Speechless

by Yvonne Collins

  But I’m in no mood to be squelched: “You’ve been coming across as humorless, Minister. Look what happened when you joked about the bathrobe photo. People loved it. Why don’t you set up a couple of visits to women’s groups the Ministry funds and talk about being a woman in politics? You can describe how it feels to have people focus on your appearance instead of on the real issues. We might get a couple of great stories to finish up our road show.”

  The Minister is staring into her Chardonnay and Margo’s face has taken on the hue of her freshly hennaed hair. I decide to flee before she finds her tongue.

  Bill is having a late lunch when I enter the motel restaurant.

  “Well, Bill, it’s been nice knowing you.”

  “What’s Margo done now?”

  “Actually, this time it was me and my big fat gob. I practically gave the Minister a lecture.”

  “They can’t fire you for sharing your ideas, Libby. Remember, you’re a government employee. Relax…and try the tuna melt.”

  Bill’s cell phone rings as my sandwich arrives. After a short, agitated discussion, he hangs up, saying, “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Margo wants me to set up a meet-and-greet for tomorrow at the Ottawa YWCA and something similar for Friday. I’ll be on the phone for the rest of the bloody day.”

  I manage to be sympathetic but grin to myself when he leaves. I got through to the Minister! She’s actually taking Lily’s advice. There’s further evidence of my success when I return to our room to find Margo on the phone with Wiggy, asking her to draft remarks for the next two events.

  “Tell her they have to be casual,” I say.

  “Quiet,” Margo snaps.

  “It should sound off-the-cuff,” I continue. “And they have to be funny!”

  These should be mine to write, but one must not ask for too much at once. I just hope the event goes well. My future may depend on it.

  I know I’m stressed when a passing plate of homemade brownies piled high with icing has no effect on me. It’s 3:00 p.m. and I’ve been a nervous wreck since Wiggy’s remarks arrived on the motel fax machine this morning. They were serviceable, but by no means sparkling, and I need this event to sparkle. I took the liberty of writing my own ideas and comments in the margins before giving copies to the Minister and Margo. And a minute ago, as she made her way to the front of the room, I slipped the photo taken during our hasty departure from the Have-a-Nap into the Minister’s hand.

  “Use it!” I said. “They’ll love it.” (I hope.)

  Now the Minister is at the mike and I’m so nervous my palms are sweating. The Minister’s bag slips from my grasp and I bend down to pick it up.

  “This is your great idea,” Margo hisses at me. “You could have the decency to pretend you’re interested.”

  If only she knew. Never in my short time at the Ministry have I been so interested in what the Minister has to say. I take a moment to scan the room and see there are only about thirty women in attendance, but I suppose that isn’t so bad considering it’s short notice. And thankfully, a couple of reporters came out. From the stage, I hear:

  “I have moments in this business, ladies, when I wonder why I bother.”

  The Minister is holding up the photograph and smiling ruefully at the audience. Everyone laughs and the Minister, encouraged, launches into her speech. She delivers it beautifully and I experience a small thrill every time she uses one of my suggestions. When the speech is over now, everyone applauds enthusiastically. The reporters fire insightful questions at the Minister and she fires back some terrific responses.

  All in all, the event is a roaring success, and now that I can relax, I make a beeline for the brownies. I’m polishing off my third when Laurie approaches. “It’s a hit, Libby. Congratulations.”

  I thank her and smile proudly. All I need is a little acknowledgment from my leaders and here they come now. They can’t possibly ignore the fact that this, the best event of our whole trip, was my great idea. I prepare to accept their praise graciously. The Minister reaches me first.

  “Get the door, Lily.”

  Margo “accidentally” shoves me as she sweeps past.

  They love me.

