Happy Endings

by Sally Quinn

  Blanche flopped down on the chaise longue, let her backless mules drop off, and sighed.

  “I know what you think of my wardrobe, Sadie. It’s written all over that polite face of yours. You think it’s a dog’s lunch, don’t you?”

  “Well, Blanche, I didn’t say that.”

  “You don’t have to, honey. It just ain’t gonna do, is it?”

  “Here’s the problem. Your wardrobe is perfect for a country music singer from Nashville. Some of it is not really appropriate for the White House. But before we go any further with this, we have to take a broader view of this whole situation.”

  She found she was slurring her words and trying to sound sober by using pompous-sounding phrases.

  “Exactly my sentiments,” said Blanche, rising to the occasion.

  “Now, we don’t want you to become a different person, to hide your light under a bushel, so to speak. We want you to be yourself, right?”

  “To thine own self be true,” nodded Blanche, pouring herself just a teeny bit more wine.

  “So what we want is to let Blanche be Blanche in the context of the White House. In other words, you’ve got to clean up your act.”

  “How’m I gonna do that?” Blanche looked perturbed.

  “First of all, you’ve got to keep your mouth shut until we figure out how you’re going to do it. Then you’ll reemerge as the new, improved First Lady. The sad thing is that your image has nothing to do with who you really are. You came at this with a chip on your shoulder about Washington, the White House, and if I’m not totally mistaken—tell me if I’m out of line—your husband.”

  Blanche was silent for a moment and she seemed to sober up.

  “No, you’re not wrong.”

  Sadie waited but Blanche said nothing more. The problem was deeper than she had thought.

  “So what we’ve got to do,” she said quickly, “is to have you portrayed as a kind, sweet, warmhearted, funny, slightly, and I mean slightly, irreverent, bright career woman who has moved to Washington and is delighting in discovering her new environment. A sort of country Alice in Wonderland.”

  “A hooker with a heart of gold is what you’re saying.”

  Sadie didn’t respond.

  “You’ve got to knock off this business of being a prisoner in the White House. You know and I know how difficult it is, but you’re not going to get any sympathy from anybody out there. You are the Queen and queens have no right to complain. They like to know you’re human and have human problems like everyone else, but they only want to know about epic problems. They say they want details but when they get them they only use them against you. So when they ask you about how you’re going to continue with your singing career as First Lady, you have to say that it will be a challenge for you.”

  “Freedom’s just another word for nuthin’ left to lose,” warbled Blanche as she got up from her chaise and struck a pose at the window, looking out on the mall toward the Washington Monument.

  “Here’s what we’ll do. Plan A,” said Sadie, warming to her subject. “We’ll invite a selected group of tame reporters to an on-the-record tea. That way the news organizations can’t object if we select whomever we want. It’s not an interview, it’s a social occasion that we are going to allow to be on the record. You and I will rehearse beforehand, maybe I’ll get Jenny Stern to advise, though we’ll have to let your own press secretary at least think she’s involved. We’ll talk about her later.”

  “What about my clothes?”

  “I don’t know, Blanche. You’ve got such a good figure, a little busty maybe, damn you. Simple plain suits and dark dresses in solid colors would work really well for you. Save the buttons and bows and frills for Nashville. I’ll help you shop. That’s easy. There are two other things that need to be addressed right away. One is your project, the other is the Washington establishment.”

  “How can I have a project if I’m supposed to be a career woman?”

  “All you have to do to have a project as First Lady is just say you have one. Then you get your staff to do it, and you do as much or as little as you want. The main thing is to get something that will fly, something that will enhance your image as a ministering angel.”

  “Ha, that’ll be the day.”

  “I had historic preservation and Planned Parenthood as the Vice President’s wife. I had to low-key both of those when I got to the White House. Preservation is too elitist and Planned Parenthood too controversial. Children. That was the key. It’s the most worthwhile thing you can do and nobody can be against children. I chose Children’s Hospital and sick children and it was terrific. I never got any bad press on it at all.”

  “Well, if you did it how can I do it? I’ve already got the same damn soufflé and salad dressing. I haven’t so much as moved a vase since you left. It’s still your house in my mind. You’re still First Lady in spirit. I’m just an interloper. It’s all a charade. Any minute Rosey will walk in the door and I can get out of here, go back to Nashville and sing my heart out. I think my attitude shows. I think people think I’m so pathetic that I couldn’t think up my own project, that all I can do is copy you. I’m just a poor woman’s Sadie Grey.”

  “We need to get a different approach. Babies with AIDS, for instance. Children with AIDS. Or even AIDS period. You can do a lot to lower the fear quotient of the public about it.”

  “That’s all I need.”

  “Blanche, AIDS is a danger for everybody. You can call for education about the disease. There are ways you can do it that would be helpful and courageous, like holding AIDS babies, things like that.”

  “It’s already started to affect the music industry.”

  “Okay. You can get some of your famous music friends to do concerts to raise money for hospices or homes for children with AIDS.”

