by Tricia Dower
“Am I in trouble?” she asks Rosemary, who smiles and shakes her curly black-haired head, reading glasses on a chain the only clue she’s older than she appears. She nods toward an open door. “He’s expecting you.”
Lin knocks then ventures onto thick brown carpeting that swallows her footsteps. She’s glad she wore the plaid knit dress and fitted navy jacket she bought with freezer money. The office seems empty, until a voice laced with humor intones, “Mrs. Brunson, I presume,” and she spots him stepping out from behind an impressive walnut desk. Flat, silver light from windows behind him gives him an ethereal appearance. As he gets closer, his black suit and gray hair come into sharper relief. He’s square-shouldered and of average height but carries himself as if taller. “Care to sit?” He gestures toward sofas and armchairs upholstered in golden-threaded brocade. She sits on a sofa. He takes a chair. A coffee table holds a silver tray, a crystal pitcher and two crystal glasses. “Water?” he says. She nods. He pours left-handed, the cuff of his starched white shirt flashing gold. He has a square jaw, high cheekbones and a broad, smooth brow that surprises her. Shouldn’t a man in his position have a continually worried look?
She glances at a framed photo on the end table, a younger Magnus Baardsson in an army uniform. “Is that you shaking hands with President Truman?”
“It is. I was a prosecutor with the Judge Advocate corps at the Nuremberg trials. One of those life-changing experiences.” He stares into space for a moment then says, “I’ll get straight to the point. I’ve created a new position and I’d like you to take it.”
Her arms go weak in their sockets. She had steeled herself for a dressing down.
“I haven’t decided on a title but you’d be our affirmative action conscience. Are you familiar with the Civil Rights Act?” His almond-shaped eyes are attentive, as cobalt as marbles.
She shakes her head no.
“It wouldn’t take you much to get up to speed. We aren’t yet required to submit minority and female hiring goals and timetables but need to be ready to file if necessary. Our exemption from income tax makes us vulnerable. You probably know we sell insurance only to Lutherans. In fact, our tax-exempt status obliges us to discriminate in selling. Confusing, isn’t it?”
Seems more unfair than confusing. And she’s heard some agents push the boundaries. They’ll mark a prospect qualified if he’s merely driven past a Lutheran church. Making money hand over fist in the name of the Lord, Arlyss said at break one day. Lin doesn’t share these thoughts with Mr. Baardsson, just nods, mute from disbelief at the opportunity he’s giving her.
He pauses to sip water. “Then there’s the Equal Pay Act. Ten years out and we haven’t done much about it. Surprised? I was when I took this position a year ago.” He smiles as though he hasn’t made an astonishing admission.
She finds her voice. “What would I do?”
“You majored in psychology, did you not?”
She nods.
“You should be able to find a competent psychologist to identify women with potential. I also want you to propose a woman or two outside the company for our board, work with Personnel to change any policies that get in the way of women succeeding here, write articles for the employee paper, be my eyes and ears when it comes to discrimination. Oh, and be sure the affirmative action plan gets written.” He pauses and smiles. “You won’t be bored.”
“Why me?”
“From what I’ve heard, you have grit. At Nuremberg I learned the world is different for the brave. It carries them through situations that destroy others. Some people won’t like what I want you to do. I need somebody who’ll persevere.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“A simple yes would suffice.” He laughs gently, sits back and crosses his legs. “But take some time to think it over. If you accept, you’ll start at eight hundred a month, with a salary review in three months.”
Nearly twice what she earns now.
She dreams that night of buying a gleaming silver ray gun. The salesman tells her it projects the evolutionary paths of various species and is too advanced for women. She cocks the gun, points it at him and says, “I don’t believe in evolution.”
“He’s co-opting you,” Karin says the next day, “making sure you can’t cause any more trouble. Just wait. He won’t let you accomplish anything.”
