55
I pushed the news section aside and dug through the section heads until I got to For and About Women. A blurb at the top of the page said a guest column from Michael Landau’s campaign manager was on page 2. I turned the page and cringed at the sight of the photograph of us kissing.
Miss Dubois certainly hadn’t included that element in our conversation.
But the caption under the photograph wasn’t damning: “Photograph obtained by a private investigator hired by Mrs. Diamond’s husband. Both Mrs. Diamond and Mr. Landau have confirmed this was a one-time incident that was a mutual mistake.”
My eyes darted back toward the text of the column. With the exception of a few grammatical changes and breaking my paragraphs into smaller points, it was what I had written.
“And now we wait,” I said.
“Wait for what?” my mother asked.
I handed her the newspaper. She shook her head. “That man deserves a swift punch to the nose.”
“Michael?”
“Michael?” my mother asked. “No, Larry!”
I suppressed a smile at the idea of my mother throwing a punch. “I can’t disagree.”
She shook her head. “To put this in the newspapers. You never should have married him.”
I couldn’t disagree there either, but I refrained from reminding her that after our second date, she told me I should plan on a June wedding.
“Technically, he didn’t put this one in. He tried, but the Post didn’t run the story.”
“Then what’s this?”
“Mama, read it!”
She pushed the paper back at me. “Read it to me, darling, will you?”
I looked at her for a few seconds, then something clicked. “You need reading glasses, don’t you?”
She sat up straighter. “I most certainly do not.”
“Mama. Just get the glasses.”
“Those are for old women. I can see just fine.”
“Oh, for the love of—you’re really going to make me read this to you, so you don’t look old to me ?”
She sipped her coffee. “Are you going to read it? If not, I’m perfectly content to go about my day without knowing what’s written there.”
“You are the most impossible—”
“Watch it,” she said, holding up a finger. “Or you don’t have a babysitter today.”
“—ly charming woman,” I finished.
“Much better,” she said, smiling.
I read her the column.
When I got to work, Michael and Stuart looked up at me expectantly. “Is something on my face?” I asked, digging in my bag for a compact.
“Did the column run?” Michael asked.
A copy of today’s Washington Post sat on the desk next to him.
“Why didn’t you—” I reached for the newspaper and then stopped. “Did you not read it because it’s in the women’s section?”
They both looked down. “It’s not for men,” Stuart mumbled.
“Really?” Neither would meet my eye. “Do you think someone will rush in here and put a dress on you if you read something in that section?”
“No,” Michael said. But he still wouldn’t look at me.
“Then what on earth are you so frightened of? Two grown men afraid to look in a newspaper. And you want to be in the Senate?”
“There won’t be ads for ... female products ... in the Senate.”
I blinked rapidly. “You do realize that if either of you ever gets married, you’ll wind up sharing a bathroom with a woman who is going to need to use those products and who will very likely keep them in that bathroom, right?”
“That’s . . . different,” Michael said.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” I picked up the paper, pulled out the women’s section, and folded the page so that the column and photograph were all that were visible. “Here. Should I pull the blinds too? Make sure no roving photographers catch you with this in your hands?”
Stuart glared at me and took the newspaper, which they both read, Michael over Stuart’s shoulder.
“Is it working?” Stuart asked when he had finished.
“I don’t know. Let me use the little transmitter in my uterus to ask all the other women.” I placed a palm on my lower abdomen. “Yes,” I said. “Mostly. Josephine in Rockville is still on the fence, but the rest of the women are on board now.”
“If we lose the election, you have a future in comedy,” Michael said, rolling his eyes.
“Better win, then. Because if I have to do comedy, I’m telling everyone about this ridiculousness.”
The door opened, and Linda walked in. “What’s the matter?” she asked when we all looked at her. She adjusted her hair and skirt. “Did I make a mistake?”
“No,” Stuart said, shooting me one more dirty look. “ You didn’t.”
The phone rang, and Linda hurried to her desk, answering it before sitting down.
I started toward my desk, but the door opened again, and I turned to see an unfamiliar woman. “Can I help you?” I asked.
“Are you Beverly?” she asked in a coastal Massachusetts accent.
“I am.”
She held out her hand. “Evelyn Gold. I read your piece this morning. I want to volunteer.”
I looked at her for a moment before shaking her hand. “You do?”
“Of course. That husband of yours sounds like a piece of work.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “We were in Massachusetts all summer and my kids are in school now, but you and this Michael Landau are all anyone at the club has been talking about. Then I read that column, and I wanted to see what the hubbub was for myself.”
“Great,” I said. “How’s your typing?”
“Terrible.”
I smiled. I liked her already.
We had picked up six more women as volunteers by lunch. By the end of the day, we had booked four more women’s club speaking engagements and had a team of fifteen women who wanted to help the campaign.
“What do we do with them all?” Stuart whispered to me and Michael. Michael looked as lost as Stuart did.
“Give them jobs the interns would have done,” I said. “And actually—let’s print more flyers. We can station them at grocery stores handing them out.”
“Will that do anything?”
I smiled. “Don’t underestimate what determined women can do.”