The Dinner Party (23 page)

No terrorists attacked, and in the early twilight a rose hue fell on the old, rambling Colonial house, turning the white clapboards pink and violet. The four passengers were caught by a trick of light that enveloped them in a golden glow, and being human, they reacted with pleasure.

“So that's the old homestead,” William Justin said. “It's a pretty place,” dropping a small compliment toward a man he did not actually like. Justin was a small man, not terribly small, five feet and seven inches in height, but giving an impression of being shorter because of his bald head. It was his pride that he would not wear a toupee, and it worked for him since he was the only one of his contemporaries who did not hide his weakness under a rug. He had tiny, gimlet eyes, very dark, and he gave no impression of being either young or old—although he was, in fact, forty-nine years of age. The media never referred to him as either Young Bill Justin or Old Bill Justin, bowing to his agelessness. Like the ferret, he was compulsively driven to triumph and to kill, wearing his marine background like a medal of honor. His wife, Winifred Lackover Justin, came of a Louisiana family that had once owned one of the huge, ostentatious Mississippi river houses with the Greek-revival columns and numerous slaves. A blue-eyed, blonde southern girl, she had turned sour over the years as she came to realize that the presidency would never be within her husband's reach. Not only was he woefully non-photogenic, but in his past there was the shadow, true or not, of an unwed grandmother.

Webster Heller, the secretary of state, was out of a different world, a world of new and very oily money. A Texan, he was tall, gaunt, with eyes so cold that the blue was almost white. The senator felt that there was nothing behind those eyes, no soul, no heart, only a brain that was not unlike the very best of computers. In height, he matched Augustus, but without Augustus's bulk and wide muscular chest; he was a long, lean man in the Gary Cooper tradition. His wife was an odd contrast. Heller was sixty-three, his wife eleven years younger, white haired, full breasted, with a timid, apologetic smile and a thin, diffident voice. She could have posed for the pictures they put on frozen apple pies, boxes of cake mix, and tins of cookies. It was bruited about that she existed in permanent panic, but no one really knew much about her except that she chattered. Her prissy, printed silk frock appeared perfectly proper for her, although on anyone else it might have looked ridiculous. But it retreated in utter defeat before the ruby red silk gown that enveloped Winifred Justin.

MacKenzie took the ladies' wraps and then ushered the four guests into the living room. It was a beautiful room, with its eighteen-foot silk Chinese rug, gray-green walls and white woodwork. A courtly and restful room, the evening light slanting through the windows vying with the lamps. MacKenzie disposed of their wraps, saw that Dolly had the situation in hand, and then sped outside. The two Secret Service men were sitting obediently in the front seat of the stretch Cadillac.

“Follow the driveway around to the back of the house,” MacKenzie told them. “You can park just outside the garage, and you'll see the kitchen door, and then over a ways on the right, there's a screened-in porch. You can make yourself comfortable on the porch, and Mrs. MacKenzie will have your dinner brought to you there.”

“What about security?”

“Oh? What about it?”

“There's the front door.”

“We got a German shepherd. I can tie him up out here, you want me to.”

“Mister, are you putting me on?”

“My goodness, no,” MacKenzie protested. “You mean terrorists and such?”

“I mean security.”

“Well, I can lock the front door.”

“You know, Mister, you are beginning to be a pain in the ass.”

The other Secret Service man said to his partner, “Take it easy.” And to MacKenzie, “I think we better keep our station right here. If we can have bathroom facilities?”

“I'll leave the front door open.”

“No! You don't do that. We'll go around to the back if we need a bathroom.”

MacKenzie said to himself, What you mean is that you'll piss on the grass once it's dark. He stalked back into the house, full of anger, calming himself as he entered the living room. Dolly's eye signals said, For heaven's sake, get them drinking. He poured the Pavillon Blanc for Winifred and accepted Frances Heller's request for a Perrier, while Dolly hissed to Elizabeth, “Will you run upstairs and get them down here!” Frances was explaining to MacKenzie, “I don't drink anymore—oh, I'll have a glass of wine at dinner, but not real drink. Mr. Heller is very secretive, and when I drink, I can't be secretive.” The pink apple-pie face smiled up at him, and though it was quite insane, MacKenzie had the feeling that the plump little lady with the white hair was coming on to him. Heller and Augustus both had Scotch and soda, and Justin had a wine cooler. The thought of diluting the Château Margaux with soda water horrified MacKenzie. When he turned to Dolly, she whispered, “I'll wait. Mac, where are they?”

“Shall I go?”

“Oh, no. No. I sent Liz.”

“It looks to me,” Augustus boomed from across the room, “like a couple of barely ambulatory Republicans have driven my son-in-law to cover.”

Heller protested that he still got onto a golf course at least once a week.

“Riding the cart or walking?”

Justin insisted that he himself walked. Heller confessed to getting on and off the cart. Mrs. Heller was admiring the wallpaper. “It looks real,” she said to Dolly, who wondered what she could possibly mean by that.

“It is real,” Dolly said lamely.

“She means blocked,” said Winifred. “But your house isn't that old, is it?”

“Oh, no. Mother built the house. It's simply a passable reproduction.” The kitchen and the pantry are the remains of a very old house, but modernized as they are, they can hardly claim antique vintage.”

“If you can think of a reproduction as being passable?”

“Well, perhaps not with houses,” Dolly agreed with Winifred. “Certainly not in terms of face lifts and such. But furniture can be almost perfect.”

It was a stiletto into a very tender spot, and Dolly would have swallowed her tongue to have the words back. It was not the kind of thing she would ordinarily have done—smack in the face of the two bouts of surgery that Winifred was said to have had, and whose small, hardly hidden scars about the ears bore witness to.