Driving to Prairie Fire that night, she refuses to let those words bring her down. Karin herself said getting tapped for supervisory training was like being touched with magic. This is so much bigger. Lin can hardly keep her giddy foot on the gas pedal. She engages Tavis in a rollicking “Row, row, row your boat” while a debate pitches and rolls in her mind. Should she turn the job down on principle because it wasn’t posted? Scuttle back to Prairie Fire like a prodigal wife? She pictures herself collecting discarded bulletins and righting hymnals people have left upside down in the rack, mutters, “God no.”
“What, Mommy?”
“Nothing, sweetie pie. Talking to myself again.”
“Miss Ellen says I’m talking to myself when I talk to Johnson.”
She shakes her head in dismay. He hasn’t mentioned Johnson since they moved.
“A patio would be nice out here,” Ron says the next afternoon. “Willard can get us enough stones or bricks to accommodate four lawn chairs and a charcoal grill. Mom’s planning a garden with herbs and flowers she says we can ‘defend easily’—her words, not mine—when she’s back in her house.”
We. He assumes she’s coming back and why wouldn’t he, after embraces full of heat on rumpled sheets the past few months and the kindergarten registration form Lin signed, not knowing how to object when Grace sprang it on her. “Is she looking forward to that?”
“Not sure. I suspect she’s enjoyed being First Lady in a church again.”
They’re thigh-to-thigh on the back steps. They can hear Tavis from there if he cries out, not that he isn’t resourceful enough to come looking for them. A year ago they sat out here discussing a separation. If Seth is right, last year’s conversation is still going on somewhere beyond time. She rests her hand on his knee. “What would you say to the three of us living together in Hopkins?” For weeks she’s been reaching toward this moment and pulling back, reaching and pulling back.
“Now?”
“When my lease is up. We could get a two-bedroom in the complex. Tavis wouldn’t have to leave his friends.”
“He’s already registered for school here.”
“So, we’ll unregister him. Irene gets kids on the bus to Harley Hopkins every day and is there when they get off. She says it’s an excellent school.”
“You’ve decided then. You’re not coming back.”
“There’s little for me here except you.”
“Isn’t that enough?”
She lifts his hand and kisses it. “I was offered a new job at LP. Doing important work.”
“Ah, so that’s it.”
She tells him about her meeting with Mr. Baardsson. “It’s eight hundred a month.”
His eyes widen and he whistles low. “Will you take it?”
“I want to.”
“You don’t need my permission.”
“I know.”
“When do you have to give him your answer?”
“He didn’t set a deadline. I’m thinking a week from Monday.”
“Not sure I want to drive to and from Hopkins every day in winter.”
“You’ve been here seven years. Wouldn’t you like a change?”
He doesn’t answer right away, looks off in the distance as he speaks. “I’ve often wondered how an inner city ministry would be. It’s not up to me, though. You know that. I serve at the bishop’s pleasure.”
“Maybe he’ll let you and Artie swap churches.”
He throws his head back and laughs. “Open Door would run Artie
out on a rail.” Then he turns to her, frowning. “This his idea?”
“No, no. My own crazy thought.”
“You want me to follow you this time?”
“I guess I do.”
“I won’t leave the ministry.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
He pulls her to him, kisses her hair. “When’s the lease up?”
“In four months.”
“Hmm.”
All that remains of this day is a golden blur behind the trees. They witness it for a while, her head on his shoulder. If her understanding of Einstein’s space-time theory is right, every event that could possibly happen might already exist, whether barely whispering or in full voice. She pictures the future as prairie-flat and stretching out forever. They have only to keep going forward to find it and the selves they are becoming.
Mon, Jun 4/73
I’m feeling loose around the edges. Tomorrow I’ll take some freezer money & buy Angel a bottle of wine to replace the one we drank tonite. I told her I must’ve stumbled into somebody else’s dream & she said no, Lin Brunson, This Is Your Life.
I assumed I’d sit at a desk near Rosemary. Whole families could live in that space. But I have a door, 4 walls, a window & a phone that dials out! There’s a painting of a mountain on one wall, a philodendron clinging to life in a corner. The desk is real wood & the chair covered in slippery brown Naugahyde. Rosemary helped me adjust it so my feet touch the big piece of Plexiglas it sits on to protect the carpet. Ooh la la.
