“When?” Beatrix asked. “In the distant future, after it’s no longer against the law?”
“No, next year.” Joan’s quirked lips suggested the barest hint of sardonic amusement. “There’s nothing illegal abouta womanrunning, after all. I just won’t be able to get on the ballot.”
Dot rubbed her chin. “What’s the plan?”
“Gather enough signatures to put me on the ballot, if I were a wizard. Then point out how ridiculous it is that ninety-eight percent of Americans are disqualified in this so-called democracy.”
Marilyn’s sigh seemed pulled from her very depths. “I hate to say it, Ireallydo, but it would be better if we did that for a typic man. After the way things imploded in the legislature—no offense intended,” she said, glancing at Beatrix.
“None taken,” Beatrix murmured. What she felt, actually, was dispirited. How long would they live with these constraints, never feeling it would do any good to demand—or even request—what they long ought to have had by right?
“Well,” Dot said, “maybe we ought to ask Lydia what she thinks about?—”
“I’m not asking Lydia for permission.” Joan’s voice was quiet but no less firm than if she’d shouted it. “I’ll resign from the League if need be, but the only person deciding how I live my life is me. No offense intended, Beatrix.”
“None taken,” she said again, her fixed ideas about how Joan saw her because of Plan B beginning to unravel. Was Joan upset atLydia?
“Look, I’ve been doing a lot of historical research. Primary documents, records no one has bothered to look at for decades,” Joan said. “Why do you think women’s place in society was improving and then backslid? Yes, there was theFirst Depression, that didn’t help, but you can’t blame it all on that. There was something else.”
Goosebumps rippled on Beatrix’s arms. She knew, before Joan said another word, where this was headed. She supposed she knew the answer as soon as she stole a look at the top-secretInstances of Magical Ability in the Female Populationfrom 1933.
“Wizards,” Joan whispered. “Wizards were outspoken opponents of a Ladies’ Property Rights bill. Wizards worked behind the scenes to defend coverture laws in states that had them and pass them in the few that didn’t. Wizards got involved in penny-ante city council races just to make sure female candidates wouldn’t win, for God’s sake.”
“Why?” Dot’s voice was even quieter, barely audible. “To quell potential competition?”
“One presumes that played a role.”
“When did it start?” Beatrix asked. “In the 1930s?”
“Oh no, earlier. The Ladies’ Property Rights Act was proposed in 1921.”
Beatrix shook her head. “Then it’s probably not just that. There has to be more to it.”
Marilyn leaned in. “Think about it: Who were the wizards trying to wrest powerfrom?And I don’t mean women, because women didn’t have much of it even in 1921.”
Dot’s lips formed a silentoh.Joan’s eyebrows rose.
“Typic men,” Beatrix whispered. “You’re right.”
“If you want to convince someone to vote against their interests,” Marilyn said, “it helps to give them someone else to lord it over. Which brings us back to my point aboutwhat’s a more effective strategy—staging your own publicity-stunt run for Congress, or helping a man do it.”
Joan looked very tired all of a sudden. To Beatrix’s eyes, it was the same weariness she herself felt in her very bones. Marilyn wasn’t wrong. But campaigning for a Twenty-fifth Amendment repeal by focusing on what it would do for men hadn’t worked, either.
How had Peter put it?Are you pressing for women’s rights, or aren’t you?
“Look,” Joan said, almost as if she read her mind, “if we aren’t willing to advocate on our own behalf, nothing will change for women—let alone for Black women like me. Or Asian women,” she added, glancing at Dot, who was nodding, “or Jewish women”—Marilyn gave her a tight smile full of fellow feeling—“or anyone else who’s doubly disenfranchised. Did you know that Rosemarie moved here because her home state wouldn’t certify Black women as teachers?”
“What?” Beatrix said, appalled both at the situation and her ignorance of it.
“But she refuses to change the League’s strategy. ‘One step at a time,’ she says. ‘You have to take the long view,’ she says. And yes, OK, but I’d like to bealivewhen some of this progress happens!”
For a few seconds, no one said anything. Then Dot raised her champagne flute. “To our future grand success at bringing that to pass.”
Beatrix realized her glass was empty. In fact, all their glasses were empty. She could justimaginewhat?—
No. She had to stop thinking of what Ella would say.
“Hang on a moment,” she murmured, and flagged down more champagne.
