by Sally Quinn
“Of course it does, but it won’t get better for you if you allow yourself to mope around. You’ve got to get a hold of yourself, Sadie. You are the First Lady of this country now.” There was a stern quality in her voice which Sadie had never heard.
“Worse things have happened to people. You have to get involved in something, get your mind off yourself and onto some project. Plan a party. Even if you can’t give one right away, there must be something on the books coming up. It’s none too soon to get to work on that right now. You’re lucky that you’ve got some time so you can get it right, do it perfectly and not make any mistakes. Now, what’s on the agenda—what’s coming up you can really sink your teeth into, ol’ girl?”
“There is Brazil coming up,” Sadie had said a bit meekly. Lorraine had never talked to her like that before. She knew she was right. She really had needed somebody to shake her, and Lorraine had said just the right thing.
“Brazil. Marvelous. The new President and his wife are so attractive. And the country has so much style. Yet our relations with them are important and serious. We have invested heavily in Brazil. You couldn’t be luckier. Oh,” she sighed, “how I envy you! There’s nothing in the world that perks me up more than planning a party. And here you are in the White House, with all that means at your disposal, able to plan the perfect party and know that everyone will come. What bliss! The more I think of it the more annoyed I am that you have the nerve to be depressed. Now, come on and snap out of it. The country… no, the world is waiting for Sadie Grey to put her social stamp on America.”
“Oh, God,” said Sadie.
“Courage, ma chère,” whispered Lorraine, and said goodbye.
* * *
Sadie had called the party meeting for the day after her talk with Lorraine. She asked Jenny and Tilda to come to her office at ten thirty. She really did love her office. She couldn’t wait to do something with it. She would have to get rid of that hideous government furniture. The old green sofa had rubber cushions that sent the unsuspecting occupant bouncing as if she had sat on a trampoline. She was a fanatic about down-filled everything. She would paint the walls a soft terra cotta. It would be feminine but still look like an office. She would resist flowered chintzes and put in some sort of wonderful ticking stripe on the furniture, and maybe she could get away with fringe and a smart leopard chintz just on the pillows. But here she was decorating again. That was silly. This was a solemn party-planning meeting.
Sadie never quite knew what to wear to her office. It was only one floor and one corridor away from the family quarters, in the same house. She really wanted to wear pants, since she wasn’t going out, but somehow it wasn’t seemly for the First Lady to wear pants to work. She was afraid people wouldn’t think she was serious about working if she came in pants.
This day she chose a pale blue-green cotton dress with a small collar, puffy sleeves to the elbow, and a cummerbund sash. She wore her old standby Chanel shoes and pearl earrings. Very businesslike. It was only the beginning of June, but it was already very hot in Washington and the humidity had begun to settle in.
She arrived at the office first. She decided to walk down the hall to say good morning to those working in the East Wing’s office, the calligraphers, the special projects office and the social and press offices. Everyone stood awkwardly and smiled at her.
“Oh, please,” Sadie admonished, “please sit down. Don’t let me disrupt your work.”
She realized that these people were not used to having a First Lady in the business side of the West Wing. Molly Kimball had never had an office there, and before Molly, the First Lady for eight years had been a clotheshorse who had redone her office in the family quarters into a spa. It would take some time to change all that, create a more serious image, she realized, and she wasn’t exactly the feminists’ dream of what a First Lady should be. In fact, she didn’t know what a First Lady should be.
She went back to her office, closed the door, and sat at her desk. Her back was to the window, but she could see the sun pouring in and hear the magnolia trees brush against the window in response to a merciful breeze across the Ellipse. There was a rather annoying sound which she had been told was excavation work for a bomb shelter underneath the White House basement, and she could hear the ring of the phones from the military office next door. How odd that the office would be on this side of the White House and not on the other. In fact, the White House was odd. One expected everything to be perfect, yet it was really like living in a great big old Southern plantation house. Things went wrong and people were kind of sleepy and slow and various members of the staff had fights and disagreements, and the President and his wife were more or less the patriarch and the matriarch of this great big old family. In that sense it made her feel right at home. It really did remind her of Horace Hall, her family’s plantation in Adabelle, Georgia, for which she was named.
Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Even though she had been so depressed, she couldn’t get over what an odd feeling she had of having lived here before. Now she knew what it was, and she was able to really relax for the first time in the few months that she had been living in the White House. From now on when she got upset or lonely or felt trapped she would just pretend she was at Horace Hall. She knew that would work. And suddenly she knew that she was going to be a good First Lady and that this was going to be an exciting few years.
* * *
Tilda and Jenny arrived at ten thirty sharp, surprised to see Sadie sitting at her desk.
“We’re supposed to arrive first,” said Tilda. “That’s protocol. How can I hold my head up as social secretary if I let the First Lady arrive before I do?”
“You’ll learn,” said Sadie. She laughed.
Tilda, as usual, was dressed to the teeth. Sadie marveled at how Tilda, after all these years, still managed to look like the consummate Smithie. It was as though she had stepped out of a time capsule, sent twenty-some years before into the modern age. Tilda’s blond hair (graying discreetly) was pulled back in a neat shoulder-length pageboy held back with a black velvet ribbon. She wore a perfect little black-and-white short-sleeved silk dress with pearls. She had on white stockings and little low-heeled black-and-white spectators. The black-and-white enamel hoop earrings she would take off when she was on the phone, and she often wore them on her fingers so as not to lose them. Tilda had an upturned nose, pretty blue eyes, high cheekbones, a nice smile, and not one ounce of sex appeal. It had been bred out of her. She also had a sense of humor, but it was limited to things she understood: protocol, manners, social behavior. Sadie had complete faith in Tilda’s judgment on these matters, in the same way she had total faith in Jenny’s instincts about the press and publicity.
Jenny was hopeless on social matters, and Tilda was even worse about the press. Tilda thought journalists were social inferiors who should be jailed for spelling names wrong or, even better, censored. She was less than enthusiastic about Sadie’s idea of hiring a reporter to be her press secretary and had been wary of Jenny at first, but Jenny was such an old shoe that she had managed to win Tilda over almost immediately. What Tilda could not put out of her mind was the way Jenny dressed. The clothes that did fit were baggy, drab, without any style and not very well made. She didn’t wear tacky clothes. They just weren’t good clothes. And the shoes were always just a little run-down at the heels. Tilda’s shoes all looked like patent leather, even the ones that weren’t. Tilda’s makeup was always perfect. Just a touch of blush, pale lip gloss, the tiniest hint of pale blue eye shadow. Jenny, if she did wear eye makeup, always botched it. Her nose was perpetually shiny, and she managed to eat her lipstick off five minutes after she had put it on.
Jenny’s idea of a party was to have a professional exchange. It was an opportunity to work. Her interest did not extend to tablecloths, flowers, and entertainment. Her eyes tended to glaze over when a discussion of china and silverware came up. She secretly thought the idea of having a social secretary was a serious waste of personnel an
d that it damaged her careful image of a serious person. She was slightly disdainful of what Tilda did for a living, not to mention suspicious of her blond, blue-eyed demeanor, her lockjaw accent, and all that connoted.
It amused Sadie this morning to see the two of them, her own little odd couple, looking at each other as if they had arrived from different planets.
“I have a plan,” said Sadie. “I have decided that you two should change jobs for a while. It would be an exercise in understanding the other’s responsibilities. A kind of hands-across-the-sea exchange program.”
“What?” asked Tilda meekly.
“I think that would be a great idea. Then you would both be ambidextrous, as it were,” said Sadie. “In fact, I think it would probably be a good idea to start with this party.”
They just sat there staring at her.
“Jenny, why don’t you come up with a table-decoration scheme for me—colors, cloths, flowers, china, silver—and don’t forget the menu and the wines. Tilda, you write the press release, and be sure to meet with the reporters sometime this week for a briefing. Meeting adjourned.”
