Regrets Only Read online

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  For Ben

  CHAPTER 1

  Lorraine Hadley was pleased with her guest list. Finally. It was getting harder and harder to get a good group together. Thank God there was a new Administration. New blood. She didn’t think she could bear another month of those dreary Republicans. Yet one couldn’t be a successful hostess in Washington without them. It was risky to have a party so soon after the election. There was always the chance of making a mistake when a new Administration was being formed. One risked getting associated with people who claimed to be close to the candidate, only to find that the candidate wouldn’t recognize them if he met them in their own living room.

  There was that Sherman couple from Colorado everybody was fawning over. They had just bought a big house on Kalorama Road and suddenly they were everywhere, introduced as close friends of the President-elect. Lorraine was ready to bet her husband’s fortune that they were phonies. They had been dining out on Roger Kimball’s name since August, certain that Kimball would win, establishing a beachhead before the herds hit town. Lorraine had to admit it was clever of them. She had just the tiniest suspicion that the Sherman woman had ambitions as a hostess.

  Lorraine dismissed that unfortunate thought. She was confident that she and she alone occupied the role of The Hostess in Washington. When she had come eight years before, she had filled a role left vacant for nearly a decade. She had money, perseverance, dedication, style, nerve, and most of all, she cared. Being a hostess was her profession. She loved the nuances—one has dinners, one gives parties; she loved the power that went with being able to attract the most important, powerful, sought-after men and, lately, women in Washington.

  And now Lorraine happened, by heavenly coincidence, to know slightly the parents of the Vice President-elect, William Rosewell Grey III. Not only that, but she had been cultivating Allison Sterling, White House correspondent for The Daily, for the past couple of years, simply because she was an attractive and influential extra woman. The President-elect and his wife, the Kimballs, were Allison’s godparents. It had paid off.

  Lorraine whispered a prayer of thanks for what she believed were her God-given premonitions. She believed that she was meant to be the leading hostess of the century in Washington and she felt that her role would be recognized by the historians, once she got her salon going. A great Washington hostess, long dead, had once said that to get people to come to your parties in Washington, all you had to do was “hang a lamb chop in your window.” This had not escaped Lorraine.

  She looked at the clock. It was quarter after six. Her social secretary was still downstairs with the Secret Service. She might as well go downstairs and say hello, check the kitchen, get Miriam back up to go over the party list. She still had to take a bath and rest before she dressed. Besides, she needed a cup of tea. She slipped on suede loafers and straightened her smock, her trademark. It was important, in everything, to have one’s own style, to be different, though one had to be careful in Washington. You couldn’t be too strange here, because so many of those in power had to toe the line… but they adored just a bit of eccentricity in their hostesses. There was a slight mystery to Lorraine. Her accent was unplaceable. Though mostly British, it held a hint of New York, even a hint of the Midwest. Her dark hair, pulled back from her face, gave her an ageless look. Though she was just over fifty, she could have been anywhere between forty and sixty. She was not beautiful, or even pretty. She was what the French called belle-laide—beautiful-ugly.

  * * *

  As Lorraine went down the wide circular staircase to the first floor she looked out the window on the landing. The terrace was almost dark; she could barely see the few leaves left on the November trees. The wind was blowing. A wonderful night for a fire.

  The Secret Service were just coming in from the terrace shivering when she walked into the living room. One of them was a tall, blond, pale young man with a cool smile, cool eyes. A killer, observed Lorraine to herself. Just the person I would want guarding me.

  “Toby Waselewski, ma’am,” he said. “Sorry to disturb you.”

  “We were just finishing up,” said Miriam. “Toby will be working for the Vice President–elect from now on.”

  “Well.” Lorraine smiled winningly. “I do hope we’ll be seeing a lot of you.”

  Her expert eye passed over the flower arrangements in the living room: the chrysanthemums in fall colors, some pussy willows on the mantel, a little pyracantha in her Chinese vases—appropriate, understated. In the dining room her round table which would serve as a buffet was draped in country-print tablecloths and laid out with contrasting napkins. Baskets lined with paisley fabric would be filled with homemade breads. A pasta would be the main course, with a salad of arugula and cherry tomatoes, another of mixed vegetables, and, of course, a ham. She always served pork—either crisp bacon as an hors d’oeuvre, a pork roast with dinner or at a buffet, a country ham. Country ham was very salty and the guests always drank more. If they drank more they relaxed more and had a better time.

  The guest of honor tonight, Lawrence Devon, had a best-seller, a satirical novel about the persecution of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant minority in a faraway country where the blacks ruled and the whites were all the laborers, servants, and untouchables. It had gotten marvelous reviews. Washington was the first stop on his book-promotion tour. Lorraine had been lucky enough to snag him because she had befriended him in London when he was a little-known novelist.

  Devon did not move along the usual New York–Washington axis. He lived somewhere in northwest Connecticut and hardly ever appeared on the social scene. So everyone was always curious about him, curious about the series of female writers whom he seemed to run through at a staggering rate and who seemed not to interrupt his writing, except as subjects.

