by Michael Oren
“Owe? Are there debts where you come from? Credits?”
The son removed his baseball cap. He always wore a baseball cap, and in the traditional way, visor-forward. A denim work shirt, half-laced construction boots, and jeans. “Well, yes, there is a ledger of sorts. An accounting.”
“How then’s my tally?”
The son scrutinized his father. “Again, I don’t want to shatter illusions here, but it’s not you who’s getting tallied.” He scowled, “And that stone’s not for you.”
Now it was the father’s turn to shrug, but in a toddler’s way, defiant. “Here or anywhere, this stone’s always with me. It’s there, under my head, when I go to sleep at night, and in the morning, it’s inside my chest.” He tapped both sides of the tablet. “Sitting on it, at least, brings me peace.”
“Bullshit,” the son spit into the lawn. “You get nothing here but dirty shoes and a sore butt. Enough already. Go home to Mom.”
The gray-haired gentleman in the sports jacket and khaki slacks looked slighted. “Mom divorced me years ago.” He stared into the grass. “Blamed me, I guess.”
“Like it’s all about you,” the young man sighed, despairing not only of his parents’ pettiness but the pettiness of people in general. “You think it’s easy being the source of that much grief?”
The father looked distant. “I guess we were all new at it.”
The son’s expression changed from peevish to pitying. “I know,” he muttered. “It took some getting used to.”
“You at least did,” the father’s attention returned. “I wanted to tear the sky apart.”
“And me the earth.”
“I found myself hating that big fat oak tree. I found myself hating the big fat oak tree that planted its seed right there, by that hairpin turn in the road. I hated all oak trees, going back to creation.”
“And I hated the rocks that yielded the metals,” the young man admitted. “I hated the metals that were forged into bumpers, engines, grills.”
“I suppose we hated God. At least that we can agree on,” the father nearly smiled. He began extending his hand to shake, but retracted it.
“I suppose we hated,” the son paused as if to swallow. “Love.”
“No,” the father demurred. “We mustn’t hate love. We can only hate the anguish losing it causes.”
The young man grimaced. “Offering one means risking the other.”
“Indeed,” the gentleman said and conceded, “But what choice do we really have?”
The two remained silent for a moment, the one still seated, the other loitering nearby. “You’re such a good boy,” the aging man finally said. “Smart. Not school smart, maybe, and rebellious. But look how wise you’ve become. And strong. Growing up, you were always needing new clothes.”
Wistfully, the son chuckled, “I outgrew them.”
“You outgrew life.”
“Don’t we all? In time.”
“I suppose I should hate time as well,” the father went on. “The time that turns unbearable pain into sustaining pain. That compresses a vast absence into a presence that never leaves you.”
“In one form or another.”
“Time that grinds trees and rocks, love and anguish, into this, stone and turf. And then, nothing.”
“Into everything.” The chuckle became a laugh. “Don’t you get that, Dad?”
With gratefulness, with hope, the father beamed at his son. But his expression darkened as the young man started to turn.
“Don’t leave me,” he found himself begging. “Not yet.”
“Don’t leave me,” the son insisted, though they both knew the request was unnecessary. Still, he added, “Ever.”
“Never.”
“Never. Good.”
Tucking his shirttails into his jeans, pivoting on his boots, the teenager who should have been forty went back to sounding business-like. A father to his old man. “As I said, I’ve got things to do. Now go home. Clean yourself up and find something softer to sit on.”
The father obediently nodded and rose. He brushed off his slacks and buffed one loafer on the other. Then, aware suddenly of the stillness, he froze. How could he have forgotten to say thank you? Why didn’t he set another date?
He might have continued berating himself, but his anger was soon calmed by that persistent, immaterial, presence. “Ever,” he said out loud, as if someone were listening. “Never,” he whispered as he bent to touch the stone, caressing the letters he still wished spelled his own name and not his son’s.
Good Table
The sketch on the whiteboard—circles, arrows, and stars—might have described a complex football play or the flow of corporate information. But it merely represented seating.
