Hidden Treasures (16 page)

“I didn’t mean it
that
way,” Fern reassured her. “It’s just that he wants to do his show about you. You walk into the inn and you’re the only person he’s going to see, the only person who’ll matter to him.”

True enough. “How about if you position yourself as my best friend—which you are—and the only person in Rockwell who might be able to get him access to me?” She recalled what Jed had said last night, about how Derrick wanted Jed to put his people in touch with Erica’s people, as if she had any people. If anyone was going to facilitate anything, it ought to be Fern. “He’ll be so indebted to you love won’t be far behind.”

“You think?” Fern toyed with the straw from her juice box as she considered the plan. “Maybe I could win a few points with him that way.” She stuffed the straw back into the box and drained the juice from it with a loud, gurgling slurp. “It might work even better if you don’t come with me. I can tell him I’m his only chance for access to you. Without my cooperation, he doesn’t see you.”

“That would work, except I’ve got to go there this afternoon. Avery Gilman is arriving today, and I reserved a room for him there.”

“The Hope Street Inn?”

“It’s the nicest bed-and-breakfast in town. I thought he’d like it. He’ll think it’s rustic and New Englandy. And the building is a hundred years old, which will
push his buttons. You know all that antique stuff in the front parlor, the firedogs and the stereopticon? Dr. Gilman will be drooling.”

“You’re sure he’s able to defend himself? Him and Derrick Messinger under one roof…The Hope Street Inn isn’t that big.”

“Maybe Messinger will decide to do his show about Dr. Gilman instead of me,” Erica said hopefully.

“Then how am I going to win points playing go-between?” Fern pouted. “Well, whatever. I’ll figure something out. You can busy yourself getting your professor settled in while I ply my wiles with Derrick.”

They agreed to meet after school and travel to the Hope Street Inn together. School ended later than usual, thanks to a staff meeting that began ten minutes after the kids vacated the building. During the meeting, more than a few faculty members hovered near Erica, making her uncomfortable. She’d thought the excitement generated by her front-page appearance in the
Rockwell Gazette
would have died down by now, but apparently some of her colleagues had heard about the story’s being mentioned on a news show out of Boston, and the gawking and ribbing had resumed. Wendy Williams, the reading specialist, made a crack about Erica being the darling of the ancient-box world. Dorothy Hines, the music teacher, hummed a few bars of the
Entertainment Tonight
theme song. When the agenda reached “New Business,” Burt Johnson, the principal, noted that several people had observed Derrick Messinger skulking around the schoolyard and he reminded everyone how important it was for them all to maintain decorum so the school would look good on television. He also mentioned that he was establishing a committee, comprising Fern, Roger Basmegian, the gym
teacher, and Hazel Nagy as a representative of the community, to discuss the current sex education curriculum.

Fern was fuming when they left the meeting. “We don’t need a committee. Especially one with Hazel Nagy on it. Her idea of sex education is, men can pee standing up and women can’t. The end. And Roger? His idea is probably, men can write in the snow with their pee. Women can’t.”

“Forget about it,” Erica murmured. She didn’t want Fern’s upcoming meeting with Derrick Messinger spoiled by her anger over sex education. Right now, Fern’s cheeks were splotchy with color; her eyes, burning; her hands, curled into fists. Erica was no seductress, but she knew enough to suspect that no man would want to get romantic with a woman that close to the boiling point.

“How can I forget about it? Basmegian is such a Neanderthal. You know what he calls his wife? The little lady.”

“She
is
little.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, he has no idea what the current pedagogy is when it comes to sex education. The last literature he read on the subject was probably
Penthouse Forum
.”

“Then he’ll balance Hazel Nagy and her prude brigade. Really, Fern, forget it. We’re on our way to see Derrick Messinger.”

Fern nodded, but the color didn’t fade from her cheeks. “Maybe I’ll suggest that he do a show on sex ed in the New Hampshire sticks.”

“Don’t. Burt’ll fire you for making the school look bad on TV.”

“Let him fire me,” Fern huffed. “I’ll run off with Derrick.”

