"...The stroller caught something and began to fold. The boy began to cry. The driver opened the door and shouted angrily, 'You gonna get off lady? I got traffic here.'
The woman was magnificent. She adjusted her coat and gloves before doing anything else. Then she righted the stroller. Then she picked up the boy. She adjusted her purse on her shoulder. Then she picked up the stroller. Then, very deliberately, holding traffic up all over Manhattan, she lowered herself and her things down the steps, pausing before stepping down onto the curb. As the bus pulled away, Rosie looked back and saw the woman serenely strap the boy, who was no longer crying, into the stroller, then hand him a banana from her purse, then begin her promenade down the sidewalk. It was a riveting sight. She said to Mary, 'Did you see that?'
'What?' replied Mary.
'That woman.'
'God she was rude,' said Mary.
And from that Rosalind knew that Mary would live the rest of her life in the Midwest, which she did.
Rosalind saw that, if you had enough self-possession, you could reconnoiter, plan ahead, take your time. It went beyond being careful. Being careful was something you did if you were in a rush. If you were self-possessed, you never had to be in a rush.
And so Rosalind had cultivated her self-possession at Smith College, at Mademoiselle magazine, working as an intern, at Conde Nast Traveller, working as an editor, and in Westchester County, as the wife of Alexander P. Maybrick and the stepmother of his three children, who didn't especially like her but admired her capacity for resisting their father" (Jane Smiley, Horse Heavan, 30).