“The national chairman was up here with the security advisor,” Matteo said, a marker clenched between his teeth. Though no artist, he had accurately recreated the layout of a fundraiser to which they had contributed richly, only to find themselves in the back of the hall. “The director sat here, right next to the chief of staff. And we…” He removed the marker and pointed at the bottom of the board. “We were with the Schwartzes and the Dudleys, way down there.”
“The Schwartzes, for chrissakes,” his wife, Adrianna, huffed. “The Dudleys!”
“The Dudleys, I know,” Matteo scowled. He fidgeted with the crested ring on his pinkie. “We just have to think strategically. We just have to….”
He paused while movers set down a large cardboard crate in their salon. It contained one of the handmade dining pieces imported from Sweden. Elsewhere in their Tudor revival home, workmen were screwing in wrought-iron sconces and candelabra. The walls would be eggshell.
“Get this place up and running,” Adrianna completed his sentence.
“I know. I know.”
They gazed at their buffet—temporary, store-bought—and the magazines shingling it. Washington Nights. Dupont Circles. D.C. Diplomats. Capitol Games. Each contained glittery photos of balls and receptions. Only the most illustrious events made these pages, and the most glamorous guests. But whereas in New York or Los Angeles, where fame could be measured in hedge funds and Oscars, here the sole metric was power. Or at least the appearance of it.
“That,” Adrianna stated while drumming a lacquered fingertip on the journals. “That is where we’ve got to be.”
Matteo nodded resignedly. “And to get good table, we’ve got to give it.”
Giving it, though, required more than sconces and candelabra. The truly influential could attend at most two or three galas per week, while the city boasted dozens. Choosing the right ones was a matter of brute calculation, often conducted by senior staffers and secretaries. Each day, thousands of invitations went out—from embassies, Federal agencies, lobbies, charities, and museums—the vast bulk of them in vain. Receiving the right invites while getting yours accepted remained the key. And behind the lock lay power.
But Matteo and Adrianna Hallaby—a.k.a. Devereux and Bethune—could not even find the door. Four months in Washington and they had yet to be seen at any prestigious function or even a minor ambassadorial residence. And those dinners they did attend relegated them to the rearmost seats, alongside mid-level Treasury officials and the editors of local rags. Yet the task, they knew, required patience, and the pluck to stay in the fight. Hence, the house in lavish Kalorama, the Swedish imports, the candelabra. Still, while he world’s finest table could be purchased, they knew, its diners had to be coaxed.
But why dine with the Hallabys? True, they made a striking couple. He, slim and as delicately handsome as some inbred Sardinian count, and she a nearly natural redhead with the figure of Marilyn Monroe. Comfortable with any congregation, changing religions almost as frequently as first names, they voted for both parties and hailed from virtually everywhere. And money they amassed through lucrative marriages and shares in Russian gas. But they still lacked that quintessential plus. Neither had served as secretary, or even deputy assistant undersecretary of a
nything, neither were Members of Congress, present, ex, or future or were related to the highly placed. Judges, generals, syndicated columnists, or commentators on cable TV—they could claim to be none. No, Adrianna and Matteo possessed only one advantage: their single-minded drive to hobnob.
Their objective was also unique. While Washington always attracted gold-diggers—the right connections could light up the shadiest deals—riches were not their goal. Elbows, rather, should be rubbed for rubbing’s sake, they believed, the way the Himalayas rose to be climbed. And just as mountaineers scaled first lesser, then greater heights, so, too, would they plant the Hallaby flag on ever-elevated peaks.
“Once the right people see who’s having dinner with us,” Adrianna always said, “even righter people will want to.”
A week later, the house was girded for hospitality. Adrianna prepared the flower arrangements and supervised the menu, while Matteo perused the registers. The invitations, emblazoned with an equestrian herald, went out by first-class mail. A month was the appropriate heads-up time, but twenty days passed and not one senator or even an assemblyman responded. The sole RSVPs came from third-tier choices selected from the protocol lists of previous administrations.
Later, over the dirty plates and wine pools that stained their new Swedish wood, Adrianna lamented, “We should have canceled.”
