bel Air, Mrs. W— was quiet at first. She gazed out the window, serene. I didn’t know what to say and so chose to say nothing, until she turned and asked, “What did you think?”
“Of the event? It was nice,” I said stupidly. “The sculptures were impressive, and the new building was beautiful.” I wondered if I’d said the wrong thing by complimenting the sculptures, but she didn’t seem to care.
“When they turned the lights out and all you could see was the new building, that was lovely, don’t you agree?”
“I do.” Then, because I wanted to know, because I couldn’t help myself: “Who is that young woman I was talking with? Fiona Morgan?”
“Fiona,” Mrs. W— repeated, still looking out the window. “I’ve known her all her life. Her last name is really Harrington. Morgan’s her married name. She married a highly successful commercial real estate developer who’s responsible for many of the new buildings in town. I don’t think they see each other much. He’s always working, and she flits about to lunches and events. She has a child, a nervous young thing. I’m not sure she sees him much, either.”
“She mentioned that her family has something to do with the museum?”
“Indeed. Her mother’s a board member, and served as president for a while. Fiona comes from very good stock, you know. The Harringtons are amongst the oldest families in the city. They owned the company that supplied steel to build tracks for the railroads, and they used to own much of Pasadena. Her grandfather was one of President Reagan’s closest friends.”
“Really.”
“Yes, they’ve always been very involved in politics and the arts. Fiona herself was a talented dancer, but she gave that up to go into investment banking. She simply wasn’t cut out for finance, though. For the last several years she’s been tending to family concerns.”
I sensed that by family concerns she didn’t mean her husband and home life. “She seems to share your opinion of Waverly Stone,” I said.
“She’s a sensible girl. Always has been—there was a time . . .” She trailed off for a moment. “There was a time when I would see her quite often.”
I was filing all this information away, trying to make sense of it. “It was nice to talk with her. I think she enjoyed the speculation around the anonymous donor.”
“I enjoyed it too.”
“Do you have any guess as to who it was?”
“I don’t have to guess. I know.” She turned from the window to face me; the passing streetlights illuminated her eyes. “It was me.”
“It was—what?” I almost fell forward out of the bench seat and onto the floor of the car. “You gave that money?”
“Why, yes. Several years ago. No one there has any idea. They all think I’m a stingy old bitch.”
I let this news sink in. Of course she had given it. That was the reason she’d wanted to attend. “But . . . why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you want people to know?”
“I have no use for all this fuss,” she said. “People groveling and then wanting more. It’s better they think that you won’t give them anything.” She paused. “Plus it was a hoot to see Waverly so tortured, don’t you think? She was beside herself, and didn’t know who to be mad at. Ha ha ha ha ha!”
There was genuine pleasure on her face; I wasn’t sure whether to admire her act or to find it slightly mad. Now I turned and looked out the window myself, watched the lights on Wilshire, then on Sunset, as we headed back west. We wound up through the dark streets of Bel Air and back to the house; there Dalton helped Mrs. W— out of the car and we both walked her to the door.
“Good night, gentlemen,” she said just before she disappeared. Then the door closed in our faces and she was gone.
CHAPTER THREE
The next morning I drove to campus to meet with my advisor, Professor Victoria Rose. I was feeling a bit groggy. I hadn’t slept well; all night my mind was buzzing with images from the night before. I’d been tempted to postpone the meeting again, but knew it wouldn’t be smart. We’d already tried to reschedule a couple of times after I’d canceled for my first day at Mrs. W—’s, and I hadn’t tried very hard to find a new date. But she’d pressed it—it had been more than three months by this point; we hadn’t met since mid-October—and I knew that when we did talk, the conversation wouldn’t be easy. In an effort to account for the months I’d been out of touch, I’d spewed out twenty pages which I’d sent ahead of time, but they were sloppy, not deeply reasoned out, the research jammed in sideways. I knew Professor Rose would not be pleased; I entered her dark, cavernous office and sat in the heavy hard-backed chair—known to students as the Throne of Pain—as if offering myself up for punishment.
The room felt like an intimidation chamber. The floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves were stuffed with perfectly arranged books, and there were sliding wooden ladders on both sides. The massive wooden desk, with its thick claw feet and intricately carved edges, looked like it had been commandeered from some castle. The Throne of Pain itself had been preserved, students whispered, from the home of the first governor of California after statehood. On the two walls without bookcases, there were framed posters of various academic conferences that listed Professor Rose as a keynote speaker, and not a few photos of Professor Rose herself—with past mayors of both political parties, receiving awards; with three different governors and a senator. Everything here seemed designed to emphasize both her prominence and your own insignificance.
