The fact that she could have been elected as a temporary replacement in the United States House of Representatives was strange enough; but the events of the last week, the viralization of her sex tirade, the formation of the Lissie Movement, the nationwide protests and counter-protests, the fervor that this gender revolution was making…
…no, she half expected to wake up, her head still lying on the table on her oceanside deck, the waves growling beneath her, and Furl rubbing her ankles, looking up angrily as if to yowl:
Rrrgggh.
Or…
Stop dozing and feed me!
She had halved the distance to the bench when another animal entered her life, this time from behind, at the same instant she heard another voice cry out:
“No! No, Buster! Buster come back here!”
Buster did not come back to the source of the voice, though, because he, trailing his leash, had overtaken Nina and was bounding joyfully at her right leg, licking her knee, and doing his best to tell her that he absolutely loved her.
She returned some of this love, at least––although she could not pant quite as heartily as Buster could—because the intrusion into her life of this mammoth beagle was making it impossible for her to run, and for that, at least, she was immensely thankful.
“Buster, leave the lady alone.”
Buster had no intention at all of doing that.
Instead, he continued to stand on his back two paws, his tongue about at her navel level now, his white-tipped tail churning back and forth in the rose-scented early summer air, and his eyes bright with the realization that:
“I HAVE MADE A NEW FRIEND!”
“Stop that!”
The source of the voice—and, quite probably the owner of the dog—approached as fast as she could, which was not too fast, given that she was pushing a double-seated baby stroller before her, while grasping futilely at the other end of Buster’s black leather collar.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“Oh don’t worry about it!” Nina said, laughing back at the laughing Buster, but not drooling as much—she hoped—as he was.
“He’s so strong—I couldn’t hold onto his leash!”
The woman who had failed so miserably at restraining her animal was probably in her mid-twenties, also appareled for jogging—almost everyone in Dumbarton Oaks at ten o’clock this morning was there for jogging, Nina noted—Hispanic, and quite beautiful.
She had long lustrous glowing black hair that came almost to the middle of her back, and her raven eyes sparkled as she smiled.
Nina could not help thinking of Sonia Ramirez, and wondering as she did so if this young woman was a basketball player too.
Some kind of a ball player she must have been—or some kind of a gymnast or swimmer or runner or whatever––for her body had that look about it that said “I’m out here running, although I don’t need it at all and would look this fit and strong even if I never ran another day in my life.”
That look.
“I’m Sylvia Morales. And…wait….are you Nina Bannister?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Oh, my God! You’re my idol!”
“Oh, don’t be silly!”
“No, you are, you really are! I’m a Lissie! I didn’t wear my black shirt this morning! But I’m still a Lissie and many of my friends are, too. We talk about you all the time, and the great speech you gave!”
“I’m flattered!”
“No. I’m the one who should be flattered! My dog Buster almost ran over one of the most famous women in Washington!”
As for Buster, he was still going at it, and it was all Nina could do to keep her palms pressed hard enough on his glossy aircraft carrier back to satisfy him.
“Would you give me your autograph?”
This shocked Nina somewhat, because she had never been asked for her autograph before, and so it took an instant or so for her to recover her composure and answer:
“Yes, I’d be happy to.”
“Ok, then, here—let me get this little wallet I carry out of my jogging pants—and, here, I’ve got a pen, too…”
Nina watched her search for these articles, and noticed, as she did so, the two children who were riding quietly in the double stroller.
They were almost completely covered beneath a neatly folded red blanket.
Their faces were angelic, and the long wispy eyebrows extended from their cornflower blue eyes fluttered ever so slightly in the breeze that was easing its way through the park.
These things Nina noted even before the realization hit her that they were not children at all.
They were dolls.
Just toy store dolls with radiant blonde hair and WHITEWHITEWHITEWHITE skin.
Making Nina think:
Oh great. I’ve run into another looney.
The university library. Dumbarton Oaks.
Maybe it’s just Georgetown.
Better go up to Foggy Bottom. Or just stay home.
“Here. If you could sign the back of this business card.” Nina took the card and looked at it, half expecting to read the words:
PROFESSIONAL IDIOT
What she did read, however, were the words:
SYLVIA MORALES
AGENT
UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE
“Just turn it over, and sign the back, if you will.”
“Sure.”
Nina did so, saying:
“That explains a few things. Like your children there.”
“Aren’t they just dolls?”
“That’s extremely well put. Here.”
She handed back the card.
“We’re going to be watching out for you,” said Sylvia, quietly, “from now until the election. You may not always see us. In fact, if you’re too aware of us, then we probably aren’t doing our jobs very well.”
“You really think I’m in danger?”
A shrug.
“There are a lot of crazy people out there. Apparently one of them has been writing letters. We tried to find fingerprints on the letters that showed up in your office yesterday. No luck. The scary thing, of course, is how he could have gotten in there.”
