Day 5

Okay, so Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the race, leaving us to choose from two old white males. Wow. I know I’m excited, right? Something so…new? So bold? So…yeah. So I was inspired to write tonight’s story, about a time in the future when women gather to celebrate…what? Read and find out. I dedicate this story to Elizabeth…and Amy…and Kamala…and Tulsi…and, of course, Hillary.

100

The room was dark and welcoming. Klyra closed the door and stood with her back to it, blocking out the noise and light from the living room. She inhaled and closed her eyes, then slipped into the bathroom. The bottle was where she had put it, stuck behind piles of towels, and she poured a small glass with trembling hands. This was just too much for her. She needed to rest. She needed a vacation.

Aldona pushed open the door and peered into the room. She noticed the light in the bathroom and slipped in, holding out a glass for her own liquid fire. The women didn’t speak, just sipped in silence until Meluna joined them. Three women…three friends…doing things together like they always had. They didn’t need to speak. Everyone knew what the other was thinking.

Meluna broke the silence first. She sighed. “100”, she said. “100.”

“100”, Aldona repeated. “Can you believe it?”

Klyra kicked the door, her rage no longer able to be controlled. “Why”, she sputtered. “Why are we celebrating?”

“Because it’s 100”, Aldona said, somehow managing to utter the words without irony or bitterness.

Klyra turned her back to her friends so they wouldn’t see her pouring a second glass. Aldona reached her glass around for a refill; she knew her friend too well. She wasn’t going to tell on her, at least not if she got another glass herself. Klyra filled glasses all around and slipped the treasure back behind the pile of towels. She rummaged in the closet until she found the breath fresheners, and they gobbled them like candy. There would be real trouble if anyone smelled alcohol on their breath. With a living room full of women, some of them Beauregard’s Broads, they needed to be careful.

“Okay, so, it’s been 100 now”, Klyra said. “100 times women have run for president. Why are we celebrating?”

“Because…it’s been…100”, Meluna stammered. “It’s…astonishing…if you think about it.”

“Astonishing.” Klyra made it obvious from her voice that wasn’t the word she was going to use. “Astonishing that they can still find women to run. 100 elections. 400 years. Women running, women losing, women celebrating running and losing. Why do we do this?”

“Because it’s…what we do”, Aldona mumbled. “What would Beauregard do if there was no woman in the race?”

“He’d insult someone else”, Klyra retorted.

“Yeah, but who would he grab and kiss? Who would he fondle and pet?” Meluna didn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice this time. She had been woman number 95, offered up for the presidential nomination like so much meat, without the opportunity to say no. “If only I had known…”

“If you had know, you would still have done it”, Aldona said. “You love the attention. You wanted that beauty contest championship so bad…even though the grand prize was to run for president, you still insisted. You had to do it.”

“Yeah. I was a lot more stupid then.”

“Do you think there was really a time…” Aldona started. “No, of course not. That’s just…legend.”

“You mean, a woman actually getting the nomination? Getting votes? More than her own, I mean?” Klyra shook her head. “No way. I know, we all hear the legend, but that’s to keep us hoping…keep us behaving, in the hopes that some day, the men might let us…” She stopped. There was no point in going on. Men were not going to let women do anything.

Once upon a time…that was the story she heard as a little girl. Once upon a time, there was a woman…a great woman, a tall woman, a woman who had everything. Once upon a time, a woman ran for president, and actually got votes. In fact, some rumors claimed she got more votes than the male candidate. Klyra knew that couldn’t be true. I mean, if it were, she would have become president, right? It was so long ago, anything could have happened. The records were spotty that far back, because all the fake news sources got shut down, and now Beauregard was in charge of news…just like his daddy before him, and his daddy before him, all the way back to the beginning…the first of the line, someone known only as The Donald.

“I mean, let’s face it, if Ivanka couldn’t win all those times she ran…how could anyone else ever have had a chance? She lost to her own brothers…and they weren’t very bright, I heard.”

“Shhh. Don’t say that. You can’t talk about the First Family that way. Of course they were bright. They knew so much…things no one else knew.” Aldona looked behind her as though worried someone would hear.

“Do you think it’s true, though?” Klyra said out loud for the first time what she had wondered for years. “I mean, do you think there was a historical Ivanka? Or is she just legend?”

Meluna grabbed Klyra and pulled her to the bed to stuff her face in the pillow. “Don’t say that. What if someone hears?”

“No one will hear. This is my room. No one comes here but me…and you, now.”

“The walls have ears.” Aldona put her ear to the wall as if to demonstrate. “I don’t hear anything, but we need to be…careful.”

“Come on, get real. You aren’t really on board with all that Ivanka worship crap, are you?” Klyra looked at her friend with concern.

“I…let’s just say, I don’t want to get drummed out of the Ivanka Corps. If I get sent home, my family will make me get married. It’s my only hope for work. You know that. We have no other options.”

“Ivanka. Ivanka. Ivanka.” Meluna chanted the chant they opened every work day with, staring with glassy eyes at the ceiling as though looking into a hidden camera. “Ivanka. Ivanka. Ivanka.”

“Yeah. Ivanka. She couldn’t win the presidency, either. Everyone said…oh, yes, she’ll be our first woman president. Now we hear that every cycle, whoever wins the Miss America contest. You remember, Meluna, you were going to be our first woman president, right? Twenty years ago? And where are you now? Sitting behind a desk filing papers for Ivanka Corps because you don’t want to go home and be married off to some man your parents dig up for you, a second-rate specimen because you have hit the wall, and can’t get a good man anymore.”