  At the motel, I hurry to our room and test out both beds before flinging my bags onto the more desirable one. Then, without bothering to change or unpack, I head for the door. Laurie and Bill are taking me out for a celebratory dinner tonight; I need to escape before Margo arrives. As I reach for the knob, it jiggles and there’s a yelp from the other side. Then the door swings open and Margo steps into the room, struggling more than usual under the weight of the beauty supply suitcase. Her hair stands on end with static electricity and she yelps again as she receives a shock from the metal doorknob. I watch in silence, sensing my dinner plans are going up in smoke. The only sound is the scrape of her cases as she drags them along the shabby carpet toward the empty bed, too tired to care if it’s the better one. With an air of defeat, she leans back against the metal desk then jumps away again when she gets another shock—this time in the backside.

  Poor Margo has had a tough day. Libby’s ratings have climbed a notch or two out of the muck and that makes Margo miserable. I accept that I’ll be paying for this, but I don’t want her to collect tonight, so I ease toward the door. I almost have it closed behind me when she speaks.

  “I hope you’re not going anywhere, Libby.” She’s struggling to free her skirt, which is clinging to her panty hose.

  “Just getting a breath of fresh air,” I say. Then I remember my recent spine transplant: I’m supposed to be standing up for myself. “Actually, I’m having dinner with Bill and Laurie.”

  “Cancel. The Minister’s speech at the National Gallery tomorrow is very important—not like one of those YWCA toss-offs. I need you to go over it with a fine-tooth comb and check all the facts.” She’s already digging the papers out of her briefcase.

  “Christine wrote the speech and she’s a stickler for detail,” I protest. This isn’t a lie: Wiggy’s a regular Dick Tracy when it comes to accuracy and Margo knows it. “Anyway, I’ve worked almost every night of the trip and tonight I need a break.”

  “Look, if you want to be a member of this team—and it seems that you do—you’ll have to accept that the job comes first. When do you ever see the Minister and me relaxing?”

  She’s plucking a bottle of wine and a video out of her bag while she speaks, and as she walks out the door she hands me the speech file. At least I have the comfort of seeing her get zapped one last time by the door handle. I flop down on the bed and consider my options: I could dig out the laptop and do as Margo asks, or I could just blow it off and go out for dinner. Wiggy isn’t careless and damn it, I deserve a nice dinner. Why should I be their slave? Enough already, I am going out.

  I call Laurie and cancel. Old habits die hard. I hit a home run at the Y today, but you’re only as good as your last success. So, I collect quarters from my purse and hit the junk food machine down the hall. Then I call Wiggy to request a list of her sources. She’s insulted, but she gives it to me, and I start going over every word of the speech, checking and rechecking the facts. By the time I crawl into bed at midnight, I’m practically an expert on the acquisition and funding of modern Canadian art.

  During the night, my sleep is disrupted by the weird dreams one might expect after a dinner of potato chips alone. In one, I’m locked in a gallery of modern sculptures, each a rendering of a small woman with scarlet hair. A huge rat crawls out of the mouth of one statue and scurries toward me. I almost surface to consciousness at this point, and am dimly aware that the noise is actually coming from inside the motel room. Margo must be back. There’s rustling, then a beep, but I’m too tired to open my eyes and find out what she’s doing. Next thing I know, it’s 6:00 a.m. and Margo is snoring so loudly, I decide to get up and take advantage of the extended shower time.

  Collecting the speech file, I head over to the motel restaurant
to review it over a nice long breakfast. Before my coffee arrives, however, I discover the folder is empty. The speech must have slipped out when I picked it up. I’m not overly worried until I creep back into our room and start looking around to no avail. Finally, I flick on the light, thereby waking the slumbering dwarf.

  “What’s going on?” asks Dopey.

  “The speech for the National Gallery. I can’t find it.” I’m trying to keep the panic out of my voice as I get down on all fours and check under the desk and then under the bed.

  “What do you mean, you can’t find it?”

  “I mean, it’s not here—it’s missing!” That definitely came out an octave higher than I wanted it to.

  “You lost the Minister’s speech? How could you be so careless?”

  “I didn’t lose it, Margo. I couldn’t have. I worked on it all night and I put it back in the file before I went to bed. Are you sure you didn’t take it when you came in?”

