The Prodigal Daughter (51 page)

For his part,
William was attentive and conspicuously proud of the young woman who
stood.quietly by his side. “I suppose I might have expected you to produce a
son who has been educated in New York, lived in Washington and Chicago but ends
up returning to Boston to choose his wife,” Florentyna teased Richard.

“William is your
son as well,” he reminded her. “And what makes you think he’ll marry Joanna?”

Fiorentyna just
laughed. “I predict Boston in the spring.”

She turned out
to be wrong: they had to wait until the summer.

William was in
his final year as an undergraduate and he had taken his business boards and was
waiting anxiously to be accepted at the Harvard School of Business.

“In my day,”
said Richard, “you waited until you had finished school and made a little money
before you thought about marriage.”

“That just isn’t
true, Richard. You left Harvard early to marry me and for several weeks afterwards
I kept you.”

“You never told
me that Dad,” said William.

“Your father has
what in politics is called a selective memory. “

William left
laughing.

“I still think…”

“They’re in love,
Richard. Have you grown so old you can’t see what’s staring you in the face?”

“No, but...”

“You’re not yet
fifty and you’re already acting like an old fuddy-duddy.

William
Is
almost the same age as you when you married me. Well,
haven’t you anything to say?”

“No. You’re just
like all politicians: you keep interrupting,” The Kanes went to stay with the
Cabots early in the new year and Richard immediately liked John Cabot, Joanna’s
father, and was surprised that, with so many family friends in common, they had
not yet met before.

Joanna had two
little sisters, who spent the weekend running around William.

“I’ve changed my
mind,” Richard said that Saturday night in bed. “I think Joanna is just what
William needs.”

Florentyna put
on an extreme mid-European accent and asked, “What if Joanna had been a little
Polish immigrant who sold gloves in Bloomingdale’s?”

Richard took
Florentyna in his arms and said, “I would have told him not to buy three pairs
of gloves because it would work out cheaper just to marry the girl.”

Preparations for
the forthcoming wedding seemed complicated and demanding to Florentyna, who
remembered vividly how simply she and Richard had been married and how Bella
and Claude had lugged the double bed up the stairs in San Francisco. Luckily
Mrs. Cabot wanted to handle all the arrangements rierself anti whenever
something was expected of the Kanes, Annabel was only too happy to leap forward
as the family representative.

In early
Jinuary, Florentyna returned to Washington to clear out her office. Colleagues
stopped and chatted with her as if she hadn’t lt
!ft
the House. Janet was waiting for her with a pile of letters, most of them
saying how sorry they were that Florentyna would not be returning to Congress
but hoping that she would run for the Senate again in two years’ time.

Florentyna
answered every one of them but couldn’t help wondering if something might go
wrong in 1984 as well. If it did, that would finish her political career
completely.

Florentyna left
the capital for New York, only to find herself getting in everyone’s way. The
Baron Group and Lester’s were being competently run by Richard and Edward. The
Group had changed considerably since Richard had implemented the many
improvements suggested by McKinsey and Company. She was continually surprised
by the new Baron of Beef restaurants that could now be found on every ground
floor and thought she would never get used to the computer banks alongside the
hairdresser’s in the hotel lobby.

When Florentyna
went to see Gianni to check on the progress of the shops, he assumed she had
only come in for a new dress.

During
those first few months away from Washington, Florentyna becarae more restless
than she could remember.
She traveled to Poland twice and could only feel
despair for her countrymen as she looked around at the devastation, wondering
where the Russians would strike next. Florenlyna took advantage of
thesejourneys to meet European leaders whocontinually referred to their fear
that America was becoming more and more isolationist with each succeeding
President.

When she
returned to America, once again the question of whether she should run for the
Senate loomed in front of her. Janet, who had remained on Florentyna’s staff,
began to discuss tactics with Edward Winchester which included regular trips to
Chicago for Florentyna, who accepted any speaking engagement-, in Illinois that
came her way. Florentyna felt relieved when Senator Rodgers called her over the
Easter recess to say that he hoped she would run for his seat the following year
and added that she could count on his backing.

As Florentyna
checked over the Chicago newspapers that were sent to her each week, she could
not help noticing that Ralph Brooks was already making a name for himself in
the Senate. He had somehow managed to get on the prestigious Foreign Relations
Committee as well as the Agriculture Committee-so important to Illinois
fan-ners. He was also the only freshman senator to be appointed to the
Democratic Task Force on Regulator~ Reform.

It made her more
determined, not less.

William and
Joanna’s wedding turned out to be one of the happiest days of Florentyna’s
life. Her twenty -two-year-old son standing in tails next to his bride brought
back to her memories of his father in San Francisco. The silver band hung loosely
on his left wrist, and Florentyna smiled as she noticed the little scar on his
right hand. Joanna, although she looked shy
and ,dernure
by William’s side, had already rid her future husband of some of his more
eccentric habits, among them several gaudy ties and the Fidel Castro mustache
William had been so proud of before he had met her.

Grandmother
Kane, as everyone now referred to Ktite, was looking more and more like a
pale-blue battleship at full steam as she plowed through the guests, kissing
some and allowing others-those few older than herself-to kiss her. At
seventy-six she was still elegant, without a suggestion of a failing faculty.
She was also the one member of the family who could remonstrate with Annabel
and get away with it.

