No Perfect Secret (8 page)

“Wait. I took you to lunch. You’re supposed to help me out with the computer stuff, and get me set up for online banking.”

“Another day, Frank. I can’t get out of this.”

“What? You have an assignation? You’re meeting your lover?”

“You need to sign up for a Dale Carnegie course, Frank. You don’t do sarcasm well at all. Here’s the good news. Once I get you hooked up, you can take a class online. If not, they’ve got an office over on G Street.” She looked at him. He had frustration dripping from his earlobes. “Damnation. Okay. But, I have to make a call first.”

She used the phone on her desk. Cells didn’t work well in the basement.

While she was on the phone Caburn went down the corridor to the bathroom. All three of them had to use it and Helen was a stickler for keeping it clean. Cleaning ladies did not come down to the basement. He double-checked that the seat was down, washed his hands, wiped water drops from the old porcelain sink, then checked himself in the mirror. He wondered if Anna might think him better looking than Kevin Nesmith. What he was really asking himself was: What makes a woman fall in love with a man? He damned sure couldn’t see the answer in the mirror.

Helen was coated and waiting for him in the office. “You can come along. We’ll get as much done as we can before we meet my pals.”

“Thanks, I really—”

The phone rang. “
Gads!” Helen said as she picked it up.

“Oh, hi, Beth... That sounds lovely, but we can’t. We’re snowed under with the French thing. No, we’re not handling the Russian event. If the marines want to do something to their guy
—fine. But we here in the State Department believe in capitalism—it’s been the denouement for communism. It’s also why Congress gives so much money to foreign countries—so they can buy stuff from us, and keep our trade deficit down. Sure, sure. Maybe next year.” She hung up. “Okay, Frank, let’s go.”

“Who was that and what Russian thing?”

“Beth—on the third floor. She invited us to their Christmas party.”

Caburn looked at her desk. The old IBM computer screen was still blue. Her novel was open-faced with a paperclip marking her spot. All of her pencils were sharpened
and lined neatly on the right-hand corner. The envelope with Nesmith’s things had been shoved into a desk drawer. “Why did you tell her we’re too busy to go? They have home-cooked food at their parties. Last year somebody brought a green bean casserole with crispy fried onions on top. Just like my mom cooks.”

Helen patted him on the cheek. “Get your hat. Albert has initiated a new policy. We’re not to show our faces above the first floor except for official functions. The refusal to Beth
—that’s called disinformation. The Russians invented it. That’s so the powers that be think we’ve got our noses to the grindstone. We’re worker bees. We
cannot
be dispensed with, shut down or retired.”

Caburn snorted.

“Fine. Laugh. You’ll be old one day. Remind me how many jobs have you held?”

“Just this one, except for the farm.”

“Right. You have your farm to fall back on. Albert and I have had to shuffle agencies like musical chairs. He’s got my back and I have his.”

“
You better not let his wife hear you say that.”

“Oh, Louise and I get along just fine.” Once they exited the building, Helen said: “I’m driving
—in case I have to boot you out. As long as you stay nice, you’re fine.”

“Why wouldn’t I stay nice?”

“Never mind. You want to know about the Russian thing?”

“I admit I’m curious.”

“One of our female carriers has a thing for one of the marines at the our Embassy in Moscow. She moved some stuff through customs along with the Embassy’s.”

“How in the hell did she do that?
”

“Oh, it’s easy. Before her flight she bought three bottles of Grey Goose in the duty free shop. She gave them as ‘gifts’ to cargo handlers.
”

“Vodka? She bribed Russian workers with vodka? Russia is the home of vodka
—they manufacture millions of gallons a year.”

“The ordinary person
—people like you and me would be peasants in Russia—can’t buy the good stuff. And anyway, Russia exports their best vodka. Believe me—that girl knew what she was doing.”

“So she was smuggling something in? Not out?”

“You got it. A thousand tubes of Colgate toothpaste.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m being true blue. Those Russians can’t make decent toothpaste. You know why they have all those metal teeth? Russian toothpaste eats away the enamel. The marine knew a local who has one of those kiosks in the market at the edge of Moscow. Or maybe he sells out of the trunk of his car. They do that, too. American toothpaste sells for five American or six euros in the cash and carry black market. The girl got her investment back. She and the marine cleared a thousand in profit, and so did the local.”

“And, we’re not going to do anything? She’s not supposed to
—”

“She’ll probably get a reprimand in her jacket, be rotated off that route.”

“That doesn’t seem right.”

“Really? Don’t you own a
wheat farm? Who buys the most US wheat? Nobody wants posting to Russia these days—it’s too costly. Used to be, you could leave a pack of Juicy Fruit or Big Red for a tip. Nowadays—you’d better have a wad of American or euros.”

Caburn had an epiphany. “You were posted to Moscow, weren’t you? All those rumors that you were fired from the FBI
—that was disinformation.”

“I
was
fired from the FBI—almost the minute I set foot in the agency. This was way before women had any rights in the workplace. But I come from a good family, Frank. A good southern family, from between Warm Springs and Calloway Gardens, Georgia.”

“Warm Springs. That’s where F
DR. died.”

“Yep.”

“And, your last name is Calloway.”

“Some coincidence, huh?”

She pulled into the parking lot at Washington Chase Bank. “Here we are. This is where you’re starting your journey into the 21st Century.”

Caburn frowned. “How did you know this is where I bank?”