They climbed into their respective cars. Erica followed Fern to Main Street and then down it to Hope Street. The first block of Hope Street east of Main featured a Laundromat, the Eat-zeria and a bar, but the second block was prettier, lined with modest but stalwart houses and stout oak trees, the branches of which bore tiny green buds, harbingers of spring. On the corner of the block stood the Hope Street Inn, a rambling Victorian with a broad porch, a smattering of gingerbread trim and a sign dangling from an overhang. Erica steered up the driveway to the small parking area behind the building. A car with Massachusetts plates occupied one of the spots. Dr. Gilman’s car, she concluded, then reminded herself that he wanted her to call him Avery.

The drive seemed to have given Fern a chance to control her temper. After getting out of her car, she hunkered down to inspect her reflection in the side mirror and stabbed her hair several times with her fingers to fluff it out. She quickly added a smear of plum-hued lipstick to her lips and straightened up. “How do I look?”

“Gorgeous,” Erica said, meaning it.

Fern scowled. “I feel empty-handed. Maybe I should’ve baked another banana bread.”

“If all he wants you for is your banana bread, he’s not worth your time,” Erica advised.

“Right.” Fern didn’t sound convinced. But she gave her snug-fitting sweater a tug, squared her shoulders and preceded Erica around the building to the porch steps and inside. A cute little bell tinkled above the door as they swung it shut.

The parlor was empty—and Fern was right, the fabric on that wingback chair
did
look like bathroom wallpaper—but lively chatter floated through the arched doorway of the dining room. Nellie Shoemaker hurried into the parlor, a short, stocky woman in her fifties who had taken over the inn from her parents when they’d retired to Florida a few years ago. Her hair was the same color as the granite poking out of the topsoil throughout the region, and her eyeglasses were so large they gave her a bug-eyed appearance.

Her smile zinged with energy. She must be feeling quite proud of herself, housing not just a TV celebrity but also a Harvard professor in her bed-and-breakfast.

“Hi. I’m wondering if Dr. Avery Gilman has checked in yet,” she said.

“Well, yes, he has. He just got here a short while ago, and he’s having some tea and banana bread now. I’m not sure where the banana bread came from. I didn’t bake it. I always put pecans in mine. This one has walnuts in it.”

“Walnuts taste the same as pecans when you bake them,” Fern muttered, obviously not pleased that the bread she’d baked wasn’t being consumed by the person it had been intended for. “Derrick Messinger isn’t around by any chance, is he?”

“Well, yes, he’s having some tea, too. It’s amazing to have this many guests when it’s not even ski season.”

Erica couldn’t imagine Derrick Messinger indulging in an afternoon cup of tea. This was the intrepid journalist who’d set off in search of Jimmy Hoffa’s corpse, armed with nothing but a camera and great quantities of attitude. Hadn’t Fern said he’d been drinking scotch yesterday?

Then it dawned on her that Derrick might be using teatime to interrogate Dr. Gilman. Jed might think Avery was a hotshot professor, but he was much more the tweedy, absentminded type, with his scruffy beard, his scruffier hair, his gangly body clad in baggy khakis and old sweaters stretched out at the elbows. Avery Gilman could hold his own against any other Colonial-era historian-archaeologist, but against a shark like Messinger? Erica wasn’t so sure.

She strode toward the dining room, Fern right behind her. Her entrance into the room, bright with late-afternoon sunlight, brought the conversation at the long, linen-covered table to a halt. Derrick, with his too-perfect blond hair, leaped out of his chair. So did Dr. Gilman. Erica recognized the other two people at the table: one was Derrick’s beefy cameraman, and the other a woman she was pretty sure she’d seen at her house that morning, too. She must be Sofia or Sonya.

Erica saved her smile for Dr. Gilman, who looked exactly as she’d remembered him from her undergraduate days, all elbows and knees, steel-wool hair bushing out from his scalp and chin. He wore a ribbed V-neck sweater of indeterminate brown, baggy twill trousers and scuffed shoes. He extended his right hand. “Erica Leitner! So good to see you!”

“Dr. Gilman.” She shook his hand, then grinned. “I’d like you to meet my friend, Fern Bernard. Fern, this is Dr. Gilman.”

“Avery,” he corrected her as he released her hand and turned to Fern.

Erica turned to her, too. She stood transfixed, just inside the dining-room doorway, staring at Dr. Gilman as if he were a creature from another planet.

He didn’t look that strange. With her spiky, persim
mon-red hair, Fern arguably looked stranger. As though someone had nudged her from behind, she stepped into the room, her hand outstretched. Dr. Gilman clasped it in his own. She sighed, then said, “It’s a pleasure,” although forcing out the words seemed to be a serious challenge.

