Mom pulled her arm away from him. “I’m a hardworking professional woman who’s got no time for labels and bullshit.”
I’m still not sure why, but that struck Lou as funny. He laughed out loud, grabbed Mom’s arm again and walked her into a wide living room with soaring ceilings and quite a few expensive-looking antiques. Steve’s town house is beautiful, if a person is into the museum look.
The birthday boy was in the far corner, talking to a man with snowy-white hair whose back was toward the room. Looking at Steve, dressed in one of his beautiful suits, his short black hair a bit messy and his large, slightly hairy hand curled around a highball glass, I got that strange jumpy feeling in the pit of my stomach that I always get when I’m around him. It’s not unpleasant at all—just unnerving. I’m afraid to put a name to the feeling because I’m fairly sure it would be something like intense, unquenched sexual desire. And as much as I like Steve, as much as I admire him and like being with him, I know it would spell disaster if I ever slept with him.
For one thing, any chance of ever making things work out with Ed would be over forever. And I wasn’t ready to give that up. Not yet. For another, Steve is the antithesis of the kind of men I always assumed moved around Washington. He’s a widower who lost his beloved wife, Lauren, to cancer almost three years ago, and since then, he hasn’t gone out with anyone. Until me. I can’t figure it out, but Steve seems to think I need to be the next Mrs. Santorelli. And that’s without ever sleeping with me. If I did sleep with him, I just know he’d manage to get me to marry him. Imagine my trust issues with a senator. Yeah, it would never work.
After I figured out he was the one who bought the billboard, I told him thank you for the offer, but no. He wasn’t surprised, he said, but he also wasn’t giving up.
When he caught sight of me he waved me over, and I left Mom with Lou, which she failed to notice because they were really getting into it about women in America while the bartender mixed her a whiskey sour.
I was almost to Steve when I realized the old man was Richard Harcourt, a retired Speaker of the House. Steve took my hand and folded it into his, then kissed my cheek and introduced me. “Richard, this is Whitney Pearl, but she goes by Pink. We met when she testified before the senate finance committee during the Marvel Energy investigation.”
Richard shook my hand and smiled warmly. “I watched it all on C-SPAN. You’re a true hero.” He dropped my hand, but continued smiling. “Interesting nickname you have. Lotta redheads get dubbed Red, but I’m not seeing why they call you Pink, especially with all that blond hair.”
“I’m a CPA, sir. Because my last name is Pearl, people started calling me Pink Pearl, like the erasers.”
“Ah, I see. Very clever, that! Mind if I call you Pink?”
I returned his smile. “Be my guest.”
“Good, and you should call me Richard.” He winked. “Or Very Handsome and Wonderful Old Man, if you prefer.”
I couldn’t help laughing, and decided I liked Richard Harcourt.
“Steve tells me you were in China for a couple of weeks just after the earthquake.”
Of late, it was my favorite subject and I admit, I got kinda wound up about it. When I was done, and after I’d made the case for people to donate money to CERF, Richard chuckled and said in a pseudowhisper, “You’re preaching to the choir, Pink. I wrote a check with a lot of zeroes on it just last week.”
“I beg your pardon, sir, and thank you.”
He lost a bit of his joviality and said, “Pretty damn good speech you’ve got there. I suggest you spin it to a few well-heeled people who’ve convinced themselves your boss should be the First Gentleman. Tell them their money’s better spent on the Chinese relief effort than a lost cause.”
“Sir?”
He harrumphed loudly. “Didn’t you know Madeline Davis is planning to run for president?”
“I hadn’t heard, no.” Why hadn’t Parker mentioned it? I glanced at Steve. “So a woman’s going to run for president, and she’s got some big money behind her. Imagine that.”
“Will you vote for her?”
“Well, she is a smart woman.” I turned again to Richard. “Who’s supporting her?”
“Top of the list is Bill Mulholland.” At my puzzled expression, he added, “Old New York family. Got money dating back to the Mayflower, no doubt. Sits on lots of corporate boards and hobnobs with royalty.”
“And you think I should call and ask him for a donation because you’re convinced any campaign money he gives to Madeline is wasted?” Maybe I didn’t like Richard so much. I drew myself up a bit. “You’ll pardon me, sir, if I decline to follow your suggestion. Insinuating that Madeline hasn’t a prayer of winning without knowing who else might run can only indicate a gender bias I obviously don’t support.”
Instead of taking up the gauntlet, Richard laughed as though I’d just told a great joke. He leaned close to Steve and said, “She’ll do, son. She’ll do just fine.”
Then he was gone, and miraculously, Steve and I were alone in the corner. But not for long. An entire flock of guests were descending on us from across the room. I quickly asked Steve, “What did he mean, I’ll do?”
He grinned at me. “Richard is convinced I should throw my hat in the ring for president. He says the first thing I need is a wife, and he thinks you’re just the ticket.”
I was speechless. Seriously. Maybe it was the whisper of the thought of becoming First Lady of the United States of America, or maybe it was the thought of sleeping with the leader of the free world on a nightly basis, or maybe it was thinking about living at the most primo address in the country.
“What’s wrong, Pink? Don’t you think you’re up to being First Lady?”
My mom’s neurosis can sometimes be mine, as well. “Steve, I’m a CPA from a dusty oil town in West Texas. I went to a public university. I don’t even have china. Come to think of it, after my apartment was broken into and ransacked last month, I don’t have any dishes at all.”
“The guy living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue right now is from your hometown. In fact, so is the First Lady. If you ask me, it’s sort of cosmic. And by the way, they have plenty of dishes at the White House.”
I didn’t have a chance to respond, because the gaggle of guests were upon us. The rest of the cocktail hour, Steve guided me around the room, introducing me to senators and representatives, high-ranking military personnel, the IRS commissioner and the Mexican ambassador. After that we went for dinner in a dining room large enough to land a plane, where I was seated next to Steve at the head of the table and Mom was seated next to Lou about half a mile down at the far end. I was excited when the Chinese ambassador, Mr. Wu, was seated just across the table from me.
Steve noticed my enthusiasm. He leaned close and said quietly, “Most men give flowers and jewelry. You get the Chinese ambassador.”
Startled, I looked into his dark Italian eyes. “You invited him just for me?”
He nodded and gave me a funny little crooked smile. “Now’s your chance to ask him about Mrs. Han and the China brides.”
That bizarre jumpy thing in my stomach morphed into a warm, intense feeling that was as foreign as Mr. Wu. I swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
His smile kicked up a notch. “You’re welcome.” He turned to greet Mr. Wu, then introduced him to me.
Wu’s English was perfect and we talked a great deal about the relief effort. After a while, I felt comfortable enough to ask him about something that had bothered me while I was in China. “I helped a survivor there, a pregnant woman named Mrs. Han, whose husband was killed. She was naturally very distraught, but it struck me