She had done all that could be done, and now her entire future rested on Arthur Eaton’s word. If he said yes, her life would become new and meaningful. If he said so little as maybe, her life would be shattered. She would kill herself, for she would not only have lost the job, but she would know that she had lost Arthur.
Miss Foster’s telephone shook the room, or so it seemed to Sally. Her heart thumped. Miss Foster had hung up and gestured toward the President’s office. “You can go back in, Miss Watson.”
President Dilman was standing before his desk when she entered.
Suddenly his broad face offered her a wide smile, and he extended his hand. “Welcome to the White House, Miss Watson. Secretary Eaton’s praise and enthusiasm for you were so unbounded that for a moment I was almost too timid to think of hiring you. Apparently you are everything I hoped for, a remarkable young lady who’s going to safeguard my social life. Well, I am delighted.”
She clutched his hand in both of hers, squeezing it in her excitement, shutting her eyes and whispering, “Oh, thank you, thank you, you won’t regret it a day.” She wanted to faint, but whether from pride over the prestigious job or from knowledge of Arthur’s reciprocal love, she didn’t know.
She realized that Dilman was guiding her to the corridor exit. She tried to fasten on what he was saying. Something about calling Miss Foster tomorrow. Security papers, payroll papers, résumé blanks, all to be filled out. Something about seeing her office in the East Wing the day after tomorrow. Something about officially starting the job Monday. Thank you, Miss Social Secretary. Thank you, Mr. President.
Dazed, she found herself gliding past the secretarial cubicles outside Flannery’s office, found herself wandering into the press-filled lobby, found Reb Blaser and George Murdock and others watching her. Before they could question her, she left swiftly, half running up the White House driveway, past the guardhouse, and into busy Pennsylvania Avenue.
She walked on air, lofted and propelled by her unrestrained fantasies of bliss, and when she came down to earth she was on Fifteenth Street, in sight of Keith’s RKO Theatre. There was only one thing she wanted to do to fulfill her perfect day. She reached a drugstore, and then a telephone booth inside, and closed herself in a glass cocoon of privacy.
She dialed DU 3-5600.
The Department of State. The seventh floor. The chief receptionist. The Secretary’s secretary. Who? Miss Sally Watson? One moment please, I’ll see if he has gone to lunch.
“Hello, Sally?”
“Arthur, I hope I’m not bothering you in the middle of a conference or-”
“What happened, Sally?”
“Arthur, I got it! I can’t believe it. The President says I start Monday. I can’t believe it. And my thanks to you. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”
“You have the position because you deserve it. I told him honestly that I thought he would find no one your equal in Washington. I told him not to let you go. I told him that had I known you wanted a job, I would have released half my girls to make way for you. I’m delighted, Sally. Congratulations.”
“Arthur, that buildup you gave me. How can I live up to it? You can’t believe-”
“I believe more than that about you, Sally. You know I do.”
“Arthur, I want to do anything I can for you.”
“You do your job.”
“I want to repay you.”
“Mmm-well, my dear, there might be one way, as I suggested the last time we were together. It becomes fairly lonesome at home in the evening, especially at the dinner hour.”
“Invite me, Arthur, go ahead, invite me.”
“You are invited. I’ll get to you tomorrow with the date.”
“You won’t forget, this time?”
“I hadn’t forgotten, Sally. I’ve been busy. I am still busy. Except now that you are a government girl, I can justify it as mixing business with pleasure. I must run, Sally.” He paused. “There is only one thing I want you to do for me. When we meet, I want you to be wearing the white sequined gown. You know, the décolleté one. Good-bye, Sally.”
When she floated out of the booth, she was surer than she had ever been. She would be a First Lady of sorts yet-not Dilman’s, but Arthur Eaton’s.
It was a quarter to seven in the evening. The after-work, going-home traffic had abated. The Presidential limousine sped through the red lights and darkened thoroughfares toward the brownstone row house on Van Buren Street.
This morning, when he left his private residence, the journey had taken twice as long, and Douglass Dilman had not imagined that he would return so soon. All through the busy, depleting, and eventually upsetting day, the conviction had grown upon him that he must return as soon as possible.
Because of his second argument with his son, his appointment schedule had dragged on longer than planned. His last visitor had left him a half hour ago. Then he had requested Edna to inform Nat Abrahams at the Mayflower Hotel that their dinner must be postponed from eight o’clock to eight-thirty. Before she departed for the night, Edna had confirmed the change, adding that Mrs. Abrahams was confined to bed with a cold and that Mr. Abrahams would be coming alone.
After that, Dilman had telephoned Reverend Paul Spinger directly.
“Paul, is Wanda back from work yet?”
“She’s in the kitchen. I can get her for you, Mr. President.”
“No. I’d rather not speak to her on the phone. Simply ask her to stay there. I want to see her alone. Just for a few minutes.”
“I’ll tell her, Mr. President. How was your first day in the White House?”
“I don’t know, really, Paul. I’ve been too busy… Look, Paul, I want my visit kept hush-hush. You understand? It’s not easy to arrange on this end, but I intend to manage it. See you all shortly.”
After notifying engagements secretary Lucas and press secretary Flannery that he was through for the day, and would spend the entire evening in his new dwelling, Dilman had stepped outside. He had come upon the Secret Service agent, Otto Beggs, the one who had accompanied him from the brownstone this morning. Beggs had been waiting beside the colonnade to accompany him again in the short walk to the ground-floor elevator. Dilman had remembered the husky agent was on a split shift, which might explain his disgruntled expression. Dilman also remembered that it was Beggs who had warned him he could travel nowhere alone.
As they strode through the chilled darkness, he had taken his measure of Beggs. It would not be easy, he had told himself, but he was determined to have this one important private visit. When they had entered the ground floor, Beggs had turned left, but Dilman had turned right. Almost comically, Beggs had scrambled back to his side.
Dilman had informed the agent that he wanted to make a short visit to his brownstone residence before dinner. There was a civil rights matter that he had to discuss informally with Reverend Spinger, his upstairs tenant. Dilman had insisted that he did not want the press alerted to this unscheduled meeting. Therefore, he wished minimum security maintained in order to allow his going and coming to be unnoticed. There had been a brief disagreement, nervous on both sides, and, at last, Beggs had consented to reduce their protective escort to three agents in the limousine, and one motorcycle policeman ahead and one behind, without sirens being put into use until they left the immediate White House area.
He had been pleased at how quickly and quietly the limousine had been made to appear, and how swiftly and stealthily their departure had been accomplished.