Mr. B gave me legislation to bone up on & a list of assignments. He said Rosemary would order supplies for me & do any typing I have. That got Angel squealing so loud I had to hold the phone out. You have an office & a secretary? Get your beautiful self down here. This cries out for wine.
I love that woman.
52
She earns seventy-five dollars for passing three more exams and adds it to the freezer cash, uses some of it to take Angel to The Flaming Bohemian for dinner on a warm Saturday night.
A sign on the building features a leering devil surrounded by hissing neon flames that flicker on Angel’s face. A bell over the entrance yanks Lin back to a corner store and the creep that owned it when she was a kid. She has an urge to turn and flee. But Ginger spots them in the entrance and rushes forward, her face flushed with pleasure, her black-lined eyes smiling. She’s wearing tall, shiny black boots, a scoop-necked white blouse with puffy sleeves, a full red taffeta skirt and white lace apron over stiff white petticoats that rustle. A black velvet vest accentuates her tiny waist. She’s tucked her hair into a white bonnet that has a candy-apple-red bow at the back. The whole effect is surprisingly seductive.
She ushers them into a room with eight tables covered in white linen, three of them occupied. One wall is tan brick, the others painted blood red under a collection of vintage violins. Frenzied music plays through a speaker. The air is rich with a beefy aroma.
“It’s charming,” Angel says.
Ginger says, “Be right with you,” in her excited child’s voice. “The meals are up for table three.”
Uncle Fran, a lean, flour-faced man with a big forehead comes out from behind the bar and shakes their hands. He’s wearing suede knickers, black boots and a red and turquoise brocade vest. He and Ginger have stepped off a postcard. “For you,” he says, “the second best table in the house.” He smiles and nods to another table, presumably the best, where Ginger’s Jolie sits with a tall, big-shouldered man who has tucked his blue and gold striped tie into his shirt pocket. Jolie is head down, intent on whatever she’s drawing.
Angel says, “I’ll just be a minute. Gotta pop to the lav.”
Lin crosses the room and gives Jolie a hug, learns the big black Vs in her picture are birds. The man stands and thrusts out a firm hand. “Buck Cordoza. You know Ginger and my little date here?” His chin is going soft, his black hair graying at the temples. Despite the expensive-looking navy blazer and gray slacks, there’s a self-made air about him. This must be the man Ginger said showed up at the restaurant two months ago wearing a topcoat in a cashmere blend (“I know my material”) and left her a twenty-dollar tip. She’s been scrambling to land him ever since, sure he’s The One now.
“Yeah, we’re neighbors,” Lin says.
“How many beautiful women can there be in the world?”
He sounds practiced, oily. Ginger confided he plans to divorce his wife and get an annulment from the Church but has to take it slowly because of his twelve-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son. She wants to meet them but Buck says it’s too soon. Lin smells a liar.
Uncle Fran holds out chairs at a table in a cozy alcove against the brick wall. Lin takes the one with an unobstructed view of Buck and Jolie. Angel returns from the restroom, slides in across from Lin and whispers, “Let me guess. That’s Buck.”
“So much for saying she’d never sleep with a married man,” Lin whispers back. “I have it on good authority sex with him is epic. And he likes to sniff her panties.”
Angel smiles into her hand, says, “Too much information.”
Ginger swoops in to fill their water glasses. “Have the devil’s goulash. It comes with soup, tomato juice or salad. I’d go for the liver dumpling soup.” She leans in, all fluttery and eager, says, “Isn’t he the best?”
Lin smiles weakly, orders potato dumplings and cabbage soup. When Ginger walks away, Lin says to Angel, “Does he look okay to you? I read that kids of divorced parents are more likely to be molested, especially by guys the mother dates.”
Angel twists around to see Buck and Jolie, turns back to Lin. “Something happen to make you suspicious?”
