Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante (12 page)

Cole was talking with Hopkins, a bourbon on the rocks in hand. “Now?”

“Y-yes, sir,” Sam said, his face flushed from his journey. He undid the horn buttons on his coat with cold hands. “It's important, sir.”

The two men walked to the hallway. “News on the wire tap about ER,” Sam whispered.

Cole ground his teeth. “What now?”

Sam looked around to make sure the corridor was empty, then leaned in. “Byrd's talking about a ‘scandalous letter.' And to watch the papers.”

Cole took a gulp of his drink. “That's been handled.”

“Sir?”

“The letter's been handled. That's all you need to know.”

Sam nodded, then looked longingly through the doorway at the crowd drinking and eating canapés. But Cole clapped the assistant on the back and turned him toward the door. “Now, back up to your listening post, young man.”

In the taxi to Dupont Circle through the restless fog, John took out the article he'd written the night before.

After he'd met with Regina Winthrop Wolffe and C. S. Forester in the promenade of the Mayflower, he'd gone back to his room and spent a long night wrestling with his memories of his plane crash in Germany. The words had come more easily than he'd expected, and he'd gotten it all down on paper by dawn. He wanted to title the essay “A Piece of Cake”—after the term pilots used to describe each maneuver, regardless of how dangerous—but finally settled on “Shot Down over Berlin.” He'd typed it up while the P.M. was meeting with the press.

It was good.

He was proud of it.

But although he was pleased with what he'd written, he had mixed feelings about not actively serving in the RAF. He'd turned twenty-eight that September and felt guilt and disgust at being injured and left out of the battle so soon. Back in the office, working for Churchill, he'd been haunted by the thought of the friends in his old squadron who were still fighting. He realized that he should be grateful—the life expectancy of an RAF pilot was short, and he knew all too well how lucky he was to have survived a crash and to have made it out of Germany alive.

On the other hand, the idea that he might have to sit out the rest of the war as a civilian, trotted out for parties in his dress uniform and recounting old flying stories, was the height of humiliation.

He ground his teeth as he walked up the slippery steps of Regina Winthrop Wolffe's marble palace on Dupont Circle. Then he tucked the article into the jacket of his dress uniform and rang the bell.

John had done some querying and had been informed that Regina's parties were famous. Her guest lists were regularly reprinted in the “Town Talk” section of
The Washington Post,
and her palatial home—complete with ballroom, theater, ornate gardens, and greenhouses—had earned a reputation for being a gathering place of fifth columnists, appeasers, apologists for Hitler, right-wing Republicans, and Roosevelt haters. However, now that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, most had softened their tone considerably.

Inside, the drawing room's walls were painted cream and the Biedermeier furniture upholstered in pistachio silk. There was a plush eighteenth-century Aubusson carpet, an enormous crystal chandelier, and Monet water lilies—and at the far end of the room, a gilded Chinese Chippendale mirror hung over the mantelpiece. A grand piano stood in the bay window facing the terrace, framed by burgundy damask curtains. Masses of red roses and poinsettias made brilliant splashes of color everywhere. All this was overseen by Regina's stern Bavarian butler.

“Ah, there you are!” Forester called, spotting John getting a drink at the bar. Making his way through the guests, the author saw John's selection. “Ah, Macallan, neat—excellent choice.”

“I have what you asked me for,” John said, reaching into his breast pocket and retrieving some folded pages. He handed them to Forester.

The older man accepted them, then reached for his glasses. “You were meant to give me notes, young man, not a finished story!”

When he came to the end, he looked up. “Well, I must say, Lieutenant Sterling, I'm bowled over. Your piece is absolutely marvelous. I might want to tighten things up a bit here and there, but there's no doubt you're a gifted writer.”

“Thank you, sir,” John replied. “That's kind of you to say.”

“No, no,” Forester said, clapping John's shoulder, “thank
you
. I'd like to go over this, make a few edits, and then send it to my agent, Harold Matson. If he's as pleased as I am—which I predict he will be—he'll forward it to my editor at
The Saturday Evening Post
. As your literary agent, Matson will take fifteen percent, but in my opinion, he's worth every penny. For a beginner, they pay about a thousand dollars.”

It took all of John's British public school upbringing not to gasp. Instead, he gulped his scotch. “I see.”

