Page 49 of Road Trip
Therese and Maeve leaned in to get a closer look. The pin was an intricate embossed gold, with a tiny stone twinkling from the center.
“Miss Isabel, would you mind if I took a closer look at your pin?” Therese asked.
The old woman’s hand protectively crept to her collar. “It’s all I have from him, my dad,” Isabel whispered.
Therese held out her hand. “Please? I’ll give it back, I promise.”
After they’d unfastened the pin, Therese held it up and Maeve took photos of it, front and back, with her cell phone. Then Therese pinned it back onto Isabel’s sweater.
“You mentioned Kathleen said she’d write to your dad,” Maeve said. “Did she keep her promise?”
Isabel’s mournful expression lightened. “Oh yes. The letters were lovely. Full of stories about her crossing the ocean to America. She was pitifully seasick. And then, arriving in New York with her new friend that she made on the ship…”
Maeve hardly dared but asked anyway. “Did you by any chance keep the letters? Do you still have them?”
Isabel took another cookie and chewed slowly, the crumbs showering onto her sweater and lap robe. “Saved ’em all, not that anybody else cared, but if it was important to my dad, it’s important to me.”
She looked from Maeve to Therese. “You two come a long way. You’re family, right? Seems to me you should be the ones keeping Kathleen’s letters. Roll me back to my room and I’ll fetch ’em up for you.”
CHAPTER 21
Therese sat cross-legged on her bed back at the inn with the cardboard box of letters Isabel had finally agreed to part with. Tied with a yellowing bit of twine, the paper was thin nearly to the point of transparency, the handwriting in watery blue ink was slanted and full of flourishes and scrolls.
She looked down at the letters, and then at Maeve. “You’re getting dressed to go out on the town with some strange dude you just met, and I’m staying home and getting all tingly over the prospect of reading a bunch of letters that are over a hundred years old. What’s wrong with this picture?”
Maeve laughed. “It’s like we’ve traded places.” She held up a flowered cotton blouse. “How’s this? With my navy-blue skirt and flats?”
“Oh hell no,” Therese retorted. “You’re going pub-crawling, not to a First Communion party.”
She jumped up and began rummaging around in her suitcase. She handed her sister a rumpled inside-out T-shirt. “Wear this. With jeans. You do own a pair of jeans, right?”
Maeve held up the only jeans she’d packed, a perfectly respectable pair she’d bought on clearance from Old Navy a few years earlier.
“No, no, no. Where’d you get these mom jeans? Sears?” Therese grabbed the jeans and tossed them in the general vicinity of the trash can.
“Those were almost brand-new,” Maeve protested.
“Maybe in 1998, and they weren’t even a good look back then,” Therese said. She held up a pair of faded jeans from her own suitcase. “Levi’s 501s. Button fly. Never not in style. You’ve got a cute butt on you, little sis. Trust me, these will look great on you.”
Maeve turned the T-shirt right side out and dropped it like it was a poisonous snake. “Nope. No way I’m wearing anything that says ‘Butthole Surfers.’ That’s repulsive. Even for you.”
“That’s a vintage rock concert tee from my personal collection. I sell those for two hundred and fifty dollars—when I can get one.” Therese took another look at the shirt and shrugged. “Okay, you might have a point. Wrong message for a first date. I’m guessing White Snake is out too?” She dug out another tee, this one an emerald green. “Here. Dropkick Murphys.”
Maeve slipped the shirt over her head, and Therese shook her head again. “A little too on the nose for Ireland. Let’s just go with basic black. Def Leppard. Hip but not threatening.
“Now,” Therese said, after her sister was dressed, “the look is coming together. Next, shoes.” She pulled a pair of battered black leather boots from her suitcase. “Here. Don’t lose them. They’re my good-luck Doc Martens.”
“How am I gonna lose a pair of boots that weigh, like, twenty-five pounds? Besides, your shoes are a size larger than mine.”
“Put on another pair of socks.”
When she was dressed, Maeve stood in front of the mirror on the back of the door, secretly pleased with her appearance, although she’d be damned if she’d admit it to her sister.
“Now for some makeup.” Therese advanced on her with a pouch bristling with brushes, bottles, potions, and palettes.
“I’m wearing makeup,” Maeve protested.
“Sit.” Therese pointed at the only chair in the room, and in another moment, she was attacking her sister with concealer, bronzer, eyebrow pencil, lipstick, and tweezers.