  “What if I get it by holding one of those babies? I don’t know, Sadie. I’m not so sure this is such a red-hot idea.”

  “You can’t get AIDS that way. You should go out to NIH and see what they’re doing. There’s that doctor out there who’s always being quoted about AIDS, what’s his name? Michael Lanzer. You ought to talk to him. It can’t hurt. Freddy has just set up a commission to deal with the AIDS problem. It’s a good issue.”

  “Okay, okay. Jesus Lord, you’re persistent. I’ll do it. Now talk to me about Washington. The establishment, you call it.”

  “It’s very hard to be a part of, very hard to understand. Some people can live in this city a lifetime and never get it. Lorraine Hadley took me under her wing when I first got here and she saved me a lot of time and a lot of grief. It’s ironic now that she has allowed herself to be left behind. You really have to be an anthropologist in a way. People in this city think of themselves as so open-minded, so ready to accept anything new because almost everybody here came from someplace else. Nobody is actually from Washington. In fact, it’s really a very close-minded culture. They’re very set in their ways and they don’t even know it. They’re rigid the way converts are to a new religion. The establishment is composed of people who have been in former administrations and stayed on. It’s comprised of lawyers and lobbyists, which are the same thing, journalists, some longtime members of the Congress and the Senate, and some longtime diplomats. In the old days there used to be a number of extremely rich women, widows or wives of establishment men who acted as hostesses or catalysts. They held salons where members of the establishment could get together and socialize, compare notes, exchange political gossip, commiserate, collude.”

  “This sounds pretty serious, Sadie. I think I’ll have some black coffee and sober up.”

  Blanche stood up and wobbled across the floor to ring for the butler. “Maybe I should get a pad and pencil and take notes.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound so pedantic, but it’s the first time I’ve ever really analyzed it. It’s kind of interesting.”

  “What ever happened to all those hostesses? I know your friend Lorraine is one of them, but she doesn’t impr
ess me as somebody I need to make up to.”

  “There are almost none left. Most of them have died off or gone broke, and the younger ones have all gone out and gotten jobs. Nobody in her right mind today would call herself a hostess. It’s not serious, it’s too frivolous. Even if a woman had the money, the house, the staff, and the time, she still wouldn’t consider it in today’s Washington. The few who are still left are looked upon as anachronisms. They don’t draw the power crowd. People just don’t play that game anymore. The city is too big and too diverse. It’s not a small Southern town anymore. Lorraine is finished. She’s had it, to answer your question. She doesn’t even realize it yet. It’s sad really.”

  “Well, how’m I going to survive if the savviest hostess in Washington doesn’t even know when her number’s up?”

  “You’re treading water every day of your life in this town, kiddo, even if you’re in power. The sharks are always circling. Just remember that. They never go away. Right now they’ve got a whiff of your blood.”

  “Did I just order coffee? I think I’ll switch to bourbon on the rocks.”

  Just then there was a knock at the door and the butler appeared with a tray of coffee and tea for Sadie.

  Blanche thanked him, waited till he was out of the room, then went into the family sitting area. She grabbed a bottle of bourbon and poured some into her coffee. Sadie declined. She was wound up now, involved in her little sociology lesson.

  “You should write a book about Washington, Sadie. You really know your stuff.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I might.”

  She would never admit to Blanche or anyone else that she was writing a novel when Rosey was killed. Only Jenny and Des knew about it. Des had encouraged her and had actually helped edit it while they were still seeing each other.

  “So what do I do? Let’s skip the lecture and get me on a lifeboat quick.”

  “Only if we can drown this metaphor,” said Sadie with a chuckle.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. You want tips. I’ll give you some. Number one: You have to know everything that’s going on in Washington. You have to read the papers from cover to cover and understand them. You have to look at the news. You have to know who everybody is. Number two: You can’t be ostentatious about anything. Money, clothes, looks, sex—anything. Three: If you’re a woman you have to do something. You can’t just be a wife anymore. It doesn’t work. That’s why we need to work on a project. Four: You have to walk a very fine line between being a character, being controversial, and being an outrage. Controversial is fine as long as everybody agrees with you. That’s a neat trick to pull off. You can be controversial in word but not in deed. A controversial style will get you noticed. You’ll be labeled a character of sorts. People will want to be around you, invite you, even lionize you. However, be politically controversial, deviate in the least from the norm of Republican or Democrat and you’re dead. The thing about you, Blanche, is that you’re only a step away from being an adorable character, revered and held in affection.”

  “Why should I give a damn about any of them?” said Blanche, suddenly becoming belligerent.

  “For one very good reason,” said Sadie, “you love your husband.”

  Blanche just stared at her in silence. Then took a large swig of her “coffee.”

  * * *

  They were still talking in the bedroom when Freddy came up the elevator to the family quarters at seven o’clock.

  “Hey honey,” he called out. “I’m home. We’ve got company.”

