The Side of the Angels by Christina Bartolomeo, Kyoko Watanabe

here.”
    â€œAnger is okay, but it has to be
grieved
anger, principled anger, like the image people have of Florence Nightingale fighting for medical supplies for wounded soldiers in the Crimea. Motherly. Steadfast, calm, and caring. That’s the way to go, don’t you think?”
    Tony made a gagging motion with his finger.
    â€œCut it out. I told you I was right, Tony,” said the woman who was inking in signs. She had a funny little face, a strangely archetypal face that seemed oddly familiar. When I thought about it later, I realized it was the sort of face you see in a Colonial portrait. It was oblong with clearly delineated but sized-down features, and the small constant hint of a smile, severely restrained. She had light brown hair cut in astraight bob, capable hands with short nails, and a firm jaw and chin. I guessed her age at thirty-eight or so.
    â€œThis is Kate Kenney,” said Tony. “Kate, this is Nicky, our PR flack.”
    â€œHello. Good call about the signs. We’ve been fighting about this. And don’t get all prissy and displeased with me, Tony,” said Kate, shaking my hand in a parenthetical way. “Those slogans are way too inflammatory. We should get rid of them. There’s plenty of cardboard.”
    â€œI wrote them out myself,” said Tony. “It took me two hours.”
    â€œYou get an A-plus for printing well and staying in the lines,” said Kate. “I’ll bring you in a gold foil star tomorrow.”
    â€œFine,” said Tony. “Fine. We’ll be up until two A.M. the next three nights making more, but fine.”
    â€œWe’ll be up until two anyway,” she said, turning back to her work.
    â€œThis is my desk,” said Tony. He gestured toward a beat-up oak battleship from the 1940s. It looked like a stage prop from
His Girl Friday,
and it was inches from mine. I wouldn’t be able to cough or whisper without him hearing me.
    Do not react,
I said to myself. He’s trying to spook you. He wants you to bolt for Providence and hop on the next train you can find with a name like The Carolina Mockingbird, and not get off until you’re well over the Mason-Dixon line.
    He made a show of moving a stack of
Inside Labor
magazines off the top of my desk so that I could set down my portable computer.
    â€œI’ve been writing the strike newsletter myself,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll come up with some improvements.”
    â€œThat’s what you pay me for. But it doesn’t look half bad.”
    Weingould had given me copies.
    â€œWho’s doing layout for you on the newsletter right now? Did you learn a desktop program?”
    â€œMargaret. You’ll meet her. She does a lot around here.”
    Oh God. I knew the type.
    â€œAnd how’s Ron?” said Tony. “Still profiting off the suffering of others?”
    â€œSomeone has to,” I said. “This strike alone should buy him a new dining room set.”
    â€œI’m glad we could be of use to you two,” Tony said in a flat, phony business voice. His voice—his real, relaxed voice—was one of the things I’d always found most attractive about him. There’s no way to describe it except that it was a “light” voice. Not a tenor, because that conjures up images of musical comedy. Just a grainy, scratchy voice, a voice that lay lightly on the ears. It was infinitely persuasive and casual, with that odd Pennsylvania inflection at the ends of his sentences that made his questions sound like statements.
    â€œRon likes to say, ‘Causes pay bills.’ Who knows, he may find some time to come up here and help us out, how about that?”
    â€œThat’ll be the day,” said Tony. “Can he even travel without a special suitcase for his mousse and manicure kit and cosmetics?”
    â€œFace lotion is not a cosmetic, Tony. His skin gets dry in the winter.”
    â€œHow