Beauty Queen Read Free Page B

back to her old self again."
    He returned to his Barron's again. Jeannie went back to her gazing around.
    The penthouse garden was a picture of affluent peace and quiet. Graceful white birches, weeping willows and flowering crabapple trees grew in giant granite containers. Along the gravel paths, hybrid tea roses and tuberous begonias spilled their red, pink and yellow velvet flowers everywhere. Near the sliding glass doors of the living room, a moss-stained antique marble fountain dripped serenely into a small pool where a few butter-yellow water lilies floated. Her father had put in the garden two years ago when he moved here. He was so fussy about his garden that every day a greenhouse crew came up to spray or wipe the pollution particles from every single leaf. She loved this garden, and wished her father would never give it up. There was definitely something unstable in the way her father moved all the time.
    The morning sunlight came down on her with a peculiar force. She had prayed, and waited for God's call, but He had made her wait. When He did send her the call, in her mind, she would see plainly that it was His call and not something of her own impatient making.
    All during this past year, as she struggled to put her life back together, she had wondered what lay next. The brush with drinking, and the nervous breakdown, and her decision not to run for state senator again, had all made her realize how far she had drifted from the simple faith of her childhood, when her mother was alive to guide her. She had refused to enter a clinic for treatment, because she was afraid it would hurt her political career. Both Sidney and her father had been amazingly understanding and helpful, considering how difficult she had been. And then had come the rush of light, the renewal of faith, the conviction that she had been bom again, the offering of her life to Jesus Christ.
    Suddenly a thought came flaming down into her vacant mind with the force and light of a meteor.
    "Dad, what about politics again?" she said suddenly. "Do you think I have a chance?"
    "Why not?" he said, taking out a silver cigarette case, extracting a Camel, and lighting it with his silver lighter.
    "I mean," she faltered, "if Nixon could make a comeback . . . and I have a good record. I fought everything in the world. I fought gambling and off-track betting and drugs and pornography and prostitution . . . She wrinkled her nose at the cigarette smoke.
    "You even got the disco across the street closed," said her father.
    She smiled. "Don't tease me, now," she said. "I'm very serious. I'm not thinking of running for the legislature again. I'm thinking of running for governor."
    Her father put the paper down again. This time she had his full attention. He looked straight at her, and this time she met his eyes unflinchingly.
    "Why shouldn't I think about it?" she said. "Heavens, Jimmy Carter's staff seriously considered a woman for vice presidential nominee. There are a lot of women mayors. Men have made such a mess of city politics and state politics that maybe I'd succeed where they failed. Besides, my experience is here, not in Washington. I have an edge over people who have been in Washington and then want to come back and run for governor. Finally — I'm from New York City, so maybe I could end the feud between New York and Albany!"
    She leaned back in her chair, stretching luxuriously into the warm sunshine.
    "And maybe, after I've been a good governor of New York, I'll think seriously about running for President. You need five of the eight big states, and I'd have this big state right in my apron pocket."
    Her father was grinning, showing all his even white teeth. It was the way he smiled when he had closed a big real-estate deal.
    Jeannie felt herself sinking down into the sensuous warmth of well-being.
    "And I think I'll start my comeback," she said, "by working to defeat that disgusting homosexual bill."
    Her father was suddenly looking at his watch, and