Chapter 23
“How long did you save to make this possible?” Peter asked, standing with her on the expansive Hazelhurst College lawn in wait for Lydia and the rest of the new graduates to emerge for the reception.
“Sixteen years.”
His eyes widened. “How old was she, six?”
She smiled, remembering her sister as she had been—a remarkably bright child who was forever asking why. “Five, actually.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Class of ’21!” someone bellowed, and Beatrix applauded the line of young women in black robes snaking toward them. She bit her lip, a rush of emotion catching her at the sight of her sister at the front, class valedictorian.
“As soon as we can sell the townhouse, it’s your turn,” Peter said, smiling at her.
She leaned into him, too overwhelmed to speak.
Lydia, seeing them, dashed the last few yards and threw herself into Beatrix’s arms. “We did it,” she whispered. “We did it, Bee!”
Beatrix swallowed and got control of her throat. “I’m so proud of you.”
Then she realized Rosemarie had stepped back, as if she didn’t think she ought to be interrupting this moment. Beatrix reached out to draw her in for a three-woman hug.
“This wouldn’t have happened without you,” she said.
“Well, now,” Rosemarie said, gruff as always at any show of affection, for all that Beatrix now realized how much she liked it. “I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t bet against either of you, and that’s a fact.”
The afternoon was lovely, and no one seemed in a hurry to leave the reception.
Beatrix, wandering around, said hello to League leaders she hadn’t talked to for months—the treasurer of the Los Angeles chapter, the vice president of the Florida chapter, the Class of ’19 valedictorian who headed the group in Boston.
All were staying in town until the march, just seven days out.
God, the march. She didn’t want to think about it. Knowing intellectually that Lydia was in no danger did not quiet her nerves, though she suspected—hoped—that when the day came, sheer busyness would stave off anxiety.
“How’s the legislative effort going?” she asked the Boston leader, Carrie Kane, out of a genuine desire to know and a deep wish to veer the conversation to non-march topics.
Kane offered a conspiratorial smile. “All the representatives who changed their votes at the last minute are up for election in November, and their constituents are angry. You know, I don’t think it’s going to go the wizards’ way next session.”
Beatrix nodded, thinking the last comment referred only to Massachusetts, the state that had seemed so safe.
But Kane added, “We just need twelve more states, and Rosemarie is getting all sorts of encouraging reports. We’ve already landed sponsors in four states that didn’t even have bills last time, and a petition drive to put it on the ballot for California voters just got certified, and there’s momentum in Texas to call a special session, not to mention—” Kane stopped and laughed.
“Wait, you know all this already, don’t you. ”
Actually, she didn’t. Rosemarie and Lydia really had tried to avoid talking shop with her to give her a break. And it wasn’t as if they could discuss anything important over the dinner table when they had each other over.
“You really think we’ll win next time?” she asked. “With the magiocracy pulling out all the stops?”
Kane raised her eyebrows. “Tricks can take you only so far. Oh! I think my old faculty advisor is about to leave, and I’d better say hello before I miss my chance …”
Beatrix, turning away, caught sight of Joan Hamilton, standing alone beside the tall stone wall that marked the northern edge of the quad.
Her Plan B guilt, so often suppressed, lurched back to life.
She struggled for a moment, then made herself walk toward her, intent on offering a better apology than she’d managed while Vow-bound to force the woman to reverse course.
“Joan,” she said, “I—” She stopped, rattled.
Joan wasn’t by herself after all. Dot Yamaguchi and Marilyn Zuckerman—two of the three other Plan B lieutenants, just as deserving of an apology—were standing behind the wall.
She took a deep breath, trying to leap into it but feeling tongue-tied and anxious in a way she could not entirely account for.
Dot, in her graduation gown and cap, smiled as if there were no awkward history between them, though her heart didn’t seem to be in it. “We were just about to raise a glass to my future grand success. Do join in—every well-wisher helps.”
Beatrix lifted her champagne flute and intoned “to Dot’s grand success” with the others. The words she knew she should say burned in her throat. Instead, she asked, “What will you do next?”
Dot’s smile flickered. “I don’t quite know, to be honest. My parents want me to go home and take over the accounting for the family business.”
“That’s not what you want?” Marilyn suggested.
“Well—the fact of the matter is, I’d like to run the business someday, but I’ve got a brother, so …
” Dot shrugged. She hardly needed to finish the thought.
