Death of a Political Plant by Ann Ripley

egalitarian-minded feminist searching for answers in urban studies, her new major at Northwestern. Martha was in equal jeopardy, working in the core city of Detroit in a program run by a Catholic priest, helping people train for jobs and a future. Louise wished her older daughter would call, too, for phoning her room in Detroit was always fruitless, with only polite strangers taking careful messages that were never answered.
    On her next circuit of the yard, she had pruning shears in hand and plastic bag unfurled and slung over one shoulder to hold the clippings. With the flourish of an artist, she fine-tuned bushes that had grown too exuberantly during the summer, snipping off unwanted growth and the occasional dead twig. With the cultivator she fluffed up mulch areas that had been compacted by the summer rains. After throwing the clippings in the compost heap, she went inside to clean up a bit togo to the gardening center over on Route One. These days, she was able to visit nurseries without guilt. It wasn’t too long ago that she had been a garden binger, knocking the family budget out of kilter with her plant purchases. Bill would sit her down like a naughty schoolgirl and show her the disarrayed accounts.
    It was great to be a working woman, able to spend money as she pleased.
    She had just about completed her remedial gardening. In one of the only sunny spots she tucked in the satisfying chubby forms of three green santolina, with yellow button blooms waiting to burst open. A couple of hostas planted at its feet diverted attention from the damage done to the tree peony. Strategically placed clumps of fat-leafed bergenia filled in the foreground. Still, the garden looked wounded, but it was the best she could do.
    Her phone rang again, and it was Marty Corbin with good news. “Okay, Louise, you got it. We’ll do a two-part program on the environmental bill. But we gotta act quick: I’ve lined up a couple of hunks already. We can trek over to the Shenandoah and illustrate the new commitment to acquiring wilderness areas. Actually, it’s too bad we don’t have time to travel west, because that’s where the biggest federal land grabs will take place.”
    “Marty, Marty,” she rebuked.
    “Hey, this bill really shows the President’s chutzpah, taking that amount of acreage out of the hands of business and lumbering. Talk about wilderness regained!” She could just imagine him grinning at his little jab. “Just seeing if you were paying attention, Louise.”
    “And don’t forget,” she said, “we have to do something on those incentives in the bill for private landowners to restore habitat.”
    “Then we gotta handle the part about those tougher pesticide controls. But no more bringing poisons into the studio.” He chuckled, remembering the program where they had done just that, which led to the mysterious poisoning of Louise’s rival at the studio. “Research is getting an angle on dealing with the endangered species part of the bill. Something down at the Chesapeake Bay, maybe. It’d be a nice, easy run for us.”
    “Great, Marty. I think our viewers will like it.”
    “But just don’t think this show is going to save President Fairchild from having his pants beat off by Goodrich.”
    “Marty, I don’t have a personal stake in the election. I only believe in the environment, and Fairchild stood up to a lot of people to get that bill passed. I admire him for it.”
    Her producer chuckled on the other end of the phone line. “I’m puttin’ ya on, Louise. I prefer Fairchild, too, even though
I
can believe those stories about drinking and womanizing.”
    She bet he did: Marty himself had been a boozer and a womanizer until he straightened himself out over the last year.
    He went on: “When I see you tomorrow, we’ll work on some treatments, including that one for the perennial plant people; that’s gonna be a challenge, a big convention like that. Meantime, I wanted to let you know you have what