I watched Professor Rose furrow her brow as she looked at my pages and wondered how bad it would be. She was better dressed than most professors; in her silk blouse, gray blazer, and bright but tasteful accessories, she looked like she’d just stepped off the set of a morning cable show, which in fact, that day, she had. Her rectangular-framed glasses slid down her nose a fashionable inch; a few loose strands of her auburn hair, which was tied into a ponytail, fell onto her cheeks, where they tangled with the pen she was forever trying not to chew. The tip of it would hover at her lips, and then—maybe when she came across some particularly offensive line—she’d lose the battle and bite down on the end of it, hard.
“This connection, between the rise of German nationalism and the racial covenants in the US? I’m not sure I buy it. The covenants did come into existence after World War I, but I don’t know that they had any relation to what was happening in Europe. What are you basing this on?”
I looked at her, trying to keep a straight face, feeling the hard wood on my ass. The truth was, I had based it on nothing. I’d just written it because it sounded like a plausible theory. “The Ottenheim papers,” I struggled. “They suggest that such covenants were being formalized in Germany, and it’s possible that German immigrants brought the idea to Los Angeles.”
She tilted her head just slightly, looking at me down her nose, as if wondering if I was trying to pull one over on her or if I really was that stupid. “Rick,” she said, “I know the Ottenheim papers. I don’t know how you’d draw that conclusion.” She sighed, bit her pen again, and then set it down on her desk rather hard. “Is this all you’ve produced since the last time we met?”
A chill formed inside me, an ice cube melting at the bottom of my gut. “Well, Professor Rose, I’ve been toying with a number of theories. I keep taking steps in one direction and then moving into another. I—”
“It worries me, Rick. Your initial idea and even the first couple of chapters of this project were original and strong. But it seems like you’ve just petered out.”
“I . . .” I didn’t know what to say. Through the window, I could hear students out on the quad, playing Frisbee and blasting music and just enjoying the kind of late-winter day—seventy degrees in early February—that made the rest of the country hate California.
“It’s not uncommon for grad students to hit a bump when they’re ABD. The loss of structure with the end of coursework, and even being freed from teaching, gives students more time than some of them can handle.”
“It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but I don’t think it’s that.”
“I don’t think so either, Rick, and that’s why I’m worried. You seem truly stuck—like you’ve lost interest in the project.”
“Well, that’s not it, exactly.”
“And these things can take on their own momentum, you know. Like a death spiral. Once you get sucked downward, it’s almost impossible to pull out. I’ve seen this happen with several of my most promising students.”
The ice cube had grown into a full-fledged iceberg, and was now moving up through my gut and chest, chilling me and cutting up my organs.
“The other problem,” Professor Rose went on, and now she put the pages down and tapped her fingers on the surface of the desk, “is your Blain fellowship. It’s supposed to be for two years, and the second year is contingent upon your performance during the first. But based on your work thus far this academic year, I don’t think I can recommend you for a renewal.”
Now I sat up straight, alarmed. “Professor Rose, it’s not as bad as all that. There’s more I can show you—this isn’t all that I’ve done. I’ve written quite a few more pages.” Quickly I calculated how long it would take to draft another chapter. If I really motored, I could hustle something up in a week.
She shook her head and waved her hand as if batting away a fly. “If this is the best of what you’ve got, then I don’t think additional pages will help.”
Outside, a delighted shriek from a female student. There was a splashy thud, and then another, the sound of water balloons breaking. Now a male voice shouting, “I’ll get you! I’m going to get you back!” And then more laughter, fading as the students moved farther down the quad. Inside me the iceberg was sinking now, and I felt my shoulders sag. What would I do if I lost my funding? Would I lose the stipend from the university too? How would I be able to finish my dissertation? How the hell would I support myself?
Professor Rose closed her eyes and sighed. She reached under her glasses to rub her eyes, and in the moment that her eyes were uncovered, I could see that she was tired. She wasn’t trying to be a hard-ass. I’d just royally fucked up. Now she pulled a piece of paper out of another pile and wrote something on it. I tried to read it upside down without being obvious. Did it have to do with the fellowship?
