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

CHAPTER THREE:
 
A MEETING AND A MENTAL CONVERSATION

The following day, Nina had lunch at the House cafeteria.

She had just finished the meal when she heard this mellow, deep woman’s voice coming from behind her, over her shoulder.

“Congresswoman Bannister?”

(What it was like to be called that for the first time!)

“Yes?”

She turned around.

And there was Laurencia Dalrymple.

Laurencia Dalrymple!

One of the most famous of all senators.

Reputed to be the first black woman who would make a run at the presidency!

Standing beside Nina’s table.

“May I sit down?”

“Of course! Of course!”

“Congratulations on your victory!”

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“I adored your TV ads. And I wanted to come and see you the first chance I got. I went by your office, and your chief of staff told me they thought you were staying here. You have, by the way, a very friendly chief of staff.”

“Yes, Dicken Proctor. He loves two things:
 
making coffee and playing golf. I’ve never seen him play golf, so I don’t know if he’s any good at that or not. But the coffee? He’s an expert. Our little office has the best coffee-making equipment in the world, and Dicken always arrives before everybody else to make a pot. He even had coffee thermoses specially made with the Mississippi flag painted on them. When anybody has to go to a meeting, he makes sure that person has one of those thermoses, and will not have to suffer through bad coffee.”

“I’m so glad you’re in good hands, my dear. But I did want to congratulate you. It’s a privilege to have a career teacher as a colleague. And, also, somewhat selfishly––it’s always good to have another woman to work with.”

“How many women are in the House and Senate?”

Laurencia smiled and said:

“Now I get to act like a schoolteacher! Well, my dear, I believe I can answer your question. There are at present one hundred senators, total, twenty of whom are of our sex. In the House, the number is four hundred and thirty five total, seventy-nine of them being biologically akin to you and me.”

“Well. We’re making some progress, I suppose.”

“I suppose. But, as I say, it is always wonderful to welcome another woman. But welcoming you was not my only reason in coming. I wanted to make a strange—well, suggestion to you. I hope it won’t sound too forward.”

‘Please, go ahead.”

“Would you be at all interested in having a roommate for a time?”

“I’m sorry?”

And then there was that smile again.

“I know. I feel like such a fool…”

“No, no, actually I was going looking for a place tomorrow. Mr. Proctor was going to show me some possibilities.”

“So you might be interested in rooming with me?”

“Of course! I’m just surprised, though—I mean, you’ve been in the Senate for a good many years now…”

“I’m old, you mean.”

“No, no. I’m just surprised you need a roommate!”

“Well, as it happens, I do. Not for too long, I don’t think. But for several months. I’m not sure you know too much about my personal life, Nina…”

“Not as much as I should, given your stature.”

“Oh, pish about that. But the fact is, I am a widow, as, I believe, are you.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been sharing a very nice apartment, just off Massachusetts Avenue, with an old and dear friend. She works in international banking, though, and has just been offered a handsome promotion. They want her to go and manage their branch in Paris.”

“Oh, my.”

“Yes, it’s impossible to turn down. Also, my daughter will be graduating from Georgetown at the end of this coming summer semester. She will probably move in with me for a time, while she thinks about future plans. But from now through early fall…well, I followed your race with such interest, and came to feel as though you were someone I admired so much…I thought perhaps…”

“I would love it!”

“Really?”

“Absolutely! It would be a great honor for me!”

“And for me, too, Nina. For me, too. The apartment is just east of the corner of 3
^rd
and E Streets. It’s quite close to the Capital, and to the Rayburn House Office Building, where your office is. It’s on the third floor of a stately old Victorian mansion. From the big window in our living room we can see down onto Massachusetts Avenue, and, beyond that, the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building.”

“It sounds perfect.”

“I think you’ll be comfortable there. There is, however, just one thing that may be an issue…”

“What?”

“I have a cat.”

That evening, she went to the Lincoln Memorial.

It was around sundown.

The cherry trees were beginning to blossom.

She overheard a guide talking to a group of visitors about Lincoln’s hands. They looked, he said, especially lifelike because they were based on castings done while he was president. The guide said people who knew sign language might recognize that the left hand was shaped like an
A
and the right hand like an
L
. No one knew whether that was done intentionally, but the sculptor, Daniel Chester French, did have a deaf son.

Then, of course, after the group left, Nina went over and read one of the two full speeches in the Memorial.

The Gettysburg Address was one, of course.

The other one…

…ah, yes, the other one.

The Second Inaugural Address.