Forester scanned the crowd. “Ah, someone I'd like you to meet.” He caught the eye of a bright blonde holding a champagne coupe. She was tall and slim, with gilt hair, wearing ruby lipstick and a silver beaded gown. She glided over, smiling and nodding as she approached. “Darling, meet Flight Lieutenant John Sterling. Lieutenant Sterling, may I present Martha Gellhorn.”

“How do you do, Miss Gellhorn,” John said.

Martha laughed. Forester began to correct John, but she stopped him. “No, I like Miss Gellhorn. Sounds much better than Mrs. Hemingway.” She extended her hand, and John shook it.

“Hemingway?” John said. “You're married to Ernest Hemingway?
The
Ernest Hemingway?”

“Yes, but hush, darling. I don't like to talk about it,” Martha told him. “I'm a human being in my own right, if you don't mind. A war correspondent, no less. I covered the Spanish Civil War before we realized it was just a prelude to the one we're in now. Wrote about the Nazis in Berlin back in the thirties, too, you know.”

“I was in Berlin, as well.”

“Cheers, then.” She raised her champagne coupe.

“It's strange, isn't it?” John asked. “To come back from war, where people were killing each other, and then find yourself in the middle of a cocktail mob in America?”

“Indeed,” she agreed.

Forester interposed. “Flight Lieutenant Sterling has written a story about it for me, about his plane's crash and his escape from Berlin, Martha. We'll be sending it to the
Post
.”

“You hit the ground then?” Her shrewd eyes studied John.

“Afraid so.”

“How did you get out?”

“You'll have to read the story.”

She smiled. “Touché.”

“Darling, there you are!” Regina joined them, clothed in Balenciaga and a veil of clove-scented Mitsouko. “So thrilled you could make it!”

Forester raised his highball glass to John. “Our rising literary star.”

“Wonderful, darling. Do you have the piece? May I read it?” She plucked it from Forester's pocket. “Well, well,” she said, seeing a pencil drawing on the back of the last page. “What's this? A cartoon? You're a man of many talents it seems, Lieutenant Sterling.”

“It's nothing,” John mumbled, embarrassed, trying to rescue the paper from her. “Just a scribble.”

“No, no, I
must
see,” Regina insisted, laughing, the papers tight in fingers tipped with pointy, red-varnished nails.

“It's adorable! But what is it?”

“It's—it's a Gremlin,” John replied.

Her penciled eyebrows drew together. “Whatever is a Gremlin?”

“A sort of pixie,” John explained. “A fairy, if you will. They like to sabotage aircraft.”

“I've heard of them,” Martha said, nodding. “British pilots were talking about them in Malta, back in the twenties.”

Regina and Forester exchanged a look, and the lady of the house's smirk grew wily. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” she asked her friend.

“I am!” Forester said, rubbing his thin hands together.

John blanched. “Fear and common sense keep me from asking.”

Martha wagged a finger. “Oooh, nothing good, most likely, knowing you two.”

“Excuse me, darlings,” Regina said, “I need to make a telephone call.” She dashed off, leaving the ghost of her perfume behind.

Martha asked John, “So, what brings you to Washington?” And by the time John had finished regaling her with tales of crossing the Atlantic with Winston Churchill, Regina had returned.

She tucked her arm into John's and whispered in his ear, “How'd you like to take a little trip? To the West Coast?”

He blinked. “Trip?”

“I just called my friend.”

“Who?” John's impeccable social mask slipped for just a moment.

“Someone rich, famous, and quite powerful. He says he wants to meet you.”

“You told him about
me
?”

“Indeed—the handsome, injured RAF pilot—who draws gremlins. He thinks you have potential. Can you get to Los Angeles in the next few days? Never mind, of course you can. I'll have my boy make a few calls, get you on one of those flying tin cans. A few jump flights and you'll be there before you know it, Lieutenant.”

“No one just ‘flies across the country.' Unless you're Du
Å¡
an Popov or the like, of course.”

“Oh, darling,” she said, shaking her head with pity at his ignorance, “if you're in our gang, you do.”

As the butler announced, “Dinner is served,” she winked. “I'll see you later.”

Entering the enormous dining room, Martha leaned in to John and whispered, “And if you're lucky, you'll get a gold Tiffany key to her front door, as well. All her gentleman friends do.”

