Beauty Queen

through her Uncle Al. Charles actually lived in Westport, Connecticut, and had attended only nine out of twenty-four council meetings in the last year (for which he had been very much criticized). Nevertheless, he agreed that the bill was cause for grave concern. He promised that he would make the effort to attend, and vote no. So—maybe—that was another vote.
    Her tactic, as it had been with Bloomfield, was to get people to cooperate by frightening them—in a genteel way, of course. Nobody, not even a part-time council member, wanted to have his personal morality questioned in this way.
    Actually, Jeannie thought to herself, a little fear of God might do the council good. She had to agree with the liberal press on that one—the council should work full-time, and they should take a more active role in city politics, instead of letting Bloomfield do it all.
    So she waited that morning in pleasant anticipation of the result of her lobbying.
    In about a month's time, after the Intro Two thing had faded from people's minds a little, she intended to make a public announcement of her intention to enter the gubernatorial race.
    If she had decided to run for mayor of New York City, all those things would have been reforms to be tackled by her. And with relish. Make the council meet once a week, make it work hard, for instance. End corruption, put the city on a paying basis. Unfortunately, she had long ago realized that being mayor of New York was a political dead end. It was only for someone who felt so wedded to city politics that he or she didn't have state or national ambitions. The failure of John Lindsay's bid for a role in national politics was proof of that. The liberals were right on that one too—New York City was about to go down the tube, and the mayor, whoever he or she was, would go down the tube with the city. It was a job for a masochist.
    Just before noon, Gertrude came in and said, "Sidney is on the phone. He's at City Hall."
    She seized the phone. "Sidney, it's me."
    "Congratulations," he said.
    She grinned. "What was the vote?"
    "Thanks to you, nearly the entire council was at the meeting. The gay bill went down thirty-two to seven."
    But there was an edge in his voice that disturbed her profoundly.
    "What's your problem?" she said.
    "Well," he said, "to be honest with you, I've been hearing about your tactics. I have to tell you—like with the list of names the other day—that I really don't like them much."
    "You're naive," she said. "This is not one of those times when you talk nicey-nice to people and promise them the moon."
    Sidney was laughing, a dry laugh of disbelief. "You're calling me naive?"
    Jeannie sighed to herself, and slumped in her chair. These days her conversations with him always went like this. She recognized vaguely that she had a habit of leading with her chin, but she always saw it as standing up for the right thing.
    "Forget it," she said.
    "No, I won't forget it," he said. "I'm leaving for China in ten days and, frankly, your tactics are all too totalitarian. All too similar to the country I'm going to visit."
    "Sidney!" she said. "That's hitting below the belt."
    "Don't deny it," he said. "For years I've heard you say how great it would be to be governor, and rule by decree, like Rockefeller did."
    She made a last-ditch desperate effort to follow Reverend Irving's advice, and submit herself to him.
    "You want me to get out of politics? Just be a housewife?" she said.
    "Don't be crazy," he said. "I would never force a wife of mine to make a decision like that."
    When they had hung up, she sat there brooding. Her pleasure at the vote was dimmed by the argument with Sidney.
    She wondered if he was going to China in order to be as far from her as possible, for a while. She wondered if the thought of divorce was crossing his mind. Being unsaved, he could certainly think of divorce, and she couldn't stop him. She wondered if he had been running around with other women.
    Gertrude put her head in the door. "You'll want to make a statement, won't you?"
    "Yes, of course," she said, sitting there with clenched hands.
    Danny heard the news while he was sitting alone in the Spike, nursing a finger of Wild Turkey. It was noontime, and he was waiting for Armando to come. Four other patrons were drinking at the other end of the bar.
    Lenny had a transistor radio in the back of the bar, and it crackled out the twelve o'clock news.
    "The gay rights bill was voted down by the city council