Leigh (25 page)

Leigh pulled herself together and walked toward the woman.

“Have you come to do some genealogical research?” the little gray bird of a woman asked.

“No, just needed to get out of the car for a few moments.”

“Our church dates from 1736. And keeping it and the cemetery in good repair is costly. Would you like a tour of the church?
There is a box for donations next to the guest register.

Ah, a walk in the graveyard didn’t come free. Leigh put her hand in her pocket and drew out the change she had left from her
morning phone calls. “Why don’t you put this in for me? I must be getting on.”

“Oh, thank you,” the woman called after her. “Have a nice day!”

Leigh wondered how many weeks, months, years would pass before she would “have a nice day” again.

After parking her car in a long-term lot across the river in New Jersey, she found a pay phone and called Nancy’s number again.
On the very last ring, just as Leigh was about to hang up and look for a nearby hotel, Nancy’s breathless voice came on. “Hi!
I heard the phone just as I was unlocking my door.”

“Hi, Nancy, this is Leigh Sinclair,” Leigh started, feeling more uncertain with each syllable. What if this woman didn’t even
remember her? “We met in June—”

“Oh, the beautiful blonde. Hi. What’s going on?”

“I just got in, and I wondered if the offer to use your sleeper sofa was still—”

“Great! Can’t wait to see you.” Nancy gave Leigh the address and said to come over right away.

Leigh hailed a taxi, and in spite of the traffic, she soon stepped out of the cab in front of Nancy’s vintage apartment building
in the Village. Just as she reached for the door to the vestibule, it burst open. “Hey! Great to see you!” Nancy crowed, looking
as if Leigh were Stanley and she were Livingston. Leigh couldn’t help it. Tears filled her eyes. She blinked them away as
she followed Nancy up the narrow staircase to the second story and into her apartment, which had obviously been decorated
from thrift stores and sported rock band and travel posters on every wall.

“I only have one bedroom,” Nancy, with her long dark hair and denim bell-bottoms, filled her in. “And just a postage stamp
of a kitchen and bath, but it works. How long will you be staying?”

The question yanked Leigh out of her misery and back
into real life. “I’m going to look for a job. Can I stay during the job hunt? As soon as I have something, I’ll get my own
place.”

“Sure,” Nancy agreed with easy humor, “I’ll love having you. With that long blonde hair, you’ll attract men like bees to honey
and maybe I can commiserate with those you turn down.”

Leigh turned away, the horrifying events of this morning replaying in her mind, fiery remorse blistering her raw conscience.
She couldn’t tell Nancy that. But how to explain her easy tears? “Maybe I should tell you that my fiance was… He died this
spring.”

“Oh!” Nancy put an arm around her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt—”

“It’s okay.” Leigh made herself smile. “I’m… just not in the market for romance right now.”
Or an affair with a married man.
Suddenly she wished she’d screamed at Trent this morning, slapped his face, raged at him. But, of course, she’d been too numb
to react at the time.
Stupid little fool,
she scolded herself.
Stupid, naïve, little blonde fool.

“Sure.” Nancy snagged her denim shoulder bag from a faded chintz chair that didn’t match the crushed-velvet avocado-green
sofa. “Let’s go get something to eat. I’m an awful cook.”

Leigh followed Nancy out the door, silently sighing with relief. She’d found a haven.

S
ince Leigh had finished her degree in English and journalism in California, she didn’t go to an employment agency, but instead
to a career counselor—otherwise known
as a “headhunter.” The day before, she’d filled out a long application that the agency would turn into a resume. Today she
was keeping her appointment with the
head “
headhunter.” A tall, very business-major-looking man, he rose as she entered his compact office with its one small window.
“Miss Sinclair.”

“Mr. Johnson.” Leigh shook his hand and took the seat in front of his desk.

“You have quite an impressive list of credits for your writing. You’re interested in finding a job with a newspaper or magazine,
I see.”

“Yes, since I finished school,” Leigh recited the phrases she’d rehearsed mentally, “I’ve lived with an elderly aunt in San
Francisco and have done—”

“Quite a bit of freelance writing there.” He looked up from the paper and stared at her.

