Page 16 of Road Trip
The entry was from something calledBurke’s Peerage.
Geraldine Cressida Fitzhugh, b. 1852. Reggie, Lord Bellentree and Virginia Carnesworth Bellentree, Surrey. Presented at court, 1870. Married Charles, Lord Rossington, 1871. Children: Delia Sophia, b. 1872, Charles Edward Fitzhugh, 1878.
“A debutante,” Therese mused. Lady Geraldine was apparently a grand lady indeed. So how did this aristocrat fit into their family? The one Aunt Bernie described as poor-as-piss billy goat Irish?
That was a matter she’d investigate later. The burning question for now, as far as Therese was concerned, was whether this portrait was the real thing, and more important still, was it really valuable?
She thought she knew someone, right here in Savannah, who could possibly answer that question. One of her classmates, Wyllona Jackson, had been a stand-out student at St. Mary’s, gone to undergrad at an Ivy League school up north, and had a PhD in art history from Princeton. The only reason Therese knew any of this was because she’d run into Wyllona’s high school boyfriend Thaddeus tending bar in, of all places, Pinkie Masters, an iconic downtown dive bar.
She’d struck up a conversation with Thad the day of her mother’s funeral, when she’d dropped in for some liquid courage before reluctantly heading out to Blessed Sacrament, the very last place on earth she wanted to be that day.
He’d somehow remembered Therese from one of the Little Theatre productions she’d acted in all those years ago, and they’d had a friendly catch-up. He and Wyllona still had an off-again-on-again thing, Thad had told her. They were currently “off” because Wyllona was now living in New York, where she had recently taken a big-deal job with one of the fancy auction houses up there.
Therese hadn’t really run in the same circles as Wyllona, who,unlike Therese, had clearly been a serious student bent on a seriously successful future. Chatting up Thad was just polite conversation, a way to knock back a few drinks and kill time until Therese’s command performance at her mother’s funeral service.
Now though, she thought, it might be time to catch up with her fellow St. Mary’s classmate. She clicked off some photos of the Lady Geraldine portrait on her phone and grabbed her purse. A drink at Pinkie’s was just what she needed.
She was on the way out the door when she remembered that the Beast’s gas tank was nearly empty, and she was dead, flat broke.
But Maeve’s purse was hanging, conveniently, on the same hook near the front door where their mama had always hung her purse, and her sweater, when she came in the door. In fact, there was Mary Helen’s battered black leather purse, hanging right next to Maeve’s.
Therese sucked in her breath and grabbed her mother’s purse. Inside she found a handful of wrapped peppermints; a pair of sunglasses with scratched, oversized lenses; a packet of tissues; and a leather billfold. The billfold held two dollar bills, her mother’s AARP membership card, and a long-faded Mass card from her father’s funeral. Not even a Visa card.
“Shit.”
But Maeve’s stylish coral-colored Kate Spade purse proved more fruitful. The billfold held a gratifying stack of ten- and twenty-dollar bills. Therese helped herself to sixty bucks. But then she realized that wouldn’t even halfway fill the Beast’s gas tank. She took two more twenties and silently replaced her sister’s purse beside her mother’s. Therese would never miss the money, she told herself.
“Just a loan. An advance against what we make when we sell Lady Geraldine.”
CHAPTER 7
Maeve heard the front door close, and a moment later, LeBeast’s engine roared to life. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, then got up and walked into the living room.
A moment later she heard a soft ding coming from the direction of her mother’s room. She found her cell phone on Mary Helen’s dresser, where she’d left it what seemed like hours ago, before Keith’s arrival. Before they’d learned their mother had mortgaged their childhood home to donate money to a televangelist they’d never heard of.
The text was from Kaitlyn, her best friend at the college.
OMG! Just heard. I can’t believe this is happening. Call me if you want to talk.
She opened her email and scrolled down. When she saw the one from Janelle Howze, the head of her department, she froze for a moment.
Maeve and Janelle had started working at the college around the same time. She’d considered her a good friend, until two years prior, when Janelle was promoted to acting head of the department following the retirement of her predecessor.
At first, things had stayed much as they always had been. Butthen Janelle had hired a new associate professor to take over some of the classes she’d been teaching.
Pratt Newman had graduated from the same undergrad program as Janelle, and Maeve had later learned they were also close friends. Pratt was a good-looking, outspoken gay man in his mid-forties, and he’d quickly endeared himself to many of his students. Maeve liked him well enough and tried not to envy the preferential faculty committee assignments he was given, and his close friendship with their department head.
She’d never really engaged in office politics, and Mary Helen’s prolonged illness had only reinforced her intention to keep her head down and get her work done.
Maeve enjoyed working with the “at-risk” students she was assigned to shepherd through the freshman writing lab. When Pratt took over one of her teaching sections, she told herself it was a good thing, because she could spend more one-on-one time with first-year students who’d never really learned how to write a cogent sentence.
But over time, the workload shifted again, with Maeve being assigned more and more “challenging” students—mainly members of the school’s championship-winning soccer and baseball teams, entitled jocks on athletic scholarships who routinely skipped classes or ignored writing assignments.
When she’d flunked Maddix Powers III, the baseball team’s starting pitcher, an insufferable prick who only made it to class once or twice a week, Janelle had dropped by her office and casually suggested she should give the kid a second chance, maybe let him write a makeup paper to enhance his grade.
“You know I can’t do that,” Maeve had said. “If I give him a pass, the other players will demand one too. Not to mention it sends a shitty message to my students who actually do the work.”
Janelle had fixed her with a cold stare. “The message I’m getting from you right now is that you’re not a team player. Also, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. Assign Maddix the paper. He’s not stupid. I’m sure that once he realizes what’s on the line, he’ll step up.”
