by Sally Quinn
He had an attendant who had traveled with him from Colorado, but she could see he needed more than that. Allison had reluctantly agreed to be there though she wasn’t at all sure how Sadie would feel about it.
This was the first time she had ever worried about Sadie’s feelings, though she realized Sadie must have suffered a great deal in the last few years. Only now could Allison really sympathize with the enormity of the guilt and grief that Sadie must be experiencing. She didn’t want to make it any more difficult for her. The next few days, trying to deal with all that in front of the whole world, would be more than anyone should have to go through. She had no desire to add to it. Yet she couldn’t let Uncle Roger go through it alone either. She was genuinely worried that he might not be able to handle it. Tomorrow would be a difficult day for everyone.
Cotes found her at once and collapsed next to her on the banquette. He put an arm around her and buried his head on her shoulder. At first she thought he was making a pass at her and she tried with some embarrassment to pull away. Several people looked at them disapprovingly and she was about to say something when she realized that he was weeping.
“I’m sorry, Sonny. I know I’m a basket case. I can’t help it. I’ve just come from Sadie. My God, it’s so goddamned sad. So sad.”
Allison’s emotions were already on edge and Cotes’s sorrow didn’t help any. She could feel the tears sliding down her cheeks, and she noticed that once people saw that Cotes was crying they began to take out their handkerchiefs, too. Several people noisily broke down. Everyone was raw. It was exhausting, this kind of emotion. And there were days more of it to come.
Allison wanted to ask about Sadie but she didn’t dare. She wanted to know and she didn’t. But Cotes was ready to talk. He had already confided to her on the plane. Now it didn’t even seem to be indiscreet.
“She wanted to talk about what happened with Des. That’s all she wanted to talk about,” said Cotes. Allison caught her breath.
“It was as if she needed the expiation. She talked about how much she had hurt Rosey and how hard she had tried to make it up to him. She was so damned pitiful, Sonny. I’ve just hardly ever seen anybody in so much pain. She asked me over and over if I thought Rosey believed that she was sorry for what she had done, if he knew at the end that she really loved him.”
“Did she?” She couldn’t help herself.
He thought about it for a minute. “Lord only knows,” he said finally. “I think she did love him. I think she truly cared for the guy. But if I had to put money on it I’d say she’s still in love with Des. Which is what is tearing her up inside.”
Allison felt engulfed in fear. For the past few years she had put Des out of her mind, as if he had never existed. But she knew Des was the reason she hadn’t been able to fall in love with Julian—or anyone else for that matter. She hadn’t even sorted out her feelings for him in the last few hours except to know that she was extremely agitated.
She didn’t want to see him later, but she seemed not to be in control of her own will. She had to see him. Things had been so unresolved when she left for London. When she had found out about him and Sadie that was it. There was no official breaking up or parting of the ways. They never even said goodbye. But they had loved each other too long and too deeply. She knew why she had agreed to see him now. If nothing else, she needed to tell him goodbye.
Seeing him this evening had confused her. Knowing now, as she had suspected all along, that Sadie still loved him, confused her even more. Part of her wanted to forget him and go back to London. But she was also a competitor; she didn’t want to lose.
“She wants to see him, Sonny.”
She thought she was going to faint. How could she possibly go up against the beautiful bereaved widow of the President, especially when Des had loved her?
“Cotes, I suddenly feel very tired and a little bit sick. I think it was all that booze on the plane. I’ve got to get some sleep or I’m not going to make it. Do you mind? I can walk back to the Jefferson.”
“Miss Sterling?”
A waiter was standing in front of her with a telephone. Without thinking she took it.
“Sonny?”
“Yes.”
“I can get away for a while now. I’m really starving. I’ll pick you up in front of the Hay Adams in about twenty minutes if that’s all right.”
He was being so uncharacteristically polite.
“That’s fine.”
“Great. See you then.”
“Goodbye.”
Why had she agreed to see him? She was exhausted. Not in control. She was a mess. This was a terrible mistake.
“The office?”
“Yes. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go back before I go to the hotel.”
“I’ll walk you over.”
“Don’t be silly. Aren’t you staying here?”
“Yes, but…”
“I’ll take a cab if that will make you feel better, but I’m not going to let you walk me over there. You’re just as exhausted as I am. Just go to bed.”
“Okay, but let me put you in a cab.”
“Cotes, I appreciate your chivalry, but I’m a grown woman. I have traveled all over the world by myself and I can get my own taxi for God’s sake.”
“Okay. Then you can walk me to my room.”
She burst out laughing in spite of herself.
“You jerk. Let’s get out of here.”
He paid the bill. She didn’t fight him. They walked to the elevator.
“Are you going to write anything, Sonny?”
“I don’t know yet. They want me to. I just don’t know. It may be too complicated. Too hard.”
“Do me one favor?”
“What?”
“Whatever you write, no crap, no maudlin crap. Okay?”
