The Four Ms.

Bradwells A NOVEL Meg Waite Clayton T B A L L A N T I N E N E W B O O K S Y O R K

This is a work of ction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product s of the authors imagination or are used ctitiously. Any resemblance to actual eve nts, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright 20 11 by Meg Waite Clayton All rights reserved. Published in the United States by B allantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Graywolf Press for perm ission to reprint Let Evening Come from Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon, copyright 2005 by The Estate of Jane Kenyon. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press, Mi nneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-P ublication Data Clayton, Meg Waite. The four Ms. Bradwells: a novel / Meg Waite Clayton. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-345-51708-1 eBook ISBN 978-0-345-52435-5 1. Female fr iendshipFiction. 2. Middle-aged womenFiction. 3. United States. Supreme Court.Of cial s and employeesSelection and appointmentFiction. 4. JudgesSelection and appointmentU nited StatesFiction. 5. SecretsFiction. I. Title. II. Title: 4 Ms. Bradwells. PS36 03.L45F68 2011 813 .6dc22 2010033479 Printed in the United States of America on a cid-free paper www.ballantinebooks.com 246897531 First Edition Book design by Vi ctoria Wong

Mia ROOM 216, THE HART BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 Be t t s is sit t ing alone at a table with two untouched water cups, the pen I gave her the day we graduated from law school, a clean legal pad, and a micropho ne. On the dais, one of nineteen senators talks his way toward a question he has nt arrived at quite yet. Cameras whir mercilessly as photographers on the oor betw een them vie for the better angle, capturing the small fatty deposit on Bettss fr eckled face, her perky mouth and shattered-crystal eyes. The chair she sits in i s poorly chosen; her square divers shoulders, in a suit the washed driftwood gray of her hair, fail to top its leather back. Still, she looks impressive as she l eans toward the microphone, listening in the same intent way she has always list ened to Ginger and Laney and methe way we all need to be heard. The senators voice booms, You were born in an Eastern Bloc country, Professor Zhukovski, a communis t child of communist parents, as if this is something she might not have realized . The photographers edge closer on the journalistic racing pit of a oor, none pau sing for fresh batteries or different lenses. Television cameras, too, peer down from booths in the side walls, relentlessly recording each intake of breath. At least the TV cameras are shooting me from above, Betts had joked over the phone a few nights ago. The still photographers are shooting right at my crepey old neck . My own crepey old neck feels warm and moist as I stand at the back of the room, behind the computer-laden tables of reporters. Betts has already answered a wee ks worth of questions, though, sticking to the script. She praised Brown v. Board and deplored Dred Scott and Korematsu, uttered right to privacy and stare decisis w hile avoiding abor-

4 M E G WA I T E C L AY T O N tion, gay rights, and guns. Shes managed to appear to answer every question without ac tually stating a single view, all while demonstrating that she has great judgmen t without ever having been a judge. And the committee vote is scheduled for Tues day, with the full Senate expected to con rm. How are we supposed to believe, Profe ssor Zhukovski, the senator asks nally, that a communist child of communist parents is the best person in this whole free country to be the arbiter of our laws? Bet ts smiles warmly. My mother, a doctor in Poland, scrubbed oors here . . . she respo nds, her voice rolling gently against the senators snap. A softer sort of self-po ssession than she uses in her classroom is called for here, where the minds she is working to win over are still overwhelmingly older, and white, and male. Scru bbed toilets, Id suggestedwords met with a long, expensive, overseas-line silence before Betts had responded, Youll be surprised when your mom dies, Mia, how much h er dignity means to you. Shes taken my advice, though, I realize with a small meas ure of triumph: shes gotten a friendly senator to ask about the Widow Zhukovski ee ing Poland with Baby Betts in a way that doesnt seem friendly. And the gang back here in the press gallery is taking copious notes. My mother actually would have made an amazing justice, Betts says. A fact she would not have hesitated to tell y ou. The senators laugh easily, as does the audience, the stenographer, and even t he press. I was on assignment when Betts called to ask me to come for this weeke nd; wed practically had to shout to be heard over the rickety line. So let me get this straight, Betts, Id teased her. You want me to y back from Madagascar? Madagasc ar, thats off the coast of Africa, you know that, right? To hold your hand while you worry over a Senate con rmation there isnt a shred of doubt youll get. My crystal ball must be murkier than yours, Mia, she said, her laugh as cozy as the room wed shared in N Section of the Law Quad our rst year, as comfortable as the couch on the porch of the house wed shared with Laney and Ginger our second and third. Id s lipped my camera strap over my neck and set the Holga aside, laughing with her. Betts, the Funny One. Ginger, the Rebel. Laney, the Good Girl. And me, the Savan t.

