I didn’t agree and I didn’t understand. “Are you here to talk about my mother, and not your business?”
“I can’t believe I found you,” Pandora answered, swinging her head back and forth. “I looked for so long but it was hard because you had a different surname, and she was so deliciously cagey about the details of her life.”
“Deliciously cagey,” I echoed, and now she nodded excitedly.
“But she did mention the name ‘Emerson’ in that chapter about your birth, how she wasn’t thinking due to the pain and exhaustion, and how the midwife came up with it and she’d failed herself by submitting instead of fighting more against conventionality. I wasn’t even sure if you were a boy or a girl or if you were dead, too. I drove up north to look at her grave and it doesn’t say ‘mother’ on it, just ‘scholar’ and the dates of her life. It’s a really small headstone,” she noted, and looked at me like she was waiting for an answer.
I was waiting for one, too, but unlike the situation with Vivienne, I believed that I had figured out at least part of this. “So, you’re a fan of my mother’s work, and you tracked me down and lied about offering me a job so that I would meet with you,” I stated.
“I did try to email but you never answered,” she said. “That was very rude, and also? I’m not just a fan. I’m a PhD student, an academic like she was.”
“I have nothing to say,” I announced, and stood up.
“Wait! Can’t you answer a few questions?” She stood too, and reached out like she was going to grab my arm. “Do you have any unpublished works? Do you have any of her papers? Did she leave a note?”
“No,” I said, just generally. I had to get away from here.
“Wait,” she repeated as I walked through the tables, and she followed me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ambush you, but this is vitally important. It’s my dissertation! And I’m drawing a correlation between your mother and Virginia Woolf. I mean besides the obvious, of course. The parallels between their lives aren’t quite as perspicuous as it seems and my dissertation certainly won’t be so facile…stop!”
I didn’t stop and continued out onto the sidewalk, where a cool wind augured the arrival of fall. I also didn’t respond to Pandora as she continued to talk about famous women of the past, all of them dead.
“Are you angry at her because of what she wrote about you?” she asked, panting as she kept up with my pace. I had been taking all those walks and I was in much better shape now. “Don’t yousee how exceptionally important she was? Don’t you feel any obligation to promote her?”
I stopped. “I don’t feel anything,” I answered. “Good luck with your dissertation and goodbye.”
“But…” She shook her head. “I don’t understand you. My mom is just some dumb housewife who never accomplished fuck-all besides raising six kids, but your mother did amazing research and her social commentary was groundbreaking! She wasn’t recognized in her time but my dissertation will bring her the attention that she deserves. I’ll make her famous, like she should have been all along! Don’t you want to be a part of uplifting her legacy?”
“No. I don’t have anything to do with my mother’s legacy.”
“But that’s not true!” she insisted. “Her pregnancy, your birth, and your childhood are integral issues inDimidiate.”
“I’m not an issue.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s such a pivotal work. It really informed the way I want to approach my life and career.”
There was a lot I could have said about what a mistake she was making if she let my mother’s life be her guide, but I didn’t. “Please leave me alone.”
I walked away again and this time, she didn’t follow me. I glanced back once to check, and saw Pandora frowning and watching my retreat. It wasn’t too much of a distance to my apartment, just a couple of miles, so I kept going, walking homeinstead of heading back to Ava’s house or letting Levi know where I was and when I’d get back.
But I should have known that someone was watching.
“Buenas tardes,” Hernán said when I answered his call. “What are you doing right now?”
“Walking.”
“Levi isn’t with you and it’s getting dark there soon.”
“In a few hours,” I pointed out. “And how do you know where he is?”
“I know many things,” he said. “This isn’t a time when you usually do your walks and you’re not in the same area. Did you meet with your new client?”
“She was lying about that,” I told him. “Pandora didn’t really want to hire me, she wanted to pump me for information.”
“What?Why?”
I explained, giving him the broad strokes of the story. “She seems to be interested in my mother’s last book,Dimidiate.”
“Like in heraldry, when two coats of arms are split and then joined together?” he asked, and I was aghast.
