Poles Apart (34 page)

He was back sitting in his original spot, not doing much of anything.

“Hi, Kenny. How come you’re not roaming the range with your personal chauffeur?”

“Cuz your old man has thrown me over for someone else. Just like the fickle Ford man he is.”

He lifted a finger and pointed out to the paved paths. There was my dad guiding someone else down the Blue path. I didn’t think it was Beverley. Because of the angle, it took me a second or two to see that it was my mother walking beside him. I looked at the other end of the path and spied Beverley, pad and pen in hand, ensconced on a bench bathed in sunlight. I set off along the Yellow path that looped around to join the Red one just about where Beverley was writing. My timing was perfect. As I closed the distance to her at a brisk pace, it seemed I’d arrive at almost the same time as my mother and father.

“Young Everett, you’re back,” Beverley greeted me, stowing her letter in her bag as usual. “And just in time for a family reunion.” She winked when she said it.

“Hi, Beverley. Hi, Dad. And hello, Mom. Fancy meeting you here.”

Dad dropped onto the bench beside Beverley, and Mom sat beside him. With not much room left on the bench, I stood before them as if auditioning for something.

“Hello, Everett,” Mom started. “Yes, your father has been promenading me around the grounds for a good half-hour now. I think I’m more tuckered out from it than he is. That speaks well of his recovery, don’t you think?”

Dad had his arms resting on the back of the bench, his left, behind Beverley, his right, behind his ex-wife. He looked quite pleased with himself.

“You looked pretty spry out there, Dad,” I commented.

“I wasn’t sure how many more laps your mother had in her, so I thought we’d better take a break.”

Mom said nothing but rolled her eyes just ever so slightly.

“Okay, what’s going on now?” Beverley asked. “You’re looking jumpy again. What’s happened?”

“I guess I failed the audition. Remind me never to take up acting,” I said. “I clearly suck at affecting nonchalance.”

I stood facing what I now considered to be my war cabinet.

“Okay, let me start by bringing Mom up to date in case Dad hasn’t yet briefed her fully.”

And I was off again. I spent the first twenty minutes or so bringing Mom completely into the circle. She was dutifully flabbergasted at what I’d been up to. I think she might have been a little disappointed that I was obviously still in the throes of what she’d always called my feminist phase. But in deference to Beverley, five-star feminist royalty, she held her tongue. Then I brought them all up to speed on my visit that morning from five-star misogynist royalty, Mason Bennington. Beverley’s jaw dropped when I described the scene and Bennington’s unmitigated temerity. I held up my hand to hold the floor until I’d described exactly what had happened. There was much head shaking when I covered the cosmetic virtuosity of Lewis Small. I detected skepticism, so with great fanfare, I lifted my shirt to reveal my two perfect rib contusions. I got the response I wanted.

“Geez, that looks painful. How are you walking around? In fact, how the hell are you breathing?” Dad asked.

“Dad, weren’t you listening? These aren’t real. It’s make-up,” I said, tapping the middle of the larger wound with my index finger.

“Sorry, Ev, after you said cosmetics, I kind of tuned out,” Dad confessed. “Those sure look real. That guy is a wizard.”

“Let’s not get hung up on the least important element in the story, shall we?” Beverley suggested. “I’m certainly glad you weren’t injured, but the more pressing matter is the blackmail blog post. Are you going to buckle under and write it?”

“Of course you are,” my mother piped up. “I know this Bennington snake, and he isn’t going to stop until he gets what he wants, even if he has to break a few bones to get it. Just give him his little pump-me-up piece and it’ll be over.”

I held up my hand again to get on the speakers’ list.

“Believe me, I’ve thought this whole thing over from every angle in the last few hours. I’ve done the analysis, I’ve listed the pros and cons, I’ve examined it up, down, and sideways. I have no desire to tangle with Mason Bennington any more than I already have. But I just can’t sing his praises in a post and put it up on
Eve of Equality
. It would cripple the blog’s credibility in one stroke and lose us legions of followers. The life of the
Eve of Equality
would essentially be over. So who cares if we can protect my anonymity if the blog no longer has a meaningful voice? It would be over.”

“I’m with you, Ev. You can’t let that grade-A asshole and patriarchy-loving misogynist win,” my father said, leaning forward and resting his clenched fists on his thighs.

Nobody said anything for a moment. There was dead silence. My mother and I filled it by looking at Dad with both our jaws, not just dropped, but dislocated. Only Beverley was smiling and nodding. Dad wasn’t happy that we were staring at him as if he’d just materialized from another galaxy.

“What?” Dad snapped. “Can’t I call someone a grade-A asshole without offending your tender ears? We’re all adults here.”

“Dad, there’s no debate he’s a grade-A asshole. It was the
‘patriarchy-loving misogynist’ line that, well, kind of threw us for a loop.”

“Wake up, son. Of course Bennington’s a patriarchy-loving misogynist. For Christ sakes, he makes money when his girls … when his women take off their goddamned clothes for the entertainment of asshole men. What else would you call him?”

“Who are you, and what have you done with my ex-husband?”

Mom said when she eventually found her voice.

“Aw geez, here we go,” Dad sighed. “Evelyn, honey, can’t a guy grow a little bit in his old age? Come on, give me a break. People can change, you know.”

Mom looked over at me and then at Beverley. The funny feminist just shrugged but said nothing. Then leaned over and patted Dad’s arm.

“Okay, so we’re agreed that you’re not going to bow down and write some obsequious codswallop to pump up Mason Bennington’s already overly inflated ego. So we need a Plan B that won’t have young Everett joining us here as he rehabs from two broken legs. And I think I have an idea.”