  “Quite sure.” With a dramatic sigh, she slips out of bed and begins to dress. “Well, I suppose we’d better find the Minister and tell her what you’ve done.”

  “Not just yet. I have it on disk and can track down a print shop while you’re at breakfast.”

  She dashes out of the room, eager to deliver the news—although I suspect she’ll hold off till I’m present, so as to enjoy the show.

  My suspicion that she’s behind the speech’s disappearance intensifies when I scan my disks and discover the electronic version of the speech has also disappeared. Which explains the mysterious “beep” in the night. She must have deleted the speech and flushed the hard copy down the toilet. Even my call to Christine is futile, as no one answers.

  Out of options, I head over to the restaurant, where the Minister is enjoying a cup of tea and picking at a slice of dry toast. Margo is already feasting on a fry-up. I explain that the speech has disappeared.

  “Well, what’s your solution?” the Minister asks irritably. She won’t be improvising.

  “We still have over an hour before the event. I can draft something for you,” I say. “I reviewed that speech for hours and am familiar with the content.”

  “No!” protests Margo. “I’ll call Christine and get her to fax it.”

  “Tried that,” I said. “No answer.”

  “Margo, what on earth did we hire Lily for, if not to write speeches? If she can’t do it, we may as well discover it now.”

  If Margo did steal the speech to sabotage me, this was obviously not the outcome she had in mind. I sit down at another table and write the speech by hand, in huge block letters on legal paper. An hour later, I hand it to the Minister, who’s still picking at the same piece of toast. Then I go out to wait in the car.

  “Fix this up, Lily,” the Minister says thrusting the pages of the speech over the seat as she climbs in.

  She has reversed two lines, which means I have to rewrite a whole page during the bumpy drive to the Gallery. Otherwise, she has not changed a single word. I can feel Margo’s glare boring through the back of my skull, suggesting that the Minister ignored her feedback on my first speech. Or maybe she’s just pissed about the two excellent reviews of yesterday’s YWCA event.

  The Minister delivers the speech with ease and the response is positive. And as we drive to the final event of the trip, Mrs. Cleary again overwhelms me with praise: “You can see how reordering that passage made it much stronger, Lily. But you will learn as you go and I will do my best to advise you.”

  Yes, I have much to learn from her.

  Bill, Laurie and I have escaped to one of Ottawa’s finer restaurants and I feel pretty good as I tuck into my shrimp linguine. Despite many hellish hours over the past ten days, the trip is ending on a positive note. The Minister’s final speaking engagement was another success, with almost eighty women in the audience. Then, I slipped out of the motel before Margo could conjure something up to occupy my evening. She herself was called upon for beauty duty.

  “Okay, so tell me,” I say as Bill tops up my wineglass, “why doesn’t Margo find it demeaning to act like the Minister’s personal hair and makeup artist?”

  Bill and Laurie exchange quick glances. “Because she is her personal hair and make-up artist,” Bill says. “Always has been.”

  “Margo used to own Beauty 911, which offered the full range of beauty treatments to people in their homes and offices,” Laurie explains. “Mrs. Cleary has been a client for years and she was so impressed with Margo’s business acumen that she convinced her to come on board as her executive assistant just before you arrived. I doubt Margo realized she’d be doing double duty as lady’s maid.”

  “So few consider combining those important roles,” I say, shaking my head.

  “The lines are always blurred around here, as you’ve learned. You’re her first staff speechwriter though, so she’s still figuring out how to use you.”

  “Her first staff speechwriter?” Something else I didn’t know.

  “We’ve only used freelancers so far. The Minister didn’t see the need, fancying herself quite the wordsmith and all.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” I say, “and it’s obvious that Margo doesn’t want me around. So why was I hired?”

  “The Premier insisted on it after Mrs. Cleary made too many changes to an important speech and ended up insulting the Minister of Education.”

  “Why didn’t she just compliment his spectacular penis? I plan to make it my standard approach.”

  “Works for me!” Bill says, raising his glass. “Here’s to Libby!”

