Movement by Valerie Miner Read Free Book Online Page B

healthy.
    Hilary rang the next day, at the worst possible time. Into that damn consciousness raising trip. But she was so funny when she got sarcastic about Harry. Susan really wanted to laugh. Instead, she defended Harry, “Nonsense, Hilary. He’s totally committed to the struggle. This paper is his life.”
    â€œThen he better start making funeral arrangements,” said Hilary. “If The Artisan survives, it’s your doing. You’re responsible for organizing the mockup, for convincing the contributors to stick around, for getting Colson to reconsider publishing. Everyone knows it.”
    â€œEnough high drama,” said Susan. “Sometimes I wonder how much you defend me just because I’m a woman. Anyway, enough , because I’ve got to get back to work.”
    â€œAll right, kid. If things don’t work out on TA, though, you know you’ve always got a job in Montreal. Take care of yourself. Cheers.”
    Susan hung up and turned to the secretary, “Alice, could you hold all the calls for twenty minutes?”
    She spoke through the pots of drugged ferns. She hated that gas fire. If it did this to plants, what did it do to people? She stared past Alice, through the dingy window panes. The brick wall across the alley looked like the pointilism she had studied at the Art Gallery last term, the image was diffused, then discernible. She had been meaning to clean that window for months.
    The flaccid blond woman nodded politely from inside her National Enquirer, looked up and smiled obligingly, “OK, Mrs.… I mean, Susan. I’ll tell them you’re in a meeting.”
    It had taken Alice six weeks to call her Susan. But who was she to talk? It had taken her four months to call Harry, Harry. (The same thing happened with her mother-in-law. It would have been so much easier if she had said, “Call me ‘Mom,’ or ‘Mrs. Thompson,’ or ‘Ruth.’”) And he was characteristically indifferent the day she finally got up the nerve to say, “Harry, I think.…”
    â€œWe should work on the logo and the pages,” she said as she entered his office, “if we’re going to get them in by Friday, don’t you think?”
    â€œYes, yes. And the solicitor’s coming. Can you tie those things up for me. I’ve got some work to do on the censorship piece. Perhaps you could come in after lunch?”
    â€œSure, Harry.”
    She got a good start and didn’t want to break for lunch. When people asked Susan why she worked so hard she explained that in a dotty way, she believed in The Artisan , “Canada’s radical literary forum.” Their coverage of Indochina was closely read. She was proudest of the space they gave to trade union politics, to non-intellectuals, breaking down media exclusivity. She felt like she was helping to change things, not directly, but by being a resource for people who could.
    Harry didn’t buzz her that afternoon. Just as well because she had to work into the evening editing. Harry hated multiple reviews, but she was glad she had suggested juxtaposing the books on Canadian and Irish nationalism. Anyway, he would like the critiques of The Female Eunuch. The writer showed how women’s liberation was a bourgeois deviation from class struggle. If they continued all this nitpicking about who ran meetings, nothing would get done. Hilary would scream “Leftist chauvinism,” but Susan agreed with the article. What was wrong with complimenting a man’s work at home or in the office, if it were all part of the same struggle? What was wrong with typing, for instance? It had been her entree to university politics where she met Guy and into TA, itself.
    The telephone resonated in the empty room. She hesitated. She didn’t want to get home late again.
    â€œSeñor Harry Simpson, por favor.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” she scrambled for her California Spanish,