She waited for him to go on, but he continued to stare at her. Finally, it began to make her uncomfortable. If he made a pass
at her, she’d throw something at him. She prompted, “Mr. Johnson?”

He grinned. “I was just thinking that now that I’ve seen you, I would suggest that you make a career change. You could make
much more as a model. My wife runs a modeling agency. Perhaps you would like to go there and—”

“No.” Leigh held up her hand. “I’m not interested in anything like that. I’m a writer, not a fashion model.”

“Well, you can make a living by writing, but you could make a fortune in modeling. Are you—”

Leigh slid forward on her seat. “Let me be very clear, Mr. Johnson. I came here for help with getting my resume in order,”
she made her voice sharp and determined, “and to get a few interviews with papers and magazines. I am not interested in posing
for a camera.” Grandma Chloe had been a model on Fifth Avenue in 1917, but that was when very few
professions were open to women. Did this man actually expect her to turn her back on her education and model instead?

Mr. Johnson tapped her application on his desktop. “I see. In that case, I think our secretary has a rough draft of your resume
done for you to approve, and I have three positions for which you can interview in the next few days. Is that satisfactory?”

“Yes, just what I expected.” She gave him a measured smile. After Trent Kinnard, she had no patience with meaningless flattery
or men who used it. She wanted to write, and who cared what a writer looked like?

He pressed a button on his intercom, and within minutes his secretary brought in the typed pages of her resume. Leigh looked
them over and gave her approval.

“Now,” Johnson proceeded, “one of the journals you’ll be interviewing with is pretty stodgy, so don’t wear a miniskirt to
the interview.”

Leigh gave the man a long look. “Don’t worry. I know how to handle an interview.”
But the first man who makes a pass at me will he in serious danger…
.

Three days later, Leigh sat on a chair in an editor’s office. She’d worn a new gray pantsuit and had pulled her hair back
into a low ponytail.

The woman editor glanced over her resume one more time and then looked up. “Your credentials are quite good. I see that you’ve
been active in politics. What do you think of the Equal Rights Amendment?”

Leigh hadn’t really made a decision on the topic. It sounded good, but was it really? “I think American women have been held
back for generations,” she said diplomatically. “And that isn’t right.”

The editor nodded. “You realize that we’ve only been in business a little over a year. I can’t promise you that we’ll stay
in business.” She gave Leigh a tight smile. “Publishing magazines is a touchy, uncertain way to make money. We aren’t
The Saturday Evening Post.”

“I know.”

“Okay, then. The job’s yours—if you want it.”

Sudden fear snaked through Leigh. She’d never worked a real job. She’d only done freelance assignments over the past few years.
Was she smart enough to do this? After that awful morning in Baltimore, she’d begun doubting herself. But this job would mean
that she’d have a reason for getting up every morning. “Yes, I want it.”
And I’ll do a good job if it kills me.

L
eigh sat across from Shirley Chisholm, the first female African-American congresswoman—the first also to receive delegate
votes for president in this year’s presidential race—at her Brooklyn office. Leigh had just finished jotting down Ms. Chisholm’s
reply to her last question. Leigh looked up. “I want to thank you again, Ms. Chisholm, for giving me this interview. The readers
of
Women Today
are definitely interested in helping more women get into politics and into Congress.”

Ms. Chisholm stood up and offered her hand. “When you first walked in and I saw you, I wondered if this was going to be a
fluff piece. But you really did your homework on what I’ve been trying to do down in Washington. I apologize for assuming
that such a pretty girl couldn’t do a good
job. I’m afraid all of us are guilty of judging by appearances at times.”

Leigh smiled, accustomed to this kind of conversation. Thanking her again, Leigh shook Ms. Chisholm’s hand and then left.
She didn’t tell the woman that in many ways, she’d reminded Leigh of Aunt Jerusha. What could Aunt Jerusha have accomplished
if she’d been born a century later than she was?

At that, the germ of another article sprang to Leigh’s mind. Maybe she could interview Minnie Dawson and put that very question
to her. Perhaps she could contrast Minnie’s life with her mother, Jerusha’s.