  “Baby Jesus,” said Blanche. “It’s Freddy and here we are loaded and it’s…” she looked at the clock. “Oh my God, it’s seven o’clock. Now try to act sober, Sadie. He’ll kill me if he thinks I’m drunk. I’ve been having a few cocktails before he gets home lately and he doesn’t like it. Be out in one minute,” she yelled back.

  Sadie and Blanche quickly straightened themselves up and walked out to the sitting room.

  “Well, glory be, girls,” said Freddy, looking at both of them and bursting out laughing, “I do believe you’ve been hittin’ the moonshine.”

  They were trying hard to look proper but neither one of them was having much luck. Blanche held her liquor better than Sadie, who had been trying to sober up for hours while Blanche was drinking her bourbon-laced coffee.

  “How dare you suggest such a thing of the First Lady of the Land and the former First Lady?” said Blanche in a phony British accent, her nose in the air.

  “Kiss my naked ass, woman,” said Freddy. “Can you believe this, Foxy? We got two gorgeous women here totally soused.”

  He went over to Blanche and gave her a robust kiss, then turned to Sadie who was still standing there trying to look proper and sober.

  “Sadie, glad to see you,” he said, a bit self-consciously. “Blanche didn’t tell me you were coming over for lunch. He emphasized “lunch” then glanced pointedly at his watch. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you finally did,” he added.

  Sadie realized that Freddy was taking liberties with them, with her in particular, that he never would have done had she been sober. She tried to pull herself up to full height.

  “We’ve had a wonderful afternoon, haven’t we, Blanche?” she said.

  “So I can see,” said Freddy.

  He noticed that Sadie was glancing uncomfortably toward his guest.

  “Oh, excuse me, where are my manners? I don’t think you’ve met the new attorney general, Roy Fox. Roy and I grew up together in Tennessee. Everybody calls him Foxy. You probably know that already. Roy’s a bachelor, too.”

  The minute he had gotten the words out of his mouth he realized how gauche it was to even suggest such a thing, and he turned quite red-faced.

  Sadie looked at both of them thinking what a contrast they were to Rosey. Rosey who had been so elegant, who had such class and style.

  Roy Fox’s appointment had been extremely controversial and Freddy had had to call in a lot of chits to get him confirmed. Though Sadie had never met him, she had certainly read about him during the confirmation hearings. Foxy had had a rather checkered past and there was a definite overtone of sleaze about him. He had never been involved in any illegal dealings but had played fast and loose with women and booze all his life. The storm of criticism left both him and Freddy undaunted, and he managed to squeak through the hearings and the votes. They were given high marks for their masterful manipulation of Congress. The trial by fire and subsequent victory had given Freddy a leg up as he took over the difficult job of following an assassinated President.

  Foxy and Freddy were interchangeable in terms of style, and Sadie could see that now as she watched the two of them together.

  Freddy Osgood was a perfectly good match for Blanche from a taste standpoint, though he had been taken in hand by the image makers after he’d become Vice President. During the last campaign he had ended up looking like an investment banker even if he still talked like a truck driver.

  He also had a proprietary way with women. He looked upon them as though they had all been made for his personal enjoyment. His audacious behavior had earned him a reputation as a successful ladies’ man as the bachelor governor of Tennessee before he married Blanche and ran for the Senate. He had even been rumored to have had an affair with a famous hooker.

  Sadie had never heard any rumors about Freddy’s screwing around after he married Blanche, but given the way he looked at other women, including her, the bereaved widow of his predecessor, she could only guess that he probably had. Blanche’s reticence when Sadie had referred to their marriage made her even more suspicious.

  “Freddy, name your poison, buddy,” said Foxy, walking over to the bar in the family sitting area.

  “Whatever these two gals are having will suit me just fine.”

  Foxy poured himself some bourbon, neat, and bolted it down in one gulp. He poured Freddy another, handed it to him and settled down on the sofa as though he were the President and not Freddy. He seem
ed totally at home in the White House, totally comfortable with Freddy, not at all subservient or even overly respectful.

  It occurred to her that he might actually be a little nervous around her, though, an unusual feeling for him to have around women. Where Freddy was appraising her as a woman and no doubt wondering what she would be like in bed, or more specifically what it would be like to make love to a grieving widow, Foxy seemed much more deferential.

  “So, ladies, what’ll it be?” Freddy asked with a comical expression. “Milk? Black coffee?”

  “I’ll have you know I’ve been drinking black coffee all afternoon,” said Blanche.

  “Mind if I taste it?”

  “Freddy Osgood…”

  “Now, kids,” said Foxy good-naturedly, “let’s not start so early. What will Mrs. Grey think?”

  Whatever they were about to “start,” they stopped.

  Freddy walked over to the armchair next to where Sadie had seated herself.

  “Sadie, I’m mighty glad you decided to come by today.” He winked. “I know Blanche appreciates it. I guess you’re one of the few people who really knows how hard it is for a First Lady and how lonely you can get sometimes.”

  This was all for Blanche’s benefit and it seemed to work. She noticed Blanche’s skeptical face soften.

  “What did y’all talk about? Did you change the world?”