Helen patted him on the knee. “Mother knows all.”

~~~~

“Morning, ladies,” Anna said, as she entered the kitchen fresh from her shower, robe tightened about her slender waist, wet hair bound in a towel, a thick pair of wool socks warming her feet. Clara-Alice and Lila were at the kitchen table playing Skip Bo, a glorified game of double solitaire.

“You’re not dressed for work,” said
Clara-Alice, observing the obvious.

“Nope, took a leave day.”

The old ladies looked at one another, then back at Anna. Lila said: “We were just plotting how we’d get to the Eastern Market today—the Gremlin grouch, or taxi. If you’re just taking a lazy day—why don’t you join us?”

“And drive,” added
Clara-Alice, just in case Anna did not get it.

“I can’t think before I’ve had coffee,” Anna said.

“Sure,” said Lila. “But when your brain comes online, think crab cakes, eggs Benedict with salmon, fried donuts that make you think of New Orleans and the Café Du Monde... All those fresh vegetables in season, like yams, and turnips, smoked Virginia hams, milk-fed chickens.”

“Think liposuction,” Anna retorted.

“We only live once,” said Lila.

Anna poured coffee and cream, picked up the newspaper and headed toward the sun porch.

“We already worked the crossword puzzle,” Clara-Alice said to her back.

“You ladies stink.” Anna said.

“Guess we’d better change our deodorants,” Lila whispered, drawing a card.

The sun was full up, melting the dusting of snow on the east windows. Anna curled up in an old wicker chair and pulled an afghan over her lap. She put the newspaper aside and sipped her coffee. She’d had
a miserable night, her mind in turmoil. Sitting across from Frank Caburn last night she had been certain her marriage was over. His expression had been so solemn when the topic was Kevin. Her turmoil had fed on her guilty conscience. Watching his mouth, his hands, the way he cocked his head. Lord, but she was ripe for an affair. Her body was telling her one thing and her good sense—and she had always considered she had a fair amount—was telling her another.

Yet, de
ep down inside she was worried that it was too late to mend the tears in the fabric of her marriage. Reflection took her back to the early days of their passion. She and Kevin had talked non-stop across the Atlantic when she was returning from Paris. Kevin had talked her into stopping in D.C. for a couple of days. He had escorted her around the capital, making like tourists—which she was. They had not made love—but the passion was overwhelming. When he put her on the flight back to Kansas, she knew she would return.

Over a second cup of coffee she found herself looking back over her year in Paris. Her initial nervousness of being in a foreign country in which she spoke no more than a dozen phrases of the language, of meeting her roommate and other students, had lasted no more than a week. She was young; there was lots of laughter, lots of fun. She did not have to stint on money; she’d leased her mother’s house to a pair of doctors doing their internships at KU Med. Paris was a city of small communities. It did not take long to discover the back-door boutiques that sold the samples from the great and small fashion houses like Dior, Chanel, Hermes, Armani and Gucci. Hidden away in tiny cobbled-stoned streets were the smaller shops where the models sold their clothes and shoes and accessories on consignment. Tall and slender, Anna had been surprised and delighted to discover many of those wonderful clothes fit her without so much as a stitch of alterations. By the end of her year in France, she had added poise, cachet and bling, not only to her wardrobe
—but her very essence. She was at the peak of her confidence when she met Kevin.

Not only that
—but good fortune followed wherever she went. The doctors who leased her house in Mission, Kansas begged to buy it. She sold it at a good price and put the money in CDs before interest dropped to non-existent. She stayed with her best friend from high school while waiting for the sale to close, and used that time to apply online for librarian positions to schools in D.C. and Maryland. The Library of Congress was the ultimate—she filled out that application, too, never expecting a reply. Her former professors told her that job would be impossible to get, but wrote her a fabulous reference anyway. On Craigslist she found an apartment near the Eastern Market—a pair of Georgetown students were looking to sublease while they did a couple of semesters at the London School of Economics. In four phone calls she had a fully-furnished apartment, a job interview at the Library of Congress, and two interviews lined up at schools in Maryland.

Kevin met her at the airport when she returned to D.C. They fell into one another’s arms
, and later into bed in her new apartment, with unrestrained passion. Life was so good it had a taste—the ambrosia of dark honey, ripe peaches, and vine-ripened melons—which she often bought at the Eastern Market. The market was only a short block from her apartment. When Kevin wasn’t working, they’d stroll the fragrant halls hand-in-hand, shopping for the ingredients for dishes she prepared to show off her newly-acquired cooking skills. There was never a day without laughter. After a third interview she was hired as a senate researcher. Two months later they were married by a Justice of the Peace, Clara-Alice their only witness.

Anna closed her eyes, yet the sun penetrated her lids with prisms of the color wheel. Where had the laughter gone? Why didn’t she have the child she longed for? When had Kevin stopped loving her? She was two months past her thirty-fourth birthday.
She wished her mother were alive to tell her what to do.

Her mother. Anna sat up with a jolt. Once, not long after Dad had died, Anna heard her mother in the kitchen
—first giggling, then a snort of laughter, then a series of guffaws that seemed to bounce off the walls. Anna hadn’t laughed since her Dad’s funeral. In the kitchen she found her mother wiping tears with a dish cloth. Anna looked at her. “Momma! How can you be laughing when Daddy’s dead?”

“I was just remembering something funny that happened when your Dad and I were dating. We were in the park. Getting all set up for our first kiss, our lips weren’t this far apart
—” She held up her thumb and forefinger, displaying two inches. Bird poop came right down out of the sky between us and landed on his shoulder.”

“Ugh. I don’t think that’s funny.”

Her mother smiled. “I guess you had to be there.” Anna’s face was tense and unhappy. “Oh, sweetie, listen. You can’t let laughter go out of your life—no matter how many bad things happen. I wish you’d known my grandmother. Grampa died in WWI and she lost two sons to WWII. Yet, she was the happiest woman I’ve ever known. She said God lined our souls with laughter so a person would know that no matter how dark the night, the sun was coming up on a new day. We’re each of us responsible for our own happiness, Anna—it’s not something you can put off on another person.”