“Rick, what have you been doing for the last few months? For this whole year, really?”
“I don’t know, Professor Rose. There’s been a lot going on.”
“I’m sure there has, but we all have a lot going on. There’s just no excuse for this lack of productivity. My assessment to the Blain Foundation is due in two weeks, and I’m sorry, but you’ve given me no reason to recommend a renewal.”
Panic rose up within me now. “But Professor Rose—”
“I’m sorry, Rick. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that there are so many other students, productive students, who could really use this support.”
“Can you give me those couple of weeks?” I asked frantically. “You said it was due in a couple of weeks.”
She sighed again. “Yes, but as I just explained, if what you’re doing is along the same lines as what I’ve just seen, it isn’t going to make any difference.”
Her pronouncement fell between us like a sandbag. I lowered my eyes. Outside, I heard another burst of laughter on the other side of the quad, over closer to the science building. The W— science building. I raised my head.
“Actually, I’m working on something totally different.” I hadn’t known I would say this until it was out of my mouth.
Professor Rose looked at me with a weary expression. She had heard so many excuses. “What?” She sounded impatient. “What are you talking about?”
“Something new, completely new, and no one’s ever done it.” I leaned toward her now, grabbing onto a line of hope, pulling myself up, fist after fist. “A different angle on the history of early LA.” I peered right into her skeptical eyes. “I recently got access to some very interesting papers. The private papers of Marion W—.”
Professor Rose furrowed her brow again, with mild interest now. “Marion W— of the W— family?”
“Yes! You know, the W— wing at the Natural History Museum. The W— Science Hall right here at USC! She’s the granddaughter of Langley W—. And she’s an important figure in her own right too.”
Professor Rose tilted her head and looked at me intently. I wasn’t sure she’d ever really looked at me before. “And what are these . . . papers you’ve found?”
“Her private journals. From when she was a girl, all the way until the present day. She writes about her father and grandfather, and some of their business dealings. She writes about other important LA people too.”
“And how did you happen to come across these journals?”
“I . . . know the family,” I said, not sure of how much to reveal. Janet would never have mentioned her job with Mrs. W— to her professors at USC, and with her focus on Renaissance France, she had no dealings with Professor Rose or any of the other Americanists. I saw no reason why I should disclose it, either.
“And they’ve granted you access to them?”
“Yes, I have full access, but they never leave her house. I mean, she isn’t sharing them with anyone else.”
Professor Rose leaned back in her chair. She took off her reading glasses and set them on the table; I saw in her hazel eyes the stirrings of excitement. “That is interesting,” she said. “The W—s have not cooperated with any attempts to document their story. They won’t talk to the media, and they’ve never authorized any biographies. There’s very little in terms of primary source material. Everything about them in historical accounts of LA is taken from public record, a few interviews with people who knew them, and a lot of speculation. Even the buildings you mentioned were named decades ago, in Langley’s time. Marion W— has been almost totally under the radar.”
I nodded, and gulped; it occurred to me that Professor Rose knew much more about the W—s than I did. Of course she did; I should have anticipated that. She had the advantage of three decades of reading and writing about California. But I had Mrs. W—.
“Langley W—,” Professor Rose mused, more to herself than to me, “was one of the biggest oil and land barons of the early twentieth century. He helped found some of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Los Angeles. He handpicked several mayors. His oil holdings extended from LA to Kern County to Riverside.” She crossed her legs and swiveled a quarter-turn in her chair, brought her hand up to her chin and tapped it with one finger. She was looking past me now, over my shoulder, out the door, out at history.
“It’s highly irregular, of course, for a student to change topics altogether at this juncture of his graduate career. But this is an extraordinary circumstance.” Now she dropped her hand and brought her leg down and leaned over the desk. “If you could find something, if you reveal new information about the family and their early dealings in the city, now that would be historically significant. It could unlock new truths about the legacy of the W—s, about the origins of Los Angeles!”
I sat back just a little. “I’m not sure, Professor Rose. I’m not sure there will be anything in the papers I have that would refer to early LA. I mean, these are Mrs. W—’s papers. You’re talking about her grandfather.”
She waved me off. “I know, I know, but maybe there’s something. And if Marion W— kept all her papers, maybe there are other papers. Maybe her grandfather kept records or letters. Maybe her father did too.”