They all knew where it ended. Beatrix had heard a similar story from Joan a year earlier, except that instead of a job offer, she was sent off with a pat on the head and a trust fund.
“My parents believe in women’s rights—they do,” Dot added almost apologetically.
“I mean, they’ve never once suggested that I should be getting married instead of putting my degree to work.
But they’ve been grooming my brother to take over since the moment he was born.
‘Look at him in his little suit and tie! Quite the executive! Smile for the camera and say “chairman of the board!”’ You know,” Dot added, “the saddest part of it is that he’d much rather be a concert violinist, but he doesn’t have the heart to let them down. ”
No one said anything for a moment. Beatrix bit her lip, thinking of Ella and her brother—a far more extreme case of parental mismanagement.
“Well, this is depressing.” Dot gave a bright not-really-smile. “Everybody tell me what’s new with you. Quick, quick. Marilyn?”
“Oh! Um … I’m moving. Just across the street, though. Hardly worth mentioning.”
“That’s fine, it counts. Beatrix?”
“I’m ecstatic that Roger Rydell hasn’t written about me or Peter once in the past week.”
Dot snorted. “I can imagine. Joan?”
“Well, since you asked: I’m thinking of running for Congress.”
Dot and Marilyn looked just as astonished as Beatrix felt.
“When?” Beatrix asked. “In the distant future, after it’s no longer against the law?”
“No, next year.” Joan’s quirked lips suggested the barest hint of sardonic amusement. “There’s nothing illegal about a woman running, after all. I just won’t be able to get on the ballot.”
Dot rubbed her chin. “What’s the plan?”
“Gather enough signatures to put me on the ballot, if I were a wizard. Then point out how ridiculous it is that ninety-eight percent of Americans are disqualified in this so-called democracy.”
Marilyn’s sigh seemed pulled from her very depths. “I hate to say it, I really do, but it would be better if we did that for a typic man. After the way things imploded in the legislature—no offense intended,” she said, glancing at Beatrix.
“None taken,” Beatrix murmured. What she felt, actually, was dispirited. How long would they live with these constraints, never feeling it would do any good to demand—or even request—what they long ought to have had by right?
“Well,” Dot said, “maybe we ought to ask Lydia what she thinks about—”
“I’m not asking Lydia for permission.” Joan’s voice was quiet but no less firm than if she’d shouted it. “I’ll resign from the League if need be, but the only person deciding how I live my life is me. No offense intended, Beatrix.”
“None taken,” she said again, her fixed ideas about how Joan saw her because of Plan B beginning to unravel. Was Joan upset at Lydia?
“Look, I’ve been doing a lot of historical research.
Primary documents, records no one has bothered to look at for decades,” Joan said.
“Why do you think women’s place in society was improving and then backslid?
Yes, there was the First Depression, that didn’t help, but you can’t blame it all on that. There was something else.”
Goosebumps rippled on Beatrix’s arms. She knew, before Joan said another word, where this was headed. She supposed she knew the answer as soon as she stole a look at the top-secret Instances of Magical Ability in the Female Population from 1933.
“Wizards,” Joan whispered. “Wizards were outspoken opponents of a Ladies’ Property Rights bill.
Wizards worked behind the scenes to defend coverture laws in states that had them and pass them in the few that didn’t.
Wizards got involved in penny-ante city council races just to make sure female candidates wouldn’t win, for God’s sake. ”
“Why?” Dot’s voice was even quieter, barely audible. “To quell potential competition?”
“One presumes that played a role.”
“When did it start?” Beatrix asked. “In the 1930s?”
“Oh no, earlier. The Ladies’ Property Rights Act was proposed in 1921.”
Beatrix shook her head. “Then it’s probably not just that. There has to be more to it.”
Marilyn leaned in. “Think about it: Who were the wizards trying to wrest power from? And I don’t mean women, because women didn’t have much of it even in 1921.”
Dot’s lips formed a silent oh. Joan’s eyebrows rose.
“Typic men,” Beatrix whispered. “You’re right.”
“If you want to convince someone to vote against their interests,” Marilyn said, “it helps to give them someone else to lord it over. Which brings us back to my point about what’s a more effective strategy—staging your own publicity-stunt run for Congress, or helping a man do it.”
Joan looked very tired all of a sudden. To Beatrix’s eyes, it was the same weariness she herself felt in her very bones. Marilyn wasn’t wrong. But campaigning for a Twenty-fifth Amendment repeal by focusing on what it would do for men hadn’t worked, either.