While John dined in Dupont Circle, Mrs. Roosevelt and Maggie made their way through the fog in Mrs. Roosevelt's unmarked sedan to Shaw, one of the District's colored neighborhoods. Once she'd parked, they shook off the cold and damp and entered the Metropolitan Baptist Church.

On the walls hung American flags in all sizes, as well as enormous banners proclaiming
SAVE WENDELL COTTON! ABOLISH THE POLL TAX! BROUGHT TO YOU FROM THE WORKERS DEFENSE LEAGUE, THE NAACP, AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF SLEEPING CAR PORTERS.
The church was packed, buzzing with conversation, and a bit too warm from the crammed-together bodies. Several of the ladies fanned themselves. The air smelled of wood polish, Murray's pomade, and the jasmine fragrance of Emeraude.

“Thank you again for coming with me,” the First Lady murmured to Maggie. Her throat and shoulders were wrapped in silver fox fur, and she nodded and waved to the crowd in greeting as she led Maggie to a pair of empty seats.

Before they could sit, however, a uniformed police officer stepped up. “I'm sorry, ma'am, you can't sit there,” said the officer, who sported a neat ginger mustache. “That's for coloreds only.”

“Oh, for pity's sake, Officer,” said Mrs. Roosevelt, not at all amused. Her fox's beady glass eyes glared balefully at the man. “Where should we sit, then?”

He had the decency to blush. “The whites-only section is down there, ma'am. At the front.”

“Fine.” Mrs. Roosevelt and Maggie made their way to the whites-only section. The First Lady whispered to Maggie, “Watch this!” as she took two of the chairs from the white section and carried them in between that section and the colored one. The two women sat, apart, in color limbo. Maggie glanced over her shoulder. The mustached officer frowned but made no comment.

Once they'd settled in, Mrs. Roosevelt told Maggie, “You know, this is the first year since we moved into the White House that there won't be a child or a grandchild home for Christmas. Not that I have any right to complain, of course, with everything going on in the world. But I do like to keep busy. And now, with—”

The unspoken hung in the air. Maggie nodded. “I understand.”

“No, you don't. But maybe someday you will.”

“Ma'am?”

Mrs. Roosevelt put a finger to her lips. “Shhh, they're starting.”

Reverend Earl Hillard introduced Mother Cotton, a tiny, middle-aged black woman with white hair, a wide face, and high cheekbones, who spoke about her son, Wendell—what he'd been like as a baby, growing up, how hard he'd worked from age twelve on to support her.

After warm applause, Mother Cotton sat and Andrea Martin rose to speak. She was taller than Mother Cotton, lighter-skinned and more angular, with glossy black hair pulled back into a roll. She was petite, and while her shoulders were delicate, she had swagger.

She spoke about the crime itself, about the charges brought, about the unfairness of the trial, about the poll tax and jury selection. “It's not just one man and his family,” Andi told her enthralled audience, “although they're important too. No, it's the whole setup—the terrible problem of white and colored sharecroppers, of tenant farmers and landlords. Wendell Cotton is on trial, yes, but so is
American democracy
!” She was rewarded with thunderous applause.

After the talk, Maggie and Mrs. Roosevelt were escorted by Reverend Hillard to a back parlor for hot coffee and frosted gingerbread cookies, and to meet Mother Cotton and Andrea Martin. When they were all introduced, Maggie said, “Your talk was inspiring, Miss Martin.”

Andi looked Maggie up and down. “Thank you, Miss Hope. But time's running out for Wendell.”

“I was wondering if I could ask you some questions,” Maggie persisted, “when you're done here.”

Andi's eyes narrowed. “Are you a journalist?”

“No.” Maggie looked to Mrs. Roosevelt and then back. “A supporter,” she said finally.

“And how do you know the First Lady?”

Maggie felt as if she were being interviewed—which, she supposed, she was. “I'm on Mr. Winston Churchill's staff and here in the States with the Prime Minister. He's, er—lent me to Mrs. Roosevelt as a secretary for the interim.” Maggie decided not to mince words. “Because her secretary, Miss Balfour, died.”

Andi studied Maggie closely. She was just as blunt. “Died? When?”

“Yesterday.”

“How?”

