Matchmaking Mona. Diana Mars
concession to the surroundings had been to change from his imported leather shoes into the newly purchased sneakers. His suit jacket was no match for the remaining bite of an Illinois winter.
Cooper reached his car and got in with a sigh of relief. He warmed up the car a bit before leaving the site marked DIG IN PROGRESS. Visitors Please Sign In At Trailer Office.
The sign was a rustic, homemade affair that indicated funding was indeed being cut. He’d taken part in a dig back in college to fulfill his science requirements in what he’d considered the easiest way. He’d hated science. But he’d found out anthropology was not easy, nor totally boring. But for someone like him ready to take Wall Street by storm, it had been totally irrelevant.
But even he, with his untrained eye, could see that funding was obviously tight.
Pulling away from the site, Cooper frowned. It had to be really tough having to constantly scrounge to perform one’s job. And discouraging.
Yet L. J. Livingston was obviously giving it everything she had.
Cooper could not remember when he’d last felt such enthusiasm for anything—especially his own job as a stockbroker. It no longer seemed a career choice. A highly rewarding job, financially. But a job, just the same.
Accelerating as he reached the main highway—actually, a two-laner, with maximum speed allowed of forty-five miles per hour—Cooper thought of Mona back in the hotel room. Rather than drive back to Chicago, since they had to be at the site at such an early hour, he’d called his brother and asked him if it were okay if they stayed at a hotel overnight
Corbett had gladly given his approval. He really needed to get his head together because, although he loved his daughter dearly, he’d not been much of a supportive father lately and had leaned heavily on Cooper to take up the slack.
Cooper wanted to take L. J. Livingston to dinner, but was afraid she’d dismiss the idea out of hand if he proposed it But would the severe Ms. Livingston summarily reject the offer if Mona were involved?
Cooper didn’t think so. He had not seen a ring on Ms. Livingston’s long, capable finger. And he was sure LJ. would be a stickler for the rules—including wearing a ring if she were either engaged or married.
Any significant others that were not significantly committed did not bother Cooper.
It did bother him that he was going to use Mona as a shield when asking the prickly L. J. Livingston to dinner.
But he soothed his own conscience with the knowledge that Mona would love the idea. She already liked going out to dinner with her favorite uncle—since he was an easy touch who let her order whatever her junk-addicted little heart desired.
His niece would enjoy the experience even more with her idol present.
Three
“You really think she’ll go for it, Uncle Coop?”
“Monie, unless you call her, we’ll never know, will we?” Cooper answered for the third time as he carefully hung his suit jacket on the chair facing the somewhat decrepit desk. He took off his cuff links, and laid them by the tie that was already neatly folded on the desk. He wished he had other clothes to change into, but the best he could manage was a quick shower. Ms. Livingston did not strike him as a woman who spent too much time getting ready. But he had not had a chance to go shopping and get some casual clothes.
Mona moved toward the phone. “What if she says no?”
“Then you go over tomorrow, work your little fanny off and hope she asks you to the site again. And tonight we’ll rent movies and gorge on pizza and ice cream.”
“You know I can’t eat too much junk, now that I’m a starter on the team,” Mona began, chewing her lip as she played with the receiver. Seeing storm signals in her uncle’s eyes—a rare but definitely serious occurrence—Mona began dialing. “You’ll bring me another time if she says no?”
Cooper suppressed a sigh of impatience. Had he ever been such a combination of cocky self-assurance one moment, and then jellyfish indecision the next? Smiling at his niece, he decided, yes, he had. And probably worse.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he intoned, laughing at Mona’s dramatic rolling of eyes.
He went toward the bathroom, getting towels and soap ready—thoughtfully, Mona had asked for fresh towels, as three large fluffy ones lay in total disarray on the bathroom floor—and listened to the conversation briefly. When Mona’s eyes lit up like Buckingham Fountain on a clear summer night, he waited...
And watched his niece pump her fists in the air, and jump up and down. Affectionately, Cooper reflected that not only was Mona likely to get a firstclass scholarship, but that she could probably play pro ball in Europe—if she wasn’t so dead set on being the next Margaret Mead. Or better yet, Indiana Jones.
“Where to, Unc Coop?” Mona excitedly cut into his musings.
“Don’t know the area. Ask Ms. Livingston to suggest a restaurant, and we’ll meet her there in half an hour. Unless she wants us to pick her up?”
Unrepentantly, Cooper watched his jumping-jack niece relay his answer to her idol. It was cowardly, a truly craven thing to do, but on Wall Street he’d learned the end justified the means. Anything to procure that goal.
In this case, not only did Mona’s happiness depend on this, but he was quite willing to ride on his niece’s coattails. Until, that is, Ms. Livingston got to know him a little better, and he could erase that godawful first impression he must have made on her.
Once Mona had the details down, Cooper went for his shower, which set an all-time personal best for brevity.
“What made you decide to go into the field of anthropology, Ms. Livingston?” an excited Mona asked forty-five minutes later.
LJ. put down her glass of red wine and smiled at the youngster.
“I’ve always loved learning, and adventure, Mona. There were so many things I wanted to study—astronomy, geology, zoology, history...so I picked the science of man. It encompasses everything and I get to live vicariously every time we discover something of significance, something that allows us to shed light on where we come from, how we got here—and hopefully will help us predict where we are going.”
“But isn’t it somewhat boring?” Cooper asked. “I mean, most people think of skeletons and lost mines and rediscovered ancient civilizations, but very few scientists ever find another King Tut’s Tomb, King Solomon’s Mines—or even a reconstituted T-Rex or raptor.”
“And the real scientist doesn’t expect it, nor particularly desire it, Mr. Channahon,” L.J. said in even tones. But the look in her eyes as she pinned him to the chair told Cooper Ms. Livingston had seen through his somewhat thin ruse of using Mona to get her to have dinner with him—and didn’t think much of his maneuvering, or him.
“Please call me Cooper,” he began, but Mona, bless her heart, bridged the awkward moment, and with her youthful tunnel vision, pursued her own interest.
“But that’s exactly what I want to do,” Mona said. “I want to be the next Indy Jones.”
LJ. turned her gaze on Mona, and the green eyes miraculously softened. Cooper felt his chest tighten at the thought of those bedroom eyes trained on him with less animosity and in more secluded surroundings.
“That’s not what a real anthropologist is all about, Mona,” she said softly. “I’m afraid that while the Indiana Jones series makes for wonderfully entertaining films, they cause the serious archaeologist to shudder at the inaccuracies and careless handling of what would be priceless relics, had they really existed.”
Mona squared her little chin pugnaciously and said, “Well, I intend to combine both accuracy and adventure in my work. I’m sure I can rediscover an Atlantis, or a new mummy’s tomb.”