In the outer office, she sat down and took time to jot down this idea and then she stood up quickly. For a moment, everything
wavered around her and she sat back down.

“Are you all right?” the secretary asked.

She couldn’t say, “I think I’m coming down with the flu”—not after just meeting with the congress woman. “No. Just all the
holiday activities. I haven’t been getting enough sleep and haven’t eaten lunch today. Merry Christmas!”

The secretary wished her the same, and Leigh took the elevator down to the street, where she spotted a sign: “Women’s Clinic.
Walk-Ins Welcome.”

Without any further thought, she entered the door. After a twenty-minute wait, she was ushered into a cubicle, and within
another few minutes, she was joined by a woman doctor, the first she’d ever seen. “I hear you think you are coming down with
the flu and don’t want to take it home with you for Christmas.”

“Yes, if I’m really going to be ill, I’ll just stay here. My grandmother and great-aunt are in their seventies. I don’t want
to infect them with anything.”

“Very thoughtful of you.” The doctor shook down a
thermometer and slipped it into Leigh’s mouth, and then while waiting, took her pulse and blood pressure.

“The flu has already hit here, or my nurse would be doing this. It’s slowed me down today.” She slipped the thermometer out
and read it. “Your temperature isn’t elevated. What are your symptoms?”

“I’m lightheaded sometimes when I stand up too fast. I felt a bit queasy in the mornings over the past week and also sometimes
when I pass a restaurant or sandwich shop and smell the food aromas.”

“When was the first day of your last period?”

Leigh gave the doctor a look.
What has that got to do with the flu?
But it was just easier to give her the information. She thought it over. “My last period was in late October.” Her own words
surprised her a bit.

“Is it usual for you to miss a month?”

“No, I’m as regular as clockwork.” Apprehension buzzed inside Leigh.

“Your symptoms sound like pregnancy. Do you think you could be pregnant?”

Now shock burned through Leigh.
Oh, no. I never gave that a thought. Am I insane or just totally brain-dead stupid? “
Yes, I could be.” Each word she spoke swung back and hit her like a hammer stroke.

“Why don’t you give me a urine sample,” the doctor went on matter-of-factly, “and we can know by tomorrow if you are.

Leigh nodded and somehow made it through the rest of the appointment. She promised to call back after 1:00 p.m. the following
day.

Outside again, she stood looking around as if she didn’t know where she was or what she had planned. Finally, it came to her.
She needed to go back to her office and begin writing
up the article while the interview was still fresh in her mind. But would she be able to put a word down?
Pregnant, no, please, no.

The next day, she stayed home from the office. She’d just rented the apartment above Nancy’s, but she couldn’t move in until
the first of January. She sat on Nancy’s green sofa beside the phone. On the TV,
Concentration
was on. She watched the players but couldn’t compete along with them today. It was as if her mind had taken a vacation. Brain
failure must have started yesterday after visiting the clinic. This morning, she’d reread what she’d written yesterday afternoon
and had ended by tearing it up.

Finally, the clock ticked over to 1:01 p.m. She dialed the clinic and asked about her test.

The receptionist transferred the call to the doctor from yesterday. “Miss Sinclair?”

“Yes?” Leigh’s voice sounded like a croak. She cleared her throat. “Have you gotten back the test results yet?”

“Yes, you are pregnant.”

Yes, you are pregnant.
With those four words, Leigh’s world tilted on its axis.

“Miss Sinclair?”

Leigh suppressed the urge to retch. “Yes?”

“You will be due early in August. You should see an obstetrician and begin prenatal visits so you have a healthy pregnancy
and a healthy baby.”

A healthy baby. “
Yes.”

“Would you like to come and see me about your options?”

I’m pregnant, and Trent’s married. “
My options?” She tried to focus on the conversation.

“Well, I want to caution you about the risks of backstreet abortions. If this child is coming at a bad time for you, or if
you and the father aren’t planning on marriage…”

Her mind repeated, “…
a had time for you, or if you and the father aren’t planning on marriage
…”
Marriage. Oh, no.

“There is always the option of adoption,” the doctor went on as if discussing the weather. “There are many, many couples looking
to adopt—”