by Sara Rosett
“It’ll be a while before we can come for a visit, but do you think I’m going to pass up a beach vacation?”
“Congratulations, Jeff.” I said the words with a genuine smile. I was glad for them. Georgia was a good assignment, closer to their families, and Abby was ready for a change from the snow and rain of Vernon, too.
“Here’s our shuttle,” Mitch said and we piled in.
“Why is our dinner at the Ronald Reagan building?” I asked as Mitch, Abby, Jeff, and I waited in line at the metal detector.
Mitch emptied his pocket change into a bowl and said, “It’s a fund-raising dinner for Home Away From Home.”
“I’m confused. Mrs. Johns invited us to a fund-raiser? Can we afford to go to a fund-raiser?”
The security guard said, “ID, sir.”
“Oh. Sure.” Mitch pulled out his wallet and showed his military ID card.
What was this place, the airport? Good thing I’d taken time to put my ID inside my tiny new leather envelope clutch. It was the one I’d bought while shopping with Abby. The turquoise flowers spilling across it matched my new outfit, and the chic little purse made the outfit just a bit dressier. I pulled out my ID card and handed it over.
“I finally got the full story today,” Abby said. “Mrs. Johns usually has each FROT class over to her house for dinner, but this week she was working on this fund-raiser, so she got the class tickets to come here instead. It’s a western-themed cookout.”
I pulled the memory chip out of my pocket, slid it in my purse, and put my purse on the conveyer belt. I looked at the security guard. “Shoes on or off?”
He smiled. “You can leave them on. This isn’t the airport.”
I said, “Almost,” and stepped through the metal detector. “What’s the fund-raiser for again?”
“Home Away From Home,” Abby said from behind me as she unfastened her heavy silver necklace, earrings, and bracelets. “It’s an organization that keeps furnished apartments here in D.C. for families who come from out of town to visit injured soldiers in the hospital.”
I moved over to one side to wait for Abby and Jeff since the security guard was rescanning her purse. She waved her hand. “Looks like it may take us a while. You go on. We’ll catch up.”
We entered a massive atrium where columns rose to a huge arched glass skylight overhead. As we joined the crowd I said, “I don’t think I ever saw this many cowboy hats in one place when I lived in Texas.”
“A little exaggerated?” Mitch asked with a smile.
“A bit. Check out the chuck wagon over there.” Several banquet tables were set up around it and I could smell barbecue. “I hope there aren’t any horses here.”
“I doubt they’d get through security,” Mitch said.
“I don’t think you would’ve been missed if we’d skipped this,” I said, taking in the sea of cowboy hats and red bandanas. “It’s so crowded in here.” As I looked around the room, I saw two senators chatting with Vicki Archer. Not too far away, a political consultant I’d seen several times on news shows laughed with another group. “Pretty high-profile crowd, too.”
“Mitch!” A hand slapped down on his shoulder. “Glad you could come.”
I recognized an underlying Texas twang in the man’s voice. Mitch turned and shook hands with the man, who looked right at home in his Stetson and western-cut shirt.
“This is Lieutenant Colonel Johns. My wife, Ellie.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, ignoring the grin on Mitch’s face. Okay, Mitch was right. He would have been missed. “What part of Texas are you from?”
“Still haven’t lost the accent, then, have I? Lubbock. Grew up on a cotton farm.”
“Windy over there. I’m from Kitland originally.”
He said, “Oh, so you know what that kind of wind is like. I spent a couple of years there in the flat country.”
We chatted on that topic for a bit, and then I said, “This is quite a setting.”
He gestured up at the skylight. “I’m told there’s an acre of glass up there. It’s the largest building in D.C.” Something behind me caught his attention. “It appears I’m needed elsewhere. I see my wife signaling me. Glad you could make it.”
