The B Girls - By Cari Cole Page 0,21

him with something to do with his dissertation," Lucy said. She raised her eyebrows to let Jane know she was still didn't know what to make of Perry.

Perry nodded.

Lucy really hoped he was better with the written word.

"I see," Jane said though clearly she didn't.

"He was telling me how he and Belle met," Lucy said just as Mae stepped into the kitchen.

Fully dressed in suburban casual chic, with every hair in place and appropriate subtle make-up perfectly done, Mae slipped into hostess mode without missing a beat. "Hello, I'm Mae Taylor," she said stepping up to the table and offering her hand.

Perry half-dropped his cup onto the table, sloshing coffee over the side in his haste to free his hand for shaking. "Uh, Perry Thiel."

"Pleased to meet you," Mae said.

Lucy and Jane exchanged "can you believe this?" looks.

Mae took her hand back from Perry and straightened. "Looks like we could use a little breakfast. Any preferences?" She looked at Perry, the guest, when she said it.

Perry, who probably didn't give much thought to food other than how fast he could get something that wouldn't drip on his papers, looked perplexed.

"No? Well I'll just take a look and see what we have," Mae said.

Jane couldn't stand it another second. "Honest to God Mae, you are such a Stepford wife. You walk in, find a complete stranger in the kitchen, and all you can think about is serving refreshments? You don't have to cook. We can toast a bagel or something. As for Perry here, I don't think Lucy's decided what to do about him just yet."

Mae looked completely nonplussed for a second before realization dawned and she laughed. "Oh my, that was a little Sally Field in Steel Magnolias wasn't it?"

"No, I'm sticking with my Stepford wife analogy. Maybe you should say 'fuck' one time to make sure you got it out of your system," Jane said.

Perry goggled and, for the first time since Lucy opened the door, seemed to realize he might be in over his head.

"How about if we all sit down, have some coffee and find out what Perry and Belle were working on," Lucy said.

"Fine by me," Jane said.

Mae looked like she wasn't sure what to do with herself if there wasn't cooking or cleaning to be done but she nodded her head and joined them at the table.

"Okay, Perry you were saying?" Lucy prompted.

"I'm writing my dissertation on the events surrounding the drafting and publication of the Declaration of Independence. I have some new theories about the fate of the original document signed by John Hancock and Charles Thomson."

"I'm beginning to get it," Lucy said. The Declaration of Independence. That was the connection she'd been looking for. "You're here about that old family legend."

Perry looked hopeful. "So you do know about it."

"Just some old family story about my many times over great-grandparents. He was a shop boy or an apprentice or something for the printer who printed the first copies of the Declaration of Independence. She was the daughter of a tavern keeper. They were both supposedly around the print shop on the night the Declaration was printed and family legend has it they kept a copy and passed it down to their oldest son and so on."

"There's a lot more to it than that but you've got the basic story right," Perry said.

"Well, if you talked to Belle about this then you know our family doesn't have the Declaration anymore if we ever did. It was lost during the Civil War," Lucy said.

"Belle thought she had a lead on where to find it," Perry said. "And I'm not talking about the printed version turned out by John Dunlap--the Dunlap Broadside, which is rare enough--the last one to surface sold for nearly ten million dollars. I'm talking about the signed draft Dunlap received from John Hancock. The document from which he set the type."

"I thought the original Declaration of Independence was on display in Washington. Didn't they just make a movie about that?" Mae said.

Perry shook his head. "How much do you know about the Declaration of Independence?"

"Clearly not as much as I thought," Mae said.

Lucy and Mae nodded their encouragement for him to continue.

"Okay, I'll give you the short version."

"Who knew I'd be getting a history lesson this early in the morning," Jane said.

Perry's face fell at the hint of sarcasm in Jane's voice. "Would you rather I didn't go into it? I mean all you need to know in order to search for Belle