Chapter 16 Three-Donut Day
Three-Donut Day
As she fixed her hair and makeup, Margaret couldn’t stop grinning, as if some out-of-frame photographer had commanded her
to “say cheese” but then wandered away and forgot to snap the picture. But her joyous anticipation was genuine, and it continued
as she got dressed to go to town, sorting through her options and deciding how to spend her paycheck.
Her first thought was to cash it and buy every single one of the books Helen had recommended. Margaret had wanted to read
them all, and a collection like that would really dress up her mostly empty bookcase.
But thinking about the bookcase got her thinking about furniture in general. She’d wanted a new sofa forever. And a proper
dining room set, Danish modern, a teak table and chairs and maybe even a matching sideboard. The sofa she had in mind cost
nearly two hundred dollars. Buying just one of the dining chairs she wanted would take her whole check. But if she saved up
for a few months, or even a year . . .
She dropped by the bookstore first. Helen was out running her own errands, so Margaret left the books she was returning with
Edwin, using the money Bitsy had given her to pay for the copy of Herland that Margaret had brought to the meeting. She then asked him to order three more copies for the Bettys. He was happy to oblige and delighted to hear that Walt was enjoying The Old Man and the Sea.
“Have him call me when he’s finished. Maybe we can go out for a beer and discuss it.”
Margaret couldn’t picture Walt joining a book club, even if it was just him and Edwin and beer was involved, but she promised
she would. Still smiling, she got back into the car and drove to the bank, the same one that had gifted them with the coffee
percolator when she and Walt opened their checking account.
The young woman sitting at the new accounts desk, Rhonda, a doe-eyed brunette who seemed to have doused herself in Wind Song
perfume before leaving for work, couldn’t have been more than twenty. When Margaret said she wanted to open a savings account,
Rhonda pulled a form from her desk drawer and picked up a pen.
“Of course. I’d be happy to help. Miss?”
“Mrs. Margaret Ruth Ryan.”
“Oh, I see. Is Mr. Ryan with you? We’ll need his signature to open an account.”
Margaret shook her head. “This account will be just for me. I’ve started a new job.”
Rhonda put down the pen. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Ryan, but you won’t be able to open an account without your husband. We’ll need
his signature—”
“Yes, you said that already. But this isn’t his account. It’s mine. I need an account where I can deposit and save my paychecks.”
Rhonda blinked her doe eyes. Margaret reached into her pocket, pulled out the check, and pointed. “See? It says right there,
Margaret Ryan.”
“Yes, I understand. But we still need your husband’s signa—”
“May I please speak to the manager?”
The manager, Mr. Carlyle, a portly, red-faced man in his middle forties with halitosis and an officious manner, was no more
help than Rhonda.
“Yes, Mrs. Ryan,” he said with an exaggerated nod. “I understand that the money is being paid to you and not your husband. But bank policy requires a married woman to have signed approval from her husband to open an account.”
“But it’s my name on the check!”
Carlyle stared at Margaret the same way he might had she been speaking a foreign language, blankly and without a hint of comprehension.
Margaret sighed and tried again.
“Let me ask you this. If my husband came in and wanted to open an account with a check in his name, would bank policy require
him to get a signature from me first?”
He blinked twice. “Well, no. Of course not.”
Margaret threw her arms out wide, waiting for Carlyle to connect the dots. It didn’t happen. He reached into a drawer and
pulled out a beige index card.
“If your husband doesn’t have time to come to the bank during business hours, you can simply ask him to sign this signature
card. Bring them back once he does, and we’ll be more than happy to open your account.”
He smiled a thin smile and held out the card. Quietly seething but seeing no alternative, Margaret took it, then walked out
the door and around the corner to a nearby bakery.
Margaret ordered three jelly donuts, carried them to a bench down the block, and ate all three while she filled out the form
and forged Walt’s signature on the index card.
Less than thirty minutes after making her exit, she marched back into the bank and handed the card and her endorsed paycheck
to Rhonda, who looked surprised and a little nervous to see her again.
“Oh. That was quick.”
“My husband’s office isn’t far.”
This was true. It didn’t seem necessary to mention that she hadn’t actually gone there.
Rhonda looked the form over to make sure everything had been filled out correctly. “Is that . . .” She lowered her head, squinting
at a purple smear. “Jelly?”
Margaret folded her hands in her lap.
“He was on a coffee break.”
* * *
For the most part, Margaret had given up door-slamming in late adolescence. But the humiliation she’d been forced to endure,
the lie she’d been forced to tell, and the machinations she’d been forced to undertake simply to get access to money she’d
earned through her own labor were all more than she could take.
She climbed behind the wheel of the station wagon and slammed the heavy door as hard as she could, not once but three times.
Even that wasn’t enough to quell her anger. She felt the same way she had when she was eight years old and one of the older
boys in the neighborhood, Skip Halloran, who was thirteen, treated her to a cone from the ice cream truck, then reached out
and smashed the cone in her face as she tried to take the first lick: furious, frustrated, and ill-used, the butt of a very
unfunny joke.
She let out an aggravated shout and smacked the heel of her hand against the car horn. A couple of pedestrians shot her a
strange look, but it helped a little. So did peeling out of the bank parking lot as fast as she could, spitting a small shower
of loose gravel from her tires.
As she drove, Margaret mentally composed a letter to her congressman protesting the policies and laws that prevented women
from being able to engage in simple financial transactions and demanding legislation to address the problem. She remembered
what her mother, who had marched with the suffragettes as a teenager, had once said about the importance of civic engagement:
“Had we waited for men to give us the vote, it never would have happened. We had to demand it for ourselves and do the work
to see it through.”
Margaret was under no illusions that her letter would be enough to send a senator scurrying, but she had to do something.
Maybe she could get some of the other women in Concordia to write letters too?
The coffee klatch crowd would be no help, but she was sure she could get the Bettys on board. And possibly Helen.
By the time she pulled through the brick columns marking Concordia’s entrance, Margaret had worked out a response, which left
her feeling calmer and a little less helpless. As soon as she got home, she would take Sylvia out of the closet and start
typing a draft letter, something she could show to the others. If she hurried, she could finish before the school bus arrived.
That was the plan.
But the plan changed when Margaret pulled into the driveway and saw a girl dressed in a pleated plaid skirt, white blouse,
and blue blazer sitting on the front steps.
Margaret turned off the ignition and got out of the car.
“Denise? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I told the gym teacher I had cramps.” She stood. “Can I talk to you? It’s kind of important.”