He moved away through the crowd and I smiled at Mitch and admitted, “Okay, so maybe you would have been noticed if you’d skipped, even if it is pretty crowded. Did you see Vicki Archer over there?” I asked, tilting my head in her direction. The senators had moved on and a short, shriveled man with gaunt cheeks handed Vicki a drink. He’d skipped the cowboy gear for the more traditional suit and tie, and by the way it hung loosely on him I wondered if he’d been sick or had been on a crash diet lately.
I saw another familiar face and leaned over to Mitch. “Oh, look. There’s Jay MacInally and he’s heading this way. He’s the bulky guy with the thick black hair with a bit of gray. His face looks so much better.”
“The man who knew Debbie’s dad?”
I nodded as MacInally shouldered his way through a knot of people and joined us. “Ellie, how are you?”
“Great. Good to see you.” I introduced Mitch, then said, “Looks like you’ve recovered.” The bandages were gone and the bruise around his eye had faded.
“Yep. Like I said before, I’m a tough old bird. Say, did you get my message?”
“Message? Oh. Yes, I did and I forgot to call you back. I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s probably nothing, but I did think of one more thing you can tell Debbie. Just something about when we were on leave, some of the crazy stuff we did.” He studied his scotch, then cleared his throat and looked back up at me. “Now’s not a good time to talk about it.” He shifted his feet and glanced around the room.
“I haven’t talked to her yet,” I said. Maybe this would be a story I could pass on to Debbie without wondering if it was going to cause her emotional trauma.
“It’s no big deal, really. It was just something I’d forgotten about until last week. I’ve been doing that more lately, remembering little things that happened a long time ago.” He scanned the crowd as he said, “I think it was being in the hospital. Stirred up the memories, you know?”
“I can see how that would happen. Why don’t we meet tomorrow?” I looked over at Mitch. “What’s the schedule?”
“There’s no formal classes until Monday when we have the last session. Saturday there’s a special tour of the Air and Space Museum and you wanted to go, right?”
“I might as well see all the museums while I’m here.” I turned back to MacInally and said, “Why don’t we meet tomorrow afternoon?”
MacInally nodded in a distracted way, his gaze fixed on someone in the crowd. “Air and Space. Tomorrow.”
“Mr. MacInally?” It looked like he was staring at Vicki Archer and the group of people around her.
He focused his attention on me. “Sorry. Thought I recognized someone. Tomorrow is fine. I can meet you at the museum.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“No. It’s fine. I’ll be around that area anyway. Three o’clock?”
“All right.”
“I’ll meet you under the Spirit of St. Louis,” he said.
“Sounds good. I’ll call you if something changes.”
He and Mitch shook hands and he moved off into the crowd.
“Whew. We finally found you,” Abby said. “They hand-searched my purse.”
Jeff said, “Probably because you have so much stuff in there they couldn’t tell what was in there on the X-ray.”
“Ignore him,” Abby instructed. “Just for that, you’re dispatched to the bar. Go find me a drink,” she commanded. “It’ll have to be club soda, but it’ll still be a drink.” Mitch decided to go with him. I put in my order for another club soda and told him we’d meet them at the tables on the far side of the room.
Abby said, “Can you believe we’re at a swanky D.C. fund-raiser?”
“No. You just never know what’s going to happen to yo
u when you’re a military spouse,” I said.
“Isn’t that the truth? Of course, I think our chances of ending up in, say, North Dakota are much higher than ever getting to do this again.”
“You’re probably right, but let’s enjoy the swankiness while we’re here. Earlier, we saw two senators talking to Vicki Archer.”
Abby leaned to look around me and said, “No, she’s talking to her husband now. Well, not really talking, more like standing with him.”
I swiveled around. “No. That can’t be her husband.” I could see more of the man’s face, but he still looked like he’d just had a rather nasty flu. Dark circles accompanied the bags under his brown eyes. Vicki was a good foot taller than him. She tossed her head to get her golden fringe of bangs out of her eyes and ignored the man at her side.
“Yes, it is. I read a magazine article about her while I was on the treadmill yesterday. There was a picture of them. That’s her husband, Alan Archer. He’s in civil service.”
