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

by T'Gracie Reese

  The wail of electrified guitars sifted through the balmy, cherry-blossomed, late spring air.

  She was aware for the first time of the moon––full, pale, but growing darker yellow by the moment––and grinning down on the festivities, seemingly unconcerned that the Man in the Moon might soon be replaced by the Woman in the Moon, who could do the satellite’s job more efficiently.

  Policemen and women mounted astride huge reddish-brown horses strode patiently beside them as they flowed along, the officers halting occasionally beside smaller groups who were shouting at each other and waving fists in the air.

  For this, too, disagreement, was a part of what went on in the Mall.

  First Amendmenters having at each other.

  “Women belong at home!”

  “You belong at home!”

  A group of young, tattooed women:

  “WE’RE GLAD WE’RE GAY!”

  A group of young, tattooed men:

  “WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE GAY TOO!”

  Two middle-aged women in bonnets and aprons, holding bibles aloft:

  “Wives, obey your husbands! Wives, obey your husbands!”

  Which elicited the reply, from somewhere in the crowd:

  “Husbands, honor your wives. And vote for them!”

  A husky, bearded man, who was making a trumpet by cupping his hands over his mouth:

  “The man is the head of the house!”

  Replied to by a husky, non-bearded woman who did not need to make a trumpet because nothing was over her mouth:

  “Then get the hell back in the house!”

  Officers staring hard at both of them, horses standing placidly between shouters.

  They moved on.

  The rock band was leaving the stage, and Nina could see a line of colorfully dressed people stepping up onto it.

  The Washington Monument was precisely behind the stage; its tip almost touched the bottom of the circle that was the moon.

  More signs, some of them actually offering information:

  I THINK CONGRESS IS DOING A GOOD JOB: 31%

  I THINK CONGRESS IS DOING A POOR JOB: 60%

  I DON’T CARE: 9%

  AP POLL, YESTERDAY.

  But most of them simply confrontational, such as the one being waved by a group of men wearing cowboy hats and plaid shirts:

  GOD IS A MAN!

  Which was, of course, responded to by a group of young women, who had just made their own sign, and printed it in black marker:

  SO THAT’S WHY THINGS ARE SO SCREWED UP!

  And on and on.

  Until, finally, the group of people on the stage took their seats.

  A tall woman dressed in a navy suit and wearing a gold scarf came to the microphone.

  The microphone squealed out across the crowd, which seemed vast to Nina.

  She surveyed it, spread out behind her, moving restlessly, chanting and gesturing and laughing and cursing and drinking and attempting, completely unsuccessfully because of the density of the group, to play Frisbee.

  “My fellow Americans…”

  Squeal squeal squeal…

  Settle down crowd, settle down crowd…

  “My fellow Americans, my name is Cynthia Dodsworthy, and I am the junior senator from Oregon.”

  Cheers.

  Clapping.

  Boos.

  Shouting.

  Dogs howling.

  From somewhere, a roman candle shooting upward, exploding, then fading out into a dozen or so smoking snake trails across the now purple sky.

  “I have the honor of introducing tonight’s featured speaker.”

  “A proper introduction for her, on any normal occasion, might take several minutes, or even longer. But this is hardly a normal occasion. And so, I’m simply going to ask her to come up here. Ladies and gentlemen, Senator Laurencia Dalrymple!”

  Wild cheering.

  And Laurencia, dressed all in red and wearing an African print scarf, unprepossessing, hardly tall or statuesque…

  …but standing behind a wonderful smile and peering out over an adoring audience…

  Laurencia spoke into the microphone, which, awed by her, quieted down immediately.

  Everyone quieted down.

  It was as though a good principal—and Nina knew this because she had been a good principal—had stepped into the center of the crowded gym floor before third period and stood there, arms folded, saying soundlessly:

  “Be quiet. Now.”

