Vivian Schurfranz - Laura

On July twenty-first, walking to headquarters, Laura thought all week about Joe’s enlistment. He would be a superb army medic, but it was a shame he couldn’t finish his schooling. How many of the men she loved was this war going to destroy? Frank was already dead, Michael was at the front, Shawn might be sent overseas, and so might Joe. What would happen to them? The morning newspaper reported that the Germans were pushing into the Allied lines at Amiens, Château-Thierry, and Saint-Mihiel. Never had she studied a map of France so closely. Marshal Foch admitted that the Allies' position was desperate, and he was depending on American troops to hold the line. Where was Michael in these vast troop movements? Was he still in a trench near Cantigny? Was he on the march? She prayed he would come home safe.

Well, she thought as she strode purposefully through the double doors, she had her own battle to fight today. This parade was drawing the battle lines between the suffragists and the President of the United States.

"Laura," Lucy Burns called out to her, "are you ready to be our lady in shining armor?"

"I’m ready," she called back cheerfully. "I’ve polished the armor until it will dazzle old Senator Shields."

"Three cheers!" Lucy exclaimed, holding up a clenched fist. "We’ll show them that we won’t give up!"

Laura hurried to the dressing room, for the parade would begin in an hour. Groups of women were holding banners, tuning band instruments, arranging flowers in each other’s hair, and lining up their placards.

Catching the excitement, Laura strapped on her leg armor, but before she could pick up the breastplate, Cassie hurried to her side.

"Let me help you, Laura." As Cassie moved toward her she adjusted the yellow sash across the chest of her white voile dress, looking slender and elegant as usual.

"I can use some help. This is heavy!" Together they lifted the armor over her head, and Cassie fastened the side straps.

"I hope I won’t embarrass anyone by falling off my horse," Laura said nervously. She straightened the armor. The metal would be hot on such a sunny July day, and she had to hold the purple, gold, and white banner high, plus sit on her horse straight and tall. "I haven’t been on a horse for two years, Cassie. I don’t know how I’ll handle the charger."

"You haven’t ridden since your father died, right?" Cassie asked softly, handing her the mail gauntlets.

Laura nodded, finding it difficult to speak. Her weekend horseback rides with her father were among her fondest memories. "Dad used to take me to the stables every Sunday." Then she stopped, not being able to speak of the painful memory of their Sunday canters through the park. She remembered that glorious September morning, she on her chestnut mare, and her dad on his bay gelding. It was after that last ride when her father dismounted at the stables that he had complained of chest pains. Later that night he suffered his fatal heart attack.

"I’d better go out and try mounting the horse," she said in a tight voice. She didn’t look at Cassie, only grasped her rolled banner and headed outside.

"Good luck," Cassie called after her.

"Thanks, Cassie, I’ll need it."

Her great white stallion, although beautiful and pawing the ground, was fortunately gentle. She mounted and unfurled her banner, which, unlike Joan of Arc’s standard with the dauphin’s royal emblem, bore only three words: EQUALITY FOR WOMEN.

Starting at the Capitol with trumpets blaring, the dazzling parade began. A contingent of women dressed in white with yellow sashes each carried a purple banner. A long line of yellow taxicabs, the suffragist color, had signs on the doors proclaiming: VOTES FOR WOMEN. A band played "America, America" with Laura leading the procession. Her heart was beating faster than the drum’s tempo. The great white horse pranced and bobbed his head in a stately gait, and she found that her old riding skills were not forgotten.

Past the District Building, the Willard Hotel, and the Treasury Building they marched. Crowds lined both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, cheering wildly as she rode past. Flowers were everywhere — strewn in their path, in the marchers' hair, on her horse’s bridle, and small bouquets on the taxi hoods. How different this parade was from the parade of five years ago that she had read about, she thought, as she kept her head high and her eyes steadily ahead on the Capitol dome. Today they had flowers thrown at them instead of tomatoes, and they no longer had to fight their way through mobs of unruly hecklers. Today the leafy branches of the trees seemed to welcome them forward.

She wore a silver helmet, but it couldn’t hide her lovely hair, which fell loosely around her shoulders. Even though the sun glinted off her armor, she didn’t feel uncomfortable — only proud to be bearing the standard of the suffragists. When the trumpets sounded and her banner snapped smartly in the wind, she felt as if her heart would burst.

