La discrimination positive

Mill sits down when Carlisle calls to ask why she isn’t married.

“Rig-a-marole,” she says.

“It’s heating up,” Carlisle says. “Look it up.”

“It’s an alternate spelling,” Mill says, feeling apologetic for her one-more syllable, as when she says real-a-tor and Viag-a-ra. “I saw Niagara when I was three,” she says.

“Three is too young,” Carlisle says.

“I was in high school when the Equal Rights Amendment didn’t pass -- the Supreme Court said then that women are ‘people’ under the Constitution -- a lot of people were listening,” Mill says. “I thought it meant I would become an ‘adult person’ not a ‘woman.’ All we got was ‘privacy’ amid street protests and religious cantilevering over abortion.”

“We are all people of color,” Carlisle says.

“Some people are slower of color than others,” Mill says.