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

by T'Gracie Reese

  Nina shook her head:

  “This is stunning. I don’t know what to say.”

  To which Laurencia Dalrymple smiled.

  Everyone, Nina now noticed, in the room was smiling.

  “Nina, dear, I think the most important thing for you to say, if you will, is that you take back your resignation.”

  ‘I…I just…”

  “We need you.”

  For a time, she could not speak.

  Then she nodded, and in a voice that would have quavered had it been required to say more than two words, said two words:

  “All right.”

  And Nina Bannister was back in Congress.

  INTERLUDE

  He had gotten used, by now, to the place he lived in.

  The scuffling of feet on the sidewalk outside the window no longer bothered him.

  He knew what he had to do.

  A voice told him what he had to do, and he knew that voice to be God’s.

  So now he unwrapped the package that he had placed on the bed, carefully put the paper away, opened the long box, and stared down at the black oily surface of the rifle.

  He took its scope carefully between his right thumb and forefinger.

  And memories came flooding back to him.

  Memories of his father, all those year ago, all those decades ago.

  His father teaching him to hunt deer.

  Memories of them walking stealthily through the deep woods of Mississippi and then sitting ever so quietly in the deer stand, aware of every small movement around them, waiting for the sun to set, moving not a muscle.

  The voice came softly to him and invaded his memory.

  SHE IS DETESTABLE. SHE IS TURNING RIGHTEOUSNESS INSIDE OUT.

  SHE MUST BE DESTROYED.

  Then it went away, and the memory could resume.

  And, in it, a buck came slowly out of the undergrowth, raised its massively horned head, sniffed the air around it, lowered its head, and began to eat.

  He could remember taking aim ever so carefully, squeezing the trigger, and exulting as he heard the bullet splat against the animal’s side.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: OLD DEAD GREEKS

  At five thirty PM that same evening, Nina found herself entering the station headquarters of WRV Washington, there to be interviewed by a woman named Danielle Slaughter, who was the anchor of The Capitol Dome, the city’s highest-rated evening news program.

  She seemed to find herself facing a good many professional women with microphones in their hands, and so this one, she felt, was beginning “to fade into the light of common day.”

  As Wordsworth might have described the phenomenon of all anchor women beginning to resemble each other.

  This woman was not as tall as the reporter who had interviewed her two hours earlier; but then that reporter was taller than any woman Nina had been interviewed by except for Liz Cohen.

  She was not as serious as the woman from Vicksburg who had done the interview that had gotten her in trouble; but she did not have the chatty, constant, glowing brisk smile as the woman from the Bay St. Lucy paper who had interviewed her on the morning following her election to the House of Representatives.

  No, the only thing that stood out about this woman was the fact that she made Nina worry by telling her so often not to worry.

  “Just be yourself, and everything will go fine.”

  “Okay. I can do that.”

  It was a bit awkward being told this while she was sitting in a chair like a barber’s chair having makeup applied to her—much too heavily, she told herself.

  “I guess the main thing is, just don’t worry.”

  “I won’t worry.”

  She began to worry.

  Eyeliner going on now.

  She never wore eyeliner.

  Why did she need eyeliner?

  “So have you been keeping up with the last hours around the country?”

  “Not really. I had to take a car over here, and I went by the office—the mail is amazing.”

  “No, what’s amazing are the demonstrations. There’s one planned tonight here in the city. Will you go?”

  “I don’t know. I just…”

  Someone sticking a head in the makeup room door:

  “Two minutes, Ms. Slaughter.”

  “Right.”

  Door closing.

  Ms. Slaughter to Nina:

  “You’re not worried now, are you?”

  “No. I promise I’m not worried.”

  “Good. Because I’m just going to ask you some basic questions. The first question will be ‘How have you been holding up under the strain of the last two days?’ Got that?”

  “I got it.”

  “It’s always been my philosophy that people being interviewed worry less if they know what the first question is going to be.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “So again—your first question will be ‘How have you been holding up under the strain of the last two days?’”

  “I understand.”

  “And you’re not worried?”

  “Not a bit.”

  She could now feel sweat forming in her armpits.

  “Ms. Slaughter?”

  “Yes?”

  “Time!”

  “All right, Nina. Follow me. Right through here!”

  And so she was led out to face the cameras.

  National TV.

  National TV!

  She was put into a chair, with Danielle Slaughter facing her, smiling.

  Shadowy figures sat behind desks stretching back into a room surrounding her.

  There was music playing now.

  People were gesturing to each other, whispering.

  The music got louder.

  She was now really worried.

  Well. At least she knew the first question:

  “How have you been holding up under the strain of the last two days?”

  “Okay everybody, we’re…we’re…LIVE AND ON THE AIR!”

  Huge smile at the camera from Danielle Slaughter.