THE FOUR MS. BRADWELLS 5 Or else . . . Hmmm, she said, maybe no one is exactly a slam dunk for the Supreme C ourt? Laney had told her Id be back home that week anyway. They want to meet in D.C . for the hearings and then train up to New York for the weekend, she said. I told them they could come for the last afternoon. The part where my supporters make me sound like Superjudge. And she laughed again. Betts is always the rst to laugh at her little jokes. Were thinking Les Miz Friday night, she added. No doubt well be seeing something about a bad mother on Saturday if we let Ginger choose. Maybe not , now that Faith is gone. Then, with a crack in her voice, God, Mi, I wish Matka h ad lived to see this. Matka, Betts always called her mom, the only Polish word she was allowed outside the songs she sang in church, and in church she usually play ed her zhaleika. Here in front of the Judiciary Committee, though, she calls her my mother. I stick my hands in my pockets, feeling the cut of waistband, the litt le roll mushrooming over the top of my slacks as I head for three open seats in the back row. I settle into one of them, imagining Faith and Mrs. Z both cheerin g wildly together in whatever momheaven might exist. Be t ts is finishing speaki ng in her short, straightforward sentences her rehearsed immigrant-widow speech, sh e would call this, although shes avoiding hyphenating herewhen the click of high h eels sounds. A young woman edges through the crowded room to whisper to a senato r we in the press call Milwaukees Finest for his professed love of his home states B latz Beer over the Russian vodka he really drinks. Im reminded, oddly, of the Wiz ard of Oz as he turns toward her, his gaze as dull-eyed as my editorsmy ex-editors, now that he let me go, as if Id just been waiting for his permission to lose my jo b. My ex-editor. My ex-paper. My ex-husband and my ex-almost anc. What a fool I am not to have made time to see Doug this weekend. At the dais, Milwaukee covers th e chairmans microphone and whispers, the creased lines around his narrow eyes lea ving me wondering if my own eyes are as lined as his are, as lined as Bettss, too , above her pearls. Leaving me wishing my budget allowed for Gingers expensive fa cials and creamsa smell trigger, I realize, as Ginger throws her arm

6 M E G WA I T E C L AY T O N around me, not a hug so much as a coachs arm drape. The soft fabric of her quilte d winter white wool jacket tickles against my skin. I turn back her collar to re ad the label: Kamila. I love the buttons, I say. Her slight overbite disappears in to a double-wide grin. Found-ebony wood chips, she says. Fair trade. Eco-conscious . Fruit of the gods. You can borrow it this weekend. Evoking memories of the four of us sharing medium-sized Fair Isle sweaters, raiding each others closets before parties and dates. Laney slides her long legs gracefully into the empty seat be side Ginger, whispering, Mi, and reaching across her to grasp my hand. I pull us a ll into a three-way hug. If you two had been much later, I say, youd have missed the whole show. The guy in front of us shoots me a look. God, its so good to see you b oth! I say more quietly, trying to tuck my rush of joy at being with them again i nto a smaller voice. Ginger presses a folded scrap of paper into my handa faded o ld Juicy Fruit gum wrapper. I extract my reading glasses, a bamboo frame that co st next to nothing in China, and examine the tight loops of blue ink on the back side, Gingers angular, almost illegible scrawl. Laney takes the gum wrapper and r eads without the need of glasses as I remember the four of us studying together in the Law School Reading Room, the hush unbroken but for the occasional thwick of a page turned in frustration, the scrape of a metal chair, the hushed swoosh of the revolving doors, and, if you listened closely enough, the tick of a small folded gum-wrapper note hitting the table in front of Laney or Betts or Ginger or me, like a spitball hitting home. Gum-wrapper humor-fortunes like this one, w hich reads: LAW QUADRANGLE NOTES, September 2018: Elsbieta (Betts) Zhukovski ( JD 8 2) has been appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the rst woman and the rs t foreign-born justice to be appointed to the countrys most important legal post. The line to kiss up to her forms outside N-32. Shes already missed rst woman justi ce, Ginger whispers. By decades. The chairman announces a ve-minute recess, and the photographers