“Alleged suicide,” Maggie responded. “I'm sure it will be in the papers by tomorrow.”

“Tragic,” murmured Mrs. Roosevelt. “Miss Hope was kind enough to lend a hand.”

Andi nodded, absorbing the news. Then, “I think we should talk. Are you hungry, Miss Hope?”

“Yes, yes I am, Miss Martin.”
But where could the two of us—colored and white—have a meal together?

Andi's eyes sparked, as if she'd read Maggie's mind. “Don't worry, I know just the place.”

Maggie looked to Mrs. Roosevelt. “Of course!” the First Lady said, beaming. “I knew you girls would be fast friends! Just—be careful.”

Byrd Prentiss was standing against the back wall of the Metropolitan Baptist Church, watching Mother Cotton and then Andrea Martin address the crowd. His face had become grim when he saw Eleanor Roosevelt enter. Obviously the First Lady wasn't backing down on her support of Cotton. And who was the redhead with her? A new secretary?

Prentiss watched as the two women tried to sit in the colored section, then smirked as they were moved into the whites-only area. He ground his teeth as they created their own place, in between the two. He could get a good shot at the First Lady's head from here, he thought, squinting one eye and looking at Mrs. Roosevelt's hat, towering over the others in the crowd.

That would solve our problems,
he decided.

But it wouldn't, not really. She'd only become a martyr to the cause—and that was the last thing he needed if he was going to redeem himself in the eyes of his father, of Governor King, and of the voters of Virginia. He needed to make things right.

While Mother Cotton and Andi spoke, he closed his eyes and mentally recited the lyrics to his favorite songs: “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and “Stand Up and Be Counted.” After he'd sung them both countless times in his head, blocking out the talk going on in front of him, it was finally over.

He made his way through the crowd, careful not to touch any coloreds by accident, peering into the room where the First Lady and the redhead spoke with Mother Cotton and Andrea Martin. He watched the First Lady leave and decided against following her.

But when the redhead and Martin left together, he was intrigued. Where were they going? What were they going to do together? He decided he would find out.

“Follow me,” Andi said as she and Maggie walked out of the church and into the thick mist.

Maggie did, taking long steps to keep up with her new acquaintance. A young man with his coat unbuttoned and scarf undone called out to Andi, “Hey, sweet cakes, where'd you get that fabulous tan?”

Maggie was horrified, but Andi merely tossed back, “Birth!” and kept walking.

“Do you like jazz?” Andi asked Maggie, as they marched on in the murky darkness.

“Jazz? Yes, of course.” Maggie, John, David, and their friends had often gone to the Blue Moon Club in London.

“Good.” They came to a scarred wooden door, and Andi rapped three times, then coughed. Nothing.

“What is this place?” Maggie asked.

Andi banged three times again at the door, then gave another loud cough. Nothing.

One more bang and the door swung open. “Miz Andi! So great to see you!” said the man on the other side. He was in his twenties, colored, with a large forehead and high cheekbones. “And who's your friend?”

“This is Miss Hope, Odell. She's working for Mrs. Roosevelt.” Maggie could hear music in the background and smell cigarette smoke mixed with rum.

He nodded. “Any friend of Mrs. R is a friend of the Music Box. Come on in, and I'll get you ladies settled.”

“Thanks, Odell.” They walked down a flight of steep steps to the building's basement. There was a long bar against the wall, a number of small tables ringed with café chairs, and a tiny stage at one end. The stage area was lit by Christmas lights in black Bakelite sockets tacked onto the walls, which made a colorful glow. The walls were decorated with American flags.

Three colored men played—one on drums, one on piano, and one on trumpet. They were riffing on Duke Ellington's “All Too Soon.” On a tiny wooden floor in front of the stage, a few couples danced.

Andi led Maggie to a table in the back, covered in a cotton flowered cloth with a mason jar of pink carnations and a candle stub with a gold flame that flickered in the dark. “We can talk here,” Andi said as she slipped off her coat and sat. “Did you see
Birth of the Blues
?”

“We don't get a lot of first-run movies in London anymore,” Maggie said, unbuttoning her own coat and sitting.

“Sorry—I forgot. We're at war now, too, of course, but it all seems so far away still. You were really in the thick of it, weren't you?”

