Chapter 11 - Marguerite’s Fundraiser
Marguerite Ashford returned to public life in the form of a literacy fundraiser.
That was what Nora called to tell me, although her voice suggested she had considered describing it as a haunting.
“She’s chairing it?” I asked.
“Co-chairing,” Nora said. “Apparently full chair was too optimistic after the wedding video.”
I sat on my apartment floor surrounded by paint samples because I had decided my living room needed to stop looking like a place where I was waiting for something to resume.
“What’s the cause?”
“Adult literacy and workforce development.”
I stared at the phone.
Then Nora said, “I know.”
Workforce development.
A woman who had moved my mechanic father outside the principal visual field was now placing her name on a program meant to honor working adults bettering their lives.
The irony was so neat it looked professionally arranged.
“I’m not going,” I said.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Good.”
“I’m going.”
That made me sit up.
“Nora.”
“I’m on the junior committee. I was before the wedding. And I’m tired of women like Marguerite using charity as perfume.”
There was something in her voice I hadn’t heard before.
Not gossip.
Resolve.
“What are you going to do?”
“Ask questions.”
“Nora.”
“Public ones.”
I stood.
“That sounds satisfying and dangerous.”
“Only socially.”
“In your world, that counts.”
She laughed.
Two days later, a video reached me before breakfast.
Not viral exactly.
Local.
Sharp.
Nora stood at a podium in a pale green dress, looking composed enough to pass for harmless. Marguerite sat behind her with the frozen smile of a woman being filmed from too many angles.
Nora thanked the donors, the volunteers, the adult students, the instructors, and the families who had made difficult schedules work around jobs and children.
Then she said, “My uncle Frank Miller could not be here tonight, but I want to mention him.”
My hand flew to my mouth.
Nora continued.
“He owns an auto repair shop near Toledo. He has helped working families keep transportation long enough to keep jobs, attend night classes, pick children up from school, and survive emergencies most people in this room solve with a phone call. People like him are not outside the principal visual field of community work. They are the reason it exists.”
The room clapped.
Not everyone.
Enough.
Marguerite’s face did not move for two full seconds.
Then she clapped too.
Slowly.
Because cameras were watching.
My father called me that night.
“Did you know Nora was going to do that?”
“No.”
He was quiet.
“She said my name.”
“Yes.”
“At a fancy thing.”
“Yes.”
He cleared his throat.
“Your mother cried.”
“I did too.”
“She said principal visual field sounded like something on an eye chart.”
I laughed.
Dad did too.
Then his voice softened.
“Tell Nora thank you.”
“She knows.”
“Tell her anyway.”
So I did.
Nora replied:
Tell Uncle Frank he was the best thing in that room and he wasn’t even there.
I forwarded it to Dad.
He sent back a thumbs-up emoji because he had recently learned how and was now a menace.
That evening, I painted one wall in my living room a dark, unreasonable blue.
Not because Marguerite existed.
May you like
Because my life did.
And I was tired of beige people deciding which colors belonged.
