Fundraising the Dead (4 page)

When he showed up three minutes later he began, “Hey, Nell, what’s up? I mean, aside from the obvious party stuff.” He slouched in the chair, all angles and legs.

I had no time for chitchat, with the gala looming. “Have you talked to Marty lately?”

“Yeah, she asked me how far chronologically into the collection I’d gotten to by now. Why?”

I went on. “She came to me to say she couldn’t find something she was looking for in the collection, something she knew was there earlier. I said I’d ask you if you had set anything aside to work on.”

He looked perplexed. “No, I had a couple of boxes out so I could catalog them to folder level, but I put those back over a week ago. I told her that. What’s gone missing?”

“Something from Major Jonathan, apparently. But she’s coming by tomorrow morning, and I said I’d help her look. Can you join us?” I was being polite, since I was a senior staff member conveying a board member’s request, and he would
have
to be there unless he came down with malaria. Or maybe smallpox.

“Sure, no problem. There’s some other stuff I wanted to ask her about anyway.” He seemed unworried.

“How’s the project going overall?”

“Oh, great. There’s some amazing stuff in there—the Terwilligers were definitely pack rats. That’s good and bad from my point of view. I mean, there’s all this fascinating material, but it’s all jumbled together, sort of loosely grouped by date. So you can find a letter from Benjamin Franklin thrown in next to somebody’s nineteenth-century shopping list. I’m having a lot of fun, but it’s a long, slow process.”

“You’ve been here for four months now, since, what, July?” He nodded. “How much do you think you’ve covered?”

He looked up at the ceiling while he considered. “Lessee. I decided to approach this chronologically, so I started at the beginning, and there’s less stuff there ...” I knew that the Terwilligers had arrived in Philadelphia early in the eighteenth century and had set themselves up as bankers and merchants and done extremely well for themselves, all the while reproducing and establishing their offspring in businesses in Philadelphia and beyond. “I’d guess I’ve finished roughly twenty percent in terms of volume. Of course, that’s just to folder level—if I was going to do it down to item level, it would take a lot longer.”

“And where are you now?” I asked.

“Just before the Revolution.”

That’s what Marty had said. “Marty was looking for some correspondence between Major Jonathan and George Washington—have you gotten to that yet?”

He looked nonplussed. “No. You know, she said something about that the last time she was working on the papers, but like I told her, I haven’t gotten up to the war years yet.”

“Hey, don’t panic, Rich. I know you’re doing a good job. But Marty’s got clout, and she says they were there the last time she looked and that they’re not there now, so I told her we could all go look for them together. Okay?”

“Sure. Maybe they’re just misfiled. Heck, maybe
she
put them back in the wrong place—she’s always poking around in there.” He was all too right: Marty seemed to continue to regard the collection as her personal property rather than the Society’s. While the Society’s stacks were in theory off-limits to the public, there were some people like Marty—a triple threat board member, donor, and researcher—who felt quite free to come and go in the stacks as they chose. How many other people might have had the same idea? Did we have a list somewhere, and how up-to-date was it?

“You may be right. Let’s hope so.” I sent him on his way. I didn’t really think he had been careless, but I had to check. “We’ll meet her in the lobby at nine tomorrow morning, okay?”

“I’ll be there,” Rich said, and ambled out.

Nothing is going to go wrong!
I told myself firmly. I
hoped I was listening to myself.

I stood at the top of the grand staircase and surveyed the scene of organized chaos below me. Standing on the handsome staircase with its massive mahogany rails and slate stair treads, I gauged the mob below. A newly installed exhibit on Philadelphia’s theater history adorned the display cases in the catalog room—which was also the location of the open bar. Dinner would be served in the main reading room, with its soaring ceilings and brass railings, the usual massive reading tables lugged to the bowels of the basement in order to allow circular dining tables to take over for the night.