“I never could get a good man. There aren’t any good men out there to be had.” Meluna snorted, the alcohol helping her relax and say what she really thought. “They’ve all been trained.”

“Beauregard Trump, president for life.” Aldona held her glass up in a toast. “You know he won’t ever lose an election. They never do. Every Trump that has ever run has won.”

“Yeah…until their own son runs against them. Then we switch Trumps, and move on.”

The women fell silent, thinking about the frenetic past few days as they planned the celebration of the hundredth time a woman had run for president. It was mostly a game, and they knew it, but it was a game they had to play. They were the only women in their set that hadn’t gotten married off young, and they had managed to prevent it only by keeping their mouths shut and working for Ivanka Corps. They were the only women there who were not disabled or old. Ivanka Corps was a sham, but it did provide work for women who couldn’t get married for no fault of their own. Though to hear Klyra’s mother tell it, any woman born with a disability had clearly done something wrong…or her mother had. You just don’t see good women looking like that, she always told Klyra.

Everyone of them had a mother with a man list in her drawer, just waiting for her daughter to fail and return home. Within a week of their return, they would be engaged to some man they barely knew. It was the only way for a woman to survive if she didn’t work for Ivanka Corps. So they kept their heads down and did their job. They had never heard those dread words that were painted on posters all over the walls: “You’re fired!”

Beauregard Trump was in his third term as president, after unseating his daddy twelve years ago. He had his team of loyalists, Beauregard’s Bros, they called them, who sought out all women who were uppity, and all men who failed to be loyal, and…well, Klyra didn’t know what they did with them. They just…disappeared. She and her friends were careful not to say anything they actually thought around any men, in case they were one of the Bros. They had to be careful around women, too; you couldn’t be too sure who was a member of Beauregard’s Broads, ready to turn in other women for wrong think.

Meluna peeked out, and the sounds of the party slammed into the room, bouncing off the walls and beating against Klyra’s ear drums. The latest candidate, the new Miss America, was officially announcing her candidacy tonight. Tomorrow, the news would be alive with the president’s response. No one would be waiting up for it. The only thing he would say is “Loser”. It’s all he ever said. Loudly. Some people claimed it was the only word he knew.

“Shh.” Meluna held her finger to her lips as she closed the door. “One of the Broads is looking this way. If she sees us in here, we’re done for.”

“Won’t people miss us?” Aldona worried.

“No one will notice we’re gone. They’ve got Miss 100, and that’s all they’re interested in. We can stay here a few minutes longer.” Klyra kicked off her shoes and put her feet on the bed. “I’m exhausted.”

“Were did you get the booze?” Meluna wanted to know.

“Can’t tell. Oh, yes, of course I trust you, but seriously, the walls do have ears. If someone finds out who provided a woman with alcohol…well, I wouldn’t want to be…him.”

Aldona settled beside Klyra, her shoes on the floor and her feet on the bed. “I wish we could know for sure.”

“Know what?”

“The legend…is it true? Did Hillary exist? Really, truly exist? Did she really get the nomination? Get more votes than just her own?”

“Don’t be silly. She was probably a Miss America, too, running just so the men could insult her and grab her and…” Klyra stopped at the look of pain in Meluna’s eyes. The expectations of a female presidential candidate were…painful. Humiliating. She didn’t want to hurt her friend.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if…” Aldona stopped.

“Yes, it would be nice if…” Meluna broke off.

None of the women spoke, not able to put into words what was going through all their minds. Wouldn’t it be nice if someday, some woman would be able to do more than just run for president? What if…what if a woman won? What if…women could be treated with respect? And dignity? The women were almost 40 now, and had a lifetime behind them of being grabbed and groped by men, of being forced to do things they didn’t want…and not just making sandwiches, Klyra thought grimly…but now that they had passed that age where men were interested, they were able to get some quiet moments to themselves, time to think and reflect. Time to dream.

Dreams. Hah. What were dreams for women? Husbands, babies…or, if you didn’t want to, or couldn’t, get married, working for Ivanka Corps. There was no where else, except for one woman every four years who got to run for president, be grabbed…and worse…by the president, insulted by men in public rallies, and drop out when the only primary vote you got was your own. When Klyra was young, she wanted to be that woman. She thought, yes, I could be president. I could so do that. Now she knew the game…and it was a game. A woman paraded on stage for men to look at, then ushered off. And women given the promise of seeing one of their own in the spotlight…again.

100. For 100 election cycles, starting with a woman 400 years ago named Hillary, a woman who was probably a legend, probably didn’t actually exist, but women needed to believe in her. They needed to believe in Hillary, and how close she came. Klyra tried and tried, but she couldn’t believe in Hillary any more. It wasn’t possible that any such woman ever existed.

“Well, I’m ready.” Klyra finished her breath freshener and stood. “We probably should get out there. It’s almost time for the speeches.” She slipped her feet back into her shoes, wincing as her toes scrunched into those points, and her heels lifted into the air. Surely it was possible to make a more comfortable shoe for women? More like what men wore? “Here, better give me those.”

She collected the glasses and threw them in the fire. It wouldn’t pay to have someone snoop around and find out women had alcohol. She slipped her arms into those of her friends, and they headed back to the party. It was a celebration, after all. A momentous occasion. The 100th time a woman had run for president.