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like a hurricane cloud over in the corner, burst out in tones of wrathful contempt.
    “You are so fucking unrealistic,” she said, pointing directly at Margaret and Anna and possibly at the silent Hadley, too. “You’re so determined to keep B. Violet—in spite of everything, no matter what—that you refuse to realize that nothing can stay the same. We can’t continue as we are—on the Road to Bankruptcy…”
    “I knew it,” said Penny, her punk hair completely on end with horror. “You just want us to take over a failing business, sap us of our resources…”
    “Kick out the men,” Jeremy continued.
    “And ignore the racism issue,” finished Zee.
    “Do I detect a note of hostility here and there?” put in Elena sullenly.
    “You know,” said Hadley. “You’d hardly guess it, but B. Violet isn’t so very bad off.”
    It was the first time she’d spoken and for some reason it made an impression. It might have been the slow drawl of her voice, that sounded like we had all the time in the world to work this out; it might have been the ironic smile that put a curve in the right side of her face.
    But whatever it was, it restored us, at least for the moment, to our senses. I wondered briefly how this calm personage had ever gotten hooked up with the wild-eyed Fran and the smugly hostile Margaret and Anna.
    “We have assets,” said Hadley. “No doubt about it. All the equipment is relatively new, in working order and, more important, paid for. We also have some debts, not large but persistent; we’re just paying the interest right now. We’ve also got a number of outstanding accounts receivable: local political groups whose fundraising events didn’t cover their costs; feminists who think that business runs on slogans like ‘Sisters pay last, if at all’; and even a few regular old companies who think that a business owned by women isn’t really a business at all when it comes time to write a check.”
    Hadley smiled again and her brilliant eyes traveled around the room, stopping on Zee. “So it’s hard times for us white girls. A lot of people are having hard times. And things might be better if we could join forces with you all—more traffic, more steady customers, more pressure on them to pay. But I do understand a merger would also create problems—for us and for you. Racism’s a serious issue, and not one we’ve dealt with in a work situation. But there are other issues, like homophobia, that you all could probably stand to have your consciousness raised about, don’t you think?” She paused and looked at June, who smiled diffidently.
    “Well, thanks for your comments,” Penny said briskly. “I think they helped us all settle down, at least. I recommend that B. Violet sit down and work out some kind of proposal so that our collective can go over it and decide if a merger is in our best interests—no pun intended.”
    I expected someone to challenge this, either someone from our collective who would feel that asking B. Violet for a proposal meant we were taking this idea seriously, or Margaret or Anna who would reject it summarily because they didn’t want to put the energy into something that would only take place over their strong objections.
    But no one said anything. The meeting had suddenly slipped into that catatonic state that sometimes occurs after strong feelings have been expressed and before any progress has been made, when members of the group will acquiesce to any delaying measure, just so they can go home and regroup their forces.
    “I second Penny’s suggestion,” said Ray rather wearily, looking, for the moment, like a Samurai who’s just laid down his sword in the cause of peace rather than justice. “We won’t even know where we are until we have some kind of organized proposal.”
    Slowly Fran nodded her head. She, too, looked exhausted, even dazed. She glanced at Margaret and Anna, and seemed to draw some form of agreement from their lowered heads.