From my elevated vantage point, I could see that the flower arrangements looked handsome, the coat-check system seemed to be functioning, and the pile of name tags had dwindled nicely as arriving people picked them up. Senior staff members had all received a memo from the president commanding their presence at this important event, to help if and as needed, and they had turned out in force—and were actually talking to guests, not just to each other. A few board members had even managed to remember the date—several were lawyers whose offices were nearby or academics whose time was flexible. I counted the members of the press, including the ladies from the suburban newspapers who were hovering near the doors hoping to catch any of their local stars for photos to appear in the next weekly, as well as a reporter from the
Philadelphia Inquirer
who kept looking at her watch.

All was going according to plan. Even the weather had cooperated, the October evening crisp and cool and blessedly dry. It was time to jump into the water and get my feet wet.

I continued my descent of the staircase, largely unnoticed, even though I’d made time to put on a dress and heels. I’m used to not being noticed: I waved good-bye to thirty-five a few years ago, but am fighting forty; I’m carrying ten extra pounds (all right, fifteen) that I would gladly give to someone who deserved them; and my features could best be described as pleasant, and apparently easy to forget. But I like my job, and I’m good at it, so I don’t worry if people’s eyes pass right over me—as long as they sign their checks.

The Society was a good place to work, especially now that our previous president had been pried out, kicking and screaming, by a board that felt that her priorities were “not consistent with the board’s long-term vision for the institution” (according to one highly confidential memo). Three years ago she had retreated with what dignity she could muster after her termination, to write a book about her experiences. Then the board had turned around and, after a highly publicized search, hired a person as diametrically opposite as they could find: Charles Elliott Worthington.

Where our late unlamented president had been plain and dumpy, Charles was tall, suave, and elegant; where his predecessor had had all the tact of a bulldozer and refused to listen to any idea that was not her own, Charles oozed charm from every pore (if he even had pores) and when speaking to you one-on-one, possessed the ability to make you believe that you were the only other person in the world. He radiated charisma, and his indefinable moneyed accent—British? Old New England?—didn’t hurt. Those of us who had seen his résumé knew he’d actually grown up in Ohio, but why quibble? He was photogenic and had made himself a highly visible part of the Philadelphia historical scene in short order, if the society pages in the
Inquirer
were any indication. Exactly what the Society needed, and I for one was thrilled, since that charm translated directly to dollars for us.

Charles had used that charm to win over the staff as well as donors. The budget deficit was in the double-digit range, and the staff turnover had been approaching fifty percent per year. Starting salaries were laughable; most of the new hires were innocent babes struggling to find the restrooms, never mind the collections. Charles hadn’t been able to turn the financial picture around yet, but he made it known that he was working on it, with the implicit promise of salary adjustments (there hadn’t been any for years), more specialized staffing, educational programs, and improved health care benefits. If I really thought about it, I had to admit that it would be a long time before all of these things materialized—if ever—but somehow he convinced people to stay on and keep working.

Why was I still here, when I could probably be making better money somewhere else, especially with the musical-chairs scene among Philadelphia fundraising staff? Curiosity, at least: I wanted to see how this played out, see if Charles really could turn things around (with a little help from me, of course). Most of the people on the staff were great and really cared about what they were doing. Plus, I loved the solidity of the 1900 building, the heady scent of the old leather and paper in the stacks, the incredible wealth of
history
in this one building. I’d always been a bookworm and a history nut, so I put up with a lot of garbage for the opportunity to sneak off into the stacks during my lunch hour and actually hold something that had once belonged to Ben Franklin, or to attend a meeting with my (very respectful) elbow on the same mantelpiece that Thomas Jefferson had leaned on while writing the Declaration of Independence. Heady stuff.

And it didn’t hurt, either, that Charles and I had been seeing each other socially since shortly after his arrival.

