When the tea was brought, the ambassador from Romania was so nervous that he spilled it. “How clumsy of me! Forgive me!”
Mary wished he would stop saying that.
The ambassador tried to make small talk, but that only made the situation worse. It was obvious that he was miserably uncomfortable. As soon as she discreetly could, Mary rose.
“Thank you so much, Your Excellency. It was very nice meeting you. Good-bye.”
And she fled.
When Mary returned to the office, James Stickley immediately sent for her.
“Mrs. Ashley,” he said coldly, “would you mind explaining to me exactly what you thought you were doing?”
I guess it’s not going to be a secret I’ll carry to the grave, Mary decided. “Oh. You mean about the Romanian embassy? I—I just thought I’d drop in and say hello and—”
“This is not a cozy little back-home get-together,” Stickley snapped. “In Washington, you don’t just drop in on an embassy. When an ambassador makes a call on another ambassador, it’s by invitation only. You’ve embarrassed the hell out of Corbescue. I had to talk him out of making a formal protest to the State Department. He believes that you went there to spy on him and catch him off guard.”
“What! Well, of all the—”
“Just try to remember you’re no longer a private citizen—you’re a representative of the United States government. The next time you have an impulse less personal than brushing your teeth, you’ll check with me first. Is that clear—I mean very clear?”
Mary swallowed. “That’s fine.”
“Good.” He picked up the telephone and dialed a number. “Mrs. Ashley is with me now. Would you like to come in? Right.” He replaced the receiver.
Mary sat there in silence, feeling like a small child being chastised. The door opened and Mike Slade walked in.
He looked at Mary and grinned. “Hi. I took your advice and shaved.”
Stickley looked from one to the other. “You two have met?”
Mary was glaring at Slade. “Not really. I found him snooping at my desk.”
James Stickley said, “Mrs. Ashley, Mike Slade. Mr. Slade is going to be your deputy chief of mission.”
Mary stared at him. “He’s what?”
“Mr. Slade is on the East European desk. He usually works out of Washington, but it’s been decided to assign him to Romania as your deputy chief.”
Mary found herself springing out of her chair. “No!” she protested. “That’s impossible.”
Mike said mildly, “I promise to shave every day.”
Mary turned to Stickley. “I thought an ambassador was permitted to choose her own deputy chief of mission.”
“That is correct, but—”
“Then I am unchoosing Mr. Slade. I don’t want him.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, you would be within your rights, but in this case, I’m afraid you have no choice. The order came from the White House.”
Mary could not seem to avoid Mike Slade. The man was everywhere. She ran into him in the Pentagon, in the Senate dining room, in the corridors of the State Department. He was always dressed in either denims and a T-shirt or in sports clothes. Mary wondered how he got away with it in an environment that was so formal.
One day Mary saw him having lunch with Colonel McKinney. They were engaged in an earnest conversation, and Mary wondered how close the two men were. Could they be old friends? And could they be planning to gang up on me? I’m getting paranoid, Mary told herself. And I’m not even in Romania yet.
Charlie Campbell, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hosted a party in Mary’s honor at the Corcoran Gallery. When Mary walked into the room and saw all the elegantly gowned women, she thought: I don’t even belong here. They look like they were all born chic.
She had no idea how lovely she looked.
There were more than a dozen photographers present, and Mary was the most photographed woman of the evening. She danced with half a dozen men, some married and some unmarried, and was asked for her telephone number by almost all of them. She was neither offended nor interested.
“I’m sorry,” she said to each of them, “my work and my family keep me too busy to think about going out.”