What was wrong with her? She was a college graduate; she’d met professors before. Even if she hadn’t, she was never cowed by anyone. She was brassy and sassy, possibly the most sophisticated resident of Rockwell.

She lowered her gaze slightly and sighed again. If Erica didn’t know better—if she didn’t know that Fern had designs on Derrick Messinger—she might think Fern was smitten with Dr. Gilman.

Absolutely absurd. Avery Gilman represented the antithesis of everything Fern yearned for: excitement, electricity, cutting-edge style. He was a slightly moldy, slightly musty pedant. Why did Fern seem on the verge of swooning?

Erica wasn’t the only person to notice Fern’s odd reaction. Derrick Messinger cleared his throat loudly, as if to remind everyone that he was, after all, the most important person in the room. While Fern hovered near Dr. Gilman, her hand still clasped within his, Derrick clamped his own strong hand on Erica’s shoulder. “Erica! This is perfect! Why don’t we do a sit-down right here? Sonya, get your notes. Mookie, fire up the camera—”

“We’re not doing a sit-down,” Erica cut him off, not exactly sure what a sit-down was. “I’m here only to welcome my former professor and make sure he’s all settled in.” She glanced back at Dr. Gilman and
found him gazing down at Fern with that same goo-goo look in his eyes.

Good God. What had happened to their plan? Erica was supposed to resist Derrick’s attempt to interview her, and Fern was supposed to be the liaison, the heroine who persuaded Erica to contribute to Derrick’s show, and then Derrick was supposed to reward Fern for her assistance by falling for her. But right now, Fern seemed unaware Derrick was even in the room.

“I baked that banana bread,” she purred. “I hope you like it.”

“It’s great!” the cameraman said.

“It was quite tasty, as was Ms. Shoemaker’s tea. A welcome tonic after my long drive.” He gave Fern’s hand a slight squeeze before releasing it.

“Okay, look,” the other woman interjected. Yes, her voice did sound like a foghorn, one with a New York accent. “Enough with the banana bread. We’re all here, so let’s figure this out. Av, you’re gonna open the box tomorrow night, agreed? Eight-thirty, so we can get the live feed out of Manchester.”

“I don’t know,” Avery said, arching an eyebrow just enough to inform Erica he didn’t like being called Av. “As I’ve said all along, I have to examine the specimen first. I don’t work according to some network’s broadcast schedule.”

“Maybe you don’t, but schedules are schedules,” the foghorn lectured. “We’ve got a lock on eight to nine tomorrow night. A half hour of ‘Welcome to Rockwell’—which I’ll be editing tomorrow morning at the studio in Manchester—followed by the live feed at eight-thirty, during which you open the box, followed by reaction to whatever happens to be inside it.”

“What if the box is empty?” Erica asked. “Are you
going to broadcast a half hour of stunned silence?” Avery laughed. Fern managed a dazed smile.

“There’s always a reaction. Don’t worry. I’m a pro.”

“So am I,” Derrick interjected, just in case anyone had forgotten about him.

“And I’ve busted my tail to get us this live feed,” the foghorn said. “We get to be front and center when you do open it.
I’m Just the Messinger
gets the exclusive. Right?” Before anyone could respond, she addressed Erica. “We were thinking of having Av open the box here, in this room. For one thing, the decor is great, very antique in style. For another, the lighting is excellent.”

“No,” Erica said. “We’re not going to open the box here. We’re not moving the box from my house until we have a clearer idea of its age and value.” She shot Avery a glance and was gratified to see his nod. “I don’t care about the lighting.”

“When you’re taping a TV show, the lighting is important.”

“But the box was found behind my house. That’s where it should be opened. As far as I know,” Erica added pointedly, “journalists don’t stage events.”

Derrick’s smile vanished. The foghorn hadn’t been smiling in the first place. If the cameraman was wounded by Erica’s insinuation, he salved his hurt feelings by slicing himself another piece of Fern’s banana bread.

“Let’s have a look at this box, then, shall we?” Avery suggested, apparently oblivious to the tension in the room. His gaze lingered for a moment on Fern, and
then he addressed Erica. “At your house. Perhaps your friend would like to join us?”

Erica glanced at Fern, who peered up at Avery with dewy eyes. “I’m sure she would,” Erica said.