The two of them sat there with their mouths open for at least a minute.
“How could I possibly have hired such silly asses?” said Sadie finally. “And you can close your mouths now, gals. If you can’t figure out when somebody is putting you on, what good are you going to be to me?”
“She’s only joking,” said Jenny sheepishly.
“I only wanted both of you to realize how demanding and important both of your jobs are. I think I’ve got the best press secretary and the best social secretary I could have. And together we’re going to make a good team. All right, team, let’s get on with it. Tilda, why don’t you start first. We’ll go over details. But Jenny, you’re going to have to fill in the details to the press. And you must understand, even though this kind of thing may seem frivolous to you, that international relations are at stake. A tacky table decoration would be noticed by the wife of the Brazilian President, who would point out to her husband that he had been demeaned by the President of the United States. I only wish I were kidding.”
Tilda took out her sheaf of notes—already she had sheaves of notes. On top was a white mimeographed paper with THE WHITE HOUSE on top, WASHINGTON underneath. Printed in the left column was OFFICIAL DINNER IN HONOR OF: and DATE OF DINNER: And then lists of arrangements such as tablecloths and napkins, flowers, china, glassware, candlesticks, menu, and music. There were blanks for entertainment and for the press.
She took out her pencil and began going down the list. “Now,” she said, “I thought we should eat inside. The weather has been so horrible and humid already.”
“We certainly don’t want the dignitaries sweating into their soup,” said Jenny.
“What a lovely image,” said Tilda.
“It has happened, I’m sorry to say,” said Sadie. “Last summer at the French Embassy they served dinner out of doors. It was in early July, and it was incredibly hot. The poor Ridgewell’s waiters were in those heavy black dinner jackets. They looked like they were about to die, and they were perspiring miserably. We had watercress soup to begin with. I actually saw a waiter, much to the horror of the Ambassador’s wife, drip into the soup. I didn’t eat a bite, and neither did she… I think we should eat inside. But what about the entertainment outside afterwards? Should we risk it?”
“I think so, but we’ll get to that in a minute. I would suggest twelve round tables of ten.”
“I think I would rather have smaller tables—say, of eight each. I know it hasn’t been done before, but with eight you can have a group conversation. One of the problems with these White House dinners is that people don’t ever really get to meet or talk to very many people. I want to try to make it as informal as it is possible to feel in the White House.”
“I would suggest,” said Tilda, “that we work in maybe forty or so after dinner for coffee, liqueurs, and after-dinner dancing.”
“Won’t they be insulted not to be asked for dinner?” asked Jenny.
“Nobody is ever insulted to be asked to the White House,” said Tilda matter-of-factly.
“I absolutely refuse to have anybody come after dinner,” said Sadie. “Either they’re good enough to come to dinner or not. It is a terrible bore to get all dressed up in black tie and wait around until ten thirty or eleven to come to the White House. I’ve always hated having hordes of people piling in after dinner not knowing anyone. It always breaks up the party.”
Tilda sniffed, rebuffed.
“If that’s what you want…” she said finally.
“Come on, Tilda,” said Sadie, “you know you agree with me.”
Tilda smiled. “I suppose you’re right. But it will mean having to have more parties to work all the B- or C-list types in.”
“I’ll worry about that tomorrow,” said Sadie. “Now what about the tent? Can we put a tent on the South Lawn?”
“That’s exactly what I propose,” said Tilda.
“We can have it all white so it will look cool. We can have white lanterns and white cloths on small tables, like a cabaret, with white flowers. It will look as if everything is floating. People can spill out on the balcony with their champagne glasses after dinner and then just float down to the tent. We can have tiny little bee lights in the greenery to light it. Then we could have a small fountain in the back of the tent to make it seem cooler. Oh, God, I love it.”
“Maybe you should be the social secretary,” said Tilda.