THE FOUR MS. BRADWELLS 7 reach for new batteries and memory chips while, behind us, reporters tweet quick recaps. Youre forgetting the Chief business, Ginge. Laneys Southern accent soft and warm and proud. Betts could still be the rst lady Chief. Shes got years before that silly gum-wrapper 2018. I swallow against a scratch in my own throat, envy too s tingy to voice. Ive always been as jealous of Betts as Ginger is. Not of her smar ts so much as her discipline, her courage to imagine she might actually get what she wants. Female Chief, Ginger says. Lets not be expecting proper, ladylike behavi or from Betts when we dont require the male justices to be gentlemen. A real-life J ustice Bradwell, I manage nally. Not made of stone. Laneys dark ngers smooth the folds in the wrapper. Fifty-someyear-old ngers, fty-some-year-old hands, but her short nails unbitten now, there is that. Her teeth arent as white as they once were and she has a few smile lines at her eyes and mouth, but the only place she shows h er age in a real way is in her hands, bony and unevenly colored, lighter splotch es against her African American skin where I have darker spots on my own Irish p ale. I suppose shes imagining, as I am, what a real Law Quadrangle magazine alumn i update might look like after the full Senate vote: Elsbieta (Betts) Zhukovski (JD 82) has been appointed to the United States Supreme Court, following in the steps of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for whom Ms. Zhukovski cle rked on the D.C. Circuit. One of us would write the note for her. Weve written every one of each others alum ni notes ever since Isabelle was born and Zack died in the same few short weeks and Betts, whod somehow managed through it all, broke down over the writing of th is irrelevant announcement. How do I do this? she wanted us to tell her. How do I a nnounce in fty words or less that my daughter is born and my husband is dead? The bones of her wrists as fragile as Zacks had been, as if shed gone through chemothe rapy with him: an aggressive form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, dead at twenty-nine. It had been, surprisingly, Ginger who had put her arm around Bettss shoulder and said so soothingly she might have been reading a favorite poem, Let me, Betts. Le t me do this for

8 M E G WA I T E C L AY T O N you, this one small thing. Its something weve done for each other ever since, too: set out the words to announce each others joys and sorrows to the world. Or joys, really. Only joys, not sorrows. Betts would never have thought to submit a clas s note about Zacks death if it hadnt so closely coincided with Izzys birth. We dont ever announce bad news in the alumni magazine. Ginger didnt submit anything the f all she was passed over for partner, any more than I did when I divorced. And I sure dont plan to submit a class note announcing Ive been red. If I nd a new jobwhen I nd oneLaney or Betts or Ginger will compose a note that makes it appear Ive moved up in the world, even if I havent. Thats the way of alumni notes. Betts is wearing your mamas black pearls, Laney realizes in a whisperyour mama being Gingers mom and t he pearls not really black so much as unmatched shades of gray tinted silver-gre en and blue and eggplant, with a looped white-gold clasp now resting at the base of Bettss throat. Theyre the good-luck pearls I wore to the Crease Ball our rst ye ar at Michigan, and Laneys something borrowed on her wedding day. Next to my own skin , her pearls, Ginger says in what Betts calls her look-how-well-I-quote-poetry voic e. I dont remember ever seeing the pearls on Betts, but they look better on her th an on any of us; its the hair color, I think, the echo of gentle gray. Shes too th in again. She could stand to participate in one of those paczki-eating contests from her childhoodthose celebrations of the Polish jelly doughnut Betts swears is not a doughnut. Its the stress, of course: the months of interviews and backgrou nd checks, and the worry shed lose the nomination to someone with judicial experi encenot that she regrets having stayed in Ann Arbor for her daughters sake. Then t he weeks of holing up in a windowless room at the White House, crafting answers to every question the staffers could imagine, then practicing them again and aga in and again. And now the daily hearings, the cameras and questions, the news cl ips, a short few words taken out of context, replayed at 5:00 and 6:00 and 10:00 , and then again on the morning shows. Bettss con rmation may very well be as secur e as I think it is, but that doesnt make good press. We should make Betts color th at hair this weekend, Ginger says as she smoothes the cowlick at my right temple into submission. Let me do

