Sex Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 6)

by T'Gracie Reese

  Having arrived fifteen minutes earlier, and having read the statement that had been typed out neatly and handed to her.

  She stood at a podium.

  Fifteen news reporters sat in three rows of folding chairs in front of her.

  She did not have the courage to look at all of their faces.

  Their faces were not important.

  She had been told years before, in elementary school, that a good way to avoid being nervous while speaking before a crowd was to imagine all of the people in the crowd were wearing nothing but their underwear.

  She had tried this once or twice, found it utterly disgusting, and given it up.

  Now though, as she began reading, she could not avoid the feeling that she was wearing nothing but her underwear.

  Well, so be it.

  Underwear lady.

  Nothing for it but to begin:

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am, as I’m sure you know by now, Congresswoman Nina Bannister.”

  Some small laughter at this.

  It helped.

  She continued.

  “Yesterday I gave an interview with a reporter from a newspaper in my home state of Mississippi. This story was carried on the AP wire and ultimately appeared this morning in The Washington Post.”

  Everyone in the audience had laptop computers, the keyboards of which could be heard tapping away.

  “I was not misquoted in this story, nor can I blame the reporter for what was in the story. She wrote down quite accurately what I said. What I must do now, however, is apologize. My statements did not reflect my actual feelings on the matter of the refugee children, nor did they accurately portray the views of the President, or the Democratic Party. I meant to say, and should have said, that in a perfect world, it would be wonderful if all American families could simply open their homes to the refugees of the world. It is not, however, a perfect world, and both major political parties realize this. They are, as we speak here today, attempting to find some compromise position that will allow us to deal humanely with the flood of children who are now standing at our borders. The President has made an urgent request for funds so that we can process these young people, and get them safely back to their families. But neither my party nor I really believe that it would be possible for us as a nation to offer them a blanket invitation to come and live in our homes. Our doing so would open up a flood of immigration that no nation could possibly withstand, or deal with. Once again, I apologize for having put my feelings so awkwardly, and having, because of my inexperience in public speaking, caused embarrassment to my party and to my President.”

  Silence for a moment.

  Then:

  “That is the end of my statement.”

  A sea of hands shot into the air.

  “Congresswoman Bannister, do you…”

  “Congresswoman Bannister, is it your…”

  “Congresswoman Bannister, have you ever…”

  Jeb Maxwell was approaching from the right of the podium:

  “The Congresswoman, as I said before the press conference began, will not be…”

  But then came a voice from the back of the room.

  “Nina!”

  A figure stood.

  A tall woman.

  With black-rimmed glasses.

  “Nina!”

  “I’ m sorry, but…”

  “I’m Liz Cohen of the New York Times.”

  Jeb Maxwell:

  “Thank you for flying down, Ms. Cohen. We’re all aware of your articles on behalf of Ms. Bannister during her campaign. I’m sure she appreciates your…”

  “Nina?”

  A pause.

  Everyone was looking at her.

  She was looking at Liz.

  And she said:

  “Yes, Liz?”

  “Nina, do you believe the statement you just read?”

  More silence.

  A thousand one, a thousand two…

  And finally she heard herself saying:

  “No.”

  There was a collective gasp from everyone in the room.

  The rattling of laptop keypads became deafening.

  Everyone was typing and whispering into iPads simultaneously.

  She was, she knew, being recorded.

  At her shoulder, she heard the voice of the minority whip, saying quietly:

  “What are you doing? You’ve got to…”

  But she ignored the voice and went on speaking, while she looked directly at Liz.

  “No, Liz. No. It was a statement written for me. But I don’t believe a word of it. What I do believe is, we ought to take those children into our homes. We can do it. We should do it. And every one of you typing into your computers knows we should do it. The President knows it. The Congress knows it. And yet we sit up here like we’re paralyzed. The whole government is paralyzed. We’re in our own little entrenched positions, and the world is going to hell around us, and we can’t compromise on anything. Not one damned thing. We are the most useless congress our nation has ever had. We are not ‘binding up the nation’s wounds’ as President Lincoln told us to do. We’re not binding up the world’s wounds, either. We seem to have malice toward all, and charity toward none. Charity toward none. Fifty thousand children. Children, Liz! And all we can do is squabble about how to send them away most quickly.”

  She stopped talking.

  The room was staring at her.

  Jeb Maxwell had become a statue.

  Finally, Liz said, quietly:

  “Thank you, Nina. Thank you for telling the truth. Do you have anything further to say?”

  Nina nodded:

  “Yes.”

  “Then please do.”

  “All right. It’s just this:”

  She took a deep breath.

  “It is with deep regret that I must take this occasion to announce my resignation from the United States House of Representatives.”

  And, so saying, she left the podium.

  The shock in the room was great enough that a kind of paralysis set in. This state of motionlessness did not last long—a few seconds, at most—but it gave Nina a chance to hurtle through the door and out into the corridor.

