“I’m sorry?”
“Your book. I’ve done Sheffield fund-raising. I know you get a little book talking about everyone’s giving history and potential. What’s my listing in your book?”
“I’m afraid I can’t disclose—”
“Becky, you just told me that Panupong Pradchaphet is living in the UAE, which is already a violation of the rules. Come on. I want to know what my listing says. What does it say? Here, I’ll start. Evelyn Topfer Beegan ’ninety-eight, Beardsley dormitory, crew…”
“Uh, Le Petit Trianon—”
“And my job?”
“People Like Us. Director of membership.”
“What’s your target for me this year? I gave, what, a thousand last year?”
“Well, of course we’re happy with anything you choose to give, but if you’d consider joining the Rising Gryphon Society and going up to twenty-five hundred—”
“Evelyn!” Barbara, who’d looked half asleep for weeks, was now alert, frantically waving her arms at Evelyn to get her to stop.
Evelyn covered up the receiver. “What?”
“Who’s on the phone?”
“Sheffield. Alumni office.”
“What do they want?”
“A donation. I’m just about to tell them that they’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Don’t tell them that, Evelyn. There’s no need to tell them that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s unseemly,” Barbara said.
“Don’t you think they’ll figure it out when I can’t give a major gift?”
“I don’t think you need to debase yourself,” Barbara said.
Evelyn stuck her tongue between her front teeth. She heard from the receiver, “Hello? Evelyn, are you still there?”
Evelyn put the phone back up to her ear. “Here’s the thing, Becky,” Evelyn said, her eyes still locked on her mother’s. “Maybe you should put this in my listing. I’ve had a, let’s say, an adjustment in circumstances.”
“Ah.”
“So if you could replace that ‘membership’ line with ‘barista’—though that’s overselling it, really, with just ‘clerk’—‘coffee-shop clerk’—that’d be better. Caffeiteria is my new employer. And I’d get rid of the Petit Trianon address. I’m now a temporary-but-it’s-not-so-temporary member of the Marina Air apartments in Bibville.”
Barbara was shaking her head faster and faster at the Filet-O-Fish box.
“Of course. I’ll update the listing,” Becky said.
“I assume the notes say something about my father, but he’s probably going to prison, so the big gifts just won’t be coming for a while. If ever. Can we do, let’s say, three dollars?”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with. It’s participation, not amount. So I’ll, ah, I’ll make those notes.”
“Three dollars doesn’t get you the commemorative Scotch glass, does it?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“What about a nice postcard? I’d like a Sheffield postcard. I can hang it in the coffee shop. I’m in charge of the bulletin board on alternating weeks.”
“I don’t think that should be a problem. If I could just grab the Marina Air address?”
Barbara had flattened the box by the time Evelyn got off the phone, and she was still shaking her head no. Evelyn took a giant bite of the cold hamburger. “Better to set expectations, I think,” Evelyn said. “Did you get any ketchup?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sentencing Guidelines
“Mom? You have to get up. We have to be downstairs in forty minutes.”
The fluorescent light in the bathroom of the Wilmington Friendship Inn was sputtering overhead as Evelyn tried to pat on concealer in the sallow bathroom. With no natural light, it was impossible to see whether the basic problem was that her skin was too ruddy for any makeup to cover it up, or whether the cat-sick light was at fault. Stepping into the room, with dark green carpet and dark magenta curtains, Evelyn looked at the twin bed across from hers. There was a sudden whoosh of breath from the lumpy figure under the covers.
“I feel just dreadful,” her mother said, rolling away from her and toward the window.
When they had arrived last night, Evelyn had seen her mother planting the seeds for this when she announced wearily that she just didn’t have the strength to have a bite of food, leaving Evelyn to get a baked potato from Wendy’s on her own. Her father was already at the hotel, staying in a separate room, but had spent the last night discussing the sentencing with Rudy, his lawyer; Evelyn had heard from him only in a brief phone call when he asked them to meet in the lobby at eight-thirty.