I tilted my head to the side to get a better view. “You know, I did see him back at the beginning of the week. When I went to get Summer, he was in Vicki Archer’s office…” I’d been about to say when the police questioned her for the first time, but I didn’t want to bring that subject up so I just stopped talking. I was really going to have to think of better conversational strategies than silence.
I looked back at Vicki and her husband. That was when I noticed Jay MacInally watching the group, too.
Chapter Twenty-one
Jay MacInally stood a few feet away from the Archers, taking an occasional sip of his drink, but he was zeroed in on them.
Then Vicki and Alan moved to join another couple and I realized MacInally hadn’t been staring at them, but at a man who’d been standing slightly behind Alan Archer. MacInally still had his attention fixed on the man, who was quite a contrast to Archer. For one thing, he was young and healthy, buff in fact. He’d also gone with the dark suit, which strained across his chest, and the sleeves looked like they were about to split down the seams. He looked like the Incredible Hulk in a suit.
There was something about the stiff way he held himself and the way his alert gaze scanned the crowd, then returned to the Archers that made me wonder if he was some sort of bodyguard. I couldn’t see one of those earpiece things, but then, maybe that only happened in the movies. He shadowed the Archers as they circulated through the room and the whole time MacInally shadowed him.
I was about to turn away when a woman in a cowboy hat, a long denim skirt, and boots joined MacInally. He hugged her with one arm and she kissed his cheek in greeting. He left his arm draped over her shoulders. The brim of her hat hid part of her face, but from what I could see she looked like Lena Stallings. She tilted her head and laughed at something MacInally said. It was Lena. Her hair curled under the edge of her hat. It was much darker than in the photograph I’d seen on the Web site, but it still had an auburn sheen to it.
“Why are you frowning?” Abby asked.
I nodded toward MacInally and Lena. “I met her at the hospital. That’s MacInally’s sister, but look at them.” MacInally still had his arm wrapped across her shoulders and he was stroking her upper arm with his hand.
“No way she’s his sister,” Abby said emphatically. “See how they’re looking at each other?”
“Weird.” Why would she say she was his sister? The buff guy MacInally had been watching moved a couple of steps and MacInally broke the intense eye contact with Lena. He whispered in her ear, then moved slightly so he could keep the oversized man in his line of sight.
Abby and I were about halfway around the room when our path intersected with MacInally’s. Lena had her arm tucked through his as she snuggled into his shoulder.
“Hi again,” I said to MacInally and introduced Abby. I turned to Lena. “And it’s so good to see your sister again. Remember, we met at the hospital?” Lena straightened up, distancing herself from MacInally, but he laughed and put his hand over hers when she tried to unlink herself from him. “This is Lena Stallings. A good friend,” MacInally said as he caressed the back of her hand.
She smiled at me automatically, then grimaced. “Hospitals can be so strict about visitors. They weren’t going to let me in.”
MacInally said, “Lena’s work brings her to D.C. quite a bit. I was lucky she had meetings this week and could be here for me.”
“So your work for STAND is why you’re here?” I asked.
She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t realize I was so well known.”
“I saw the Web site for STAND,” I explained. “You must live in North Dawkins.”
“Yes,” she said. She obviously wasn’t going to get into any details about what brought her to D.C., so I said, “Do you like it there? Abby and her husband just got an assignment to Taylor Air Force Base.”
“It’s a lovely little town with a real sense of community.” She looked over my shoulder and said to MacInally, “Oh, darling, there’s the Archers. We have to go and say hello. Excuse us.” Her crimson nails dug into the material on MacInally’s arm as she dragged him away.
Abby watched them walk away. “Man, she doesn’t like you.”
“I don’t know why. That felt like high school, didn’t it? It’s not like I’m her competition or anything. And she sure didn’t want to talk about STAND.”
Abby said, “Yeah. Looks like she thinks every woman is her competition. I’d stay out of her way.”
