by Dale Wiley
The phone rang. I eyed it warily. Could I pretend to be at a panel and simply let it ring? The loud, angry tones grated on my nerves and I couldn’t concentrate. I grabbed the receiver. “Trent Norris.”
A reedy, male voice came through the speaker. “Thank goodness. Isn’t anyone working at the NEA today? I must have called ten other people before you picked up.”
I couldn’t decide whether to be in awe of the persistence or the stupidity of trying that many numbers.
“I need to speak with the Chairman regarding Regionarts.”
Of course. Every other call I had received over the past few weeks concerned Regionarts and requests for the Chairman. I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry, but the Chairman is away on travel right now. Is there something I can help you with?”
I cringed. Why didn’t I simply stop with the Chairman being away? Now they’d want to explain the entire issue to me—one I’d heard more times than I could count—on how vital it was to keep the Regionarts program alive.
“Maybe you can help, Trent. I need to know whether the Regionarts program is still being fully funded.”
The question everyone wanted to know. I trotted out the party line. “The money for the program is absolutely safe through the end of the century. Not even President Clinton can touch it.”
The caller paused, and I imagined him staring at the phone like he’d heard that line of claptrap before, and he probably had.
“Well, I’ll write the Chairman a letter, so she’ll know how much support there is for this project.”
I rolled my eyes. “The Chairman is quite aware of the great support the program has. Thank you for your support.”
No matter how many times I said those words, they never worked. Much to my chagrin, the Chairman would never see their letter, and the sender had wasted their time because I would write the reply in her name like some bureaucratic Cyrano.
Those letters were now on the graveyard that was my desk. As I sifted through them, I realized I had no idea what Joe really wanted despite having a good bit of material already from my letter-writing escapades. If I had been a new intern, untrained in the ways of every office, I would’ve trudged in, bothered Joe in the middle of whatever he was doing, and asked him. Even realizing Joe probably had as little idea about what he wanted as I did, it might’ve saved me time. However, I was no rank amateur. I had been through the minor leagues of internships, working for journalism groups, environmental groups, small-town politicians, and outdoor musical theatres which catered to the elderly set.
And now, thanks to good recommendations and twenty-pound resume paper, I was in the big leagues. During my other adventures, I had learned my bosses didn’t want to see me; nothing against me, but they had plenty to do. They wanted drafts, not questions. If I ended up having to do the same work all over again, so be it. At least I wasn’t wasting their time. So I should try something; let him read it, and then probably do it all over again.
I tried more first sentences that afternoon than Charles Dickens did in his entire career. I knew it would flow after that, but I had so little clue as to what I was doing, I tried everything but haiku.
Of course, this was between a couple of Tetris games, a snack break, and reading the daily clips.
The clips were an agency ritual, when we got to read what had been written about us in the Times, the Post, and other papers we didn’t care about as much. The clips in recent days were dominated by the addition of Gerald Greer, a new columnist for the Post, who was supposed to be covering all kinds of different issues in Washington, but seemed to center a whole lot on us.
I read the clips, initialed the sheet to show I had read them, and took them “next-door” to Damon, the red-bearded live-wire who was a program specialist.
“Greer’s got another article this morning,” I said as I handed him the clips.
“Enlightening?” he asked, not looking up from something he was scribbling.
“Pithy.”
He turned and grabbed the clips. “My friend Jane says all he does is sit and drink at the Hawk and Dove, trying to pick up pages and college girls. He’s a lush. Wanted to be a playwright. Guess that’s why he picks on us.”
The picture of Gerald Greer, with his brillo beard and polar white hair, clutching some pretentious imported beer while ogling a college student’s ass somehow made him seem like less of a threat.
“When’d you find this out?” I’d never be able to use the information, but good to know.
“Saturday night. Saw her at a party, and she commented on the McHolland article. She knew him from when he used to work for the Boston paper.”
“The McHolland article was a near hatchet job.” It contained some truths; there had been some upper-management problems, and the McHolland Foundation was taking fewer artistic chances.
Damon scowled. “Greer didn’t tell the whole story. He was way too judgmental. And he wrote nice things about other arts groups, so what gives?”
Most of my colleagues at the NEA were angry about the article because the McHolland Foundation was a partner in the Regionarts program, and they were scared Gerald might say the same things about us.
“I don’t have any idea what he wants.”
Damon kicked back in his chair and stroked his beard. “We don’t have many perks.”
True. “None of us make enough to bribe him.” We worked for the government, so we were prohibited by law from even getting free tickets to go see the shows we supported.
I snorted. “Maybe he wants love.”
Damon threw his head back and laughed.
I looked around the office. Everyone else had moseyed back to the panel. I grinned and arched a brow at Damon. “Hey, why don’t we go up to the seventh floor and throw food down on the patrons walking past?”
Damon shrugged. “I’ve already done that. Not much fun, really.”
My turn to scowl. Fun or not, it spoiled it for me because he had beat me to the punch. “I have to put some information together for Joe on Regionarts. Want to give me a hand?”
He snickered. “No, I’ll let you have all the joy.”
Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. I’d have said the same. “All right. I’d better get back to it.”
I went through some files and called back a couple of people who had questions about grant applications, but I soon went back to staring at the electric blue screen of my Wang word processor. I finally shook my head, gave up, and jotted down a few things I wanted to include on a notepad.
I didn’t get much done the rest of the day. The main reason was Stephanie.
Stephanie was the woman of my dreams: medium height; soft brown, shoulder-length hair; subtle, brown eyes; ungodly, long eyelashes; and a very cute nose. She was a Georgetown law student, originally from Kentucky, and we met almost a month before while browsing at Mysterybooks in DuPont Circle.
She bit her very cute lip, trying to decide which Raymond Chandler book to buy, which gave me one hell of an opening. She said she loved James Cain but hadn’t read any Chandler. I pretended to have the vapors and suggested The Long Goodbye. I asked her for her phone number, and she scrawled it down on the back of her receipt. I somehow managed to wait the requisite two days before calling her and asked her out.
We had been on four dates since, and I was beginning to fall for her. A rare thing because I was normally the guy who nixed the idea of a second date for whatever reason, and I was realizing the shoe was now on the other foot. I regaled all of my friends with tales of her excellence whenever I could.
She was twenty-five, three wonderful years older than me, from Danville, Kentucky—what a beautiful accent—and graduated from the College of Charleston, where she double-majored in English and Engineering.
She had been in DC for almost three years, where she began by working as a paralegal in a small law firm and was now starting her second year of law school, which, she said, was hard as hell. She loved to dance, had a secret crush on Vince Gill, and she mention
ed so many times she was over her old boyfriend Roger that I wondered if she really was. However, I wasn’t about to tell her this.
That night, I was going to attempt to raise the culture quotient of our relationship. We had previously gone to the park, the movies twice, and an Orioles game, so I told Stephanie to be prepared for an evening of dining and dancing—meaning, please dress up—and who knew what else—meaning, to put it politely, more physical intimacy than I had yet experienced with Stephanie. We were going to Rachel’s, a wonderful seafood restaurant, and then dancing at the River Club. Hubba, hubba.
All afternoon my mind was so consumed with which of my two suits to wear, which tie to don, and exactly how uptight I was going to be in the constant presence of this goddess that I barely paid attention to the panel. Fortunately, through years of church-going and school attendance, I have developed the ability to appear engrossed in the subject at hand when my mind is actually in the Cayman Islands with a swimsuit model.
Time moved like a three-toed sloth, but finally at 4:30 pm I quietly got up and left the room, nodding at Joe as I went. One advantage of being an intern is the ability to excuse yourself whenever you need to. Now I could look forward to a date with the most awesome woman in Washington, DC. My night was definitely going to be better than my day.
Chapter
* * *
Three
I have been on more than my share of dates. I’ve had pretty dates, plain dates, easy dates, dates who wanted to wait, smart dates, fun dates, boring dates, and the always-interesting blind dates.
As long as you’re not calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend, and/or you have yet to bare your sugar-white ass to her during the throes of passion, you approach any date in a very Zen-like manner, trying your best not to get your hopes up and checking quite frequently to see if your fly is zipped. This was exactly my frame of mind as I approached Stephanie’s place.
She lived by herself in a townhouse in Georgetown, which was entirely out of my realm of possibility. I circled the neighborhood once, looking for a parking spot, and finally squeezed in at the end of the block. I headed down the street, noticed a man standing in his apartment in full dress army gear, and nodded at Stephanie’s next-door neighbor, who was always outside and beginning to recognize me, which I took as a good sign. I finally got to her place, walked up the stairs, and rang the bell. To my right I could see in her living room; she had a fairly good-sized window and had the bad habit of not pulling the blinds, which was extremely rare in DC. I could see a navy couch and her TV from where I was standing. And, of course, she could see me gawking inside as she opened the door.
She smiled and invited me in. Stephanie was wearing a short burgundy dress so simple that it must have been expensive. It was cut to show she worked out, but that fact would’ve been apparent if she had been covered in tar and feathers. She smiled brightly and offered me a seat, saying she just needed to touch up her hair. I sat down in front of the TV, which was tuned, as hers always seemed to be, to CNN.
She shouted over the blow dryer, and we had a somewhat passable conversation while I watched bloody Bosnian images interspersed with those of fat American politicians. With Stephanie yelling into the mirror, her hair still yet to be dried, I looked around and once again saw many things I wanted, but couldn’t afford, hanging on the walls and lining her bookshelves. She had real photos by Annie Leibowitz and William Gottlieb punctuating the brilliant white rooms.
I walked over yet again to her big bookshelf, which I examined on my first trip to her apartment and on each subsequent visit. Some of the books were law school texts, but most were reading editions of American authors like Faulkner and Fitzgerald. It seemed like a lot for a law school student, but she was twenty-five, so what did I know. It was the little details like her library that made me want to skip every other formality and go straight to the buying of the ring.
