Quickly, quietly, while there was time, Sally Watson brought her expensive lizard purse to her lap, located her enamel-inlaid sterling compact, and snapped it open. Her bouffant blond hair was still set perfectly, not a strand out of place. Her eye shadow and mascara were still fresh and right. Her lips-possibly they were overdone. Furtively, she found a Kleenex, brought it to her mouth, and pressed her lips against it. The compact mirror congratulated her on the improvement. The last touch of Aphrodite was gone. What was left, she prayed, was modest Pudicitia.
She dropped the compact into the purse and sat erect, waiting. President Dilman’s call was proving interminable for her. Every minute that he was so occupied was a minute subtracted from her chances. Could he even imagine how desperately she wanted the position? She would be “inside.” She would be “high up,” in the rarefied power hierarchy. She would be Somebody. Her circle of friends would envy her. Arthur Eaton would respect her infinitely more.
She must win the job. Yet there was not a single indication that President Dilman was seriously considering her for it. Of course, he had sent for her, but maybe that had been to satisfy Leroy Poole or toady to her father. A pin of discouragement perforated her grand hopes. Well, anyway, she told herself, if nothing came of it, well, anyway, she’d been the first of the crowd to see him up close, the strange one, the one on everyone’s lips. She would have a conversation piece and attention grabber for a month. But-oh, dammit-she didn’t want a conversation piece. She wanted a real occupation and identity, to make her eligible for continued living and for Arthur Eaton’s love.
She heard the telephone bang into its cradle, and she started, and then, to her surprise, she found President Dilman appraising her.
“Forgive me for the length of that telephone call, Miss Watson,” he said. “If Alexander Graham Bell had not lived, I guess we’d have anarchy instead of a centralized democratic government today.”
She knew her responding laugh was strained. She said, “It’s kind enough of you to see me at all.”
He had a pencil, and absently drew circles with it on a scratch pad. “Everything you’ve told me up to now, Miss Watson, indicates you possess the right background for this type of work. But I must add, to be perfectly honest, I do have one or two reservations about you.”
She felt stricken, as if sentenced to doom without being told the reason behind it. Desperation made her bolder. “What reservations, Mr. President? Please tell me whatever is on your mind. I feel I’m so perfectly qualified for the position, so right for it, that I can’t imagine-” She threw up her hands helplessly, then remembered the scar and turned her right wrist inward. “I can’t imagine anyone on earth not seeing how useful I could be.”
Dilman made some kind of muttering sound-approving, disapproving of her outburst, she could not judge-and then he said, “Very well, Miss Watson, we don’t have much time, and I must fill this job, and I mustn’t make a mistake. To be specific, my reservations are three. Let me put them before you.”
Sally said, “Yes, please do,” and she held her breath.
“First,” said Dilman, “you’ve skipped around a good deal in your job training and positions-”
“Because I’ve never found what I wanted or what I’m best suited for,” she said quickly. “This is where I belong.”
“Very well. Let us say this is where you belong. The second question is-have you ever served in a position similar to that of White House social secretary?”
“Not exactly, except in my personal life. It’s such a special position, the only one like it in the United States, that I suppose few girls have had experience like that. But I have known most of the White House social secretaries from Miss Laurel back to Miss Tuckerman and Miss Baldridge, and I believe I can bring to the job as much know-how as any of them brought to it, to start with. I can bring you a dossier filled with every kind of endorsement, from Eastern boarding schools to Radcliffe, from Park Avenue editors to the Junior League. I believe I am attractive, well groomed, well dressed, with the best of breeding and manners. I have imagination, taste, adaptability. I know how to handle and direct correspondence, plan and conduct an informal luncheon or a formal dinner, oversee the housekeeper while she manages the help. I’ve done this, Mr. President, I’ve done it for my father, ever since my mother divorced him. My stepmother has never been good at this, and I am, so I’ve done it. You know how long my father has been in the Senate. He is acquainted with everyone and everyone knows him, and we’ve been visited by princes, maharajahs, ambassadors, millionaires, and astronauts, and I’ve entertained for most of them. You are acquainted with my father. Call him and ask him. He’ll verify every word I’ve spoken.”
Dilman smiled. “I don’t believe I need to call your father as a reference, Miss Watson, but perhaps I should call him about something else-that third reservation I hold.”
“What is it?”
“Miss Watson, as a Negro I have never had much in common with my Southern colleagues in the Upper House. The only one I’ve had any liking for is Senator Watson, and I’ve not known him too well, either. He is a decent man, a gentleman, but he is still a product of, a representative of, an area, a people, who regard persons of my color as inferiors. What will your father think of his daughter serving as social secretary to a Negro? Does he even know you are here?”
“He does not know I am here, but if he did know, he would not have stopped me from coming, or even have tried to. He treats me as an individual, and he lets me have my freedom. We disagree about many things. We love each other none the less for it. As to what he would think of my being your social secretary-I don’t think he would like it. But I don’t think he would make his objections known to me or to anyone. He would not interfere. And I know he would understand that my affection for him would always be a thing separate from my loyalty to my employer.”
She paused, seeing how intent Dilman was upon her every word, and then she went on. “Mr. President, my father is not applying for this job. I am. While he is an enlightened Southerner, he still carries ancient prejudices. I do not. Please, Mr. President, in all fairness, do not visit the sins of the parents on their children.”
She sensed that she had convinced Dilman on this point, and his receptive expression confirmed it. “I believe you, Miss Watson,” he said at last. “If there were a First Lady in the White House to help me, I’d feel safe in hiring you on the spot. Being without a First Lady, I must burden the woman I hire with the social duties of two women. If there were only someone in Washington, beside your parent, who could assure me that you were absolutely capable of-”
That instant, it came to her. “I know someone,” she said.
“To recommend you?”
“Yes. Well, I hope he would. I mean Secretary of State Eaton.”
She had thoroughly impressed him, at last. It was evident in his reaction. And she knew why: not because Eaton was second in the government, but because he had Style. No Negro, she thought, would dare turn down an applicant who had the social sanction of the suave Secretary of State.
“Let’s hear what Secretary Eaton has to say about you,” said Dilman. He reached for the white console telephone. “Do you mind going into Miss Foster’s office for a moment? Right there, the door behind you.”
Sally could hear the President speaking on his direct line to the Department of State as she left the Oval Office and went quickly into Miss Foster’s office. She interrupted Miss Foster’s staccato typing to introduce herself and remind Miss Foster that they had met briefly at the White House Congressional Dinner two years before. After that, Sally allowed Miss Foster to resume her work, and she nervously moved around the small room, pretending an interest in the framed photographs on the wall and the reference books on the shelves.