There’s no x-ray screening once you’ve gotten this far but our backpacks are gone through, and we’re checked with a handheld scanner. All the while this is going on, I’m nervously expecting my SIN to be detected. No matter what Dick claims about my invisibility cloak, I’m not convinced. But if I’m sending out questionable signals, there’s no sign of it based on the demeanor of everyone we encounter.
Beyond the security desk is a sitting area of blue carpet, blue upholstered furniture, and big oil paintings where the president of Uganda sits with his detail, all of them in suits. They don’t look at us, and we don’t look at them as Dick leads me to the sofa. I’m surprised what a bustling place this is, like a busy corporation in an elegant antique setting with a constant traffic of fast-walking people.
A lot of them are in uniform, the West Wing run by the White House Military Office, WHMO, pronounced whamo. Everyone is dressed a lot better than I am. So far, I’m the only woman not in a skirt, and I feel self-conscious in my simple suit, and shiny lace-up boots that look a little more combat-like than I thought when I first put them on this morning.
“We’re early, so if you need to freshen up, you’ve got exactly 6 minutes,” Dick says as I stare hard at the familiar painting hanging behind his head, recognizing Washington Crossing the Delaware, and it’s not a print.
Emanuel Leutze, 1851, I’m informed in my lenses. On loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I’m sure the White House can borrow anything it wants. I look around at the large gilt clock with a rampant eagle on top, the mahogany bookcase, other American-themed oil paintings of Yosemite Park and Old Faithful.
People come and go nonstop, some have scarves around their necks but no coats, and as I take mine off I wish I’d left it in the helicopter. I wish even more that my wool socks weren’t soaked, my feet beginning to itch as I predicted, and I ask Dick where the ladies’ room might be. Behind us off a short hallway, he points as I catch a flash of blood-red out of the corner of my eye.
I look up in time to see Neva Rong in a fitted red skirt suit and matching heels as high as stilts. She’s walking away from the security desk without a glance in our direction but I sense the monster sees us. If nothing else she had to hear our helicopter coming in, and she takes the same short hallway Dick just pointed out. Headed to the ladies’ room, no doubt, and I wonder what the hell-o she’s doing here!
“You might want to wait a minute,” Dick watches me carefully.
“You saw her, right?”
“She’s a regular. I’ve run into her before. Sometimes she’s cloyingly nice. Other times like now she pretends she doesn’t see me.”
“She’d better not be sitting in on our meeting,” as if I have any say about it.
And I don’t, none at all, let’s be honest. Barely an hour ago I didn’t even know I would be here.
“No, she’s definitely not,” Dick answers in no uncertain terms, and I get up from the couch. “You might want to wait,” he repeats.
Meanwhile the clock is ticking, and I can’t be late but need to deal with my itchy feet among other necessities. I have a right to the White House ladies’ room just as much as Neva does. And I head there, following the short passageway, the walls arranged with poster-size photographs of the First Couple boarding Air Force One, entertaining royalty, visiting disaster sites.
I reach the ladies’ room as Neva opens its mahogany door, and we almost run right into each other.
“It’s a onesie,” she says, screwing the lid back on her gold jar of lip balm, tucking it in her black eel-skin bag.
Behind her is a stand-alone white porcelain sink, a toilet, more artwork and a lot of gold.
“What brings you here on an early Monday?” not smiling, I ask as if this is routine for me, and more to the point. “Because you certainly seem to pop up all over the place. Including your late sister’s apartment and the morgue,” I’m not pulling any punches.
“You know, life doesn’t have to be so difficult and dreary,” Neva says, stepping into the hallway, paying no attention to people moving past, everyone intense and in a hurry.
“I’m sorry about Vera,” I taunt her with a subject I know she doesn’t like while trying not to be distracted by my feet itching like I have poison ivy. “I’m sure you must feel terrible, having just spent time with her before heading off to Wallops Island for the ill-fated rocket launch and everything else that went wrong,” and I can tell by the angry flash in her eyes that she gets the message and the pun.
“You’d be so much better served if you would think of the big picture instead of constantly tilting at windmills, Calli,” she says. “Look around you. Look where you are. Isn’t this what everything’s about?”
“Not for me and the people I come from.”
“Yes, you and your people,” her face hardens into a mask of condescension, and for an instant I see the beast inside her. “Should you ever tire of working endlessly for nothing and decide to venture out into the private sector where everything’s headed, do give me a call,” she adds disgustingly.
“That would be nev-a,” I mock her name again.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” she smiles icily. “I have a meeting with two presidents and don’t want to be late.”
00:00:00:00:0
INSIDE the ladies’ room, I lock the door, freshening up, sitting on top of the toilet lid to pull off my boots. I peel off my wet socks, at a loss as to what to do with them, trying to calm myself, my hands shaking slightly.
“Oh, what the heck!” I drop my socks in the trash, feeling even tackier.
When I return to the sitting area, I find Dick has been joined by Conn. And if he can wear his flight suit to a meeting at the White House, I don’t know why I had to dress smart casual.
“Everything all right?” Dick asks quietly, and maybe I won’t take fashion tips from him anymore. “You seem agitated,” and I remember I’m transmitting data that he and certain others are constantly downloading.
“She basically just offered me a job,” I answer.
“I’m sure she did,” he says as a Secret Service agent appears to take us to the Situation Room.