In another corner of the room was a smaller bookshelf filled with curios and pictures. I bent over to examine some of the photos—Stephanie with her family, various high school and college friends, and several of her with a guy who looked to be about my height and size with the same brown hair. I got that knife in your stomach sensation when I realized this was probably the oft-mentioned Roger and was even more unnerved when I noticed how much he looked like me. Stephanie told me he had been her only serious boyfriend, and I was sure it was going to be tough to step out of his shadow, now even more so, since I appeared to be his shadow. I stood up and moved away just before she walked out which was nice because I didn’t want to have to hear even more about Roger.
We left and headed to Rachel’s, a pricey restaurant near DuPont Circle complete with snotty waiters and small portions. It was decorated in creams and off-whites, and the soft lighting made you wonder if you were developing cataracts. I called ahead for reservations—suave, I know—and we were seated ahead of all of the schmucks who hadn’t. I never did junk like making reservations, but Stephanie was worth planning ahead for. The place was fairly small, the tables were too close together, and I could hear a northern woman at the next table saying “salary” in an accent that made it sound like “celery.”
By the time we ordered, I came to the unsettling conclusion that I was going to really fall for this one. My heart swelled to the point where I was simply trying to make eye contact, speak in complete sentences, and not spill anything on myself. Before I blacked out into a blissful abyss where I merely smiled and mumbled, I remembered the most important advice my good friend Steven had ever given me about women: “If you like ‘em, get them to talk about themselves; if you really like ‘em, listen to what they’re saying.” I had followed this advice religiously with Stephanie, and, amazingly, it seemed to be working.
It was my turn to ask her questions, and as I raised my eyebrows and complimented in the right spots, she began touching her necklace and twisting her hair. Between blushes and a glass of wine, she told me a good deal more about herself, about the horses she had raised, and about how exhausting law school could be.
Then, just as everything seemed to be going so well, the worst thing that can happen to a guy early on in a relationship occurred—I got to meet the best friend. She walked up behind the table and put her hand on Stephanie’s shoulder. Stephanie turned and beamed, looking surprised. She stood to give her a hug and sat back down.
“Trent, this is my best friend, Tabitha Robertson,” she said.
I shook Tabitha’s hand. She looked like a corn-fed, hand-spanked southern girl, a good deal taller than Stephanie, with blond hair swept up off her neck. She was wearing a tasteful set of pearls with a short black dress that could’ve only been worn by a tan woman with legs like a pair of cutting shears.
Tabitha smiled and looked me over like a cattle judge.
“Who are you here with?” Stephanie asked.
Tabitha turned and pointed at an older man, probably over forty, with November-gray hair and a blue tie that didn’t match his blue jacket. He was sipping a glass of wine, pinky out, and was barely smiling at us. “My friend Walter,” she said.
Stephanie nodded, and the two of them talked for a minute more. She asked if we were having a good time, if we were enjoying ourselves—all of the normal stuff. She seemed very nice, but I still wanted her to vanish, which she finally did.
Now I knew I would be the topic of conversation either later that night or the next morning. I imagined long, drawn-out telephone discussions of my merits and weaknesses—at least, I hoped I deserved as much consideration and rated highly.
“Where did you meet?” I asked Stephanie.
“Tabitha and me?”
I nodded.
“At work. We’ve known each other since I moved here.” She glanced at Tabitha, and I followed her gaze. Walter seemed like a smug asshole, and Tabitha didn’t seem to be having all that much fun. She touched his arm occasionally, but the way she sat indicated he was getting the cold shoulder. Still, I wondered what kind of friends they were. I wonde
red if they would be friends for much longer.
After dinner, it was time for my next stab at culture; after all, I worked at the NEA, right? The River Club was in Georgetown right near the water. It was converted to look like a swank forties nightclub, the kind where men wore painted neckties and the women wore pillbox hats. It was dark except for the dance floor and the pale light cast from the flickering gas lamps. Stephanie had told me she had a real thing for forties music, and I knew she would love it. Before we went in, we walked down to the dock by the river. The Potomac isn’t the world’s most scenic spot, but there are moments, as the sun is fading away and the night still awaits, when it can be just right. Stephanie brushed up against me, and we watched the sunset and waited for a breeze. Finally, I took her hand, and we headed inside.
We sat in a corner, ordered martinis, and watched as older men and younger women danced the jitterbug. During a slow dance, I took her hand and led her out on the dance floor. She looked gorgeous, and I told her. She smiled and kissed me. I prayed that the song wouldn’t end, but it did, and after dancing a dozen blissful others, we left.
We drove back to her street and slowly walked back to her house, probably both wondering how this was all going to end. I accepted when she invited me in and tried to refrain from dancing the funky chicken while she went to the bathroom. I thought about going to look at the books again, but I could just see myself dropping or ripping something, so I stayed put until she returned. She went to the kitchen for a glass of ice water and brought me one too, handing it to me just before she sat down, fairly close but far enough away for me to know she wanted to talk, not cuddle. I was hoping she would provide the topic, because my mind had ceased having independent thoughts after the main course.
My mouth was open, and some indiscriminate first syllable was already out, when the phone rang. She crinkled her mouth apologetically and grabbed it.
