10
“I had a dream last night,” my mother said over breakfast.
“Oh?” I asked disinterestedly. I was far too busy trying to wipe Debbie’s face as she squirmed away from me. “You cannot leave the table with syrup on your face,” I told her.
“Lemme go!”
My mother leveled a stern look at her. “Deborah Annette Diamond,” she said firmly. “Do you want people to think you’re a street urchin?”
Debbie looked up at me, confused. “Do I, Mama?”
“You do not,” my mother said firmly. I shook my head slightly to confirm. “Now let your mother clean your face.”
Debbie sat stone still while I wiped the remaining syrup from her chin. “All clean.”
“I go now?”
“Yes, darling, you can go now.” She scampered off happily from the table, and I turned back to my mother. “You know she has no idea what a street urchin is, right?”
She shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?” I had to give credit where credit was due. “Now about that dream—I found the answer.”
“The answer?”
She shook her head in exasperation. “To the job problem. You’ll host Tupperware parties!”
I blinked heavily. “What?”
“As a job. It’s a perfectly appropriate way to pick up some extra money.”
I took a deep breath. “That’s not a job, Mama.”
“You don’t need a job. Larry will have to let you keep the house and an allowance.”
“I’m not a child. I don’t want an allowance. I want to stand on my own feet and know that he can’t pull the rug out from under me. I don’t ever want to be in a position where he can threaten me again. And Tupperware parties aren’t going to accomplish that.”
“Harriet Lowenstein makes a lot of money off them.”
“Harriet Lowenstein’s husband is a surgeon, and she lies constantly to one-up everyone. And you know that.”
My mother threw up her hands. “And what better idea do you have?”
I didn’t have any. And she smirked when I said nothing.
There was a crash from the living room. I started to stand, but she beat me to it. “Think about it,” she said, going toward the sound of Robbie wailing. It was his over-the-top crying that he did when Debbie destroyed whatever he had been playing with, not a hurt cry, so I let her go. It was a rare occurrence when I got to actually eat breakfast without putting the television on.
I picked up the newspaper and flipped idly past the front section. Marilyn Monroe’s performance at the president’s birthday party was still making headlines over a week later with details on her dress and the guests in attendance. There had been an airline crash. And always more nuclear testing because of the Soviet Union.
But when I flipped to the Metro section, I froze.
On the front page, below the fold, was a picture of Sam. Next to it was a younger man. The headline read “Maryland senatorial race heats up, despite incumbent’s insurmountable lead.”
I studied the other man’s photograph, my eyes drifting down toward the caption. “Political newcomer Michael Landau looks to challenge suburban favorite Sam Gibson.”
“Michael Landau,” I said quietly. I turned to the article.
Thirty-three years old, unmarried, and from Silver Spring. He had attended the University of Maryland for both undergrad and law school. He was too young to fight in Europe but had gone to Korea. Sam likely had the edge in that he had been at Normandy, which painted a better picture than being a pilot in Korea, but a vet was a vet. Sam came from old money—based on his hometown and education, this Landau fellow did not. And politics was a wealthy man’s game. But the article said he had some strong backers who were passionate about his ability to bring change in Washington.
I looked back at his picture. He needed a better haircut and a tie that didn’t look like it came from the previous decade, all of which was fixable. His expression was stern, but there was no denying that he was good-looking, with a straight nose and full lips. He had that edge over Sam—and if the previous presidential election had proven anything, it was that in the television era, looks mattered.
And slowly, an idea began to blossom.
I had grown up in politics. My earliest memories involved visiting my father in the House of Representatives. I had dined at the White House from the age of eight, when my mother finally trusted me to behave as behooved the daughter of the minority leader. And when he ran for reelection, I handed out stickers and pins and posed for countless pictures, telling people to remember to vote for my daddy.
Once I married Larry, while I wasn’t the politician’s family, I slid comfortably into the behind-the-scenes role, offering advice that I had learned at my father’s knee. Larry never credited me, but I saw how many of my ideas he implemented.
I stood up. “Mama!” I called. “I need you to stay with the kids for a few hours.”
“Where are you going?”
I deposited the breakfast dishes in the sink to be dealt with later. “To meet with a lawyer.”
She appeared in the kitchen. “Where are you actually going?”
I grinned at her. “To meet with a lawyer,” I repeated. It wasn’t a lie.