  I smile and touch my glass to his. “And here’s to going home!”

  12

  The sun is already slipping below the Toronto skyline when the cab pulls up in front of my apartment. Our flight was delayed six hours; I have a scant hour to beautify myself for Emma and Bob’s cocktail party—nowhere near enough, given the wear and tear of this trip. But first things first: I must collect my angel from Mrs. Murdock upstairs. She always minds Cornelius when I’m away and each time he comes back fatter and meaner. No matter how much I plead, she slips him extra treats and as a result, he adores her. Tonight he wails and hisses all the way down to my apartment. It warms my heart to see how he’s missed me. Still, as roommates go, Corny on his worst day is a vast improvement over Margo.

  My little hovel has never looked so good as it does to my travel-weary eyes tonight. Some might call it run-down, cramped and poorly decorated, but I see a cozy haven. I hope the same rose-colored glasses will transform my wardrobe, because last time I looked it consisted mainly of rags—certainly nothing In Style magazine would sanction as appropriate cocktail attire. I don’t own dressy suits or shapely little frocks.

  After a quick shower, I start pulling things out and trying them on, but the spirit of Goldilocks has possessed me: this outfit’s too hot, this one’s too cold, nothing is just right for cocktails at a suburban bungalow. I’m about to give up in despair when I recall Emma’s voice mail advising me not to worry about my appearance—that no single men would be there to notice. She’s given me permission to choose comfort over style: I slip on a favorite pair of flowing silk pants and a tank top, both black.

  By this time, my hair is well on the way to becoming an afro of Mod Squad proportions and wrestling it into a “come-hither” tousle exhausts me to the point where I can only try three different jewelry combinations. Time to stop fussing, or I’ll be late.

  Cornelius has been watching the fashion show impassively from his perch by the door. He’s planning to make a break for Mrs. Murdock’s as I leave. Just to offend him, I give him a big hug—and I take another five minutes to scrape the cat fur off my suburban cocktail attire. Finally, unavoidably, I am on the road.

  I’ve offered to pick Lola up en route to Emma’s because I hate walking into parties alone. Actually, I hate walking into parties period, unless I’ve had a couple of shooters beforehand. Either way, I tend to make a poor first impression. Lola, on the other hand enjoys parties and
is waiting on the porch for me. The minute I see her red sheath I understand what proper cocktail party attire is, and how far short of the mark I’ve fallen. The dress complements her generous curves as well as her ebony eyes and hair. No one will give me a second glance.

  “Do you mind if I lie down in the back seat so that I don’t wrinkle my dress?” Lola asks.

  “I’m a lousy chauffeur, so get in the front and buckle up, glamour-puss.”

  “You were never harsh before you started this job.”

  “Oh, I was, but I internalized it. I’m finally learning to share.”

  “In that case, I won’t ask how you like the bouquet I bought for Emma. I’m hoping she’ll be so besotted with it that she’ll forgive me for the cigarettes. I could get two cartons for what I paid the florist.”

  Lola is in nicotine withdrawal by the time we reach Emma’s new house, which isn’t far from my parents’.

  “I’ve gotta have a quick one before we go in,” Lola says as we’re walking up the front stairs. “Emma won’t let me smoke inside.”

  She hands me the huge bouquet so that she can light up. Suddenly, an automatic sensor light flashes on, freezing us in its beam like raccoons caught rifling a garbage can. The door opens, framing not Emma, but Tim Kennedy, and he’s wearing a tuxedo. Clearly, someone is even more confused about cocktail party attire than I am.

  “Libby! Is the bouquet becoming your signature style?”

  “Tim, what a pleasure to see you. Where’s the rest of your wedding party?”

  “Battle positions, everyone,” Lola says, smoke streaming from her scarlet lips. Why can’t I be that cool? And why do I have to get shrill and defensive every time that man shows up? He’s obviously just teasing me.

  “Come in and play nice,” he says.

  I hand him the flowers as I pass: “Take a walk in my shoes, pal. If you’re any good, you can give me a hand at the next Ministry event.”