As the only Democratic woman senator, Florentyna received invitations to speak all over the nation, and the other senators soon learned that Florentyna Kane was not the token Democratic woman in the Senate but someone whom they could never afford to underestimate.
Florentyna was pleased to find how often she was invited to the inner sanctum of the Majority Leader’s office to discuss matters of policy as well as party problems.
During her first session as a senator, Florentyna sponsored an amendment on the Small Business bill, giving generous tax concessions to manufacturers that exported over 35 percent of their products. For a long time she had believed that companies who did not seek to sell their goods in an overseas market were suffering from the same delusions of grandeur as the English in the mid-twentieth century, and that if they were not careful, Americans would enter the twenty-first century with the same problems that the British had failed to come to terms with in the 1980s.
In her first three months she had answered 6,416 letters, voted 79 times, spoken on 8 occasions in the chamber, 14 times outside and missed lunch on 43 of the last ninety days.
‘I don’t need to diet,’ she told Janet, ‘I weigh less than when I was twenty-four and opened my first shop in San Francisco.’
The second death was every bit as much of a shock as Miss Tredgold’s, because the whole family had spent the previous weekend together on Cape Cod.
The maid reported to the butler that Mrs. Kate Kane had not come down to breakfast as the grandfather clock chimed eight. ‘Then she must be dead,’ said the butler.
Kate Kane was seventy-nine when she failed to come down for breakfast, and the family gathered for a Brahmin funeral. The service was held at Trinity Church, Copley Square, and could not have been a greater contrast to the service for Miss Tredgold, for this time the bishop addressed a congregation who between them could have walked from Boston to San Francisco on their own land. All the Kanes and Cabots were present along with two other senators and a congressman. Almost everyone who had ever known Grandmother Kane, and a good many of those who had not, filled the pews behind Richard and Florentyna.
Florentyna glanced at William and Joanna. Joanna looked as though she would be giving birth in about a month and it made Florentyna feel sad that Kate had not lived long enough to become Great-Grandmother Kane.
After the funeral, they spent a somber family weekend in the Red House on Beacon Hill. Florentyna would never forget Kate’s tireless efforts to bring her husband and son together. Richard was now the sole head of the Kane family, which Florentyna realized would add further responsibility to his already impossible work load. She also knew that he would not complain and it made her feel guilty that she was unable to do much about making his life any easier.
Like a typical Kane, Kate’s will was sensible and prudent; the bulk of the estate was left to Richard and his sisters, Lucy and Virginia, and large settlements were made on William and Annabel. William was to receive two million dollars on his thirtieth birthday. Annabel, on the other hand, was to live off the interest of a further two million until she was forty-five or had two legitimate children. Grandmother Kane hadn’t missed much.
In Washington, the battle for the midterm election had already begun and Florentyna was glad to have a six-year term before she faced the voters again, giving her a chance for the first time to do some real work without the biennial break for party squabbles. Nevertheless, so many of her colleagues invited her to speak in their states that she seemed to be working just as hard and the only request she politely refused was in Tennessee: she explained she could not speak against Bob Buchanan, who was seeking re-election for the last time.
The little white card which Louise gave her each night was always filled with appointments from dawn to dusk indicating the routine for the following day:
‘7:45: breakfast with a visiting foreign minister of defense. 9:00: staff meeting. 9:30: Defense Subcommittee hearing. 11:30: interview with Chicago Tribune. 12:30: lunch with six Senate colleagues to discuss defense budget. 2:00: weekly radio broadcast. 2:30: photo on Capitol steps with Illinois 4-H’ers. 3:15: staff briefing on Small Business bill. 5:30: drop by reception of Associated General Contractors. 7:00: cocktail party at French Embassy. 8:00: dinner with Donald Graham of the Washington Post. 11:00: phone Richard at the Denver Baron.’
As a senator, Florentyna was able to reduce her trips to Illinois to every other weekend. On every other Friday, she would catch the U.S. Air flight to Providence, where she would be met by Richard on his way up from New York. They would then drive out on Route 6 to the Cape, which gave them a chance to catch up with each other’s week.
Richard and Florentyna spent their free weekends on Cape Cod, which had become their family home since Kate’s death, Richard having given the Red House to William and Joanna.
On Saturday mornings, they would lounge around reading newspapers and magazines. Richard might play the cello while Florentyna would look over the paperwork she had brought with her from Washington. When weather permitted they played golf in the afternoon and, whatever the weather, backgammon in the evening. Florentyna always ended the evening owing Richard a couple of hundred dollars, which he said he would donate to the Republican Party if she ever honored her gambling debts. Florentyna always queried the value of giving to the Massachusetts Republican Party, but Richard pointed out that he also supported a Republican governor and senator in New York.
Patriotically, Joanna gave birth to a son on February 22, and they christened him Richard. Suddenly Florentyna was a grandmother.
People magazine stopped describing her as the most elegant lady in Washington and started calling her the best-looking grandmother in America. This caused a flurry of letters of protest including hundreds of photographs of other glamorous grannies for the editor to consider, which only made Florentyna even more popular.
The rumors that she would be a strong contender for the Vice Presidency in 1988 started in July when the Small Business Association made her Illinoisan of the year and a Newsweek poll voted her Woman of the Year. Whenever she was questioned on the subject she reminded her inquirers that she had been in the Senate for less than a year and that her first priority was to represent her state in Congress, although she noted that she was being invited to the White House more and more often for sessions with the President. It was the first time that being the one woman in the majority party was turning out to be an advantage.
Florentyna learned of Bob Buchanan’s death when she asked why the flag on the Russell Building was at half mast. The funeral was on the Wednesday when she was due to offer an amendment to the Public Health Service Act in the Senate and address a seminar on defense at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She canceled one, postponed the other and flew to Nashville, Tennessee.
Both of the state’s senators and its seven remaining congressmen were present. Florentyna stood next to her House colleagues in silent tribute. As they waited to go into the Lutheran chapel, one of them told her that Bob had had five sons and one daughter. Gerald, the youngest, had been killed in Vietnam. She thanked God that Richard had been too old and William too young to be sent to that pointless war.
Steven, the eldest son, led the Buchanan family into the chapel. Tall and thin, with a warm, open face, he could only have been the son of Bob, and when Florentyna spoke to him after the service he revealed the same southern charm and straight approach that had endeared his father to her. Florentyna was delighted when she learned that Steven was going to run for his father’s seat in the upcoming special election.