Free Bellwether by Connie Willis Page B

careers. I called up a list of American hospitals in 1921. There wasn’t one within a hundred miles of Marydale.
    Gina came in, looking harassed.
    “No, I don’t know how to fill out the funding form,” I said before she could ask, “and neither does anybody else.”
    “Really?” she said vaguely. “I haven’t even looked at it yet. I’ve been spending all my time on the stupid search committee for Flip’s assistant. What do you consider the most important quality in an assistant?”
    “Being the opposite of Flip,” I said, and then, when she didn’t laugh, “Competence, cheerfulness, willingness to work?”
    “Exactly,” she said. “And if a person had those qualities, you’d hire them immediately, wouldn’t you? And if they were as overqualified for the job as she is, you’d snap them right up. You wouldn’t turn her down because of one little drawback and expect them to interview dozens of other people, especially when you’ve got other things to do. Fill out this ridiculous funding form, for one, and plan a birthday party. Do you know what Brittany picked, when I said she couldn’t have the Power Rangers? Barney. And it isn’t as if she isn’t competent and cheerful and willing to work. Right?”
    I was unclear as to whether she was talking about Brittany or the assistant applicant. “Barney is pretty awful,” I said.
    “Exactly,” Gina said, as if I’d proved her point, whatever it was. “I’m hiring her,” and she flounced out.
    I went back and sat down in front of the computer. Cloche hats, Hupmobiles, and Marydale, Ohio. None of them seemed likely to be the trigger. What was? What had suddenly set the fad in motion?
    Flip came in, carrying the stack of clippings and personals I’d just given her. “What did you want me to do with these again?”
     
     
    mesmerism (1778—84)—– Scientific fad resulting from new discoveries about magnetism, speculation about its medical possibilities, and greed. Paris society flocked to Dr. Mesmer to have “animal magnetism” treatments involving tubs of “magnetized water,” iron rods, and Dr. Mesmer’s lavender-robed assistants, who massaged the patients and looked deep into their eyes. The patients screamed, sobbed, sank into a deep trance, and paid Dr. Mesmer on leaving. Actually hypnotism, animal magnetism claimed to cure everything from tumors to consumption. Died out when a scientific investigation headed by Ben Franklin proved it did no such thing.
     
    Tuesday Management called another meeting. “To explain the simplified funding forms,” I said to Gina, walking down to the cafeteria.
    “I hope so,” she said, looking even more harassed than she had yesterday. “It would be nice to see somebody else on the defensive for a change.”
    I was going to ask her what she meant by that, but just then I spotted Dr. O’Reilly on the far side of the room talking to Dr. Turnbull. She was wearing a po-mo pink suit (sans shoulder pads), and he had on one of those print polyester shirts from the seventies. By the time I’d taken all that in, Gina was at our table with Sarah, Elaine, and a bunch of other people.
    I walked over, bracing myself for a discussion of intimacy issues and power-walking, but they were apparently discussing Flip’s new assistant.
    “I didn’t think it was possible to hire somebody worse than Flip,” Elaine was saying. “How could you, Gina?”
    “But she’s very competent,” Gina said defensively. “She’s had experience with Windows and SPSS, and she knows how to repair a copy machine.”
    “All that’s entirely irrelevant,” a woman from Physics said, though it didn’t sound irrelevant to me.
    “Well, I’ m not working with her,” a man from Product Development said. “And don’t tell me you didn’t know she was one. You can tell just by looking at her.”
    Bigotry is one of the oldest and ugliest of trends, so persistent it only counts as a fad because the target keeps changing: Huguenots,