  She had disappeared from view before anyone could follow her.

  Within two minutes, she was standing back in her own office, her own staffers standing around her.

  They were all there, except Dicken Proctor, who was in Mississippi at a fund raiser.

  A bad time, she found herself thinking, for him to be away.

  “Listen, all of you. There’s something I have to tell you.”

  Dutiful children, they sat with blank faces.

  “I’ve just resigned. I’m going home to Mississippi.”

  More gasps.

  She was eliciting a lot of gasps these days.

  The inevitable questions.

  What happened?

  Is it something we’ve done?

  Are you all right?

  Who will replace you?

  To all of these questions, she simply shook her head.

  And then she lost it.

  Looking back at the matter, she was surprised that she was not crying.

  The old Nina would have cried.

  This was not, of course, the old Nina.

  This was angry Nina.

  She was angry to recall how she had, in fact, wasted a month of her life.

  Wasted it signing prewritten letters that said nothing.

  Wasted it attending meetings in which nothing was accomplished.

  Wasted it attending fund raisers, which did, in fact, raise money.

  Money which did not seem to get put to any actual use.

  For the speech she had just given was exactly right.

  The government of which she had been a member up until a few minutes ago, was paralyzed.

  The Republicans had their positions, from which they would not move.

  Ever.

  The Democrats had their positions, from which they woul
d not move.

  Ever.

  With the result that thousands of children were left to starve in the desert.

  “Okay,” she found herself saying. “OK, guys, you’ve all worked hard to make this an easy transition for me. And I appreciate it. The reason I’m resigning has nothing to do with you. The reason I’m resigning has everything to do with this—this mess, that the government has gotten itself into. And I’m going to bare my soul to you. I’m going to tell you what I actually believe. I started believing it, I guess, when I met with Barbara Daring, the CEO of Gulf Coast Petroleum. I kept on believing it while I was getting to know Laurencia Dalrymple, who deserves to be our next president. I kept on believing it when I realized that Liz Cohen was the only person in an entire roomful of writers and ‘analysts’ who really wanted to hear—and tell—the truth.”

  Pause.

  “Do you know why this entire mess has come about?”

  Silence.

  Then:

  “Men. Only about a fifth of our government is women. And that’s better than it ever has been. For three thousand years, a hundred percent of our government—and every other government in the world—has been men. And the result? History is one big war. Men killing men by the thousands. By the millions. Men creating incredibly complex weapons so they could slaughter each other.”

  Pause.

  “Women would not do this. Women would find a way to compromise. That is what women do—we find a way. We work it out.”

  Open mouths in the circle of staffers.

  A few nods.

  Mostly by the female staffers.

  It was as though someone else was talking.

  But it was Nina.

  And she kept on.

  “Do any of you think that a United States government run by women would let those children perish out there in the desert? Don’t you believe it. Yes, there are women in this country who side with Republican values and others who side with Democratic values—but we all value more than anything else, human life. Because women bring life into the world. We scream and suffer so that people may come to be.”

  And now a few more nods.

  And a few voices.

  “Tell it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you people know the central difference between men and women? For women, the major metaphor of life is the maternity ward; for men the major metaphor of life is the battlefield. We, along with God, put people together; they, in spite of God, tear people apart.”

  “Yes!”

  “Yes!”

  “And they are governing us? Why? Why are we allowing this? WE OUTNUMBER THEM! What is the matter with us? Do you realize that the Senate just passed a bill to appropriate over a trillion dollars to continue work on a warplane THAT WON’T FLY! And if it ever does fly, all it will do is kill people and blow up buildings. No government run by women would ever be that insane! Listen! Listen to me!”

  The circle moved in tighter.

  “I’m sure that none of you have ever read Aristophanes. But you should. You should, in particular, read a play by him entitled Lysistrata. This is a play that takes place during the Peloponnesian War, the awful slaughter that lasted decades and almost destroyed the great city states of Athens and Sparta. Lysistrata and a group of Athenian women finally get sick of it. They get sick of losing their husbands and their young male children. So they meet secretly with a group of Spartan women who believe just like they do. And all of them say ‘enough.’ We’re going to stop this war that the men have concocted! We’re going on a SEX STRIKE until they stop the war! From now on, we’re going to run things!”

  Silence.

  And finally, Nina knew that there was nothing more to say.

  Except:

  “That isn’t going to happen. I know. There are too many men, who feel like it’s God’s plan for them to run things. And, I guess, there are too many women who agree. We won’t see sanity in our lifetime. Look. I’ve got to go now. I feel like I’m going to cry, and I don’t want to. What I want to do is go somewhere and hide. There will be a lot of people here from the press in not very many minutes. If some of you could get my things together and put them in one place, I’d appreciate it. I’ll sneak back tonight late and pick them up. For now, though, so long. And thanks for everything.”

