“Oh, I’m sure we punished him somehow,” Vernon said, with a conspiratorial wink at his son. “But there was no internet, is my point. The stupid things you did when you were young never made headlines. Which, in the case of your father, Beatrice, was a very good thing.”
“Boys will be boys.” Diana had meant to sound teasing and agreeable, but her voice sounded flat and cold. Hal had narrowed his eyes in a way that made her heart briefly stop beating. Vernon, meanwhile, thought she was agreeing with him.
“That’s it. That’s right. Boys will be boys. Boys have always been boys. And nothing—not political correctness, not all of this ‘Me Too’ stuff, not feminism—none of it will ever change that. It’s their nature.” Having concluded his speech, Vernon went back to attacking his mushroom-free chicken. Hal was still glaring at him, white around the lips, one hand fisted around his fork.
“And what if it was a girl who’d done what Dad did?” Beatrice asked.
“A girl wouldn’t,” Vernon said. “That’s my point.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Evelyn. “Some of the girls these days are pretty wild. Just as bad as the boys are, from what I hear.”
Vernon shook his head. “Everything’s upside down these days. And everyone’s so damn sensitive! Women acting like a man paying her a compliment is some kind of assault. People getting up in arms if you get their pronouns wrong. All these rules about what you can and can’t do in the office. You know,” he said to Beatrice, “that your grandmother Margie was my office gal.”
“No,” said Beatrice.
“It’s nonsense,” he said, as he began wiping his plate with a chunk of bread.
“I disagree,” said Daisy. She’d drawn herself up tall, and her face looked flushed above the same blue necklace she’d worn to New York City, the first time Diana had met her.
Vernon looked at her sharply. So did Hal. Daisy’s gaze was steady.
“I don’t think the new rules are bad,” said Daisy. “I mean, obviously, you can’t stop people from being attracted to their coworkers. But sometimes there’s a power differential, and I don’t think it’s wrong to make people aware of that.”
“You can’t have bosses chasing secretaries around the desk.” Evelyn looked like she was remembering something unpleasant.
“Hear, hear,” said Judy. Diana wondered how many desks the two of them had been chased around in their day, how much bad behavior they’d had to endure.
“I’ll bet boys today are afraid to even look at a girl,” Vernon said, shaking his head. His jowls wobbled, but his comb-over remained motionless.
“Poor boys,” Diana said. She said it very softly, but Hal, who’d been looking at his plate, jerked his head up. For a long, silent moment, their eyes met across the table. Diana forced herself to hold his gaze, even though she wanted desperately to get up from the table and run. I see you, she thought… and imagined that she could hear Hal saying, I see you, too. She was going to ask him something, to poke at him again, but Beatrice got there first.
“Dad, what do you think?” she asked.
Diana could see red spots, high on Hal’s cheeks. His voice was tight. “Do I think that some of the women are making mountains out of molehills? Yes.”
“Damn right,” Vernon muttered.
“Do I think there’s kind of a one-size-fits-all mentality to the punishment, where a guy who hits on a subordinate is treated the exact same way a violent rapist is treated?” Hal continued doggedly. “Yes. Do I think there should be some way for men to make amends and rejoin polite society? Yes. And on the whole…” He looked around the table, his gaze touching on each woman’s face, first Judy’s, then Evelyn’s, then his daughter’s, then his wife’s, before his gaze found its way to Diana. “I think this country is long overdue for a reckoning.”
“I agree,” said Daisy, getting quickly to her feet. “Now, who’s ready for dessert?”
* * *
Diana watched, and waited, hoping there’d be an opening, a moment where Hal was alone. She waited until Vernon and Evelyn departed, and Danny and Jesse were saying that they should be going home, too; that Danny had the early shift at the soup kitchen in the morning. Now or never, she thought.
“Hal, can I ask you a question?”
He looked at her. “Of course,” he said, his voice cool and polite. His shirt still looked perfectly pressed, not a hair on his head disarranged.