  And so where there had been barking and yowling and arguing and screaming and cursing and flirting and airplane-droning and Frostie wagon jingling and humanity howling…

  …there was now only the scarcely perceptible fall of cherry blossom pollen.

  So that Laurencia could begin.

  “We are all gathered here, Sisters and Brothers, on this extraordinary night, because one woman, yesterday afternoon, had the courage to say no.”

  Thousand one thousand two…

  Wild cheering.

  The moon broadened its smile and, at least some observers swear, rocked back and forth slightly in its hole in the sky.

  After a few years silence again covered the crowd.

  “And with that no,’ the Lissie Movement officially began!”

  More wild cheering.

  The moon remained stationary, having come to its senses and recognized the impropriety of its previous movement.

  Silence having returned…

  “What an extraordinary twenty four hours! Have there been a similar twenty-four hours in the history of this great city, of this splendid Mall on which we find ourselves assembled? Have there been? Ever?”

  “NO! NO! NO! NO!”

  And Laurencia, shaking her head, playing the emotion, working the crowd:

  “NO NO NO, I agree and I agree and I agree and who could NOT agree? Who could look out across this field of Lissiedom and NOT agree? No one! And so, my gentle Sisters and Brothers, it remains for me now to admit my tardiness. Yes, yes, many of you were here before me. But I have arrived. And I know what I must do, this very moment!”

  So saying, in one infinitely graceful and sweeping gesture, she removed her red suit coat, removed her scarf, reached into a cardboard box that had sat unnoticed behind her…

  …then took out a black Lissie t-shirt and put it on over her white blouse.

  And somewhere a brass band started playing.

  Nina looked around; she could not see it.

  But what could she see, in this vast and milling sea of people?

  The band must have been set up half a mile away.

  But someone in the Lissie Party understood acoustics.

  For here came the trumpets and the trombones.

  The melody: “It’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!”

  CHEER CHEER CHEER

  FOR THE WOMAN OF THE YEAR!

  I TELL YOU…

  CHEER CHEER CHEER

  FOR THE WOMAN OF THE YEAR!

  And so on and so on.

  For at least a minute.

  Laurencia, arms straight above her head, shouting and dancing and grinning and pointing at the shirt, and at the silhouette of Lysistrata.

  Finally, the song died down; Laurencia got her breath, and continued:

  “I will tell you the truth. I do not know where Nina Bannister is right now…”

  She’s right here, thought Nina.

  “…but in a larger sense, I do know. She is here, just as sure as all of us are here.”

  Okay, thought Nina, so maybe I was right after all.

  “Her spirit fills all of us, and her no rings continually in our ears.”

  Cheering.

  Stop cheering!

  Cheering stopped.

  “But the beautiful thing is, that no has turned into a yes. That no has been what our senators and representatives have been saying to each other for the last year, the last years, the last decades—with the result that we now have a paralyzed government, incapable of compromise,
and thus incapable of basic humanity!”

  “I know that’s right!”

  “Yes!”

  “Tell ‘em!”

  “You tell em about it!”

  “Uhh huh! Uhh huh!”

  “That’s my Sister! That’s my Sister!”

  “But the yes it’s turned into—and in the wink of an eye, so incredibly fast does it seem—is the Lissie Movement!”

  Band.

  CHEER CHEER CHEER

  FOR THE WOMAN OF THE YEAR!

  …for another chorus or so.

  Now the principal again.

  Hands in the air.

  Quieten down, students.

  Or nobody goes to lunch.

  “Now, there has been some confusion concerning what the Lissie Movement actually is, and what it hopes to accomplish. Since Lissies have only existed for a little more than twenty-four hours, that may be understandable.”

  General laughter.

  “But perhaps now, I can clarify. First The Lissie Movement cannot, at this stage of the election cycle, hope to become a legitimate third party. All of us who are Republicans or Democrats or Unitarians should remain so and be proud of the fact. But what the Lissie Movement is, is a social action that has at its heart and soul one basic idea, one basic goal: namely that women should begin to play a larger role in the running of this great country, and they do so beginning this November!”