She wore a lacy fit-and-flare dress, short enough to show off her knees, and an aquamarine choker that further elongated her neck. Adrianna listened rigorously to the guests on either side of her and spoke in her most mousse-smooth tone. Matteo, too, was refined, almost painfully. And still the evening flopped. Oh, the conversation was lively enough, but who cared about sports or politics or even the weather when those babbling about them were nobodies?
“No,” insisted Matteo as he retrieved one of her cast-off shoes from the floor. “No, we have to learn from our missteps and move on.” Though usually the more complacent of the pair, he was also the more even-keeled. “We,” he announced, leveling a stiletto heel at her heart, “are getting a gun.”
The weapon, when it arrived, scarcely looked lethal. A small, plain woman of sixty-some years, gray-haired, tartan-skirted, bloused and buttoned. Behind that blunt exterior, though, lay one of Washington’s most incisive planners. “Miss Billington, are we glad to see you,” Matteo greeted her at the door.
“Not Miss, Ms. or Mrs.,” she corrected him, “Just Billington,” while marching inside and glancing censoriously around. “I see we need to work.”
Work began with dispensing with the Hallabys’ postmodern canvases and replacing them with colonial portraits and landscapes of the Hudson River School. Wrought iron was out, pewter in, as medieval gave way to Early American. Next, came the sartorial tweaks. A Patek Philippe would be Matteo’s watch, never a Rolex, and the pinkie ring was jettisoned, along with Adrianna’s choker. Meals were themed, not eaten. Drinks poured generously but never consumed by the hosts, who were to remain at all times sober. Along with imparting these truths to the Hallabys, Billington lectured them on the musts.
“The Opera Ball, the Ballet Ball, the Meridian, anyone who’s nothing is there,” she explained. “The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, you’d have to axe-murder somebody not to get invited. It’s for the snootier events—the Gridiron Club roast, the Alfalfa Club—that you’ll need sponsors. And sponsors aren’t found, they’re cultivated.”
And cultivating first meant mapping. Scribbling on her tiptoes across Matteo’s whiteboard, Billington sketched out not only who was who but, more saliently, who knew who. These could be courted through intimate soirees with notables and leaks to the gossip columns. An image or two of the Hallabys chatting with, say, a special prosecutor, cast into the ethersphere, would also prove efficacious. “The idea is to pick your target and then attack it from multiple directions,” Billington attested. A stubby finger hammered the highlighted names. “Aim straight and kill.”
The path to those tables was circuitous, but, Billington assured them, navigable. It began with what she called the “Disease Sprees,” the Leukemia Ball and the Multiple Sclerosis Gala, admittance to which was tax-deductible. But getting in was merely preliminary to getting where, and Billington had already set her sights on the dais. And then came looking at how. Here, Matteo, a man, was useless. Tuxes were tuxes whether worn by royalty or a corpse. A woman’s body, though, could be jeweled and gowned, pursed and muffed and gloved. In social climbing, a woman’s body was the rope.
Billington spent hours scouring patterns for Adrianna’s gowns, and assuring through dogged research that nobody else had worn them. Accessorizing, the advisor proclaimed, was an art form. They decided on styles that accentuated her curves, with neck and back lines that not only plunged, they plummeted. The colors—scarlet, teal, chartreuse—brought out her complexion, and sapphires advertised her eyes. As for the material, Billington would hear only of satin, sleek and unembellished. “Sequins,” she said, “are for hacks.”
“My God, you look like…” Matteo gulped as Adrianna sashayed down their staircase. “Like…”
“Like the cover of this,” Billington waved one of Washington’s glitziest weeklies.
And so she did, with a distinguished Matteo posing beside her. The caption, secured through networking debts forgiven its editor, read: “Meet D.C.’s Most Sought-After Couple!” The article listed some of the charities to which the Hallabys were devoted and the black-tie events they graced. Most importantly, the text hinted at some political clout, clandestine but effectively swung.