  So saying, she left the office.

  CHAPTER FIVE: THE POWER OF SOCIAL NETWORKING

  She had covered half the distance between the Capitol Building and her apartment when the cell phone in her purse began to buzz.

  She flipped it open and wondered for a second how she should answer the call.

  Congresswoman Bannister?

  She wasn’t a congresswoman anymore.

  Ms. Bannister?

  That sounded too much like a principal.

  And she wasn’t one of those anymore, either.

  Nina?

  Somehow she didn’t feel very ‘Ninalike’ at the moment.

  So she simply said:

  “Yes?”

  “Nina, this is Laurencia.”

  Well, that was all right.

  If there was one woman left in the world who she would allow to call her ‘Nina’…

  “Hello, Laurencia.”

  Pause.

  “Nina, I saw your speech. Everyone, actually, has seen your speech.”

  “Well, I just…”

  “No, no. We can talk about the speech later. More crucial now is that you not come back here to the apartment.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s being circled by reporters. And the mob is growing.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Get a cab. There should be quite a few on the street now. A lot of people are going home. At any rate, tell the driver to take you to 234 Barrington Drive.”

  “What is there?”

  “A small hotel. Barrington Drive is in Foggy Bottom. This hotel is a Bistro Hotel, used by a good many of my friends when they wish to have illicit affairs.”

  “Why don’t I just go to the Watergate while I’m at it?”

  “No time to banter now, honey. Look, I’ll try to get some food together and bring it over to you. You like sushi?”

  “It’s dead fish.”

  “I know. I thought it might be appropriate.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Just a bit of gallows humor.”

  “Thank you again. But Laurencia, I have to ask you before I get whisked off into hiding…”

  “Yes?”

  “I mean, why is this a big deal? I made a resignation speech. I’m the least important of all congressmen and women. People resign all the time. The truth of the matter was, I simply didn’t believe the statement they gave me to sign. I know. Party loyalty and all that. But when Liz asked me that question…I don’t know...I just had to tell the truth.”

  Pause.

  Then:

  “What question?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what question?’ She asked me if I believed the statement I had just read. And I realized that, in all honesty, I didn’t. So I said so. I also realized that I couldn’t go around trumpeting views that went contrary to those of the president and my own party. So I had to resign. And I did.”

  Another pause.

  “My God. You don’t…”

  “I don’t what?”

  The sound of Laurencia’s breathing.

  “Just get the cab, honey. Just get the cab, get into the hotel, and wait for me.”

  And she hung up.

  Nina waited for her cab at Franklin and 12th, an intersection she knew to be quite busy.

  The wait lasted approximately three minutes.

  During the first minute, she was recognized by an elderly woman––stooped, caned, and white haired, but with sparkling blue eyes.

  The woman grabbed her sleeve, smiled, and said:

  “Saw your speech, my dear. Good for you. Stick by your principles.”

  “Thank you.”

  This kind of th
ing happened twice more.

  Each time, it involved people telling her to stick to her principles.

  She got the cab, gave the address, and tried to think of nothing while the driver negotiated afternoon Washington traffic.

  The effort to think of nothing failed, since the driver recognized her too.

  “You are Congresswoman Bannister?”

  “Well. I was.”

  “I was able to see and hear your speech some time ago. I am Pakistani, you know. In my country, shame to say it, people cannot express their opinions as openly and frankly as you can here. Congratulations on the speech. How very powerful. Please…always stick to your convictions!”

  “Thank you. That means a lot.”

  “You are welcome.”

  And he dropped her at the hotel.

  It was small. Not at all ostentatious, but clean.

  The desk clerk smiled and asked:

  ‘How may I help you?”

  “I need a room for the night.”

  “Will that be for only one?”

  “Yes. I’m not having an affair.”

  “That’s all right, madam; it isn’t a requirement.”

  “Whew.”

  “Your name?”

  “Nina Bannister.”

  “Ah! I heard your speech. Very moving.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No luggage?”

  I might as well just admit, she found herself thinking, that I’m having an affair.

  And who in this town hasn’t heard that damn speech?

  What do they do here besides watch television?

  Of course, she thought, wishing for a bag of some kind to take upstairs, what does anybody do besides watch TV?

  She was about to find out.

  The room was fine.

  A bed, well made, to be slept on.

  A writing desk to be…

  …what?

  Whoever, she wondered, ever went to a hotel to write things?

  Twenty minutes later, Laurencia arrived, with an overnight bag full of gear for Nina to sleep in, and a large box of pizza.

  Laurencia smiled:

  “Canadian bacon and pineapple. That all right with you?”

  “It’s great, especially because they allow you to pick off the pieces of pineapple.”

  “So. A traditionalist.”

  “Damned straight. Let’s eat.”

  Nina took the box and opened it, savoring the aroma.