“I promise. Goodnight, Cotes. See you at the White House.”
* * *
She had time to go to the ladies room and do something about her face. She was shocked at what she saw. The lights were too harsh and every tiny line was emphasized. They all seemed to point downward, giving her normally slim face a heavy, dour look. What was left of her mascara was slightly smudged under her eyes from too many tears and she had chewed off most of her lipstick. She wet a tissue and wiped her eyes, then powdered over her face. In the light it looked as if she was wearing a Kabuki mask. She gargled, squirted some breath spray, put on fresh lipstick, and teased her hair with a brush. Counteract the downward trend of her face with an uplift. Create an optical illusion. Who could tell? Julie “I went to journalism school because of you” Fensterer could tell. That’s who.
She glanced at her watch, grabbed her purse, and ran up the stairs to the lobby, trying to straighten out her black cotton knit skirt as she went.
Des was just pulling into the driveway when she came out the door.
He was smiling. Why was it her instinct to wipe that smile off his face? It wasn’t just now. It had always been that way. There had always been an inherent anger in her about him, through their entire relationship. He would approach her with a happy-go-lucky attitude and she would be, deep down inside, mad. Just mad. There was something about him that just pissed her off. Maybe the fact that he was always so optimistic about their relationship. That he never expected to work at it. That he didn’t give it the time and energy she did. Maybe… None of it made sense. Seeing him smile now, tentative though this smile was, reminded her again of her anger. It wasn’t just Sadie either. It had been long before Sadie. God knows she had spent enough hours with Rachel trying to figure it out. Yet all that shrinking hadn’t helped. Could it be that women were just always genetically angry at men? That was too pat. Yet Des had been right on some level when he periodically accused her of wanting to make him pay. Pay for what? For his very existence? She just didn’t know. So how could she explain it to him? Or stop being mad? She couldn’t. Poor son of a bitch, she thought as the doorman opened the car door for her. Or am I the one to feel sorry fo
r?
He didn’t greet her when she got in. He didn’t have to. It was as if they had never been apart. Except that they didn’t kiss. Normally there would have been a perfunctory kiss on the lips—at least it would start out perfunctory. But what were they to do now? Shake hands? Better nothing.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought we’d go to Paolo’s in Georgetown. There’s not much choice on a Sunday night, on the Fourth of July on the night after the President of the United States has been assassinated. It’s noisy. It won’t be so depressing.”
“Let me tell you about the Hay Adams.”
“I can imagine.” There was a silence as he drove down Pennsylvania toward Georgetown. Not uncomfortable.
“So how’s Cotesworth Tennant?”
It was his way of asking her if they’d had an affair in London. If she were in love with him. The way he said his name had an edge. As in how’s-that-little-candy-ass-preppy.
He was wrong about Cotes. Cotes was a good ole boy, not a candy ass. But it wouldn’t do to argue the point. It pleased her anyway, that slight intimation of jealousy.
“Devastated. Rosey got him through the death of his wife.” She didn’t say that Cotes had gotten Rosey through Sadie’s affair with Des. But there it was looming up in the car between them like some giant mushroom. Cold and clammy and grotesque.
They didn’t say anything else to each other. The air seemed to have become thinner in the car. They both breathed in deeply and heaved sighs simultaneously. It almost made her laugh. She rolled down the window, even though the car was air-conditioned, to get some oxygen. The hot wind against her face was even more stifling.
Des parked the car on N Street and they walked in silence around the corner to the restaurant.
He had been right. It was packed and noisy. There were several bar-height round tables with stools in the front, a bar to the right, and booths to the left. In the back, beyond the pizza ovens, was the real restaurant, informal but just as crowded and noisy as the front.
They were lucky to get a corner table where at least they could hear themselves. The place was mostly filled with yuppies and college students. The atmosphere was shrill, almost hysterical. People were laughing too loudly and occasionally someone would burst into tears and the rest of the group would move to console him or her. It was a contrast to the funereal hush at the Hay Adams.
They ordered light beers. Des patted his middle. She looked, half hoping, for a paunch but saw none. She was so thirsty, her mouth so dry, she could hardly speak.
“This,” said Des, “is the restaurant where the President’s staff and the pool photographers were having dinner when he was shot. The pool reporters would have been eating here too—if they’d been on duty like they were supposed to be.”
“What’s going to happen to them?”
“Well, it’s not just the Weekly. It’s the other magazines as well. Not to mention the papers. But they’re not usually around on weekends. It was our job and we blew it.”
“What were you doing at the White House earlier? I thought you didn’t do the hands-on reporting anymore. I completely forgot to ask you.”
“Trying to get as many details out of Manolas as I could. We’re in a jam having to go tomorrow before the funeral. The funeral will have been over for half a week by the time next Monday’s edition comes out. We’ve got a lot to nail down early.”
“So who’s Julie Fensterer?”
He grinned.
“You don’t miss anything, do you?”
“Are you in love with her?”