  “Yes!”

  “YES!”

  “LISSIE FOREVER!”

  “We have an entire summer in front of us as well as September and October. Seventeen senate seats are contested; but one hundred and sixty nine seats are up for grabs. One hundred and sixty nine. And, my brothers and sisters, even though each party may have chosen tentative candidates for those seats by now—NOTHING IS IN STONE! There is no legal reason why, given campaigns run with energy and strength and intelligence and passion—a hundred new women cannot be elected to Congress this very November. Yes. Yes, it could happen!”

  “Tell em!”

  “Tell em more!”

  “Now, there is this little matter of July 4.”

  General laughter.

  “And I know that it might be worrying some of you women. Newlyweds especially. The rest probably don’t care any more.”

  “That’s right!”

  “You tell em!”

  “They’re dogs! All men are dogs!”

  “They’re pigs! All men are pigs!”

  Why, Nina asked herself again, can’t we get this thing straight between us?

  “Well, I’m going to go on record now as stating that I am not in favor of a sex strike, and I don’t see why we have to have one.”

  Stunned silence.

  A few voices:

  “We want the strike!”

  “WE WANT THE STRIKE!”

  “LET THE DOGS/PIGS (approximately equal numbers of each animal being shouted out) GO WITHOUT!”

  But Laurencia Dalrymple simply smiled and said:

  “I don’t see why we have to have one at all. As I say, we’re trying to elect one hundred new women to congress this November. Now, if by July 4, let’s say, forty, have been placed on ballots around the country—why, we don’t have a problem. Let’s all take those men to bed and show them a good time!”

  Wild laughter at this.

  “But…”

  More voices.

  “Uhhh huh!”

  “Uhhh huh!”

  “Now I hear you! Now I hear you!”

  “But if we don’t have that many women on the ballot. Well, I believe that in the play that Congresswoman Bannister was kind enough to teach us about, the women all came together in the Acropolis. And woe to any man who tried to get in there! We don’t have an acropolis—but we have gymnasiums in every town in America!”

  “Yes we do!”

  “Yes we do!”

  “And we don’t need to call it a sex strike. That is so harsh, so vulgar. So we’ll just give it a good name right now. As of right now, it is the July 4 Slumber Party sponsored by the Worldwide Movement of Lissie International!”

  Wild cheering.

  I can’t believe this is happening, thought Nina.

  What else can happen?

  She was wondering what else could happen, when it did.

  Laurencia continued:

  “When Dr. King wrote his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he ended it by saying, ‘I can’t believe I have written so long a letter.’ Now the reason Dr. King wrote ‘so long a letter,’ as you all know, is that he was in jail.”

  Some laughter.

  Quiet laughter.

  Then:

  “And I feel as though I have made ‘so long a speech.’ So I must end it. There is just one thing I want to announce, though, before we all disperse to go about our revolutionary—and my Sisters and Brothers, I honestly do feel it to be revolutionary—work. And that thing I want to announce is this: I do hereby declare my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.”

  CHAPTER NINE: BEWARE OF GREEK SHIPS BEARING WOMEN

  On the morning of May 8, one week after Laurencia Dalrymple’s announcement of her candidacy for presidency and slightly less than two months before the termination of sex in the United States of America by order of Nina Bannister, Nina herself received a letter from Helen Reddington.

  She was able to read it sitting in the kitchen of the apartment she shared with Senator Dalrymple, since ample security measures had been set up to guarantee a modicum of privacy for the two women living there.

  The letter read as follows:

  Dear Nina,

  Congratulations on everything you’ve been doing! Bay St. Lucy is ecstatic and proud. At least the women are. The men walk around looking kind of stunned.

  I know you’ve got a million things to do, Nina, and Jackson tells us that you’ve probably also got a million letters to read and answer. So I’ll make this brief.

