Beauty Queen

she said. "I've been in a hurry all my life."
    While he poured her some coffee, she fished her thick black telephone book out of her purse and started looking up numbers. Many of her political people had not heard from her in over a year.
    The first number she called was Marge Lomo. Marjorie had only been working part-time since last year, because there was so little for her to do. She smiled at hearing Marge's birdlike voice in the phone. Best of all, Marge was a Godfearing Presbyterian who truly believed in the Bible.
    "Marjorie," she said, "I'm going to run for governor. Would you like to come back full-time?"
    Marjorie gave a little scream of joy. She said it would be no problem—her last child was off to college, and her traveling businessman husband didn't mind.
    Elated, Jeannie kept dialing numbers. The next calls, however, were more difficult. Her old speechwriter, Jason Richards, was now working for a number of state assemblymen, and he said he couldn't possibly fit her in on such short notice. Her old press agent, Vincent Searls, was tied up full-time with the mayor's office. Her old pollster was also tied up with someone else.
    "Traitors," she said, dialing wrathfully.
    Her father watched and smiled musingly, stirring his coffee.
    When she called her old campaign manager, however, he responded to the call. Tom Winkler had drifted away from politics into public relations, and had grown disillusioned with it. He agreed to serve in his old capacity.
    "Why don't you come into town tomorrow," she said, "and we'll start to make some plans."
    As she kept dialing numbers, her thoughts kept turning to money. That was going to be a problem, as Sidney had so aptly said. Even if he did get a large advance on the book, she couldn't very well take all of it for her campaign. Especially when he would get only part of it on signing the contract—the balance wouldn't be paid until the book was done.
    She finally finished telephoning, exhausted. The cup of coffee sat there, cold, untasted.
    Her father looked at his watch. It was just past ten, not time to leave yet. Wordlessly, he got up and took her cup, emptied the cold coffee into a drain at the corner of the terrace, and poured a fresh cup from the sterling pot.
    "Who's going to pay the phone bill?" he teased her. "You or me?"
    The tone of his voice was gently teasing, but he had lines and a red look around his eyes. Evidently he hadn't slept well.
    "Did the South Street closing go okay?" she asked.
    "Yes," he said shortly.
    She sipped the fresh coffee. "I've got to start thinking about money."
    "You'd better do some serious fundraising. You'll find that costs have gone up enormously in the year you've been away."
    "I'm sure they have," she said. She had an easy feeling now, of moving at full speed through space, at the speed of hght, unerringly toward some distant star. "The first thing I'll have people do is go over my old mailing list, and update it, and get out a mailing, and plan some dinners, and so forth. And . . She kept her tone bantering, choosing her words carefully. "... I might have to hit you for a loan."
    To her dismay, she saw a subtle change of expression on her father's face. She couldn't even identify the new expression that appeared on it. She wasn't sure if it was apprehension or simply a look of adding up his total assets in his head.
    "Well," he said, after a moment's hesitation that aged her by at least ten years, "I'll have to think about it a little. Have your Uncle A1 sit down and look at the books."
    She did her best to keep her cool, to not appear as desperate as she felt. "But you always bankrolled me before."
    "That's true," her father said. "But this time it's a little different. You've caught me off-balance. No time to plan ahead much. We're very involved in the South Bronx. And we're very involved on South Street. Very involved in terms of money. And in terms of time."
    "Time?" she said. "You mean you won't even be able to advise me much?" A hot wave of panic went over her. "I mean . .. what'll I do without you?"
    "Sweetheart, I'm not saying no," said her father. "I'm just saying I have to study it a little. You can't expect the entire world to be at your beck and call the minute you decide to go into politics again."
    Bill had watched her dial number after number. Her slender fingers with the pale pink polish and the perfect manicure job had poked extra-decisively at the little lighted push buttons on the telephone. Jeannie did