The Second Sister Read Free Page A

late, legendary senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of Massachusetts in the mid-seventies, eventually leaving to open his own lobbying firm in the mid-nineties, is old school and still reads the papers in print.
    Hearing my greeting, he lowered his paper.
    â€œLucy. It’s bad enough that you buy blue suits five at a time off the clearance rack. Couldn’t you at least hang them up at night? Did you sleep in that thing?”
    I plopped into a chair and nudged a second one out from the table with my foot so I could dump my purse, briefcase, and coat onto the seat.
    â€œI just got back from New York. Haven’t had a chance to do laundry.”
    I reached for the carafe, filled a coffee cup, and gave my order to the waiter without reading the menu. I always get the Kitchen Sink: scrambled eggs and maple-peppered bacon on an open-face biscuit, layered on hash browns, and covered in sausage gravy. Joe ordered a spinach egg-white omelet with wheat toast, dry.
    Joe folded up his paper, then unfolded his napkin and laid it over the knife-edge crease of his perfectly pressed pants. I took a muffin from the bakery basket.
    â€œThere’s this new thing out there, Lucy—dry cleaners. Heard of them?”
    â€œI have,” I replied, buttering a muffin. “I also heard they charge fifteen bucks to press an outfit you can iron yourself for free.”
    â€œExcept you never do.”
    Joe stirred his Bloody Mary before taking a bite from the celery stick.
    â€œNot everybody can afford to send their custom-made suits to the cleaners,” I said. “Some of us have to work for a living.”
    Washington is full of well-dressed men—lawyers, lobbyists, lawmakers—but even in DC, Joe stands out. His suits come from London and his shoes from Italy. The links in his French cuffs always match his tie, and the snowy-white handkerchief peeking from his pocket matches the thick, perfectly coiffed shock of snowy-white hair on his head. He is as dapper as I am disheveled and twenty-five years my senior. Our only common interests are politics and baseball. And yet, we are friends. In fact, Joe Feeney may be the best friend I have.
    I’ve always found it easier to relate to men than to women. Even when I was growing up, the only girl I was really close to was Alice. She always watched out for me. Now I watch out for her, which I’m glad to do. After all, I owe her. But that’s not the same thing as friendship, is it?
    Joe is a better listener, and gives better advice on everything from career and romance to nutrition and fashion, than any woman I know. Plus, he doesn’t get his feelings hurt when I choose to ignore that advice. Nor does he gossip. He can hold his liquor and his tongue and looks good escorting me to weddings and New Year’s Eve parties when I’m between boyfriends—what more could I want?
    â€œWhat’s in the news?” I asked, nodding toward his discarded newspaper. “I didn’t have time to turn on the computer before I left the apartment.”
    Joe flipped over a section of the paper and cleared his throat. “It says here that Women for a Better Tomorrow is endorsing Tom Ryland for president. Sounds like somebody had a successful trip to New York.”
    I shrugged off his praise. “Getting them to endorse a month ago would have been a success. At this point, it’s just averting disaster.”
    â€œAverting disaster is success,” Joe said. “But you went to New York and calmed everybody down. Disaster averted and Tom Ryland is still in the fight.”
    â€œIn it,” I said, shifting back in my seat as the waiter set a plate in front of me, “but trailing by three points.”
    Joe gave me a look over the rim of his coffee cup. “Quinnipiac says it’s five.”
    â€œQuinnipiac is wrong. They’re not giving enough weight to the new voter registration. Or to voters under thirty.”
    â€œVoters under