"Joe," she said between breaths as she clambered up beside him. "I’ve got to get to school by eight-thirty. You don’t know how happy I am to see you!"
"I think I do," he shouted above the revving engine. Then, shifting gears, they sped down the street.
"Will we make it?" she questioned desperately, still not believing her good fortune that she had been set free and that Joe had come to meet her.
"If old Betsy doesn’t conk out on us, we’ll make it. Hang onto the side strap, for you’re in for a ride." He glanced at her. "Do you think Mr. Blair will let you into his class?"
"He’d better! If I’m not late there’s nothing he can do about my arrest. After all, what happens over the weekend is no concern of his." She shivered a little, thinking of her three-night ordeal. "How did you know I was to be released this morning?"
"Miss Zacks called your mother just as she was leaving for work. Maude, in turn, called the store." He winked at her. "When Papa heard you were released, he commanded me to get you to school this morning and not to worry about the deliveries until later." He honked at a dog that ran alongside, barking at the wheels. "Papa, of course, considers you part of the family, and you couldn’t ask for a more fierce protector."
Smiling and holding a hairpin between her teeth, she tidied her hair. "I needed a fierce protector with the matron we had. She was a terror, and I’m not so sure I’d like to see Aldo tangle with her."
"He could handle her, believe me." Joe swore under his breath as he pulled on the steering wheel, veering the car to the left to avoid hitting a young boy who almost darted into the street. He pressed the rubber bulb, and when the boy heard the honking and saw the truck with its side canvas panels flapping, he stepped back quickly.
Along the sidewalk wide-eyed pedestrians watched the careening truck with disbelief.
"Faster, Joe, faster," she urged, clinging to the strap, swaying and bouncing first one way and then another as they hurtled down the avenue.
"Old Betsy can’t go much faster," Joe answered, but nonetheless he pressed his tennis shoe firmly down on the accelerator.
A second dog yapped from the safety of the sidewalk as Joe continued to honk the horn and skillfully maneuver his truck around a horse-drawn milk truck.
"It’s eight twenty-four," Joe said, pointing to the school’s towers. "We made it!"
Jolting to a screeching stop, Laura scrambled out of the front seat. "Joe, you’re a love!" She barely touched the running board as she broke into a race against the clock. She fleetingly wondered if Shawn would have made this same stupendous effort in her behalf.
She pounded up the walk, gulping in mouthfuls of air for her bursting lungs.
Hair flying, she ran down the hall and stopped at Mr. Blair’s classroom. Scarcely able to catch her breath, she threw back her shoulders and entered, just as the late bell rang.
Chapter Seventeen
Laura’s adventure in jail the week before was over, and even Mr. Blair seemed reconciled to having her in class. Although he did his best to ignore her, she nonetheless had become quite a celebrity. Students, boys and girls alike, came up to her and congratulated her on her bravery, and even Olaf Jorgenson had wanted to know more about the suffragists. She was pleased by the renewed interest in the Movement. But what she was pleased most about was the fact that she was still in school. Thanks to Opal Zacks, her lawyer.
Ever since last Monday, when she’d come dashing down the hall into school, she had been on her best behavior. She didn’t want to jeopardize her last three weeks in school. Then, being rid of Mr. Blair and beginning her senior year next September, would be a joy. Now she had the summer to look forward to with time to really work for the Movement and to sort out her feelings for Joe and Shawn.
After school on Monday she and Cassie walked to the Women’s Headquarters. Cassie was still on her four o’clock duty, and Laura had kept her usual six o’clock duty. Even though the arrests had stopped, the White House picketing continued. At first going out with her vacuum bottle of coffee had unnerved Laura. She had been apprehensive that the police would come charging down upon her again and drag her to jail, but she needn’t have worried, for all was calm. Chief Bentley had issued a statement that the White House pickets would not face arrest, but if hoodlums harassed them, it would be at their own risk.
"Isn’t it wonderful, Cassie? Woodrow Wilson is for the passage of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, and more and more senators are, too. How can we lose?"
Cassie, moving beside her in long, fluid strides, looked doubtful. "He’s coming on our side awfully late. Most of the senators have already decided on how they’re going to vote."
"It will pass the Senate, you’ll see. Women aren’t pouring into Washington for nothing. They’ll have influence on their own state senators."
While Cassie went on duty, Laura quietly drank a cup of tea in the mansion. As she squeezed the lemon slice into the steaming brew she smelled the daisies on her table and felt a buoyant radiance. The room was alive with women from every state in the union. They had massed here for the big vote on the Women’s Amendment on June twenty-seventh. And to think she was part of it! Could anything be more exciting, more exhilarating? Their amendment had already passed the House of Representatives and needed only eleven votes to pass the Senate. President Wilson had recently taken to writing letters on behalf of the bill’s passage, but there would be some legislators he wouldn’t be able to persuade. Take Senator Shields from Tennessee, for example. He would be a hard man to crack. John K. Shields was known for his antisuffrage stance and hated being "nagged," as he called it, by the women’s group from Tennessee. But with or without his vote the amendment would pass the Senate; then ratification by three-quarters of the states would be easy.
Laura gazed around with a sense of nostalgia. In a few weeks the amendment she and others had worked for so hard would pass, and their work would be finished. She would miss this yellow room, bedecked with flowers, humming with good conversation and good fellowship. Would this national headquarters mansion still be retained, or would everything be dismantled? She hoped the women would stay together and implement their gains. Laura enjoyed this company of women and the closeness that had developed within these walls.
"Hello, Laura," said Opal Zacks, standing by a chair. "May I join you?"
"Oh, please sit down," Laura said enthusiastically, smiling at her lawyer-benefactor, who had obtained her release from prison sooner than any of the other suffragists.
The pleasant woman, her large hazel eyes bright with intelligence, studied Laura. "Well, your stint in prison didn’t hurt your appearance, that’s for sure. You look positively ravishing this afternoon," she said with a broad smile.
Laura said, "I can’t tell you how much I appreciated your help in getting me discharged. It means a lot to be able to finish my junior year."
"Glad to do it! You’ve been a good worker for the organization." Opal ran her fingers through her curly hair. "Now we have another big job ahead of us."
"I know," Laura answered. "The Senate vote, right?" She grimly pressed her lips together.
"The Senate vote," echoed Opal. "But we’ll win, Laura — without a doubt, we’ll win!" She laughed, showing prominent white teeth, all the whiter against her brown suit, the same color as her chestnut-brown hair.
Her positive attitude was reassuring. "I hope you’re right," Laura said, then suddenly asked, "Is it difficult being a lawyer?"
"You should qualify that question, Laura. Is it difficult being a woman lawyer?" She pondered her answer, moving her shoulders in her lightweight summer suit. "At times it’s not easy, and I’ve had to prove myself more than once in the courtroom, but when male attorneys see that I’m competent, efficient, and quite sane, they relax and treat me as one of them." She paused. "What do you intend to study in college, Laura?"