THE FOUR MS. BRADWELLS 9 this for you, this one small thing. That gorgeous auburn it was before Zack died. Im liking the gray, Laney says, and I agree. Bettss refusal to color it is an odd fo rm of penance, as if colorless hair could make up for not having loved Zack enou gh to keep him alive. Ginger needs to let her be. So you both like the gray on Be tts, but not on yourselves? Ginger says. Betts beats us all the way to heaven at b eing smarter, Laney says. Surely shed allow us prettier, Ginge. I reach across Ginge r to touch Laneys hair, which, after twenty- ve years of being chemically straighte ned and shoulder-length, has been allowed to reclaim its natural spring. It fram es the curves of her jaw in loose rings of dark curls her face has clearly wante d all along. I love this, I say, meaning the hair, I think. Betts isnt smarter, Ginge r says. Just more disciplined. Laney and I lean our heads on Gingers quilted winter white shoulders. Youre right. Youre right, Ginger says. Smarter, too. I can admit th at now: Betts is smarter than me. Laney and I each pat one soft, black-wooled kne e of our dear, not always so humble friend as Milwaukees Finest requests and rece ives permission to ask one last question. But not you two. I get to be second sma rtest, Ginger says, ngering an ebony button. Damn, Betts is really going to do this , isnt she? Mrs. Zhukovski, Milwaukee says. Ginger, Laney, and I all whisper, Ms. in u nison and smile at each other as if the shared thought is a shiny penny found he ads up. Professor, I whisper. The cameras, as quiet as they are these days, snap o ff each moment as though any single shot might capture the whole of whats happeni ng here, rather than distorting it. The TV cameras roll on, delivering every ble mish in detail so the folks at home can wonder why Betts doesnt have that little fatty deposit removed. The thought crosses my mind that Justice Sotomayor might never have been con rmed if her wise Latina woman comment had been caught on lm. Visu als are so powerful, even when theyre untrueor only a piece of the truth that, tak en alone, is a lie. I sit up straighter, leaning forward, wanting suddenly to wa rn Betts to

10 M E G WA I T E C L AY T O N be careful here: Milwaukee is sporting an expression like the one shed dubbed Prof essor Pooleys youre-about-to-be-called-on stare, but without the humorous underlay. My hands go icy, my neck and my feet, too, my spine. Like the shock of that rst plunge into the Chesapeake all those years ago. Mrs. Zhukovski, Milwaukee repeats, Id like to ask you what you know about a death that occurred in the spring of 198 2, at a home in Maryland where I believe you were a guest? Oh, shit, Ginger saysmerc ifully not before the silent blink of the crowd absorbing the question gives way to a collective murmur, the photographers surging forward as even the senators exhale their surprise. I take Gingers hand and squeeze it. She looks startled, bu t if she was going to say more, she doesnt. She links hands with Laney, and we wa tch as Betts, oddly, unlatches the clasp at her throat and lets the pearl neckla ce slide into her hand. Every moment of the gesture is caught in a shutter snap: a single manicured nail ipping the catch; her competent ngers opening the necklac e; the gray globes of pearls following the white-gold loop into her palm. She nge rs the dark blue-gray end pearl, worrying it between thumb and fore nger as if say ing a Hail Mary over rosary beads. The adviser sitting behind her looks like hes praying for divine intervention, as does Senator Friendly up on the dais, but Be tts looks unfazed. She doesnt even seem to realize shes removed the pearls. For a moment, I think she is going to stand to answer the senators question, the way we were required to stand to answer in law school. I think removing the pearls mus t have something to do with this. She doesnt stand, though. She remains in her ch air. She leans forward from the seat back that is higher than her shoulders, mov ing closer to the microphone. She smiles the way she smiles when you stumble upo n her doing yoga on her screen porch in the morning: a little embarrassed, but s omehow more for you than for her. And in the same soft, self-possessed voice she and I rehearsed again and again over the telephonea voice even I almost believesh e says, Senator, I dont believe I have anything to add to the public record on tha t.

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