“Yes.”
“And the thing in the library. By the way, that’s still being kept completely confidential. No one knows about it. I’m assuming you haven’t talked about it.”
“No. Not a word.”
“Good. Well, Nina, try not to worry. You’re in good hands now, I promise.”
“So––you, like…I mean, could you kill somebody with your bare hands?”
“No, but this dog could.”
“I feel safer already.”
“Damn straight. Now, I hear that you’re going over to George Washington University tonight.”
And that was true.
No faulting the Secret Service on their Intelligence Gathering Branch.
“I am. Laurencia set it up a few days ago. There is a professor there named Morgana Davis. She teaches a class in Women in Literature. Apparently, the students want to know more about me, and about what I’m doing here in Washington, and how the Lissie movement came about.”
“I want to know more about all those things too. So I’m going to be in the class when you talk. I called Professor Davis this morning and asked if I could sit in.”
“Did you tell her you were in the Secret Service?”
“If I did that, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“But you need to realize, anytime you speak before a crowd now…well, I or one of my colleagues will have your back.”
“That’s good to know, Sylvia. I appreciate it. And so does Laurencia, I’m sure.”
“Just doing our jobs.”
“Are the two kids coming tonight?”
“They’re a little young for advanced feminist studies.”
“There’s that to think about. That and the fact that they’re not real human beings.”
&nb
sp; Sylvia shook her head and straightened the blanket covering Doll #1:
“That never seemed to be a problem for a lot of the professors I used to know in college.”
“You have a point.”
“Nice to have met you, Nina Bannister. I hope to see you more in the future. But I also hope you won’t be seeing me.”
“Vaya,” said Nina, Olivia Ramirez’ words flashing into her mind as she spoke, “con Dios.”
The Federal Agent beamed back at her:
“Y Usted, Nina. Y Usted.”
So saying, she turned and, two plastic children in front of her and one overweight beagle behind her, walked away.
George Washington University, having no campus of its own, is a mélange of modern office buildings and nineteenth-century houses between 19th and 24th streets south of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Still, as the sun set around seven o’clock and streetlights began to come on, there was a collegial feel as Nina walked with Laurencia toward Briarwood Hall, where she was to speak. Students were everywhere, and there were still open spaces of ground where Frisbees could be thrown and dogs could launch themselves high in the air to catch them.
“How do you know Professor Davis, Laurencia?”
The woman beside her smiled:
“I took a class at the University when I was still a young congresswoman. It was essentially the same class she teaches now. We’re a bit early; she’ll be finishing up her lecture. She told me she wanted to divide the class in two halves; she’ll be lecturing for the first half, and then you’ll have half an hour or so to make remarks and answer the students’ questions. So I hurried a bit more than might have been absolutely necessary. I wanted you to hear Morgana. Ah—here we are, just over there.”
They turned a corner and Nina could see Briarwood Hall.
Her heartbeat quickened a bit.
It was not one of the sterile black and white office buildings they had been passing through. Rather, it had the red brick solidity and ornamentation that one associated with elegance and taste.
One made money in office buildings; after having done so, one lived comfortably in one of these buildings.
“Through here.”
“All right.”
Laurencia led the way into the building, and then up a flight of stairs.
“Now, down this corridor. It’s Lecture Hall 222. The same place she taught in when I took the course.”
It was late in the day, and the corridor before them was almost deserted. But Nina could hear the sound of a woman’s voice from two doors in front of them.
They paused briefly in front of Room 222, then Laurencia opened the door.
A marvelous lecture hall smiled back at them, with concentric rows of seats leading down to the podium around which Morgana Davis was pacing, and a massive wall of windows to the left letting in the last rays of the setting sun.
The woman at the podium was tall, straight, and silver haired. She walked with the aid of cane, which was also tall and straight and silver, and her smile flashed like the sunlight as she raised her head and shouted:
“Hail and well met, my colleagues!”
Laurencia shouted back:
“Room here for two old ladies?”
Laughter from the students who filled the hall.
Laughter too from Morgana Davis, who then continued:
“Please, Congresswoman Bannister, come on down! Nina Bannister, I’m quite sure, is known to all of you, and especially those of you wearing black shirts. Please, Congresswoman Bannister, the floor is yours!”
A huge cheer.
Nina could feel herself blushing.
She made her way down to the podium, smiled at Sylvia, and waited for the applause to die down.
“I want to thank you for asking me to speak,” she said. I hardly knew, when I got the invitation, what I was going to say. But I was reading a book the other night…”
She glanced at Sylvia.
The book was one she had been pouring over in the Georgetown Library when she had been drugged.
She had found it again downtown, and had bought it.
