Looking for Rachel Wallace

“But might not the gay teacher subtly persuade his or her students toward a homosexual preference?”

Rachel said, “I just answered that, Shirley.”

Shirley smiled brilliantly. “In your book you allege frequent violations of civil rights in employment both by the government and the private sector. Many of the offenders are here in Massachusetts. Would you care to name some of them?”

Rachel was beginning to look annoyed. “I named all of them in my book,” she said.

“But,” Shirley said, “not all of our viewers have read it.”

“Have you?” Rachel said.

“I haven’t finished it yet,” Shirley said. “I’m sorry to say.” The guy crouching below the camera lens made a gesture with his hand, and Shirley said, “We’ll be right back with more interesting revelations from Rachel Wallace after this message.”

I whispered to Linda Smith, who stood in neat tweeds beside me, “Shirley doesn’t listen to the answers.”

“A lot of them don’t,” Linda said. “They’re busy looking ahead to the next question.”

“And she hasn’t read the book.”

Linda smiled and shook her head. “Almost none of them ever do. You can’t blame them. Sometimes you get several authors a week plus all the other stuff.”

“The pressure must be fearful,” I said. “To spend your working life never knowing what you’re talking about.”

“Lots of people do that,” Linda said. “I only hope Rachel doesn’t let her annoyance show. She’s a good interview, but she gets mad too easy.”

“That’s because if she had been doing the interview, she’d have read the book first.”

“Maybe,” Linda said, “but Shirley North has a lot of fans in the metropolitan area, and she can sell us some books. The bridge club types love her.”

A commercial for pantyhose concluded with a model holding out the crotch to show the ventilated panel, then Shirley came back on.

“In your book, Rachel, you characterize lesbianism as an alternative way of loving. Should everyone try it?”

“Everyone should do what she wants to do,” Rachel said. “Obviously people to whom the idea is not attractive should stay straight. My argument is, and has been, that those who do find that alternative desirable should not be victimized for that preference. It does no one any harm at all.”

“Is it against God’s law?”

“It would be arrogant of me to tell you God’s law. I’ll leave that to the people who think they have God’s ear. All I can say is that I’ve had no sign that He disapproves.”

“How about the argument that it is unnatural?”

“Same answer. That really implies a law of nature that exists immutably. I’m not in a position to know about that. Sartre said that perhaps existence precedes essence, and maybe we are in the process of making the laws of nature as we live.”

“Yes, certainly. Do you advocate lesbian marriage?”

“Shirley,” Rachel said. “I have documented corruption on several levels of local and state government, in several of the major corporations in the country, and you’ve asked me only about titillating things. In essence you’ve asked only about sex. That seems unbalanced to me.”

Shirley’s smile glowed. Her splendiferous eyelashes fluttered. “Isn’t that an interesting thought, Rachel? I wish we could spend more time, but I know you have to rush.” She picked up Tyranny. “Get Rachel’s book, Tyranny, published by Hamilton Black. You’ll love it, as I did. Thanks a million, Rachel. Come back again.”

Rachel muttered, “Thank you.”

Shirley said, “Now, this message.”

The guy squatting under the camera stood up and said, “Okay, next segment. Thanks a lot Mrs. Wallace. Shirley, you’re on the den set.” A technician took off Rachel’s lapel mike, and she got up and walked away. Shirley didn’t say goodbye. She was getting as much mentholated smoke into her as she could before the deodorant commercial ended.

Linda Smith said, “Oh, Rachel, you were dynamite.”

Rachel looked at me. I shrugged. Rachel said, “What’s that mean?”

I said, “It means you did your best in a difficult situation. You can’t look good being interviewed by Shirley North.”

Rachel nodded. Linda said, “Oh, no, I thought you were super.”

Rachel said nothing as we walked out of the studio and down the long corridor past the news set, empty now and shabby, then along the corridor where people sat in small offices and typed, and out into the lobby and reception area. On the big monitor opposite the reception desk Shirley was leaning toward the man who raised quail.

I frowned the way Shirley did and said in a high voice, “Tell me, do quails like to do it with anything but other quails?”

Rachel gave a snort. Linda smiled. Outside we parted—Rachel and I in my car, Linda in hers.