Edna’s discontented look went from sullen to angry. “And you never told me about it, not a word,” she said shrilly. “I even said that crazy Bill Reach was a spy, and you went, ‘Pooh-pooh! The very idea!’ You would have let me marry Nick and then taken my pillow talk straight across the street.”
Since that, while unkind, was not altogether untrue, Nellie did not rise to it. She did say, “You know I never wanted you to marry him at all.”
“But that wasn’t because he was a Reb,” Edna said. “That was just because he was a man. He could have been on the U.S. General Staff, and you would’ve felt the same way.” That also had a good deal of truth in it. Edna went on, “You just don’t want a girl to have any fun, and look at what all you done when you was my age and even younger.”
“That’s wasn’t fun,” Nellie replied. “That was hell, is what that was.” But Edna didn’t believe her. She could see as much in her daughter’s eyes. Edna was convinced she was acting like a dog in the manger. What Edna wanted was to screw herself silly, not having a clue how silly she was already. With a sigh, Nellie said, “Get a pot of coffee going, why don’t you? I could use a cup, and I bet you could, too.”
“Might as well make it for us,” Edna said. “Ain’t nobody else likely to come in and drink it. Most of the folks left here in town don’t have the money, and most of the ones who do still think we was a pack of traitors.”
“I know.” Nellie sighed again, this time over lost business unlikely to return. “Good thing I put aside as much as I did, or we’d be in worse shape than we are.” One more sigh. “Only thing that Rebel scrip we got is good for now is blowing our noses on it, I’m afraid.”
“We haven’t got that much of it, though,” Edna said, lighting the fire in the stove. “The Rebs liked us. Why not? We always had good coffee and good food, so no wonder they liked us and mostly paid us real cash.” As she started measuring grounds for the pot, she gave her mother another sour stare. “Now I know how we got all that good stuff. I never did before, on account of you never told me.”
Before Nellie could answer, a motorcar stopped outside. She was amazed anyone had even tried to negotiate the shell-pocked, glass-strewn roadway. “Got a puncture, I’ll bet,” she said.
A moment later, the door opened. Nellie started to say, See? Told you so, but the words clogged in her throat. Into the coffeehouse walked Theodore Roosevelt. He pointed a finger at her. “You are Mrs. Nellie Semphroch,” he said, as if daring her to disagree.
“Y-Yes, sir,” she said, and dropped a curtsy. “And this here is my daughter Edna.” She didn’t know whether she ought to be introducing Edna to the president of the United States. She didn’t know whether she should have admitted her own name, either. If Roosevelt was inclined to believe most of her neighbors and not Hal Jacobs, he was by all accounts capable of ordering her dragged out and shot on the spot.
“Now that our capital is in our own hands once more,” he said, “I decided to come down from Philadelphia and see what was left of this city that was once so wonderful. The Rebs haven’t left us much, have they?”
“No, sir,” Nellie answered. On the stove, the pot began to perk. “Would you care for some coffee, sir?”
“Bully!” Roosevelt said. A couple of hard-faced men in green-gray-bodyguards, by the look of them-came into the coffeehouse after him. “Cups for Roland and Stan, too, if you please. I have something for you here, Mrs. Semphroch, and also for your lovely daughter.”
Edna simpered as she poured the coffee. Nellie wished the cups that had survived the recapture of Washington were all from the same set. She supposed she should have been grateful any cups had survived. One direct hit and they wouldn’t have. One direct hit and she might not have, either.
After taking a sip, Roosevelt set down his cup and reached into his pocket. His hand came out not with a derringer but with a dark blue velvet box, the sort of box in which a ring might have come. He opened the box. Nellie gaped at the big golden Maltese cross on a red, white, and blue ribbon. Roosevelt lifted the medal out of the box. The ribbon was long enough to go around Nellie’s neck.
“The Order of Remembrance, First Class,” Roosevelt boomed. “Highest civilian honor I can give. I argued for a Distinguished Service Cross myself, but the stick-in-the-muds at the War Department started having kittens. This is the best I could do. Congratulations, Mrs. Semphroch: a grateful country thanks you for your brave service.”
He slipped the medal over Nellie’s head. Dazedly, she watched him put a hand in his pocket again and produce another velvet box. When he opened it, the Maltese cross inside was of silver, with inlaid gold stripes. The ribbon attached to it was also of the colors of the national flag, but not quite so wide as the one on Nellie’s medal.
“Order of Remembrance, Second Class,” he said, putting the decoration over Edna’s head. “For you, Miss Semphroch, for helping your mother gather information from the foe and pass it on to the United States.”
Edna gaped. So did Nellie. Maybe Roosevelt didn’t know Edna had been on the point of marrying Confederate Lieutenant Nicholas H. Kincaid-would have married him if the U.S. bombardment hadn’t turned the ceremony into a bloody shambles. Maybe he did know and didn’t care.
No sooner had that thought crossed Nellie’s mind than, as if on cue, a photographer strode into the coffeehouse. President Roosevelt put one arm around Nellie, the other around Edna, and Nellie realized the photographer’s appearance wasn’t as if on cue at all. It was on cue. The fellow touched off his tray of flash powder. Foomp! As a glowing purple smear made hash of Nellie’s eyesight, the shutter clicked.
“Can we do one more?” the photographer asked, beginning to set up again.
“I’m standing here with my arms around two lovely ladies, and you ask me a question like that?” Roosevelt said. “By all means, sir, by all means. Take all day if you need to-but make sure you do the job right.”
Edna laughed at the president’s joke. Had Roosevelt shown any interest in more than her laugh, she probably would have given him that, too. Nellie did not like being touched without having invited it, but she endured it. She’d endured worse in her time, and Roosevelt took no undue liberties.
Of one thing Nellie was very, very sure: he had no more idea than did Hal Jacobs of how Bill Reach had died. Nor did she intend to let either of them ever learn.
Thinking that, she was smiling when the flash powder went Foomp! again. So was Theodore Roosevelt. So was Edna. “Great!” the photographer said. “The newspapers’ll eat this one up.”
“Bully!” Roosevelt said again. He let the women go and then turned to them. “Now I must depart, I fear. I have to look over this poor tormented town and try to decide how we can set it to rights once more. But now that I have had a cup of your excellent coffee and given you some small portion of the reward you so richly deserve, I do hope any and all slanders against you on the part of your neighbors shall cease forthwith. A very good day to you both.”
And he was gone, a human hurricane in a black suit and straw boater. His bodyguards followed him out. So did the photographer, who had the grace to tip his hat. Nellie felt as if she’d survived yet another bombardment.
As soon as that feeling faded even a little, though, she went to a counter and pulled out a can of red paint and a brush. Roosevelt’s limousine was still making its slow way around the corner when she painted a message on the boards covering her shattered window: OUR
COFFEE IS FINE ENOUGH FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. HOW
“Oh, that’s good, Ma,” Edna said, the medal still around her neck.
“It’s better than good,” Nellie said. “It’s bully!” Mother and daughter smiled, at ease with each other for one of the rare times since the shooting started.