Free Erased From Memory by Diana O'Hehir Page A

sweet-looking, with floppy hair and pimples. Cherie is gorgeous and determined. Her short blond hair is newly layered.
    She and the reporter are cruising the museum, but the purpose of their visit is for the reporter to interview Daddy about the sheriff. “I am going to splash that story all over this paper and the rest of the papers in the U.S.A.,” Cherie says. “It’ll be a national scandal. People making speeches in Congress.” She is walking between the glass cases and viewing the displays as she talks. “Hey, I really like this weird guy with the falcon head, handsome, huh? And a dynamite great shape” (a statue of Horus, king of the gods).
    “Darling,” she picks up, addressing me, “boy, have I missed you. A helluva lot going on.”
    I tell her that I gathered as much, and try to sound sarcastic, but she’s far beyond me. “Guess what? Me and your little friend Rob got together; hey, how’s that? I guess you don’t think much about him anymore; well, he turns out to be a really sweet guy, and you might not believe it because he seems kinda stiff at first and you’re used to that, but after you know him some . . .”
    Here, thank God, she’s interrupted by the arrival of my father, the ostensible object of this visit, who has come down from upstairs. “Darling Crocodile, am I glad to see you. This here is Steve, he’s a reporter for the Chronicle , isn’t that great? And he is going to talk to you about what that sheriff did to you.”
    And Cherie, Daddy, the reporter, and I head for the elevator, where we are whisked up to Daddy’s room for an interview.
    The Chronicle reporter doesn’t seem to mind that the interview consists almost entirely of comments from my dad, which are enthusiastic, gentle, and have nothing to do with the questions he’s being asked, and interpolations by Cherie that answer the questions.
    “How very lovely to see you, my dear,” Daddy addresses Cherie. “I know you’ve been on a dig; how did it go?”
    He asks the Chronicle reporter if he is one of his students. He tells both of them it’s too late now to go into the Valley, but if they can arrive earlier tomorrow, preferably just before sunrise . . .
    Meanwhile Cherie is describing the tight grip that the sheriff had on Daddy and the handcuffs that he twisted on him, and makes Daddy put his hands up and behind to illustrate the position this forced him into. My father is complaisant about this, although at one point he asks, “Are you thinking of the position the seeker adopted under the tree, my dear? He wouldn’t have had to reach so high.”
    “Stevie here,” Cherie says, “is a newer reporter, but he is way sharp. He is going to be one of their ace guys. Steve, I have a great eye for that stuff, I can always tell; you are going to do some world-beating news stories. Now you know that the sheriff did that attack not once, but twice. To this gentle, distinguished old gentleman? The second time, Croc, he accused you, didn’t he; he practically accused you of being a murderer. Just because you were there?”
    Surprisingly, Daddy cues in for this question. “I said a spell for the occasion. But I don’t know if he understood that.”
    “Highly unlikely. He accused you of murder and forced you down into a chair.”
    The Chronicle reporter seems to have filled up several pages of notes. He looks a little puzzled, but also happy.
    Cherie says that both of them will stay for lunch, but after that the reporter, who has his own car, must get back to the city. She, Cherie, will remain awhile longer. “I am fascinated by this place. The museum. It looks like something I’ve seen before.”
    I say, “Well, Egon tries for that,” but she disagrees. “No, I mean really something I’ve seen before, not just in pictures. I know this architecture is partly fake Egyptian and partly fake Greek, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
    Cherie, of course, is brighter than I want her to be. She’s not just a cute