  We have an idea. Actually, it was John who suggested it, but when I heard it, I knew his instincts were right on.

  You remember the horrible Hamlet that turned out so disastrously. I’m sure you couldn’t forget it, and I never will. That time spent under domination from Clifton; the slaps, the verbal abuse, the beatings—and, of course, the horrible way he died.

  No, I’ll never completely get over that, as happy as I now am with John and the animals.

  The idea, though, Nina—the idea of the play itself, and having it done at the Auberge des Arts here in Bay St. Lucy—that idea was valid.

  The one performance we actually got to give was a good one. The idea of using the roof of the Auberge as the battlements, and having Hamlet peer out over the gulf as though it were the North Sea…

  …that all worked, and we produced a great tragedy, if even a greater tragedy hadn’t overshadowed it.

  So…

  …why don’t we mount another production?

  I’ve already talked to people in New York. Given the publicity you’ve stirred up, they’re wild about it.

  We’ll do it on the Fourth of July. The July 4 Slumber Party sponsored by the Worldwide Movement of Lissie International!”

  Except, Nina, we won’t do Hamlet.

  The New York Shakespeare Company does other classical works, you know.

  Sometimes they do Greek tragedies.

  Sometimes they even do Greek comedies.

  This time they need to do Lysistrata.

  And I need to play the lead.

  I’ve just finished reading the play for the first time, Nina. I’m ashamed that it’s taken me this long. But it’s a fantastic play! It’s hilarious! The scene when the horny woman tries to get out of the Acropolis, saying that she’s pregnant—and they whap on her big stomach and find out there’s a soldier’s metal helmet in there!

  I can be Lysistrata, Nina, I know I can.

  Like I say, I’ve already talked with a number of New York production people I know. The ideas are flying back and forth like wildfire. And there’s money. Bay
St. Lucy’s rich, you know that. Big oil is still behind you, and their CEO still loves you—she’s a feminist at heart.

  The Company itself is willing to invest and invest big time. Lissie Day—which is what the Fourth is being called now for short—is your day, and you are centered in Bay St. Lucy. So—remember the play’s first scene, in which the Spartan women, muscular old Lampito leading them, comes into Athens to meet with the Athenian women and Lysistrata? Well, we’ll add a bit to the script and have them sail across the Saronic Gulf and land at Piraeus, which is only a few miles from Athens.

  They could have actually done this!

  Of course, we’ll hire the Gulf of Mexico to play the Saronic Gulf.

  Water is water, right?

  And if our Gulf could play the North Sea…

  ….but it gets better!

  There’s a shipbuilding club in Boston that wants to take part. They claim to be able to construct for us a vessel that looks exactly like one the Spartans might have used.

  We’ll meet the Spartan women right down there on the beach in front of the Auberge des Arts!

  And get this: at the end of the play, all the choruses unite and dance together, celebrating the end of the war. We’ll switch the ending, though. At the end of our play, Lysistrata will announce from the rooftop of the Auberge whether forty new women have been put on ballots nationwide for the November elections. If the answer is yes, then the whole community, audience and all, will dance, sing—and basically get ready to have an orgy.

  If no––then the women of Bay St. Lucy head for the gym.

  Along with women all over the country.

  Every major TV station will be carrying this thing, Nina!

  What do you think?

  Still your most adoring student,

  Helen

  It took Nina perhaps five minutes to read the letter.

  After she did so, she walked into the study, took out her own letter writing paper, and wrote simply:

  Helen,

  I’m there.

  Nina.

  CHAPTER TEN: A NIGHT IN THE LIBRARY

  Nina Bannister loved the library.

  It was her second soul, so to speak.

  She was thrust into the world of politics; not just politics in general but POLITICS FOR WOMEN!

  And what did she know about the subject?

  Women were ruling countries all over the world, and women were taking on major roles in running her own country.