Lisa had been looking at the wall behind Jane as she spoke and suddenly recalled herself. "I'm sorry. This must be awfully boring to you."
“Not at all. I'm fascinated," Jane said. It wasn't quite the truth, but she sensed that Lisa needed to talk, and she was more than willing to listen if it would help assuage her grief. "What happened next?"
“Regina took over the directorship, found an apartment, and got to work. She'd only been here about a month or two before she figured out her long-term plans. She called and explained to me some of what she had in mind — more involvement in the Pea Festival, renovations in the budget structure, and such. But she said the one thing the museum desperately needed was a good public-relations and promotion plan. And she wanted me to do that. I was ready to enroll for my last semester, but I dropped all my courses and signed up instead for advertising classes. Whole new world to me!"
“It must have been," Jane said. That helped explain why Lisa hadn't seemed to fit the stereotypical mold of the aggressive, outgoing publicity person. She was basically a scholarly type who'd taken up promotion for purely practical reasons.
“It would have been the most hideous semester of my life, except that I had so much to look forward to. Regina convinced Miss Snellen that although I didn't have much training in promotion, I knew history and was a hard worker. Miss Snellen agreed to give me a chance — well, after all, qualifications didn't mean so much then. The former director had been a retired high-school science teacher. So I came here. Regina found a bigger apartment so that we could live together and work on museum concerns in the evenings without having to cart paperwork back and forth."
“You're smiling as if that was fun, to work day and night," Jane said.
“It was fun, really. The challenge of it. The Snellen Museum was like a lump of clay just waiting to be formed into something. When I came here, it was only open three afternoons a week, and as often as not, the only volunteer guide we had was Miss Snellen herself. But Regina solicited some women's clubs to sponsor volunteer guides. I trained them and then we opened the museum six days a week, charging a small admissions fee to help with the finances. Regina and I began visiting local schools, hauling along exhibits and encouraging teachers to bring classes here. Meanwhile, Regina hired Sharlene, who took over a lot of the paperwork, and that allowed Regina and me to finally start spiffing up the exhibits themselves."
“What a huge amount of work!" Jane said.
“Yes, and sometimes it seemed to go so slowly. But almost always in the right direction. Of course, there was one summer that the city was putting in a new sewer line and the street was closed. I think we had about fourteen hearty souls the whole season who went to the trouble of climbing through the construction rubble to get here."
“How discouraging!"
“Yes, but Miss Snellen was wonderful. When she realized that the museum really could be an attraction, not just a personal hobby of hers, she got behind us with the funding. She even manned the gift shop a day a week, though standing for long periods was hard for her. She encouraged Regina to write articles for various publications that would make the Snellen, if not a household name, at least a name that a few history buffs had heard of. I remember the first time somebody actually came from out of town specifically to visit the museum. We were so excited that we nearly buried the guy in attention.”
Lisa paused and looked away as Shelley came in with their lunches, and said, almost under her breath, "There were good times.”
The longing in her tone broke Jane's heart. "There will be lots more good times," she said. "Just think how exciting it'll be when the newmuseum starts taking shape and when you are moving things."
“Yes, you're right," Lisa said with, a sigh. "But Regina won't be here to see it."
“But she'll be with all of you in spirit," Jane said, cringing inwardly at the cliché but unable to think of anything else comforting to say.
Shelley set out their food, distributed napkins and plastic forks, and said, "Who will be in charge now? Will you become director, Lisa?"
“Oh, no! I hope not. It wouldn't suit me at all. I've come to really like my job and I do it well, I think. There's a lot of really boring detail work that goes with the directorship that I'd hate. Correspondence and bookkeeping."
“I guess that's why you have an assistant director, to step in if necessary," Shelley said. "Will Derek Delano be given the position, do you think?”
Lisa didn't answer right away. Then she said cautiously, "I suppose he might."
“I hope he isn't," Shelley said frankly. She drizzled dressing over her salad.
“Why is that?" Lisa asked.
Shelley looked up at her. "Because he's obnoxious."
“Well. ." Lisa began.
“Look," Shelley said, "I realize you have to work with him and I'm not trying to jeopardize your professional relationship, but that man's a jerk and you must know it. Were you in the trailer yesterday when I returned that box of gift-shop stuff and he called me 'babe'? That's just not the way to treat a woman you don't know, and a volunteer at that. If the museum put him in charge, they'd have a sexual harassment suit on their hands in a week.”
Lisa looked stunned at Shelley's bluntness, but acknowledged her remarks with a nod. "I'm afraid you're right. And I know Regina would have agreed."
“Why? Did he try that stuff on her, too? His own boss?" Jane asked.
“Yes, 'tried.' But it was so blatant—" Lisa hesitated again.
Shelley was on a roll and wouldn't let it go at that. "What was so blatant?"
“Well, he was after her job. Everybody knew that. He didn't even bother to disguise it. He was always mentioning how she'd be moving on to bigger and better museums once the Snellen was in its new building and she'd made her name in the profession. At first he flirted with her, which was really inappropriate. Then, when she rejected his requests for dates, he got sulky, and when she became involved with Whitney, he started making remarks that skated awfully close to being sexual innuendos. I'm sure Derek thought Regina found him attractive in spite of all the evidence to the contrary and would push the board to appoint him in her place when she left."
“So she was leaving the museum?" Jane asked.
“No, she wasn't. I was saying what Derek thought. He was wrong, but nothing could convince him of it."
“I don't get it," Shelley said. "If she was his boss and he was so obnoxious, why didn't she fire him? Or explain it to the board of directors, if they're the ones who do the firing?"
“Pride," Lisa answered. "That's all. Regina could be awfully stiff-necked at times. She'd searched high and low for an assistant, interviewed a mob of candidates. Somehow Derek managed to behave in the interviews and she recommended him to the board. She just couldn't bring herself to admit to them that she'd made a mistake. And it might have actually been hard to get rid of him. He's superbly well qualified, academically. More so than either Regina or I when we came here.”
Jane nibbled at her salad, reflecting that it was interesting how Shelley's bluntness often encouraged people to talk about things they'd never normally say, especially to strangers. Lisa Quigley hardly knew them, yet Shelley had her "talking shop" in minutes. Of course, part of it was probably the fact that poor Lisa had unexpectedly lost a good friend as well as a coworker.
“Don't you suppose the board knows what he's like?" Jane asked. "Babs McDonald strikes me as a sharp woman.”
Lisa kept poking at her salad as if she really wanted to eat but couldn't quite bring herself to it. "Yes, Babs must realize. And I imagine Regina talked to Jumper about it. She depended a lot on his judgment."