It was time to get down to business and start working the crowd. As I came down the stairs, careful not to trip in the stiletto heels I wasn’t used to wearing, I again scanned the gathering below me. In a corner a delightful if superannuated city council member, an ex officio board member, had snagged our youngest, blondest female employee and was spinning tales while leaning over to enjoy her cleavage. I spotted Membership Coordinator Carrie Drexel smiling up at another board member, chatting brightly, and Rich hovering nearby. And out of the corner of my eye I saw Alfred slink into the room, looking uncomfortable—I wondered briefly what had changed his mind. Our venerable head librarian, Felicity Soames, headed for him quickly and started talking to him, gently leading him out of the corner where he had scuttled. I wondered briefly if Alfred was looking for me, but whatever it was could wait. I had other fish to fry.

I reached the bottom of the stairs, took a deep breath, and pasted my social smile on my face.
Here we go
, I thought, as I waded into the fray. From the volume of chatter, things were going well, helped by the generous free drinks that the bartender was pouring. I nodded encouragement at our newest staff member, a shelving assistant who was taking coats from the latecomers. Then I forged my way through the crowd into the catalog room, which was even more packed. I’d been on the job long enough that I no longer needed to read name tags—I recognized the major players. It was a good turnout, not only in numbers, but the right people, the ones we needed the most. The ones whom we were courting, flattering, cajoling, wheedling, massaging—you name it, we had tried it on each and every one of them. And it seemed to be working. I finally spied Charles at the far end of the room, surrounded by a fawning crowd. I stopped to study him in action.

He looked every inch the distinguished leader of an important institution: tall, slender, with discreet touches of grey at his temples. His three-piece suit had clearly been made for him, and he always wore the vest. His shoes gleamed with polish. An antique signet ring glinted on one hand. His tie was a marvel of luxurious restraint. He cocked his aristocratic head to listen patiently to an anecdote from a doddering lady in dirty diamonds; he laid a firm and manly hand on the arm of a tweedy academic type standing next to him, who I happened to know had just published a critically acclaimed book; he made a self-deprecating joke that had the circle around him laughing.

Oh, he was good. Though it remained to be seen whether his obvious skills would translate into long-term help for the Society. Based on what I had seen in my years here, the place seemed to chew up and spit out directors: the most recent disaster had been exiled; her predecessor had fled to Vermont and refused to answer any communications, written or oral; the one before that had apparently succumbed to a lengthy wasting illness attributed to the stress of the position—or maybe some evil fungus that lurked among the old books. But I had a feeling that Charles was going to put them all to shame, and what was more, he seemed to enjoy his role.

Time to remind him to make his formal welcome. I wove through the crowd and touched his arm. He turned quickly, and seeing me, unleashed one of his high-voltage smiles.
Sorry, Charlie, I don’t have any money to give you
, I thought.
Save it for the paying guests.

I leaned close to speak, savoring his subtle after-shave. “Charles, you should welcome our guests now. I’ll tell the caterer to start serving in fifteen minutes, but it’s going to take some time to move everyone in to dinner.”

“Of course,” he responded, sotto voce
.
He made his apologies to the group he’d been speaking with, then moved toward the center of the main wall to pose against the array of portraits of past presidents and board members, cleared his throat, and waited for the din to subside. Which it did promptly. Not for the first time, I wondered just how he did that.

“Ladies, gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome you this evening to celebrate the first hundred and twenty-five years for the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society, as we take our first step toward a greatly enhanced future. It is gratifying to see so many old friends and supporters here, because we face some daunting challenges in the days ahead. But with the assistance of our able board and the valuable input from our architects and planners, we have developed a strategy to meet the challenges of the future, all the while preserving the best of the past. For that is our mission: to preserve and to protect our treasures, so that future generations may benefit from them.

“As you know well, our primary goals continue to be: to create the best possible physical environment in order to maintain our world-renowned collections; and at the same time, to create a place that welcomes scholars and visitors, that provides a suitable setting in which to learn and explore. We strive to marry these two goals, and we must work together to forge an institution that will be a credit to this wonderful city. Please help us both to honor our past and to celebrate our future.”