  Then:

  “Good evening, Washington! I’m Danielle Slaughter and we’re live from Capitol Hill. My guest tonight? Who else could it be? The lady whose face is popping up around the nation, and who seems to have instigated, almost single-womanly, the biggest potential electoral revolution since—well, since the Revolution! And so, without further ado, I give you Congresswoman Nina Bannister from the great state of Mississippi! Nina, welcome to the show!”

  “Thank you!”

  “The first question I have to ask you is: what was the Peloponnesian War, and who was Lysistrata?”

  Nina stared at her:

  “I’m sorry…”

  What the hell happened to “How have you been bearing up under the strain?”

  “Yes, if you could just tell us, “What was the Peloponnesian War and who was Lysistrata?”

  Nina took a deep breath, said to herself, I’m bearing up quite well under the strain, and…

  “The Peloponnesian War was a terrible conflict fought between the Greek city state of Athens and a group of other city states under the leadership of Sparta. It lasted from 431 to 404 BC, and we know a great deal about it from the writings of the historian Thucydides. Sparta was essentially a land power, Athens a sea power, so they had a hard time getting at each other. Finally though, Athens conceived, in 413, a plan of an attack against Syracuse, a Spartan ally. The attack was a disastrous failure. Anybody in Athens should have been able to read the writing on the wall, but the war party was too strong, and the Athenians too proud. They had gotten so wrapped up in being a city state that they had forgotten what it meant to be Greece, to be a nation working together.”

  “And Lysistrata?”

  “Lysistrata was a play written and performed just after the disaster at Syracuse. The writer was Aristophanes, who is known for creating Old Comedy. Old comedy is wild, crazy, unthinkable, and hilarious. Lysistrata, the title character, is herself an Athenian woman
who gets all of the women in Athens to join with all the women in Sparta and demand that the war be ended—or else. The or else, of course, is a sex strike. They all plan to sequester themselves in the major buildings of the cities involved, and not give in to their husbands’ desires until the fighting is stopped.”

  “Did it work, Nina?”

  To which Nina could only shake her head.

  “The play worked as a play and it’s still done today. It’s hilarious. But it didn’t solve the war. The war ended with the complete destruction of Athens, and the severe weakening of Sparta. Greece as a whole never really recovered. The nation was conquered by Phillip of Macedon in 338 BC.”

  “And so, Nina, that leads to the big question. Given the unbelievable amount of support your impassioned speech has generated around the country, do you believe that the women of the United States should actually go on a sex strike?’”

  And it happened once again.

  Those two categories of answers presented themselves clearly and unmistakably in her mind:

  CORRECT ANSWER:

  Danielle, I think that might be taking things a bit too far, and, of course, I never meant that women should stop having sex with their husbands. Nor, I’m sure, did Aristophanes. But sometimes a little shock is needed, and that’s the role satire performs. I honestly do believe that certain things are true beyond question. It is beyond question that our government seems stuck in neutral. Each political party has staked out solid positions on vital areas of dispute, and neither seems willing to budge. It’s a matter of pride, just as it was to the Athenians and Spartans. Also, it’s beyond question that only approximately one-fourth of our legislators are women, even though women form the majority of the electorate. That seems insane to me. Finally, I do honestly believe that women are better listeners than men. They are more adept at compromising. They have strong beliefs, certainly; but they are in general more willing than men to at least modify these beliefs, so that a common ground can be reached, and so that genuine problems can be solved before they become crises. So, should all women around the country go on a sex strike on, say, July 4? No, of course not, that would be ludicrous. But—should we think seriously about increasing women’s role in the government in November? Yes. Definitely.”

  And that was the answer that she should have given to the question, ‘Nina, do you actually believe that the women of the United States should go on a sex strike?”

  As opposed to THE INCORRECT ANSWER, (which she actually gave) which was:

  “Yes. On July 4th.”

  Every light in the studio seemed to get brighter.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: HERE COME THE LISSIES!

  Nina went back to her apartment, lay down, and took a nap.

  She was still a bit groggy when her cell phone buzzed.

  Only two people that she knew of had her number. One was Jackson Bennett; the other Laurencia Dalrymple.

  She had nothing against talking with either of them.

  So she flipped open the phone.

  “Nina?”

  “Laurencia!”

  “Nina, we all watched the interview together. You were superb!”

  “I should have been more tactful, shouldn’t I?”

  “Are you joking? We were all sitting around the room waiting for just such an answer. And when you said ‘July 4,’ why we all got out our calendars and circled the date. Some of the Sisters even got on the phones to their husbands and said, ‘Honey, you got a new night to go bowling!”

  Nina mused for a time about the national benefits that would follow a sudden increase in bowling revenue, but was interrupted when Laurencia asked:

  “Now are you going to the rally tonight?”

  “I’m not sure. Will there really be ten thousand people there?”

  “At least, baby. It’s the coming out of the Lissies! And I’m going to be the featured speaker!”

  “Who in God’s name are the Lissies?”

  Pause.

  “You really don’t know?”

  “I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t know.”

  “That may be true. But come to the rally, baby. Disguise yourself so you won’t be mobbed—but come to the rally!”