“Not a bad idea,” said Sadie. “You can be the First Lady. You’d probably be a lot better at it than I am. At least you’d be able to keep your mouth shut. She’d be a lot easier to handle—right, Jenny?”
“Ah, yes, but where would be the challenge?” said Jenny, laughing, pleased with her diplomatic response.
“Getting back to the dinner,” said Tilda. “What about the dinner itself?”
“I think we should just carry through with the white. Have white cloths, white china, white flowers, everything.”
“Won’t it look too much like a wedding?” asked Jenny.
“I’ll wear a floating green chiffon, instead of white,” said Sadie.
“Ah, the mother of the bride,” said Jenny.
“I’m too young for that, bitch.”
Tilda looked up, surprised.
“Just a Southern term of endearment,” said Sadie. “But I guess I’m not allowed to talk that way anymore.”
“Just remember what I told you,” said Jenny. “Only if you want to read about it later.”
“Who would tell?” asked Tilda.
“Well, you might, in your White House memoirs,” said Jenny.
“I would never think of doing anything like that,” said Tilda, genuinely shocked.
Sadie guessed Jenny had touched a nerve.
“I know you wouldn’t,” said Sadie. “It’s just that Jenny and I were joking about it the other day and she told me that nothing was safe in the White House and I should watch everything I say, no matter to whom.”
“I certainly go along with that,” said Tilda.
“What about the entertainment, Tilda? I have always hated the way the entertainment broke up parties at the White House. Everyone comes out of dinner all full of wine and glowing from a good meal and sometimes, though rarely, a good conversation and then they are dragged into the cold East Room and made to sit on hard-backed chairs if they’re lucky enough to get one. Then it’s half an hour until the President and his guest come in, and then the entertainment is often dreary, with no drinks. By the time that’s over, everybody is catatonic. The well-kept secret of White House dinners is that they are usually excruciatingly boring.”
“We’re on the same wavelength,” said Tilda. “We’ll definitely have a cabaret on the South Lawn, with some sort of Brazilian singer. We’ll have dancing, and little tables. That way I can ask the President of Brazil and his wife to sit down so they can have somewhere to go instead of sta
nding around. That way we can discreetly delegate two other couples at a time to come over and chat with them. Usually at these things nobody gets to meet the guests of honor and they don’t get to meet anybody else. It will tend to cut down on the reporters swarming around too.”
“What about food?” asked Jenny.
“Tilda, why don’t you ask the chef to propose a menu and we can let him guide us. Give him a little rein and see what he does. Although it would be great to have some sort of light fish mousse, a cold soup, and maybe a cold entrée—veal or something.”
“I’ve called the protocol office at State,” said Tilda. “In fact, I’ve been over there several times. They say the President of Brazil has no allergies or diet restrictions, so we’re okay on that. I suppose that it’s none of my business but the President has yet to appoint a chief of protocol.”
“I’ll talk to Rosey about it. The last woman only cared about where she and her husband were seated at dinners. I heard her tell the King of Norway that they were planning to vacation there and would love to look him up.”
“It’ll be hard to fill,” said Tilda. “It’s got to be the worst job in Washington.”
“Now what about the guest list?” asked Sadie. “How are we going to decide who to invite? I don’t want a lot of famous people standing in corners staring at each other.”
“It’s not that hard, really,” said Tilda. “The hard part we let the office of protocol do. They review the seating. They’ll send suggestions over. Naturally I’ve already got a ten-page sheet of suggestions from them. We’ll get a list from the Brazilians. We’ll pick several from Congress, the Foreign Relations committees, and then: the arts, musicians, painters, a university president, a scientist, a black, a Hispanic leader, a member of the Joint Chiefs, several corporation presidents, a publisher, and a few reporters. And”—she laughed—“if there’s any room left, some friends of yours. I want to warn you that your husband’s staff will have some very strong suggestions of particular fundraisers and friends of theirs. You’ll be surprised how many favors we will be asked to do.”