  As Lorraine walked into the kitchen to say a last word of encouragement, the servants bombarded her with questions. What time did she want to eat, how many were finally coming, did she want both white and red wine?… all questions she had answered before. This was last-minute stage fright. Ezio, the chef, was going into his final sulk before the dinner.

  “Ezio,” she lied, “the Vice President’s Secret Service agent said he had heard about your famous pasta and hopes to taste it.”

  Ezio brightened perceptibly, puffed up his chest, and continued to roll out the tortellini as Lorraine assured them that everything would go splendidly. She ordered tea with lemon, no sugar, and beamed her approval.

  But it was she who had worked them up into a fever to begin with. Tonight was crucial. The Vice President and his wife would be on display for the first time at a Washington party, and her handling of it and them could advance her or set her back.

  * * *

  Lorraine Hadley rated her guests by numbers, and when the list was complete, she tallied the numbers to see whether the party got a high-enough score. If not, she would add or subtract a few numerically rated guests to get the right one.

  The highest one could get was a 5, except for the President. The President was a 10. One really didn’t like to have the President come to a party, at least not for the whole time. It ruined things because nobody else got to shine.

  The ultimate coup was to have the President come for a half-hour before dinner. He should sweep in, shake hands around the room, mak
e everyone feel important, make the hostess look stupendous, and then leave. Lorraine had not yet managed that, but there was a new Administration and anything was possible.

  The Vice President rated a 5. Most 5’s made their number because of their positions, though Lorraine did try not to invite deadly bores even under those circumstances. Top White House and Administration people, Cabinet officers, Senators, and out-of-town celebrities such as authors, movie stars, producers, directors, or magnates and a few star journalists could be 5’s if they were also attractive.

  Fours might have the titles but no personality. Congressmen were 4’s. On rare occasions they made 5 if they were fabulously attractive. Ambassadors could also be 4’s, as could undersecretaries, people who had something to do with the arts, the top journalists, and lesser authors, though Washington had very few authors.

  Middle-rung bureaucrats were 3’s, as were Congressional staffers, attachés at embassies, lobbyists, and those “formers” who made up the rest of the population of Washington.

  Twos were those who weren’t terribly attractive but had some reason to be invited. An out-of-town celebrity has a relative or old family friend who must be invited, or the party requires an expert on something or other. Ones were the unavoidables. Unfortunate spouses who came with star guests—husbands or wives; it was not sexist. No matter how depressing, there was nothing one could do about them. Lorraine would never have anybody lower than a 1, and if her guests did not work as hard as she did, unless they were a 4 or 5 they were not invited again.

  She had never told her secretary about the numbers. Miriam Schlesinger was not a kindred spirit. She did not share Lorraine’s passion for entertaining or social life. Nor did she particularly care that much about politics or power. She was simply the most efficient human being Lorraine had ever known. She just wasn’t any fun.

  Together, though, they were always pulling little surprises out of the hat. A guest of honor’s favorite, if obscure, dish; a special hard-to-find vodka for a member of the President’s staff; a spontaneous compliment for the wife or child of a powerful member of the Cabinet.

  Lorraine’s signature writing paper, pale pink onionskin with her Dumbarton Street address in bright scarlet, was already the most recognizable stationery in town. With Miriam keeping tabs, Lorraine sent little congratulatory notes to everyone she’d met of any significance on the occasion of favorable news, either personal or professional. The trickiest ones were to journalists. One had to be sure to choose the right pieces to praise, never to send off little notes at random. Journalists knew when they had written a bad piece, and you could be labeled a climber if you seemed not to distinguish. Miriam helped Lorraine on this matter because it was sometimes hard to tell.

  Lorraine detested buffets. In London she had refused to have anything but seated dinners, insisting that the other guests come afterward for her salon. That was not done here. There was no way one could drag any of these politicians or Administration types out past ten. It was dinner or nothing. Compared with London, Washington was dull and provincial, even now. But Archie had lost his post at the Embassy and had refused to stay on unemployed. And it was, after all, Archie’s money.

  Another thing Lorraine loathed was the custom of writing “Regrets Only” on an invitation. It simply gave people an excuse not to respond at all, particularly the younger journalists who were sorely lacking in elementary protocol. Lorraine always insisted on R.S.V.R

  Washington parties were working events. People came first to work, and seemed to have a good time. They came to learn; to exchange views, ideas; to persuade; to lobby; to explain.

  The mix, the balance was everything. It was like casting a play. Being a hostess was being sociologist, psychologist, choreographer, and director.

  Newcomers in any administration were deceived by the evening clothes, the settings, the drinks in people’s hands. They misunderstood. They were used to expense-account lunches, but they found it difficult to relax with journalists at private dinner parties.

  It had taken Lorraine almost no time to learn the ropes. She had made very few errors. She had to be told only once. She learned that many people in new powerful positions would not accept invitations because they felt they couldn’t pay back. They didn’t realize that they were paying simply by accepting.

  Lorraine kept a record of each party in one of her scrapbooks, a new one each year. They contained the seating charts, the menus, the flowers, the linens and china, the dress she had worn, and her comments: an especially boring or rude guest; someone who made a particular effort, or was delightful. If two people didn’t get along, she would make a note so as not to seat them together another time. She despised the habit some Washington hostesses had of putting people who hated one another next to each other, or inviting all enemies. The whole point of a party was for interesting, amusing people to get together, to learn something, accomplish something.

