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got. Don t see why it bothers her. It s not like sometimes the women aren t
talking the most interesting things.
For a while, I really thought we were going to make it through the evening
without a fight.
Stephanie came in, all rosy-faced and glowing from voting, then marching
outside the poll all day.
She d left her protest signs in the garage, and she was wearing one of the
good skirts and coats she took to school. When everyone said so, she laughed
and went up to change into a workshirt and jeans.
But you looked so pretty, just like a real college girl, her aunt told her.
That was just window dressing, Stephanie said. Can I help set the food out
now? I m famished.
She d wolfed down about half a corned beef sandwich when the phone rang, and
she flew up the stairs. You re kidding. Massachusetts already
? Oh wow! How s it look for Pennsylvania? I m telling you, I think we re going
to be lucky here, but I m worried about the South . . .
You want another beer, Ron? I asked my brother-in-law, who was turning red,
pretending like he had swallowed something the wrong way and would choke if he
didn t drink real fast. Personally, I
think he voted for Wallace in the last election, but you can t pry the truth
out of him about that with a crowbar.
We settled down to watch TV. Margaret and my sister Nance turned on the
portable in the kitchen. I
kind of hoped Stephanie would go in there, but she helped clear the table,
then came in and sat beside me.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. Maybe the kids were right and
people were sick of the bombings, the deaths, the feeling that Vietnam was
going to hang around our necks till we choked on it. But state after state
went to McGovern . . . There goes Ohio! Straight on! Stephanie shouted,
raising a fist.
I don t know when all hell broke loose. One moment we were sitting watching
John Chancellor cut to President Nixon s headquarters (and my daughter was
doing this routine, like a Chatty Cathy
doll, about Tri-cia Nixon). The next moment, she d jumped up and was stamping
one foot as she glared at her uncle.
How dare you use that word? she was saying to Ron, my brother-in-law.
They re not gooks.
They re
Asians
. And it s their country, not ours, but we re destroying it for them. We ve
turned the kids into fugitives, the women into bar girls . . . and they all
had fathers, too, till we killed them!
What kind of a racist pig . . .
Who you calling a racist, little Miss Steff & Nonsense? asked Ron. By then,
he d probably had at least two beers too many and way too many of my
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daughter s yells of straight on. Why, when I
was in the war, there was this Nee-grow sergeant . . .
It s black ! she snapped. You call them black
! How can you expect me to stay in the same house as this . . .
She was out of the living room, and the front door slammed behind her before I
could stop her.
That little girl of yours is out of control, Ron told me. That s what you
get, sending her off to that snob school. OSU wasn t good enough, oh no. So
what happens? She meets a bunch of radicals there and picks up all sorts of
crazy ideas. Tell you, Joey, you better put a leash on that kid, or she ll get
into real trouble.
I got up, and he shut up. Margaret came in from the kitchen. I shook my head
at her:
everything under control
. I wanted to get a jacket or something. Stephanie had run out without her
coat, and the evening was chilly.
I d teach her a good lesson, that s what I d do, said Ron.
Damn! Hadn t I warned her, I know you think it s funny calling your uncle
Ronnie the Racist. But one of these days, it s going to slip out, and then
there ll be hell to pay. But she d said what I
should have said. And that made me ashamed.
She shouldn t have been rude to you, I said. I m going to tell her that.
But you know how she feels about words like that. I don t much like them
either. Besides, this is her house, too.
Ron was grumbling behind my back like an approaching thunderstorm, when I went
into the front hall, took out a jacket from the closet, and went outside.
Steffie was on the stoop, her face pressed against the cold brick. I put the
jacket over her and closed my hands on hers. They were trembling.
Don t rub your face against the brick, baby. You could cut yourself.
She turned around and hugged me. I could feel she was crying with anger and
trying hard not to.
I m not going in there and apologizing, she told me.
Not even for me? I coaxed her. There d been a time she d do anything in the
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