for the whole duration of Eric’s illness—packed in the trunk of her car. She was eager to get back to work on it. In the peace and quiet of this small upstate New York town, she planned on making it the best work she’d done.
Those two weeks before school started, Ginny found some good used furniture and set her apartment up exactly the way she wanted. When the town paper, the Lebanon Herald, called requesting an interview, she’d been more flattered than anything else. After all, when you’ve been interviewed by The New York Times, what did you have to fear from the Lebanon Herald?
That was her first mistake.
The reporter had been a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties. Her name was Gayle Honeycutt. Gayle had been kind of nondescript-looking, very pale, with white blond hair and no eyelashes. Short and running a little to overweight, she had tiny hands and tiny feet and a simple, straightforward manner that Ginny found appealing, especially in comparison with other interviewers she’d faced over the years. Gayle accepted a cup of coffee, and settled herself into a wingback chair. She smiled at Ginny.
“I’ve never met someone who’s been on the New York Times best-seller list,” Gayle said meekly. “It’s a bit intimidating.”
Ginny laughed. “I’m just a normal person, Gayle. No need to feel intimidated. I’ve just been very lucky with my work, that’s all.”
“I don’t really understand the point of your work,” Gayle had said, clicking on her tape recorder and pulling out a pad of paper with prepared questions on it. “I mean, I’m sorry, but I just don’t. I’ve read your books, but—”
“What is it you don’t understand?”
Gayle had smiled. “Well, why don’t you just tell me what you hope readers take away from your book?”
So Ginny had embarked on a spirited lecture about the importance of historical research into the Bible and religion. Her first book, the one that earned her the Ph.D., had been Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine, a study into how the early male-dominated Church had deliberately excluded women from its hierarchy. She explained to Gayle that the early Christians had twisted not only the Old Testament, but the teachings of Jesus himself to establish their own power base. She made a point to stress that she wasn’t attacking anyone’s faith—and that she herself believed in the teachings of Jesus. But historical evidence existed, she told Gayle, that showed how early Church leaders had, for political purposes, distorted and sometimes removed entirely large segments of the Bible.
“What if much of what you’ve ever been taught about Christianity is wrong?” Ginny had asked the reporter in her enthusiasm. Gayle had sat there dispassionately, taking notes. Ginny talked for more than hour, even if Gayle didn’t ask many questions.
When the article appeared, all hell broke loose.
For one thing, the headline simply read: CHRISTIANITY, SAYS NEW PROFESSOR AT WILBOURNE COLLEGE.
Dean Gregory had called Ginny into his office, and lectured her for over an hour about “dealing with the press”—which, considering Ginny had much more experience with the press than he did, was more than a little insulting. Not once did he even give her an opportunity to defend herself. Gregory had always been enthusiastic and friendly before, but from that moment on, Ginny and Dean Gregory kept as far apart from each other as possible.
Ginny’s name was soon anathema in the town of Lebanon. She’d hear the townspeople whispering whenever she walked into a store: “That’s the atheist, the heathen, the anti-Christian bigot.” A group called the Concerned American Women, New York Chapter, somehow got hold of the interview and started a campaign to get her fired. Televangelist Bobby Vandiver thundered from his television program on one of the religious cable channels for days about the “Christ-hating professor” at New York’s Wilbourne College.
At first, Ginny had considered it a badge of honor to be condemned by the man who’d blamed the “licentiousness” of New Orleans for causing Hurricane Katrina, and predicted fire and brimstone for Massachusetts for allowing gay marriage. And, much to her publisher’s delight, the controversy simply sent all of her books jumping back onto the best-seller lists.
But then she started getting the death threats in the mail—and so many obscene and threatening phone calls, she had to change her number and keep it unlisted. She filed police reports and talked to a special agent from the local FBI office in Albany, who assured her it was unlikely that anyone would actually kill her, which was only slightly reassuring. It was a rough couple of weeks, especially considering school was starting.
To the college’s credit, the vast majority of parents came down on her side. The board of trustees refused to yield or even listen to the angry fanatics—the school was private, after all, and not dependent on tax dollars—and even Dean Gregory issued a statement of support. Ginny suspected—given the way he’d started treating her—that his statement was more about refusing to be told how to run his college than any actual support for her. The storm lasted about three weeks, and then it died away. Bobby Vandiver and the Concerned American Women found a new cause célèbre—a teacher in Pennsylvania who’d invited a gay author to speak to her student group—but around Lebanon, Ginny Marshall was forever considered a “troublemaker.”
She smiled as Marjorie brought her a cup of coffee and a small saucer full of creamers. In return, Marjorie gave her a half smile and walked away.
What had gotten Ginny into such a snit tonight was Gregory’s treatment of her in front of that harpy Joyce Davenport. It was bad enough that he asked that publicity hound (for that’s all Ginny considered Davenport to be) to speak at the campus welcoming event, but to dress Ginny down in front of her was too much to take. For in fact, during the media storm that had accompanied Ginny’s start at Wilbourne, Joyce Davenport had written a column shredding her and her books, using Ginny as an example of “what’s wrong with higher education in this country.” It was the one instance where Ginny considered suing; the column was full of so many slanders and lies and half-truths, it was hard to believe any newspaper would publish it.
It had taken all of Ginny’s self-control not to choke the bitch to death as soon as she saw her on the stage earlier tonight.
But the worst part had already occurred. There had been a faculty reception at the dean’s house before the welcome address, a semiformal cocktail party that everyone was required to attend. Ginny had considered not attending the party, but that would give Gregory what he wanted: an opportunity to reprimand her. So she’d go—and be perfectly charming to that bitch, and to Gregory and his mousy, smarmy little wife, too.
Maybe, Ginny reasoned as she got dressed for the night, Joyce Davenport was different in real life. No one could be that malignantly cruel and deliberately ignorant, could they? Maybe it was all just an act, a persona Davenport assumed to make money and get herself on television.
Ginny had arrived at the reception late, and slipped over to the bar, hoping to avoid both the dean and and Davenport. But no sooner had she asked for a glass of red wine when Gregory placed his hand on her shoulder.
“Joyce, I’d like you to meet Dr. Virginia Marshall,” he said in his most charming voice. “She’s one of our more famous faculty members.”
“Yes, I know.” Joyce’s face was seemingly friendly. “Isn’t she the atheist?” she asked sweetly.
“No,” Ginny replied. “I am not an atheist. I consider myself a Christian.”
“Well, that’s what makes America great, isn’t it, Dr. Marshall?”
