Free Wife-In-Law by Haywood Smith Page A

back and said a good woman was hard to find. Then, last June when Zach was in New York on business (I guess plumbers have conventions too), he ran into Carter and his entourage in a hotel lobby, and Carter not only remembered his name (hard to forget Zach and all that hair), but asked how Kat was doing.
    After that, it was all over but the shouting. The day Zach got home, he staked Carter signs every two feet along the sidewalk in front of their house, then bumper-stickered the Vanagon to smithereens. The next thing you know, Kat was volunteering fulltime at Carter’s campaign office downtown.
    Forget issues—most notably, who was going to pay for all these programs he was promising. (We, the people.) But Kat and Zach, like most Americans, had been seduced by image, and there was no talking to them about the bottom line.
    Meanwhile, I was left having to support Gerald Ford, of all people, a national joke with the face of a Gila monster, who’d pardoned Tricky Dicky (don’t get me started on him!). Worse still, the party had picked Bob Dole for his running mate, who made a pressure-treated two-by-four look like the life of the party. Most recently, Ford had embarrassed us further by publicly declaring that the Poles were free and unoppressed. How ignorant can you get?
    I mean, what kind of choice was a man like that? Definitely not the person I wanted with his finger on the red button in the war room.
    For the second time (Watergate being the first) I’d seriously considered canceling my membership to the Republican Party. But Greg—a die-hard fiscal reactionary—asked me not to, for business reasons, and my fellow party members played the Armageddon card (spendthrift Democrat policies), so I sucked it up and stayed on board.
    So, as president of the Young Republican Women, I agreed to host a makeover brunch at nine on the first Tuesday in October for fifty prospective members, with a drawing for three complete makeovers. I’d invited Kat, who needed a makeover more than anybody I’d ever known, but she’d turned me down, horrified that I’d thought she might consider fraternizing with so many Republicans.
    That morning dawned clear as a bell, with a crisp, seductive little breeze that cheered up everybody, including me. By nine, the refreshment committee had set up the buffet, and the hairdresser and makeup artist were ready to make over the three lucky women who won the door-prize drawing.
    People didn’t really start arriving till twenty minutes later, which was to be expected, and they all made straight for the buffet. I stationed Sarah McGuire at the front door while I checked to make sure the homemade goodies were replenished. Sure enough, we were running low on my special spiced cider. I was adding some brown sugar and lemon to a fresh pot of apple juice on the stove when Sarah came up behind me and tugged at the sleeve of my Sunday dress. “Betsy, I don’t know how to tell you this,” she said in an urgent whisper, “but some scary-looking bums are out there picketing your house. They’re yelling at the guests and blocking their way.”
    What? “How did they get past security at the subdivision gate?”
    Alicia shrugged. “I have no idea.”
    “Here.” I threw some nutmeg into the pot, then jerked off my apron and handed Alicia the ladle. “Stir. I’ll take care of this.”
    On the way to the front door, I saw that everyone had gathered at the windows, craning their necks and buzzing.
    I got to the front porch and saw Kat, along with about thirty disreputable-looking hippies chanting “Vote for Carter, vote for change!” as they picketed on the sidewalk in front of my house. Whenever one of my guests approached, the picketers deliberately blocked their way, so the sidewalk was stacking up with a frustrated traffic jam of women in their best tea party attire.
    I could not believe my best friend would do this to me. When I glared at her, Kat shot me a mischievous grin. “Down with Republican