He stopped smiling and looked directly into her eyes.
“No, Sonny. I’m not in love with her.”
“Are you still in love with Sadie?”
She couldn’t believe that she’d asked that. She only got scared after she’d said the words.
He didn’t take his eyes off her for the longest time. He searched her face as though he were trying to learn something. He started to speak several times and then stopped. He clasped his hands together on the table and looked down at them.
“I don’t know how to answer that question, Sonny.”
Dear God, at least he hadn’t said yes.
“Why?”
“You hurt me a lot you know.”
How could he say that? To her. She was the one who had been destroyed when she discovered he was sleeping with Sadie Grey. Discovered by accident on a presidential trip to Israel. And after they had been in bed together all night. Jesus.
“Now I’m at a loss for words,” she said.
She had to control herself. She wanted to find out what happened. If she was ever to be at peace with herself—or with him, for that matter—she had to clear this up. She had to resolve this. It was eating at her and had been for the past three years. She needed to get on with her life.
“You left me. You walked away from me,” he said. “Just kissed me off. In Jerusalem. Without a word of explanation. I thought we had gotten back together again. I loved you, Sonny. God, did I love you. I wanted you back. That night in the King David I was happy for the first time since we broke up. I thought I loved Sadie but I realized then that it was you, baby, and nobody else. Then you just kicked sand in my face.”
“Des! You were fucking the First Lady!”
She was almost yelling at him now. Lucky the place was so noisy. Nobody was paying attention to them.
“And I didn’t know about it. How was I supposed to feel when I found out? After you had just spent the night in my bed telling me you loved me. I felt like the biggest asshole in the entire world. I couldn’t believe it. And I believed that you loved me. That was what was so pathetic.”
He was stunned.
“You found out the next morning? How?”
“Never mind how. I just did.”
“That explains a lot.”
“I didn’t think you needed an explanation. I figured when I walked off you’d know why. Anyway, I was too angry and hurt and humiliated to explain anything.”
“I thought you knew all along I was seeing Sadie. I just assumed Jenny would have told you. You were best friends. I knew you couldn’t have believed I was in love with Jen all that time. You know me too well. You would have had to know I was getting laid somewhere. You’re too smart not to have figured out Jenny was the beard for Sadie and me.”
“How could I have known and not mentioned it? It’s me, Des. Allison. You know me too well for that. I’d have had to have been lobotomized not to bring it up. Are you kidding?”
Des looked beaten, defeated.
“Oh Sonny.”
“I guess we didn’t know each other that well after all, Des.”
* * *
Des had to go back to the office. He dropped her off at the Jefferson. This time he squeezed her hand as she got out of the car. She thought about the rest of their dinner as she got ready for bed. They had dropped the discussion of their relationship from exhaustion if nothing else. It was as if they were both on such emotional overload from the assassination and from seeing each other again that they couldn’t handle any more. They had ended the evening with polite conversation about London and journalistic gossip. It was not unpleasant, just distant. It amazed her how they could have gone from such intense passion to such noncommittal chitchat. She felt so drained then and at this moment she could barely dial the operator for a wakeup call. She didn’t even remember putting her head on the pillow, she fell asleep so quickly.
Her dreams were murky and confused, punctuated, she thought, with loud knocking. There was a coffin and the knocking was coming from inside it. She rushed to open the coffin before they lowered it into the ground. Rosey Grey stepped out of it. “Thank God,” he said. “I really wasn’t dead at all.” Sadie threw her arms around him. He embraced her and they walked off together. Des looked at Allison, then put his arms around her. “Thank God he’s not dead,” he said. “Because I really do love you.” She embraced him and they walked off together.
But the knocking persisted. Finally she realized somebody was at the door. She sat up in bed, then looked at the alarm. It was 7:00 A.M. Noon London time.
“Who is it?” she called out. A muffled voice responded, “Room service.” She hadn’t remembered ordering breakfast the night before, but she was so tired she might well have. She jumped out of bed and tossed a robe over her satin nightshirt, opened the door, and stuck out her head to see who it was.
Des was standing at the door, totally disheveled, unshaven, circles under his eyes, with a bag in his hand.
“I believe you ordered croissants and tea, madame.”
Even a simple French word like madame he could fracture.
Before she was able to respond he had brushed past her and placed the bag on a table. He took off his jacket and began setting up the meal.
“It’s hot as a bastard out there already,” he said, opening the plastic top to her tea.
“Sugar and cream, I’m afraid. No honey or skim milk.”
He remembered.
She had shut the door and was watching him with stunned amusement.
“I’ve got marmalade and black raspberry.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Go ahead and get back in bed. I’m serving you breakfast in style this morning, milady.”
“Not before I brush my teeth.”
She disappeared into the bathroom for a moment, then got back in bed, propped up the pillows, and pulled the covers over her.
“Et voilà,” he finished with a flourish as he presented her with her croissants and tea. She couldn’t help laughing.