I scrunched onto the bench beside my mother as Beverley took over. She presented her idea in a thoughtful and measured way. She covered off all the possible outcomes and how we’d handle each one. Then she discussed the benefits and drawbacks of the plan. All of us had questions. We all kicked around the answers. It was a true case of collaborative thinking. And when I could separate myself from the very real physical implications that
might befall me, it was an interesting and intellectually satisfying exercise.

It wasn’t an ideal plan. But it was the best one we had.

“And you think she’ll go for it?” I asked Beverley.

“I think I still have some pull around there. But we’ll have to move quickly. Can you make it there tomorrow? We don’t have much time.”

“Well, I had signed up for an all-day salsa-dancing workshop at the Forbidden Dance Clinic tomorrow, but I suppose I can put that off to another day.”

“That would be good,” Beverley said, nodding and patting my knee. “That would be good.”

I figured I was safe for the next five days. By then my ribs would have “healed,” and the plan, such as it was, would have worked, or crashed and burned, trapping me in the wreckage. I sat down at my kitchen table that night, wrapped my feet around the big, warm, and pulsating nut in my floor, and composed the most explosive blog post I’d yet written. It didn’t take me much time to write it, though it was my longest post yet. The words fairly poured out of me. I did not hit the Publish button. It wasn’t yet time. But when it was, I’d be ready.

I did publish another post I had in draft form from the previous week. If I didn’t post content regularly, ideally twice a week, my readership would decline. I couldn’t afford that. So I touched
up a post I’d written about the number of women political candidates in federal elections across the G20 countries. It was a sad litany of under-representation with few programs in place to encourage more women to run. The Scandinavian countries fared reasonably well, but there wasn’t much good news beyond that.

I took a quick look out my front window to check on the status of our friendly nightly neighbourhood protest. It was late by then, so the rather small group of stalwart demonstrators was just breaking up. There weren’t too many cars pulling up in front of
XY
. The protestors and cameras were doing their job and having their desired effect.

In the rush of the day’s events, I realized I still hadn’t heard from Megan, despite several texts. I checked my email. Nothing from her there, either. I texted her again, in a pseudo-romantic tone, about counting the days until our Friday night dinner.

My cellphone rang. “Orlando rehab” appeared on my screen.

“Hello?”

“The bright star shone over Istanbul just after midnight.”

“Beverley, we’re not in a spy novel.”

“Indulge me, young Everett. There’s not much room for fun and excitement in my life. So this is it.”

“I hear you. But it’s a little too much excitement for my blood,” I replied. “So are we all systems go?”

“We’re on! Or at least you’re on for 11:30 tomorrow morning. So you’ll have to catch an early shuttle. I used up most of my
political capital to get the meeting. I did not give her any details, so she doesn’t know
why
you’re coming, just
that
you’re coming. And I think that’s the right way to handle it. She’ll see you at 11:30.”

“Okay, I guess we’re on! I can’t thank you enough, Beverley. I mean it. If we pull this off, it’ll be because of you. I’m grateful.”

“Stop it! You’re going to jinx it. Just get your fanny on that plane in the morning and make your meeting.”

We talked for a few more minutes. After thinking about it for a week or so, I finally asked Beverley if she’d write a guest post, under her own byline, for the blog. I suggested she could write about the women’s movement then and now. She was reluctant, but I pushed. She said she’d think about it. She hadn’t said yes. But neither had she said no.

I hung up shortly thereafter and booked my flights online. I knew approximately what time it was by what song was pounding below me. I’d come to know the dance program by heart, or rather by ear. It was almost time for Shawna’s second turn on the runway. I’d never seen her perform. In the battle between my hormones and my feminism, my feminism had always won out. But, I confess, it was close sometimes.

I scanned Twitter for a few minutes, something I’d neglected in the previous day or so. There were still hundreds of new followers piling up each day. The EofE Twitter stream was still growing. One tweet in particular caught my eye before I shut down my laptop for the night. It was from Candace Sharpe’s personal account:

“Haven’t given up on having
Eve of Equality
blogger on show. We still don’t know who she is. But we’re relentless. Stay tuned. #Stilltrying”

I took a shower and crawled into bed. Just as I turned out my light, a text bonged in my phone.

“Please stop texting me. I know who you are. We are not having dinner on Friday night. You betrayed me. You put me in a very difficult position. You used me to gain information about my client for your own benefit. You made me look stupid in front of my client and my employers. Don’t try to contact me again.”

Against all hope, and all logic, I checked the number to see if perhaps it might not be from Megan. Yeah, right. I didn’t respond. I didn’t try to contact her again. I’m generally pretty good at following instructions when they’re as explicit as hers were. I rolled over, exhausted, and then lay awake for the next five hours.

I’d never flown into Reagan National Airport before. For a few moments, as we were descending, it felt like we were going to land in the middle of downtown Washington. Then, just as we were about to touch down, it felt like we were going to belly-flop in the middle of the Potomac River. Mercifully, we landed where we were supposed to, right on the runway. If I’d arrived at the larger and busier Dulles Airport, it would have taken quite a while to make my way into the city. But Reagan Airport, the old Washington National Airport, is just three miles from downtown
DC
. Even with the tighter security imposed at an airport so close to the White House, I was still in a cab and on my way to my meeting in under twenty-five minutes from landing. Not bad.

My destination was on H Street
NW
, not that far from the White House and the National Mall. The National Organization for Women
(NOW)
was created in 1966 over the course of two
seminal meetings in Washington,
DC
. The forty-nine women and men – the vast majority were women – who attended those two gatherings, including the groundbreaking author of
The Feminine Mystique
, Betty Friedan, are considered the founders of the organization. Over the years,
NOW
has emerged as the leading voice for women in America. I was about to meet with the president of
NOW
, that is, if I didn’t throw up in the back of the cab from the squadron of butterflies locked in aerial mixed martial arts combat in my stomach.