Lost in Translation Page 0,30

position in the head office in Washington is open. For you." He beamed.

"Horace." She stared, stricken, the words all mashed up in her throat. "I can’t work for you."

"Now, honey, I know what you’re thinking. Working for Daddy!"

My God, she thought.

"But you won’t report to me, or Roger. We have it all worked out—"

"No," she interrupted. "It’s impossible. I can’t be around your life, your people. The things you stand for." If there was one thing she knew by then, by age twenty-two, it was that she had to get far away and stay away. Here in his world she was trapped in an intolerable corner, which seemed to grow tighter and tighter each year. And now no place in America felt right.

How clearly she remembered the night she’d first realized it.

She’d been only eleven then, exactly half her age on that day of college graduation. It was a regular dinner at the home of Janie Boudreau, her best friend from school. Alice was a frequent guest. She knew the Boudreaus felt sorry for her— there was no mother in Alice’s big house, only Horace and a housekeeper.

On this night Janie’s older cousin was there, visiting from Dallas. "So you’re the Alice, aren’t you?" He looked at her hard, through narrowed eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Well—you’re Horace Mannegan’s girl, aren’t you?"

"Yes." She glanced quickly at her friend. Janie’s eyes slid away.

"I knew it! You’re the one who didn’t want to go to school with colored kids, right?"

"No," Alice insisted. It hadn’t been her idea! Not her, never.

"Yeah—come on. I remember. You didn’t want to go to a mixed school! Then your father made that speech, then the riots got started, and that’s how those girls got killed."

"It wasn’t me," she pleaded. "I never said—"

"Of course it was you! You’re Alice Mannegan. Alice Mannegan! Right, Aunt Dee? Huh?"

"Yes, Jackson," Janie’s mother had said in a quietly stern voice. "But Alice is Janie’s friend. Let’s talk about something else. Come. Who wants dessert?"

By that point, though, a messy silence had squashed down over the table. Everyone avoided everyone else’s eyes. The meal scraped to a nauseated conclusion.

It was only the first time, the first of many. After that night she’d known she was doomed. And she was. She grew up in the center of it, everyone’s lightning rod for pity, loathing, fascination, the whole freight train of emotions that followed the charging tension between the races.

Now, packing up her dorm room at Rice, she looked at her father, stunned. What he was suggesting was horrible, unthinkable. And as usual he didn’t even see it.

"I can’t work for you! Sorry, but it’s out of the question. Everyplace I went I’d be the ’Alice’ from the ’Alice Speech’! Especially in Washington. I’d never get away from it."

"Alice!" He got up, disturbed, and circled his chair a couple of times. "That speech was years ago! And we were only trying to restore a little bit of what was so good about America, what this great country has lost—"

"Like slavery?" she said bitterly.

"Please," he said mildly, as if she referred to something that was simply a bygone fashion and not a searing fount of human shame. "All I did was make a speech. It’s not as if I went out and burned the Fourth Ward down."

What? Her mouth fell open.

Just then a giggling group of girls stopped outside the open door.

"It isn’t—"

"I told you, her father’s Horace Mannegan!"

"Alice, is that your daddy?"

"No," she said sullenly. "It’s Horace."

"See! I told you, it’s him."

"You go in!"

"You!"

"Mr. Mannegan, sir, may I have your autograph?" The girl had long honey-colored limbs, short blond hair, and a string of pearls over her pale green silk blouse. The hand that thrust the pen and paper toward him had perfectly manicured pink nails.

"Yes, of course, dear." Horace smiled benignly, uncapped his gold corporate-looking pen, and signed. "We’ll be counting on your support in the next election."

"Oh, yes! Yes, sir! My parents—we always vote for you, sir!"

"Good. Don’t ever give up on this great country of ours."

"No, sir!"

"Here. Anyone else?" He signed autographs for all of them.

"Thank you, sir! Bye, Alice!"

"Bye," she said, hating them.

Horace turned back to her the instant they were gone and she saw his composed, boardroom mask drop away and leave, in its place, a father’s hurt and confusion. "I always assumed you would come to work for me."

Alice closed her eyes.

"I need you, Alice. I ... depend on you."

"I know," she said. He depended on her to be the family