After a memorable
reception at the home of Joanna’s parents on Beacon Hill-it included four hours
of dancing to the ageless music of the Lester Lanin orchestra-William and his
bride flew off to Europe for their honeymoon and Richard and Florentyna
returned to New York. Florentyna knew that the time was fast approaching when
she would have to make an announcernew about the Senate seat, and she decided
to phone the retiring senator and seek his advice on how he would like her to
word any statement.

She called David
Rodgers at his office in the Dirksen Building. As she dialed the number, it
struck her how odd it was that they now saw so little of each other when only a
few months earlier they had spent half of their lives within a two hundred yaid
radius. The senator wasn’t in, so she left a message to say that she had
called. He did not return her call for several days and finally his secretary
rang to explain that his schedule had been impossibly tight. Florentyna
reflected on the fact that this wasn’t David Rodgers’s style. She hoped that
she was just imagining the rebuff until she discussed with Edward wh3t was
going on.

“There’s a rumor
going around that he wants his wife to take over the seat,” he told her.

“Betty Rodgers?
But she’s always claimed she couldn’t abide public life. I can’t believe she’d
choose to continue his now that David’s retiring.”

“Well, don’t
forget that since her children left home she’s been on the Chicago City
Council. That’s been three years. Perhaps it’s given her a taste for higher
things.”

“How serious do
you think she is?”

I don’t know,
but a couple of phone calls and I can find out. “

Florentyna found
out even before Edward because she had a call from one of her ex-staffers in
Chicago who said the Cook County party machine was talking about Mrs. Rodgers
as if she were already the candidate.

Edward called
her back later the same day to say that he had discovered that the state
committee was holding a caucus to consider putting Betty Rodgers’s name forward
as the candidate, although the polls indicated that over eighty percent of the
registered Democrats supported Florentyna as David Rodgers’s successor.

“It doesn’t
help,” added Edward, “that Senator Brooks is openly backing Betty Rodgers.”

“Surprise,
surprise,” said Forentyna. “What do you think my next move ought to be?”

“I don’t think
you can do anything at the moment. You have strong support on the committee and
the outcome is very much in the balance, so perhaps it might be wise not to
become too closely involved. Just go on working in Chicago and appear to remain
above it all.”

But what if
she’s chosen?”

“Then you will
have to run as an independent candidate and beat her.”

“
It’s
almoit impossible to overcome the party machine, as you
reminded me a feNk months back, Edward.”

“Truman
(lid.”

Florentyna heard
a few minutes after the meeting was over that the committee had voted by a
majority of 6 to 5 to put Betty Rodgeis’s name forward as the official
Democratic candidate for the Senate at a full caucus meeting later in the
month. David Rodgers and Ralph Brooks had both voted against Florentyna.

She couldn’t
believe that only six people could make such an important decision and during
the following week she had two unpleasant phone conversations, one with Rodgers
and the other with Brooks, who both pleaded with her to put party unity before
personal ambition. “The sort of hypocrisy you’d expect from a Democrat,”
commented Richard.

Many of
Florentyna’s supporters begged her to fight, but she was not convinced,
especially when the state chairman called and asked her to announce formally,
for the unity of the party, that shc would not be a candidate on this occasion.
After all, he pointed
out,
Betty would probably only
do one six-year term.

That would.
be
enough for Ralph Brooks, Florentyna thought.

She listened to
much advice over the next few days, but on a trip to Washington it was Bob
Buchanan who told her to reread Julius Caesar more carefully.

“The whole
play?” asked Florentyna.

“No, I would
concentrate on Mark Antony if I were you, my dear.”

Florentyna
called the Democratic Party chairman and told him she was willing to come to
the caucus and state that she was not a candidate but she was unwilling to
endorse Betty Rodgers.

The chairman
readily accepted the compromise.

The meeting was
held ten days later at the Democratic State Central Committee in the Bismarck
Hotel on West Randolph Street and when Florentyna
arrived
the hall was already packed. She could sense from the loud applause she
received as she entered the room that the meeting might not go as smoothly as
the committee had planned.

Florentyna took
her assigned seat on the platform at the end of the second row. The chairman
sat in the middle of the front row behind a long table with two senators,
Rodgers and Brooks, on his right and left, Betty Rodgers sat next to her
husband and didn’t once look at Florentyna. The secretary and treasurer
completed the front row. The chairman gave Florentyna a polite nod when she
appeared. The other committee members sat in the second row with Florentyna.
One of them whispered, “You were craz~ not to put up a fight.”

At eight o’clock
the chairman invited David Rodgers to address the meeting. The senator had
always been respected as a diligent worker for his constituents, but even his
closest aides would not have described him as an orator. He started by thanking
them for their support in the past and expressed the hope that they would now
pass that loyalty on to his wife. He gave a rambling talk on his work during
his twenty-four years as a senator and sat down to what could, at best, he
described as polite applause.

The chairman
spoke next, outlining his reasons for proposing Betty Rodgers as the next
candidate. “At least it will be easy for the voters to remember her name.” He
laughed as did one or two people on the platform but surprisingly few in the
body of the hall. He then went on to spend the next ten minutes expounding, the
virtues of Betty Rodgers and the work she had done as a city councillor. He
spoke to a silent hall.
And sat down to a smattering of
applause.
He waited a moment, then, in a perfunctory fashion, introduced
Florentyna.

She had made no
notes because she wanted what she had to say to sound off the cuff, even though
she had been rehearsing every word for the past ten days. Richard had wanted to
accomp~iny her, but she told him not to bother, because everything had been
virtually decided upon before the first word was spoken. The truth was that she
did not want him there because his support might cast doubt on her apparent
innocence.