“No. I wish she weren’t so desperate to remarry, hope she knows she’s good enough for a decent guy.”
“Me too. Maybe he loves Jolie because he loves Ginger. Charles loves Anthony and Matty. Not for a second do I believe he’d molest them.”
Lin says, “Hmm.” She sees Ginger stop by Buck’s table, watches him wrap a possessive arm around her waist, remembers feeling proud when Ron first claimed her that way, the intimate pressure of his fingers. She can’t see him wanting to spend much time with Ginger, especially if Buck is part of the mix. She studies the delicate bones of Angel’s face, wonders if at some point she’ll have to sacrifice Angel, too, for Ron. Despite having asked him to move to Hopkins, she fears her life will shrink to fit the narrow space marriage allows for other friends. He said it doesn’t have to.
She bends her head toward Angel and says in a low voice, “Ron got the idea from Life magazine we should have a contract. It can spell out whatever we want, like separate time with friends and how we’ll share chores. I won’t have to do anything in church I don’t want to. He’ll make that clear to the district superintendent. I asked if that wouldn’t limit his opportunities and he said if it does, so be it. Our marriage is more important.”
“So what’s bothering you?”
“I’m no closer to knowing what I believe, afraid of losing myself in his beliefs. I’d kill for an audience with Seth.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Only in the remotest way. It would take a week to drive to New York and back and I don’t have any vacation days. Who knows if he’d materialize for me, anyway?” She takes a sip of water. “Crazy, isn’t it? Here I am doubting God and acting like Seth is some kind of oracle.”
“I don’t think it’s crazy. Most of us need to believe somebody has the answers, knows what we’re supposed to do with this life we’ve been given.”
“I wish I had Wonder Woman’s lariat. Anyone caught in it is compelled to speak the truth. Did you know that?”
“Yah, trouble is finding somebody to lasso who really knows the kind of truth you mean, not the stuff she was trying to find out, like where the Nazis were going to attack.” She smiles. “I loved her when I was a kid.”
&nbs
p; “Me, too. I didn’t know she existed until my grandmother, who lived with us, died and we discovered a stash of Wonder Woman comics under her mattress. She was a cranky old soul and I wasn’t close to her. I feel bad for her now if she thought she had to hide them.”
“How’d she get them?”
“No idea.”
Ginger brings them bread and two glasses of wine, compliments of Uncle Fran. Angel lifts her glass, says, “To Diana Prince.”
“Yeah. To Wonder Women everywhere.” As she says that, Lin catches Buck brushing the hair out of Jolie’s eyes. Ginger has said Jolie reminds him of his daughter when she was that age. It could be as innocent as that. As far as Lin knows, Sonny hasn’t visited Jolie since the split. Buck is a futures trader, whatever that is. Apparently his apartment reeks of money. Lin doesn’t blame Ginger for wanting more for Jolie. “I’m sick of being suspicious,” she says.
“Suspicious of what?”
“Jeez. I said that out loud?”
“Yah.”
“Sorry. I’m losing it.”
Angel reaches across, strokes Lin’s hand.
“I had this weird dream last week,” Lin says. “Can I tell you about it?”
“You can tell me anything, sweetie.”
“I’m in a car—somebody else is driving—and I’m holding a baby who has an eye in the back of her head. As soon as I discover that, her two other eyes get wider and rainbow-colored liquid like Kool-Aid pours out of them. I panic and shout, ‘Head for the hospital.’ But the baby—she can talk!—says ‘Nothing’s real.’ What do you think that means?”
Angel grips the side of the table and leans in closer to Lin. “You dreamed about the Third Eye? If you can’t get to Seth you gotta give Rhonda another chance.”
Back in her apartment, Angel plays Lin a cassette tape from a private session with Jackie. Rhonda sounds like less of a Yiddish wisecracker and more helpful as she instructs Angel on how to release her animus to help her boys grow up to be men. That Rhonda knows anima and animus seals it for Lin. Angel says Jackie charges fifty dollars for a private hour-long session. Lin will raid the freezer bank.
