“Hmm. As soon as the taxpayers clear out.”
She laughed. “You’re crazy. I can’t do that. What would they think?”
“The Braces? They’re used to it. All she has to do is rearrange the plates. It’s her idea of a good time.”
“Just like that.”
Nick nodded. “If I ask her. I thought you wanted to see the other half.”
“Not that close up. Look, it’s nice of you-”
“Stay,” Nick said, putting his hand on her arm. “I’d like you to.”
She looked down at the hand, then smiled. “Don’t you think it’s a little soon for a family dinner?”
“I may not keep running into you. Maybe I won’t get another chance.”
“You could call.”
“And then what?”
She grinned. “I guess you’d ask me to dinner.”
He spread his hands, palms up, resting a case.
“God, what am I going to tell Brian?”
“Tell him you have an interview with the ambassador.”
“Why am I doing this?” she said, laughing to herself. Then she looked up at him. “You’re not what I expected,” she said.
“What did you expect?”
But she let it go, making a joke of it. “I don’t know. Somebody in agricultural development, I guess. I better find Brian.” She held herself by the arms. “It’s cold. No wonder Barbara what’s-her-name sold it. You’re sure?” She said, looking up again.
Nick nodded. “Go find Brian.” She took a step toward the French window. “Hey,” he said, stopping her, because in the new light from the window her pale skin did suddenly begin to gleam, shifting like mercury. “Don’t disappear, okay?”
“Promise,” she said, and because the day had been lucky, he took her at her word.
The intimate dinner sat twenty-four and she disappeared after all, behind the floral centerpiece, so that like Davey, he had to tilt his head to see her. At this angle her hair bounced on top of the stems, another flower, and he watched her turn back and forth between her dinner partners, two gray-haired diplomats who preened for her attention like rival suitors. When she caught his look, her eyes laughed in a private joke. The dope had worn down to a familiar lull of well-being, but his senses still seemed sharp, catching the light off the crystal and the glow, refracted, in the soft red wine. With Larry near one end and his mother near the other, he was marooned in the middle, surrounded by people talking to each other, free to watch her. It was easier without words, he thought. This is what animals did-looks and body movements and smiles, tapping a sexual Morse code across the table.
“It’s not polite to stare, you know.” A woman’s voice, next to him.
“Sorry. Was I?” he said, turning to her, embarrassed.
But she was smiling. “I wish someone looked at me that way. She’s very pretty. Are you together?”
“Sort of,” he said, taking her in. She was still an attractive woman, but her face was loose and round, padded, Nick guessed, by years of too many extra glasses of wine. She seemed slightly drunk, shiny and amused, but not fuzzy.
“Sort of.” She laughed. “Well, you will be, if you keep that up. Youth,” she said, suggesting she’d enjoyed hers. “I tell you what. You just look and pretend to talk to me. I don’t mind a bit. I’m Doris Kemper, by the way. Jack Kemper’s wife.” She spoke the name, unknown to Nick, as if it guaranteed instant recognition.
“Nick Warren.”
“Ah. Larry’s son?”
Nick nodded.
“Well, that explains it. Your father always had an eye for the girls.”
“Really? Did you know him?”
“Not that way, if that’s what you mean. But I must say, I always wondered a little,” she said, oddly flirtatious. “He was quite the man about town. Do they use that expression anymore? Of course, this was all about a million years ago. Thank you,” she said to the waiter refilling her glass. “You can’t imagine how different Washington was then. People had fun.”
Nick watched her take another drink, trying to imagine her slim and eager for a night out. It occurred to him that if he just smiled encouragingly he wouldn’t have to talk at all.
“Well, they did,” she said, misinterpreting his look. “Of course, children don’t believe their parents were ever young. I know mine can’t. Then I heard he got married. We were overseas and I thought, well, that’s that. They’ll be hanging crepe all over town. If it lasts. But here you are, so I guess it did.”
“Where overseas?” Nick said, making conversation.
“Oh, everywhere. Athens. Rabat. Everywhere you had to boil the water.” She laughed to herself. “We were in Delhi for four years-that was the longest stretch.”
“Did you like it?”
“Well, Jack did. I had the children to raise. You know the tropics-one little scratch, and before you know it, it’s infected. You had to watch all the time. And the snakes.” She waved her hand, dismissing India, and when he followed it he found himself looking across the table again. Molly was listening to one of her suitors, fork poised in the air, her bare arms pale in the candlelight. He wondered if they would sleep together tonight. She’d stayed for dinner.
