“The picnics, oh, yes, of course! Oh!” Push clapped her hands very loudly. Rosa hurried in, but then hurried back out when she saw that Push was just being enthusiastic, not giving orders. “I think I have something you’ll like very much! Come, come.” In an instant Push had sprung from her chair and was charging toward a swinging side door. Evelyn rose, too, then looked back to her mother. Barbara was looking straight at Evelyn, and the skin around her lips had gone slack. An acid claw started scraping against the side of Evelyn’s stomach, but she was out of her chair already, and Push was waiting expectantly. Evelyn turned and followed Push through several small rooms to a library, with wooden cases of books sitting upon more cases, and a ladder on wheels that attached at the upper wall.
“Now, it’s in here somewhere,” Push was saying, gliding on the ladder and pushing it with one leg, like a scooter, around the room. “I haven’t looked at this in years, but I suspect—come here!” Push said. Evelyn did. Push was now flinging ribbons and cards about from a small box, then picked out a wide pink-and-green ribbon. “Here it is! This is what I wore my sophomore-year Tinker Day, as a headband, you see. We all wore such strange things, and it was marvelous to wear something that an alumna had worn. Now, if you’re going to be a Hollins girl, I think you ought to have it.”
Evelyn looked up at the older woman uncertainly.
“Go on, take it!”
The ribbon was made of rough grosgrain, knotted at the ends and faded. Evelyn took it as though it were an injured swallow, placing it gently in her cupped hand.
“Thank you very much,” she said.
“It’s my pleasure. It’s wonderful when the next generation gets involved with Hollins. Now. We’d better get back to your mother, shouldn’t we?”
“Yes, Mrs. Van Rensselaer,” Evelyn said.
When they reentered the living room, Barbara was standing with her shoulders back. “Thank you for the tea,” Barbara said in a low voice.
“Of course, Barbara. Do think about the donation. Really, if your husband’s firm is interested in philanthropy, I can’t think of a better place for it to focus than Hollins. Some of the scholarship programs are really—”
“I see,” Barbara said, and began to walk back toward the elevator without glancing at Evelyn. She was half a room away by the time Evelyn figured she had better follow her.
“Now,” said Push gaily, shouting from the sitting room, “I’ve put you and your husband down for five thousand. He might expect a call from the development office. I’m so glad Hollins can count on you! Esse quam videri, as the school taught us! Good-bye, lovely to see you again! Enjoy Bibbington!”
Evelyn barely made it into the elevator before the doors closed, and her stomach increased its tumult when Barbara did not speak as the elevator dropped, nor as the black car with its motor running swallowed them. Evelyn fingered the fraying material of the ribbon, still tucked in her hand, which felt like a cat’s soothingly rough tongue. Each minute that passed in furious silence piled up the pressure and made it more impossible to fix the situation.
It was not until they were in the Plaza elevator that Barbara spoke.
“Well. That was quite a performance.” Her voice was like a lid on a pot of boiling water.
The claw in Evelyn’s stomach scraped again, harder this time. She made her voice soft, hoping it sounded vulnerable. “What do you mean?”
Barbara’s mouth warped into an awful pout, and she wrinkled her nose. “Oh, my mother just loves Tinker Day,” she said, in a voice an octave too high. “Oh, I’m just so excited to be a Hollins girl.” The claw’s scrapes were turning to hot liquid now. “What on earth did she want to show you?”
“What?” Evelyn asked, stalling.
“When she took you back. What was it she wanted to show you?” Barbara jammed the key into the hotel room door and nearly kicked it open.
“Just some stuff from the school. A yearbook.”
“A yearbook?” Barbara squinted at Evelyn. “Did she give you something?”
“No,” said Evelyn, tightening her fist around the now-damp piece of ribbon.
“You’re lying.” Her mother’s voice went lower. “You’re terrible at it. Let’s see it.” Barbara held out her hand. Evelyn tightened hers.
“Now,” Barbara said.
Evelyn backed toward the wall, toward a large chest of drawers, where she thought she could quietly hide the ribbon. Her mother grabbed her wrists before she could get there, and uncurled her fist and pulled out the memento.
“What is this? Hollins colors—something to do with Tinker Day? Did you ask for this?”
“No—no. Mrs. Van Rensselaer gave it to me.”
“Like hell she did. After you were hustling in there like a goddamn traveling salesman. You never had any sense of pride. Just like your father.”