CHAPTER 42
I made it through the rest of my classes like a sleepwalker drifting blindly down a hall. My mind was a mess, tangled with questions I didn’t want to ask and thoughts I couldn’t banish.
The photo. The gala. The president moving toward nominating Pierce. Ivy.
Five minutes into my last class, I was called to the headmaster’s office. If I’d done anything to deserve his attention, I wasn’t sure what it was. I half prepared myself for this to be another round of John Thomas Wilcox Tries to Get Tess’s Locker Searched, but I couldn’t bring myself to really care about John Thomas or Headmaster Raleigh or my continued enrollment at Hardwicke.
“Tess, dear.” Mrs. Perkins greeted me with a smile. “They’re waiting for you. Go right on in.”
They? I barely had time to process that before the door to the headmaster’s office opened, and Headmaster Raleigh stepped out. “Tess,” he said. “Excellent.”
Excellent? That wasn’t exactly a response I’d ever provoked from the man.
“Come in, come in,” he said. The moment I stepped into his office, I realized why the headmaster had changed his tune.
“Tess.” Georgia Nolan greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. I stiffened. In the corner of the room, a Secret Service agent looked on, his expressionless face never wavering. “I am sorry for surprising you,” Georgia continued, “but I was scheduled to meet with Headmaster Raleigh about the upcoming Hardwicke auction, and I wanted to check in and see how you were doing.” She squeezed my arm. “You had a bit of an upset last week.”
I cast a glance at the headmaster, who seemed altogether pleased with himself for being able to accommodate the First Lady’s request. He probably would have tied me up with a little bow if he’d thought there was a chance of ingratiating himself further.
“I’m fine,” I said, turning my attention back to Georgia. She clucked her tongue.
“You really do resemble your sister,” she said. “Ivy all over again, don’t you think?” she asked the headmaster.
“Certainly.” The slight strain in the headmaster’s voice told me that he wasn’t quite as fond of the resemblance as the First Lady was.
“Would you mind giving us a moment, Chester?” Georgia had a way of issuing requests, sweet as honey, but rhetorical nonetheless. The headmaster was out of the room before he knew it. Georgia nodded to the Secret Service agent, and he positioned himself just outside the door.
Georgia shut it, leaving the two of us alone.
“How are you really, Tess?” she asked once it was just us. “Ivy told me that Vivvie Bharani is a friend of yours. I can only imagine what she’s going through.”
I didn’t want to talk about Vivvie, but Georgia looked content to stand there indefinitely until I said something. “They buried her father this morning.”
“I regret not being able to attend.” Georgia studied me for a moment. “Ivy indicated that Ms. Bharani and her father were having some problems before his death?”
Why do you want to know? I caught those words in the filter between my brain and my mouth. When she realized that I wasn’t going to respond, Georgia let out a light, airy sigh, then leaned back against the headmaster’s desk. “I know when I’m being kept in the dark, Tess,” she said. “Quite frankly, there’s not much that goes on in Washington that I don’t know.”
The president is rarely the most powerful person in Washington. Standing across from Georgia Nolan, I suddenly found myself wondering where she stood in that hierarchy.
“I know your sister flew out to Arizona this weekend. I understand she’s due back today. What I don’t know is what, precisely, she is doing there.” Georgia’s Southern drawl softened every word she said, but there was no mistaking the thread of steel underneath. “In the past week, it’s become perfectly clear that William Keyes is pushing for Pierce’s nomination. Hard. William’s calling in a lot of chips on this one. I have known the man for a very long time, Tess. He excels at getting what he wants. And when he doesn’t get it, well, let us say that the man holds a grudge.” She clicked her nails lightly along the surface of the desk. “If Ivy is in Arizona looking for information to discredit Pierce, it would be in everyone’s best interest if I were prepared to deal with the fallout. Believe me when I say that I can deal with William Keyes if and only if I am forewarned.”
She wanted to know what was going on, why Ivy was in Arizona, what Ivy was looking for. I felt the pull to tell her what I knew, but resisted.
“Your husband asked Ivy to dig for skeletons in Pierce’s closet,” I said instead. “I’d guess that’s why she’s in Arizona.”
“Would you?” Georgia mused.
“Ivy’s very thorough.”