"We're not really done," were her first words--the Freedom Center may have gone, but it was still not certain what would take its place. She wanted the recognition of her victory to be restrained, not raucous, and her voice betrayed some of the fatigue that can so often set in as soon as a battle of attrition is over. I suggested that we meet the next morning, to talk about the turn events had taken.
"Oh no!" she protested, "Not in the morning! I look horrible in the morning!" This last assertion turns out to be the only thing I've heard her say that is open to refutation.

At 10 a.m. the next day, I found her outside her home in Pelham, N.Y., in prosperous Westchester County, looking the very picture of blond, suburban poise: neat hair, pearly teeth, understated jewelry, crisp white cotton shirt, laundered blue jeans, blue flip-flops, pink toenails. She was hauling empty garbage cans off the sidewalk and back onto her drive, where her SUV was parked. Two dogs barked their greetings as we stepped into a house so immaculate that it was hard to believe it was kept not by a Full-time Homemaker, but by a Full-time Activist.

" 'Activist'. . . I'm not entirely happy with the term," she said to me with mild reproof. "I'm a citizen." We were seated in her small office--a place where Mexican oil paintings vied for space with pictures of her brother and a collage of yellow Post-it Notes on the wall. This was, in fact, the one part of her house that was less than perfectly ordered; I confess that I was reassured by this--Ms. Burlingame, disconcertingly, can come across as a seemingly flawless person on a seemingly flawless mission.