Reaching Lafayette Square in front of the White House, the women congregated to listen to Alice Paul. Laura’s armor was beginning to chafe, and her horse had to be led through the huge clusters of women. She was thirsty and wished she were dressed in her own clothes. She craned her neck. Where was Miss Paul? She was supposed to speak now. All of a sudden her eyes focused on another figure — Shawn! He was threading his way through the crowd toward her. She wasn’t hard to spot, she thought ruefully, in her cumbersome armor, a plume waving above her helmet.

"Hi, sweetness!"

"Shawn! What a surprise!" She couldn’t hide the fact that she was pleased at his unexpected appearance.

"I caught a glimpse of you in the parade, my warrior maiden. You looked very regal." He winked broadly. "Too bad there wasn’t a battle for you to fight."

"Miss Paul is about to speak. Please," she coaxed, "stay and hear her."

"No thanks. I have better things to do with my time." He smiled warmly into her eyes and took her hand; however, he soon pulled it back. "Do me a favor," he said, "and take those metal gloves off."

She chuckled, removing the gauntlets.

He took her hand again. "That’s better. Look," he said earnestly, "it’s not too late to go to the dance. It’s near here, only over at Blair House, and it’s the social event of the summer. Please," he wheedled, his hand squeezing hers.

Gazing into his expectant face, she patted her horse’s nose and shook her head. "You just don’t give up, do you, Shawn?" She hesitated, then abruptly said, "All right. I’ll make a bargain with you."

He cocked an eyebrow upward and grinned. "Anything for thee, fair maiden."

"If you’ll stay and listen to Miss Paul I’ll go to the dance with you." At the sight of his frown she hastened to add, "Her talks are always short." She wanted to add "and inspiring" but thought better of it.

Shawn’s eyes sparkled. "You’ve got yourself a deal, but don’t expect me to become a convert."

"Oh, I won’t." She laughed, but she secretly gave him a sidelong glance, for that’s exactly what she hoped would happen. Miss Paul could sway anyone to her way of thinking.

There was a drumroll, and Miss Paul jumped up on a flower-decorated cart that had been in the parade.

As Laura predicted Miss Paul’s speech was short. The applause was loud and long. Then the band struck up the "Star Spangled Banner."

Miss Paul lightly leaped to the ground.

Lucy Burns next hoisted herself up on the cart. "Ladies, we’ll go back to Headquarters, where Mrs. John Melmon has sent in a catered dinner."

"Too bad you’ll miss the dinner," Shawn said.

"Yes, I would have liked to have gone." She looked at Shawn’s crestfallen face. "But I’ll have to go with you to the dance and have a good time instead. Besides, I can’t wait to get out of this armor!"

He chuckled. "You do look pretty ridiculous."

She frowned with annoyance.

"Hey! No frowns tonight." He leaned over and put his arm around her waist. "I just meant you’d look much more attractive in your lavender dress"—he gave her a lazy look—"and much easier to touch." He gave the back of her armor a sharp reverberating knock.

"Oh, Shawn," she said, laughing, "you’re impossible."

"I know," he said, winking again. "It’s the devil in me." He sobered. "Listen, I need to drive General Long to Blair House in twenty minutes. I’ll pick you up around eight-thirty. How does that sound?"

"Fine. I’ll be dressed and waiting in my lavender dress."

But as she returned the horse to the stable and hurried home, she suddenly felt she wasn’t doing the right thing. The suffragist dinner, the culmination of the whole exciting day, was important, and she had planned to attend. How could Shawn always coax her into veering off in an opposite direction than the one she had planned? She shook her head, feeling that she had been manipulated again, yet the decision had been hers, so why did she have this niggling doubt in the back of her mind?

Later, as she and Shawn climbed the steps leading to Blair House, she thought how much fun she was going to have attending a dance in this wonderful old mansion. How its rosy bricks and white trim shone in the pale carriage lights! It was fitting that this was the State Department’s guest house for foreign dignitaries. And this week, in honor of an Arab emir, the green shutters were thrown wide and she could see through the lace curtains that the dancers were circling and swaying to the music that drifted out over the oleander bushes and magnolia trees.

As she glided across the polished dance floor, inlaid with dark and light woods, and had Shawn’s arms around her, she felt lighthearted, but not lighthearted enough to forget where she should have been.