  It could be said that the Mall—the heart of almost every visitor’s trip to Washington—has influenced life in the U.S. more than any other expanse of lawn. On the Mall one can:

  Ride an old fashioned carousel in front of the Smithsonian Castle

  Watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July

  See the original Spirit of St. Louis

  Look at Dorothy’s ruby slippers or Abraham Lincoln’s top hat at the American History Museum

  Twirl around the ice skating rink in the National Gallery of Art’s sculpture garden

  Or…

  Exercise your first amendment rights by joining a rally or protest.

  And this was, in fact, what Nina Bannister had decided to do.

  It was insane, and she knew it.

  But she could not stay away. Ten thousand people were to be gathering around the Washington Monument because of a movement that she herself had started little more than one day earlier. Her newest and quite possibly best friend Laurencia Dalrymple was to be addressing the crowd. This was to be the unveiling of the Lissies, an organization which, apparently, was attempting to stage a revolution in American politics.

  And what in God’s name were the Lissies?

  So she decided to risk it.

  At five thirty, she put on an old pair of ragged blue jeans, a sweatshirt (too heavy for this hot sultry weather but it gave her an illusion of being hidden), a thick pair of sunglasses and a floppy fishing hat that she had bought in a Dollar Store on her way back to the hotel.

  She was so common and featureless as to be next to invisible.

  And, so disguised, she strode out toward the Mall.

  It was a twenty minute walk under a spectacularly clear sky, which was glowing golden in the sunset.

  The crowd increased around her as she walked, and she could not help feeling excitement when she told herself again and again that this was actually true, was really happening, and had been started by her.

  Then she began to be aware of the shirts.

  Black, short-sleeved shirts with raised fists in white on either side of the silhouette of a woman.

  The woman had a classic nose. Long curly hair flowed behind her neck.

  Beneath these symbols was written the word:

  LISSIE!

  And then she realized.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Lissie was short for Lysistrata.

  The Lissies had formed their own movement. And their color was not pink.

  It was black.

  And its symbol included a pair of upraised fists.

  Clearly the Lissies were not to be dabbled with.

  The crowd became more dense as she approached the monument, which was bathed in white light.

  It was a strange crowd. It reminded her somewhat of the group of environmentalists who had taken over the beach in Bay St. Lucy following Liz Cohen’s story revealing the alleged malfeasance on board Aquatica. But it was different, too. There was the obligatory marijuana, of course; but there were long patches of earth and air where nothing was being smoked at all. There were young women in bandannas wearing hooped earrings and tie-dyed shirts; but there were middle-aged women who looked like they belonged in the local Parent Teacher Association of Bay St. Lucy.

  There was music everywhere, of course.

  But it was music of every sort. Rock music, folk music, Bluegrass music…

  …and most of it coming from female ensembles.

  Also everywhere were signs.

  Professionally painted signs, slapped together signs, small signs, big signs…

  …and a few signs with her own picture on them, above the words:

  “NINA FOR PRESIDENT!”

  What had she started?

  Policemen were around her now, channeling the stream of pe
ople who were moving like a jubilant river—for all of these people seemed happy, as though they were being drawn toward a gigantic Christmas tree where a completely unexpected present awaited them.

  The crowd was not, she found herself realizing, all female. Just as there were women of all ages and dresses and hairstyles and heights and weights and ethnicities and religions and pet ownerships (Dogs predominated, but other animals appeared here or there and one woman had a python draped around her neck)—just as there were all of these varieties of femaledom, so was there an equal diversity of men.

  One of whom, a slender professorial type with a silver beard, carried a sign saying:

  WE GIVE UP. TAKE OVER!

  More signs proliferated now, as though the very banners and images were preparing in advance for a prolonged sex strike by taking matters into their own hands and reproducing.

  GAYS AND LESBIANS FOR LISSIE!

  ON JULY 4—NO NO NO NO!

  TRANSGENDER AMERICA FOR NINA!

  MEN MAKE WARS! WOMEN MAKE BABIES!

  MEN: THE EARTH’S TESTOSTERONLY ENEMY!

  HISPANIC WOMEN SAY ‘BRING IN THE CHILDREN’!

  MEN: LEARN TO COOK!

  There were people everywhere, all of them speaking in excited tones, all of them pointing at the signs, the signs, the signs—and the fireworks arrays that now were blossoming across the darkening sky above the Potomac.

  “Look at that group!”

  “Look at him!”

  “Look at her!”

  “What do those tattoos say?”

  “What kind of an animal is that, a monitor lizard?”

  “I’ve never seen a protest mounted this fast!”

  “But it’s not really a protest, is it?”

  No, Nina found herself thinking. No, it’s a baby shower.

  Welcome to earth, all the new born Lissies.

  Finally, she had drifted half a mile or more in the surge of humanity that surrounded her, and she found herself in sight of the stage. There were musicians on it, of course, as there must have been on any stage gawked at by so many clapping and shouting and stomping people.