Beauty Queen

women mayors. Men have made such a mess of city politics and state politics that maybe I'd succeed where they failed. Besides, my experience is here, not in Washington. I have an edge over people who have been in Washington and then want to come back and run for governor. Finally — I'm from New York City, so maybe I could end the feud between New York and Albany!"
    She leaned back in her chair, stretching luxuriously into the warm sunshine.
    "And maybe, after I've been a good governor of New York, I'll think seriously about running for President. You need five of the eight big states, and I'd have this big state right in my apron pocket."
    Her father was grinning, showing all his even white teeth. It was the way he smiled when he had closed a big real-estate deal.
    Jeannie felt herself sinking down into the sensuous warmth of well-being.
    "And I think I'll start my comeback," she said, "by working to defeat that disgusting homosexual bill."
    Her father was suddenly looking at his watch, and folding up his newspapers, and sliding them into his black pigskin Gucci briefcase.
    "That's an odd issue to make a start with, isn't it?" he said.
    "No time like the present," she said crisply. "It's something that's going to be in the news for the next two weeks. They'll vote at the next meeting. The people of the city are going to be up in arms about it. Besides, people know exactly where I stand on every other moral issue. That's the big difference between Jimmy Carter and me. Besides the fact I'm a woman and a Yankee. I've never been the least bit fuzzy on issues."
    Her father was looking at her intently as he shut his briefcase.
    "No," he said. "That's true. Not in the least."
    Bill Laird studied his daughter's face from across the breakfast table. It was a round, soft face, and it was framed—as if in a Victorian watercolor portrait—by the graceful trailing branches of the weeping willow on the uptown side of the garden. But the expression in her brown eyes was anything but soft and sweet.
    She had always been like that, ever since she was a little girl. She always knew exactly what she thought and exactly what she should do, and she was far more stubborn and intransigent than the homosexuals she talked about. The one exception had been that period starting two years ago, when the pressures of trying to be a successful wife, successful mother and successful politician had gotten to her. She had faltered, cracked a little like an old building wall from heavy stresses. She had started drinking a little too much—not an alcoholic, mind you, but definitely too much. She hadn't been sick enough to be hospitalized, but she had closeted herself at home, and she had expressed doubts to him that she didn't express even to Sidney.
    That strength of hers, that stubbornness, that drive, had always been disturbing. Now he was actually frightened at the way this new resolve might affect his life.
    How clearly he remembered her, skipping rope on the sidewalk outside the Good Shepherd Baptist mission on Joralemon Street where her mother had worked long days as a volunteer. She had always brought home A's from school. Then suddenly she was a high school student, queen of the prom, one of the few girls in her class who didn't smoke pot and who wasn't pregnant at graduation time. Suddenly she was a senior with the lead in the senior play, talking about a career as an actress—a nice actress, mind you, like Dale Evans or Debbie Reynolds. Suddenly she was working days as a secretary and going to acting school at night, and he would meet her outside the school to drive her home no matter how late it was. Suddenly she was Miss Subways, and her round sweet face was smiling down from the ad racks on every subway car in the metropolitan area, competing with the cigarette ads and the gang graffiti for the passengers' attention. After that, she was Miss New York, and landed a job in a TV series where she played a very nice nurse. And after that, runner-up to Miss America, and movie actress. She had wanted to make a career in family pictures, and refused to play any sexy roles. But family pictures hadn't done too well, so she finally left acting.
    That was when Nixon's 1972 Presidential campaign moved her to get into politics. Besides, her mother had finally made her ashamed of living amid glitter and innuendo.
    She brought into politics the speaking skill and the vital presence onstage that she had learned before the cameras and on the