Those last lines…

“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all…

To bind up the nation’s wounds…

“They always were you’ve favorite lines, weren’t they?”

Silence for a time, then:

“I think you would be so proud of me.”

More silence. Then:

“I used to think, for so long a time, that you and Mr. Lincoln would have been good friends.

I don’t think that any more.

What I think now, is that you and Mr. Lincoln
are
close friends.

And I believe that with all my heart.

Good bye for now,

My beloved Frank.”

CHAPTER FOUR:
 
OOPS!

Nina’s existence in Washington went from exciting (first week), to less exciting (second week) to boring (third week), to frustrating (fourth week).

She had begun her career as congresswoman priding herself on being the perfect little legislator.

She missed no votes, but always sprang to her feet and raced into the House Chamber every time the bell rang in her office. She missed no fundraisers, whether they be given by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Poultry Producers of America, or the Daughters of the American Revolution. She allowed no letter that arrived in her office to go unread, and she made sure that all letters were promptly replied to, a task made even more onerous by the fact that all the replies said pretty much the same thing, no matter what the issue was that happened to be talked about.

“We understand your concern arising from the issue of (‘Paste issue in
here’
). We in this office, and in the Democratic Party, share your worry about the matter, and are doing everything possible to find a fast and equitable solution. It is, of course, a complex situation, and finding an answer that will not only stop the pain that constituents such as yourself are feeling now, but in the future as well, is the full-time job of all of us here on Capitol Hill who have the privilege of representing you. Rest assured, we take our responsibilities
very
seriously. You, the other citizens of (‘Paste town or city in
here’
), and indeed the entire state of Mississippi, can rest assured that your voices are being heard, your concerns acted upon, and your ideas put into motion.

Once again, it is a pleasure to be entitled to act as your representative,

The Honorable Nina Bannister.”

She estimated that, by May first, she had signed five thousand such letters.

That would have been bad enough.

Worse, though, was her gradual realization that she was not going to bring about any major changes, or any changes at all.

Nor was anybody else in Washington.

The government, of which she was now a part, was at a standstill.

Republicans hated Democrats, who hated them right back.

There was no compromise on anything.

And as Nina watched the train wreck that was the current congressional session…

…as she watched the inability of anyone to bridge the gap between various philosophies concerning gun control…

…health care reform…

…abortion rights issues…

…foreign policy issues…

…environmental and energy issues (She was failing Gulf Coast Petroleum, for whose causes she could do absolutely nothing)…

…and above all (she thought often of Ms. Ramirez) immigration reform…

…a strange and disturbing theory began to develop in her mind.

She tried to chase it out, but it remained there.

Where it grew.

Watching the people around her, and how they behaved toward each other and their adversaries, she began to feel that the major polarity dividing the nation had nothing to do with conservative vs. liberal thought.

It had much more to do with…

…could she say it?

Could she ever put into words exactly why she felt the nation was paralyzed politically?

No. To do so would be disastrous for her, and for her party.

She would be laughed out of Washington.

And so she should never say what she was truly feeling.

Except, one day, she did.

It happened as follows:

Her slip occurred in a second interview with the young woman from
The Vicksburg Star
who had recorded her interview with Olivia Ramirez.

This reporter had called a week after her arrival in Washington, anxious to do a backup story.

And Nina had agreed.

Why not?

And so on Thursday, May third, she found herself in the coffee room of her cramped office (There were in all, three rooms: the reception room, which swarmed with aids; the coffee room, where there was Proctor’s wonderful coffee, a table, and four chairs; and her inner sanctum, where there was a massive desk and an uncomfortable couch facing it, all such offices having uncomfortable couches, she was to learn, because congress people wanted always to give constituents an obvious place to sit, and never to have them stay very long.)

She found herself in this middle room, sipping coffee, looking alternately at the trim, dark-haired reporter and the massive Confederate battle flag that stretched across the wall over the doorway.

“So, you’ve been here a month now, Representative Bannister?”

“Please call me Nina. I’d like you to call me that, and I’d like all Mississippians to call me that. I’m just Nina.”

“All right then, Nina. How have you adjusted to life on the Hill?”

“I love it.”

“What things about it most specifically?”

“Well, I think the chance to interact with so many folks around the state.”

“How does this interaction take place?”

“Mainly through letters and emails. I have flown back to Jackson on two occasions to attend party fundraisers, and I loved, as a kind of addendum to the second trip, being given a tour of the huge chicken processing plant outside of Oakdale. Genuinely fascinating. But having a chance to sit down and answer each letter personally—that’s
so
gratifying!”

