American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page A

come to your meeting, if it’s not at a time when I’m working.”
      “I hope it isn’t,” he said. The smile got broader—she’d given in. She might almost have let him take her to bed. He went on, “We hold them Saturday afternoons, so most people can use the half-holiday.” Sylvia sighed again. “All right, though heaven only knows how I’ll get my shopping done—or why you think your people want to listen to me.”
      “Don’t worry about your shopping,” Kennedy said, which had to prove he didn’t do much for himself.
      “And people want to hear you because you took action. You saw a wrong and you fixed it. Teddy Roosevelt would be proud of you. Even the Socialists had to take notice of the justice in what you did.
      And I’ll be by to pick you up Saturday afternoon at one o’clock, if that’s all right.”
      “I suppose so,” Sylvia said, still more than a little dazed. Joe Kennedy tipped his homburg and went on his way. Sylvia checked the mailbox in the lobby of her block of flats, found nothing but advertising circulars, and walked up three flights of stairs to her apartment.
      “What took you so long, Mother?” George, Jr., asked. He was thirteen now, which seemed incredible to her, and looked more like his dead father every day. Mary Jane, who was ten, was frying potatoes on the coal stove.
      “I ran into a man,” Sylvia answered. “He wants me to talk at the Democratic club’s ward meeting. His wife will keep an eye on you two while I’m gone.” She went to the icebox and got out the halibut steaks she’d fry along with the potatoes. Mary Jane still wasn’t up to main courses.
      “Saturday afternoon? I won’t be here anyway,” George, Jr., said.
      “What? Why not?” Sylvia asked.
      “Because I got a job carrying fish and ice down on T Wharf, that’s why.” Her son looked ready to burst with pride. “Thirty-five cents an hour, and it lets me get started, Ma.” Slowly, Sylvia nodded. “Your father started on T Wharf right about your age, too,” she said. People who caught fish in Boston almost always started young. But George, Jr., suddenly didn’t seem so young as all that. He was old enough to have convinced someone to hire him, anyhow.
      He said, “I’ll bring all my money home to you, Ma, every penny. Cross my heart and hope to die if I don’t. I won’t spend a bit on candy or pop or anything, honest I won’t. I know we need it. So did the fellow who hired me. He asked if I was Pa’s boy, and when I said yes he gave me the job right there. His name’s Fred Butcher.”
      “Oh, yes. I know him—you’ve met him, too, you know.” Sylvia nodded again. “He used to go out with your father on the Ripple . He was first mate in those days, and he’s done well for himself since.”
      “As soon as I can, Ma, I’ll go out and make money,” Mary Jane promised, adding, “I don’t much like school anyway.”
      “You need to keep going a while longer,” Sylvia said sternly. She rounded on her son. “And so do you.
      If you study hard, maybe you can get a good job, and you won’t stay down on T Wharf your whole life.” She might as well have spoken Chinese. Staring at her in perfect incomprehension, George, Jr., said,
      “But I like it down on T Wharf, Ma.”
      Sylvia flipped the halibut steaks with a spatula. She thought about explaining why all the backbreaking jobs associated with the fishing weren’t necessarily good choices, but she could tell he wouldn’t listen.
      His father wouldn’t have, either. She didn’t start a fight she had no hope of winning. Instead, she just said, “Supper will be ready in a couple of minutes. Go wash your hands, both of you.” Joe Kennedy and his wife knocked on the door that Saturday afternoon a few minutes after Sylvia got home. Rose Kennedy was pretty in a bony way, and more refined than Sylvia had expected. She did warm up, a little, to Mary Jane. “You’re sweet, dear. Will we be