“Yes, yes indeed,” Winifred agreed, smiling thinly. “Just as some women are almost perfect. I have heard it said about Joan Herman, but I don't think she's quite that perfect—I mean, being a tall blonde doesn't forgive all sins.”

“Touché,” Dolly murmured. “It's a long evening. Shall we be friends?”

“One tries.”

“I always try,” Frances Heller said. “You know, it's basic to the practice of politics.”

“Really? I hadn't noticed.”

“I'll never need it—unless I go on some dismal diet—which I have no intention of doing.”

“What won't you need?” Dolly asked, and once again wished she could gulp the words back.

“A face lift.”

“Of course, darling,” Winifred said acidly, “you're too lovely.”

But Frances Heller, too high for acid to touch her, simply smiled and nodded. “Thank you,” she said. When she was six, her mother had told her never to contest it when anyone said she was beautiful, but accept it and say thank you. “Frank Bixbee says that a little pudge keeps the lines and creases away. Does Frank do your hair, Winnie?” There was no contrived bitchiness in Frances. She was still the six-year-old whom everyone said was so very pretty.

“Pudge?” Dolly wondered.

“Fat,” Winifred said flatly. “No. I don't use Frank. Seventy-five dollars for a haircut is beyond my fantasies.”

“I would perish without Frank. Do you, Mrs. Cromwell?”

“I'm afraid not,” Dolly confessed. “When it gets too long, Ellen takes a pair of shears and lops it away.”

Elizabeth entered the room now, and Dolly realized she was too young and too beautiful for the moment, putting the older women on the defensive, making them unhappily aware of themselves. It was not going to be a good evening. Elizabeth whispered to her mother, “They'll be right down.”

“Nothing wrong?”

“Oh, no. All systems go.” Lies. How could she lie to her mother in this fashion? The sorrow would pile up. The sorrow was something that belonged to all three of them; it was wrong to separate it, cut it apart, save it so to speak. How could she or her father live through the remaining hours of the day? But she couldn't deal with this question; she was still trying to comprehend that her brother was dying, and the decisions belonged to her father. She was amazed by the manner of her pretense. Was she born to deceit? Who was it who had said that “only a woman could properly engage in deceit”?

Elizabeth was introduced to the secretary of state and to his assistant for Central America. Justin responded stiffly. His problems with women came out of a fantasy world where all women desired him, and such was the sexual enticement of power that it was bruited about that he had made a new record of swift, short-lived conquests—even for Washington, where the competition was stiff indeed. But the presence of Winifred stilted his efforts; she made him aware of his physical self. Webster Heller, on the other hand, was a handsome Texan with a valid southern accent. In the media, he was frequently described as a courtly gentleman. He bowed and gushed properly, informing Elizabeth that the little girl had become a beautiful woman.

Elizabeth inferred by this that he meant they had met before. She had no memory of it, but Heller was quick to inform her that she had been no more than six or seven.

“Little girls become big girls,” Augustus rumbled. “Fact of life. It's also a fact that horny old men appreciate. Why not? She's as beautiful as the first good day in April.”

Jenny was used to it, and she apologized by offering a long sigh to the other women.

“You remind me of my mother,” Heller told Elizabeth. “She was the first beauty queen ever to be crowned in Texas—a true flower of the old frontier.”

Winifred whispered to her husband, “His mother's family kept a feed store in Dallas, and his mother was horsefaced.”

“Will you shut up,” Justin hissed.

“Will you drop dead,” his wife whispered gently.

“Webster is charming,” Frances said to Dolly, regarding her husband with affectionate awe. “Don't you think he's charming?”

“Yes,” Dolly agreed. “Both he and my daddy—both of them very charming.”

Jenny was whispering to her, “Where are they? This is dreadful.”

But then the senator and his son entered the room.

THIRTY

D
olly's first reaction was pleasure and pride at seeing them walk into the room together, two tall, good-looking men, so alike even though the senator was broader and at least fifty pounds heavier then Leonard. Her mood pleased and annoyed her at once. Richard Cromwell was the same man who had ripped her to shreds emotionally at least a dozen times, who had taken other women to bed, who at times had totally ignored her and her children, and who had given her periods of utter misery. What had changed? Or had anything changed? Had she ever let go of it, stopped loving him, considered divorce? His position was not a reason for staying married to him, it was an excuse.

Once in the room, the senator became another person. Dolly recognized the change; she had seen it a hundred times before, likening it to the man by day who turned into a werewolf at night.

In the case of the senator, it was the political animal. His body relaxed. Everyone in the living room became a part of his extended family. He was gracious, he was charming. He told Heller that he had never looked younger, Justin that he had read with great interest a piece he had written for the
Washington Post
, Winifred that she was ageless—“You evoke a dream of youth”—and Frances that if she could market the secret of her skin, she could make millions. He introduced Leonard with pride, left him under the protection of his grandmother and his grandfather, and kissed Dolly very tenderly.

She recalled a talk the senator had given some years back at Yale. The subject was politics, and the senator had begun by saying, “Politics, from the Latin
politicus
and the Greek
politikos
, the art of the people, the art of belonging to the people.”

Did he believe it? Had he ever believed it? But there were so many things that were neither black nor white, but rather defined by a fluid field of changing grays; and he always specified, in his dislike and frequent disgust with the people who ran the government from the White House, taking it out of the president's hand and into their own, that they lacked the only virtue any government could claim, the process of election. They were not elected. They had never gone before the people. They had never touched the people or felt them. They were of the old, wretched world of kings and courts.