Still am.
“We're all doing our duty,” Maggie replied—then, realizing how cold and British she sounded, she amended, “Did you like the film?
Birth of the Blues
?” She remembered reading a review of it. It starred Bing Crosby and Mary Martin.

Andi cocked an eyebrow. “I think that, for a movie about the blues, it had too many damn white people in it.”

Maggie laughed, then became aware that people were staring at them. “Is something wrong?” she asked Andi.

“Wrong?”

“Is my hair sticking up? Is there lipstick on my teeth?”

Andi chortled. “They aren't used to seeing a white woman down here. And probably none of them have ever seen a white woman with hair that color. Is it natural? Or from a box?”

“Er, birth…”

“Ha!” Andi laughed. “Good for you. I'm going to the ladies'. You'll be all right, won't you?”

“Of course,” Maggie said. She was seated near a table of men—middle-aged, dressed in dapper suits with ties and matching pocket squares, drinking mugs of beer.
What did colored men talk about on their own time?
she wondered as Andi disappeared—and decided to eavesdrop.

“I tell you, Bub, you missed it. By this time of year that window's closed. You're gonna have to wait another year.”

The man lifted an icy mug. “Nah, I still got time.”

“I'm telling you no, man. It's just not gonna work.”

What were they talking about? Gambling, maybe? Moving money? Stolen goods? What window of opportunity had closed?

“I tell you, if you want flowers in the spring, you gotta put in the bulbs by September.”

“But I heard if you're doin' the late-blooming flowers, like tulips, you can put them in later.”

“Well, you can put 'em in all right if the ground's not frozen. And it's been a warm winter. As long as you gets them in before the frost—January, even—they'll bloom fine.”

“I like my annuals,” declared another man. “My marigolds is cheerful. I don't need no bulbs.”

“Yeah, but there's nothin' like seein' those first crocuses comin' on up in spring. Oooh, and the smell of those hyacinths!”

They were talking about gardening. Gardening. Bulbs and perennials versus annuals. Marigolds and crocuses and hyacinths. Maggie suddenly felt ashamed of herself.

And then Andi was back. “Would you like a drink?” she asked.

“That would be great, thanks.”

“Odell should be over soon.” Her lips curved in a mischievous smile. “Do you like absinthe?”

“I've never had it,” Maggie admitted.

Andi raised her hand and gave a signal to Odell, behind the bar. He nodded. In a moment, he came over with a tray holding a bottle, two Pontarlier glasses, a bowl of sugar cubes, and a carafe of ice water—as well as a small bowl of sliced pickles and a plate of deviled eggs.

“It's my own personal bottle,” Andi explained. “Green Fairy. I brought a few back from Paris. Odell lets me keep them here.”

Maggie was impressed. “You were in Paris?”

Andi searched in her handbag, taking out a slotted silver absinthe spoon. “Yes, a few years ago,” she answered, using her napkin to clean it off. “Well, it's not Les Deux Magots,” she sighed, “but it will do.” She placed the sugar cube on the slotted spoon across the mouth of each glass and poured over the absinthe, until the drink turned cloudy. She handed one to Maggie.
“Santé.”

“Santé,”
Maggie replied. They clinked glasses. She took a sip.

“Do you like it?”

Maggie pondered. It was…interesting. “What is it? Fennel?”

“Anise, fennel, star anise, and wormwood. The wormwood allegedly gives it hallucinogenic properties. I personally doubt it, but it's all part of that ‘green fairy' legend.”

Andi put down her drink and took out a pack of violet Milos. The trio had segued into “Polka Dots and Moonbeams.” “So, what's your favorite band?” she asked, pulling out a gold and black lacquered man's lighter. It sparked, and she touched her cigarette tip to the blue flame.

“Love Artie Shaw,” Maggie said, biting into an egg. “But, of course, there's only one Benny Goodman.”

“Did you know that Benny Goodman doesn't do his own arrangements? All of the orchestration was done originally by a colored man—Goodman bought the orchestrations fair and square, but he's passing them off as his own. It's not right.” Andi blew out smoke. She tapped her cigarette in the ashtray—ceramic with a painting of the Lincoln Memorial. “Smoke?”

“No, thanks.” Maggie had smoked at one time, after her mission to Berlin, but had quit. “Oh, just one.” Andi lit it for her.