“Wonderful! Well, then—I think our readers would enjoy knowing what aspect of Washington D.C. has impressed you most?”

“There are so many, Elizabeth! But I have to say, not even all of the amazing monuments, and all of the history—not all of these things can move me as much as the cherry blossoms can. I’m a small town Mississippi girl at heart, and when I look out of the Capitol Dome over this sea of white and pink—I can’t tell you how deeply it moves me.”

“I’m sure every Mississippian wants to be right there with you.”

“In a way, I feel as though they are with me.”

“How moving! Nina, has it been difficult as a woman, getting things accomplished on Capitol Hill?”

“Not at all. There are, as you know, a number of other women representatives and senators—I have the great pleasure of rooming now with Senator Laurencia Dalrymple—and I don’t think any of my colleagues see gender as an issue when it comes to solving the nation’s problems.”

“Speaking of that, then, what are the problems that you find most vexing?”

CORRECT ANSWER:

“Oh, I think they’re the same ones that you and your subscribers read about every day. We all want to find ways to help the President in his fight to improve the economy; we all want to aid those in our country who are less fortunate than ourselves; we’re all concerned about the war-torn Middle East and the unstable situation in parts of Africa…and we want to find ways to decrease the violence that is plaguing our city streets, and costing so many young lives unnecessarily.”

This was, inexplicably, not the answer that Nina gave.

She instead gave the:

INCORRECT ANSWER:

Partially because she saw, ever so briefly, a vision of Olivia Ramirez standing before her.

“We have fifty-thousand children pouring out of Honduras, looking for refuge in our country. They’re children, Elizabeth. They’re ten and twelve-years old. They’re dying. In the desert. At our doorstep. And we’re doing nothing about it, except calling each other names.”

“What should we be doing about it, Nina?”
        

EXTENSION OF INCORRECT ANSWER:

“Take them in.”

“All fifty-thousand?”

“There are three-hundred million of us. Three-hundred million. And we can’t find homes for fifty-thousand refugee kids? That would mean that, out of every sixty-thousand Americans, one of them would need to take a child. One out of every sixty-thousand would need to make that sacrifice. And we can’t do that?”

And that was the end of the incorrect answer.

Except that it wasn’t.

Fallout did not come immediately.

The evening following Nina’s interview was, on the other hand, extremely pleasant. She was invited out to dinner with Laurencia Dalrymple, who took her to the Belga Café. She had never experienced Euro-fusion, which hinted vaguely at nuclear war, but she was game for anything (if, she sometimes found herself thinking, she were not game for anything, she would hardly be in Washington), and she went.
       

What a marvelous place!

A sleek café, done up with dark wood, exposed brick walls, and spotted with creamy chairs, elegant linen.

An endive salad with a sabayon made from Hoegaarden beer.

And so, for an hour or so, they simply sat, and munched, and sipped, and watched the Capitol Dome grow brighter as the sky beyond the restaurant’s huge windows darkened.

Over a three shellfish gumbo, they traded tales of their childhood.

Over a fluffy taramosalata (salmon roe dip) with a touch of citrus, they traded tales of their husbands.

Over salty halloumi cheese topped with mint, they traded tales of scandal and intrigue involving various legislators and their mistresses, and, since gender equity was in fact becoming a reality, their misters.

And over apple pie and coffee (one could take eclecticism only so far), they simply digested, and talked of nothing at all.

Nina slept like a rock.

Astonishingly, she was hungry the next morning when she woke at six-thirty.

She ate her accustomed bagel with cream cheese (Where was she putting all this food?), dressed, walked to the office, greeted her staffers as they came smiling in, and had answered forty-three letters when the messenger came for her at nine-fifteen.

Later on, she could remember the time, because she had just glanced at the Ole Miss clock with the rebel flag hanging down from it, when the man arrived.

He looked out of place among her own staffers: a bit older, a bit less blond, a bit crooked, and a bit too well dressed for basement offices or basement people.

“Could I see Congresswoman Bannister?”

“She’s in the coffee room.”

She was not in the coffee room, however. She was, in fact, standing flush in the doorway between the entrance room and the coffee room.

“I’m Congresswoman Bannister.”

“Good morning. I’m Tim Sandler, aid to Jeb Maxwell.”

Jeb Maxwell.

The House Whip.

Second in line, at least in terms of the power structure, to the Minority Leader.

“Ah! And how may I help Congressman Maxwell?”

A slight blush.

A deferential bow.

Then:

“Well, he hates to interrupt your morning. He knows you probably have a million things on your plate.”