We moved through the crowd to the other side of the room where Abby pointed out a tall slab of concrete covered with graffiti and said, “Modern art is so strange. It doesn’t even go with the rest of the building. Everything is so light and open here, not grungy.”
“Yes, it does. Go with the building, I mean. It’s from the Berlin Wall.” We read the sign and I stood there thinking about the desire for freedom and the news footage I’d seen on a documentary of Germans literally hacking away, crumbling the wall into tiny pieces.
“I wonder if Nadia’s seen this,” I said.
Abby said, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them yet. I’m going to get us a table. I don’t see place cards, so we can sit anywhere we want. They must be keeping it casual to go with the western cookout theme.”
“Okay. I’m going to look for Nadia. She’d love this.”
I made another circuit of the room, but didn’t find Nadia. I turned to head over to the tables and saw Vicki Archer talking to Tony. I quickly reversed course and put several knots of people between me and them. I did not want to see Tony now. I slinked along the edge of the room until I was behind an artfully arranged display of hay bales and wagon wheels. I pulled out my phone and checked for messages. Summer’s plane should have landed by now, but my voice mailbox was empty. I punched some buttons to check my missed calls, but there weren’t any of those either.
I was so busy with my phone that at first I didn’t notice the two people arguing on the other side of the hay bales, but the forceful, angry tone caught my attention.
Even with the cowboy hat, I recognized Lena. Her voice was soft and she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but her angry tone and the tense set of her shoulders pulled a few glances her way besides mine. “No problems. Those were your exact words. You said there wouldn’t be any problems and there better not be any. Because if there are—”
Alan Archer glanced quickly around, noticed the staring faces, and interrupted her. “There won’t be any. You’ve got to calm down. I told you Taylor is safe.”
He reached out for her elbow. “Now, let’s go have some dinner. You don’t have anything to worry about.” He pulled on her arm, but she jerked it away and said, “There better not be,” before pushing past him.
A cowbell clanged. “Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice rang out over the crowd and I turned to the stage set up near the chuck wagon. A woman in a crisp white cotton shirt with a red bandana tied around her neck stood in front of a facade of a barn. “Thank you so much for coming out to supp
ort Home Away From Home. Help yourself to some grub and then we’ll tell you more about this wonderful organization.”
I saw Mitch and joined him in a lumpy line that formed by the food. We dipped out plates of brisket, corn on the cob, beans, and rolls, then joined our group at the round tables. I grabbed a seat beside Nadia.
“Hi, everyone. Where’s Irene and Grant?” I asked.
“She’ll be here later. She wanted to see the news story about Wellesley,” Nadia said.
“That sounds like her. She’s probably been missing the news and her police scanner while we’ve been on vacation. Have you seen the piece of the Berlin Wall?” I asked Nadia as I buttered my roll.
“Yes. Isn’t it awesome? I just wish the light was better.” She touched the camera near her plate. “I took some pictures, but I’ll spare you having to look at them. Or be in them,” she said to Gina across the table.
“Thank God,” Gina said. “As long as I don’t have to be in the pictures I don’t care how many you take.”
Ever since Gina had seen Nadia’s pictures they’d seemed to have declared a truce.
Nadia continued. “I can’t believe how much history is in the city. And in the most unexpected places. I’d love to bring a field trip here sometime.”
“You know, I’ve been surprised at how at home I feel here,” I said. “I’m not usually a fan of big cities, but here in D.C., I have a sense of belonging. I think it’s because when I look at the monuments I feel like they’re my monuments. They’re for me, for Americans.”
“Leading a field trip sounds like hell to me,” Gina said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“Would that be from your school in Georgia? Do you teach on-base?” I asked Nadia.
“At Taylor? No. I’m at an elementary school not too far from there in a town called North Dawkins.” She sighed. “First graders would be too young for a trip like this, but I’d still love to do it someday. Maybe when my girls are teenagers.”
Gina shuddered. “All that angst and emotion. And history’s a big yawn for them at that age.”