“You’re all brilliant students, and you have a wonderful professor. You may already know this book by heart. I didn’t know it, though. And when I began reading it, it made me feel as though I wasn’t crazy. That all of those things I said in that recording—well, that they might really be true. So, if I have your permission, I want to read a few excerpts.”
“Of course,” shouted Morganna Davis, “you have our permission!”
“All right. Here then are some lines from Dee Dee Myers’ book, Why Women Should Rule the World.
Cheering.
“Ms. Myers, of course, was the press secretary for President Bill Clinton. She writes:”
“If we were in charge, things might actually change. Instead of posturing, we’d have cooperation. Instead of gridlock, we’d have progress. Instead of a shouting match, we’d have a conversation. A very long conversation.”
And she writes:
“I found myself more and more frustrated by the bitterness that now gripped the capital. Increasingly, it seemed, both sides were more interested in winning the argument than solving the problem. And the result was gridlock, polarization, and cynicism.”
“Was anyone talking and listening to each other?”
“And I realized that yes, some people were. And one of the places that that seemed to be happening on a regular basis was among the women in The United States Senate.”
Pause.
Nina put the book down and pointed to the back row.
“I can tell you that, right now, one of the reasons for that spirit of co-operation is here with us tonight. It’s Laurencia Dalrymple.”
Everyone in the room stood and cheered.
And the cheering kept up until Laurencia forced it to stop by gesturing enough.
Hands were waving in the air now, though, and it seemed the right time to take a question.
“Yes?”
“Congresswoman Bannister, how do you answer the accusation that you ‘hate men?’”
Laughter.
Nina laughed to.
She was expecting that.
“I don’t have any worries on that score. For twenty seven years I was married to…”
A movement in front of her and to the right caught her eye.
Sylvia Morales was standing now and screaming:
“Get down! Get down!”
She stared as though paralyzed.
“Dammit, Nina, get down!”
“I don’t…”
But before she could finish, the young agent had rounded the row of stadium chairs, bounded three strides toward the podium, and hurled her body into Nina’s.
She could feel her ribs seem to cave in, and felt her forehead smash against the tile floor just as the entire wall of windows exploded and she was covered by raining pellets of plate glass.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE LIFE OF THE MIND
Pandemonium.
Everyone in the hall seemed to be screaming and running for the two exits. Around her, Nina was aware of glittering pellets of glass, like hailstones covering the floor.
Sylvia Morales lay flat on top of her, so she could neither move nor turn her head. She heard the click of what she assumed was a radio of some sort, and Sylvia’s voice, as calm as the voice of someone ordering groceries by telephone.
“We have a shooter in the office building adjacent to Briarwood Hall! One shot has been fired. No injuries. Repeat: shooter is inside the office building adjacent to Briarwood Hall!”
Suddenly, the weight that had been pressing Nina’s back and face to the floor disappeared, and she corkscrewed around in time to see Sylvia jumping up and shouting:
“Stay in the room! Do not exit! Stay in the room!”
This did not have the effect of keeping everyone in the room, because the doors had been opened and a few people had escaped; but it did slow the mass exodus, and it did seem to quieten the s
creaming slightly.
Nina got to her knees.
The massive window was gone, or at least transformed into a carpet of glass pellets and shards that covered the area around the podium.
Sylvia continued to shout at the students:
“Stay where you are! Do not leave the room! Take cover, if you can, behind the desks!”
She also continued to speak into what Nina now took to be a kind of two-way transmitter that she had pulled from her purse.
“We need backup immediately! Shots have been fired. Shooter is almost certainly still in the office building immediately adjacent to Briarwood Hall on the campus of George Washington University. Target is unharmed. Repeat: target is unharmed.”
Then she looked down at Nina:
“Are you all right?”
Nina could not speak.
The strangest sensation.
Whatever muscles connected her brain and her mouth had become useless, paralyzed.
She could only move her head uselessly from side to side, and then up and down.
She felt like a department store mannequin.
“Nina, are you all right?”
Again, no speech.
She supposed she was in shock.
But she did have the presence of mind enough to feel her legs, to move her arms, to rub the palms of her hands over her cheeks and jaws.
Finally, words came out.
“I...I…think I’m all right.”
“Just take slow, even breaths. See if you can move your arms and legs.”
She did these things, then said:
“I’m all right. I’m sure of it now.”
“All right. Then don’t stand up. Move—crawl—behind the podium, so that it’s between you and the window, and between you and the door.”
She lurched along on all fours until the wooden podium was blocking her sight of most of the room.
She still could peek around a corner of the stand though and see Sylvia, who was making her way up the aisle toward the back of the hall, pushing through sobbing students as she did so.
“Stay in the hall! Do not go out into the corridor!”
Then she began to hear students alternately screaming and shouting out questions:
“My God! My God! What’s happening?”
“We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Let us go; let us go!”
Sex Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 6) Page 12