14
One of Eileen’s big secrets—and she had plenty—was that she came from a real blue-blood Uptown family. Mansion on Audubon Place, went to school at Sacred Heart, the whole deal. They weren’t Carnival royalty, though, and I think she always found that kinda exotic about Clancy Fairbairn. His family goes way back with that s**t.
“Well, the Trefethen money had pretty much went to hell in the oil bust by the time she opened the Top Spot, so she had to find investors, and Fairbairn was one of her big fish. Course that had to be kept secret, being as she was the damn civil rights queen, least to hear her tell it—marched in Selma, sat at the Woolsworth lunch counter with them black kids, I don’t know what all else. Fairbairn wasn’t no Klansman or nothin, but his daddy was a state senator who