The results were seismic. Recipients of the Hallabys’ next invitation vied with each other to RSVP. The meal, timed with Easter, emphasized rebirth—many eggs and baby vegetables—and arrangements of daffodils and crocuses. As instructed, Adrianna and Matteo barely touched their food, much less their drink, and instead focused on the guests. These were seated with the precision of eye surgery so that no matter which way they leaned—right, left, forward—the hosts looked directly into the face of a Majority Leader or, at the very least, a Whip. The conversation was pertinent but uncontroversial. Between the main course and dessert, Matteo tapped on his wine glass and rose for a toast. “To the President of the United States who we all agree, irrespective of party, is the leader of the free world. And to my wife, Adrianna, the sublime hostess of this party, and the leader of my world.” Twenty stems held by high-ranking Executive and Legislative hands were raised to a chorus of “Here, here.”
By the end of the ball season, the Hallabys’ delectable image—his beef bourguignon to her strawberries and cream—was everywhere. Even The Washington Post, that gray disdainer of socialites, ran a profile. Most of it was fictional, fed to the wide-eyed reporter by Billington. Beyond their popularity, she somehow let slip, the couple also wielded untold influence, their opinions sought in places too towering to name.
The upshot was more invitations, more front-page spreads. From Billington, the Hallabys learned the technique of the drop-in, how to arrive with great fanfare at one event, march in and shake the valuable hands and quietly depart for another; how to change from cocktail to formal dress, black tie to white and back to business casual in a single, overbooked night. They grew accustomed to emerging from some fete only to be blinded by camera flashes. They smiled and waved, beamed and strutted into their chauffeured Continental.
Driving away, still blinking the blue spots from their vision, they failed to glimpse another car, similarly black but downscale, following them.
In fact, they saw nothing but the ultimate prize. Attaining it, though, seemed remoter than ever. Having reached a respectable crest, the Hallabys plateaued. Another gala season unfolded—the themes were autumnal, Adrianna’s shoulders coddled in fur—but the one invitation they longed for remained unreceived.
“I’ve taken you as high as I could,” Billington said. “You should be satisfied.”
Matteo exchanged shrugs with his wife, as if “satisfied” were not among their words. “We paid you a fo
rtune,” Adrianna reminded her. “We expected to get to the top.”
Now it was Billington’s turn to shrug. “Money, flattery, baloney—it can only get you so far.”
“So far? So far! The paparazzi love us. We’re the darlings of the diplomatic corps. Hell, the papers think we run the place!” Matteo realized he was shouting.
Still, Billington remained calm. “You want to get higher, there’s only one way.”
“What event do we have to attend?” From her colonial rocker, Adrianna slung. “What cause do we give?”
“Not what but to who,” Billington answered. “And not give, beg.”
The Hallabys were ready to grovel. They dressed the part—striped tie, slacks, and jacket for him, and for her, a demure agora outfit. The driver let them off short of the door of a modest house in the Woodley section of Washington where a housekeeper in jeans let them in. They followed her into a den with a toasty fire and a Christmas tree as yet untrimmed—unexceptionable except for the walls, every inch of which was covered with autographed photos. Supreme Justices, prime ministers, network anchors, the Pope. The Hallabys’ eyes darted from image to image, envious and awed. A second passed before they realized that the person posing with each of the grandees was occupying the armchair in front of them.
“We’ve heard so much about you,” Matteo stammered.
The woman, whose social résumé began with the Truman administration, stroked the Persian cat in her lap and chortled. “I hope not too much.”
Adrianna rushed to explain their predicament, but the woman held up a tremulous hand and smiled at them through strata of rouge. “I know who you are, or rather what. And I know why you’ve come. Why they all do.”
Her name was Harriet Bravermann and she resembled a brown plastic Buddha left out in the sun too long. Rolls of spotted skin, wisps of once-chestnut hair, but with an impish, inextinguishable glint. The price of her services, the Hallabys were told, was patience. They were to wait while she toured them through every frame on her Me Wall, relating an anecdote about each. “That Henry,” she laughed after one vignette, and “Oh, John Paul.”