  A well-known statesman and diplomat had once remarked to Lorraine that there were “safe houses” in Washington and “unsafe houses.” A “safe house,” he explained, was a place where one could count on seeing the powerful and the important, having a good seat at dinner, and not encountering too many undesirables.

  Lorraine’s was a “safe house.”

  There were pitfalls, of course, in being a Washington hostess, and Lorraine had not escaped the most dangerous one of all. It had nearly wrecked her career before it started. Lorraine Hadley had made the hideous mistake early on of having an affair with a member of the Administration. It had been a casual outlet for her sexual energies. Poor Archie certainly didn’t fill that bill. It turned out to be not so casual when the man’s wife had found out. Many of the Republican wives in the Administration wouldn’t touch Lorraine after that, and even some of the journalists were surprised at her bad judgment. She hadn’t had time to establish herself with them. Had Archie found out, she might have lost him as well—and that would have meant losing Archie’s money, and that would have meant losing her profession.

  In Washington serious hostesses did not have affairs. As one had to be ideologically neutral to be a successful hostess, so one had to be sexually neuter. Giving up her extracurricular sex life meant relying on Archie. But it also meant that she had a shot at greatness. Greatness required sacrifice. To be a great hostess required concentration. To be a great hostess required celibacy.

  Miriam was waiting in Lorraine’s little office with her yellow pad on her lap, tapping her nails on the desk. She was ready for the final rundown—the political quiz—before she made the last-minute check on the kitchen and left.

  Lorraine flopped down on her chaise, slipped off her shoes, and snuggled up among her Porthault linen baby pillows like a schoolgirl waiting to be drilled by her roommate on the eve of an exam.

  Miriam was tough on Lorraine, but Lorraine was a dedicated pupil. Now, though, just as she had pretty well mastered the old Administration, there was a whole new group coming in. Names were popping up in the paper each day. Lorraine read the papers avidly as she had breakfast in bed. First The Daily with a fine-tooth comb; then skimming over The New York World for anything the Washington paper might have missed and also to keep her New York hand in. Miriam brought her the financial journal, marked. Evenings she checked the gossip column of the New York afternoon paper; Mondays she read The Weekly and the other newsmagazines.

  Once a week Miriam quizzed her. “Name the new Secretary of Commerce… What were the reasons behind the latest teamsters’ strike… Did the price of oil go up or down yesterday… Name the British Foreign Minister… What was the cause of the riots in Chile… Who is the President’s new Appointments Secretary and why was the last one let go…”

  When Lorraine was giving a party, Miriam put her through a spot quiz on the guests and what they had been involved in that week. If the Secretary of Defense had been testifying on the Hill, Miriam clipped the accounts of his testimony and Lorraine read through them. If Lorraine had invited a visiting star from the K
ennedy Center she would have tried to see the performance and make sure she didn’t invite any critic who might have panned it. With Miriam, nothing ever fell through the cracks.

  Lorraine’s tea was brought up by Irma, maid-housekeeper, confidante, adviser, a black woman in her late fifties or early sixties—she wouldn’t tell—who had worked for Archie’s family for thirty years. Irma knew everyone in town. Before Miriam came in the mornings Irma would bring Lorraine’s breakfast upstairs on a tray with the paper and the two would hash over the last night’s party. Irma understood the importance of the Washington social scene in a way Miriam never would.

  In London, of course, they’d had a butler. But a butler in Washington, she quickly found out, would look ridiculous. Even the richest and most elegant Washingtonians didn’t have a proper English butler. It was just too ostentatious in a city where most people lived on government or newspaper salaries. Irma was as good as three butlers.

  Everything now had been reviewed except the guest list.

  “The Vice President-elect and his wife.”

  “The Vice President and his wife,” repeated Lorraine as she swallowed her egg sandwich. “William Rosewell Grey III, ‘Rosey’ to his intimate friends, ‘William’ to his colleagues and the press. Governor of Virginia, conservative Democrat from Richmond. One of the First Families of Virginia. His parents are friends of Archie’s. Bores.”

  Miriam raised an eyebrow.

  It amused Lorraine to irritate Miriam.

  “Patrician, tall, good-looking, drinks Glenfiddich. His wife is Sara Adabelle, ‘Sadie’ to her close friends. Attractive, thirty-eight, auburn-haired, bright, outspoken, from Savannah, drinks champagne.” Lorraine wondered whether she would live up to her publicity. She sounded divine. Lorraine might hate her. On the other hand, they could become best friends.

  Though she’d have to be careful about Allison Sterling. Allison was the most successful and glamorous reporter in Washington. Allison covered the White House for the powerful Daily and she would be put off if Lorraine appeared to befriend Sadie Grey too obviously. Allison would be suspicious of Lorraine’s motives and Lorraine certainly didn’t want to lose Allison now that her godfather was going to be President. Besides, not that it was important in the scheme of things, but she liked her.