the bar menu. Robie glanced around but did not see Lambert. He checked his watch. He was about two minutes early.
He took a seat at a table next to the railings and gazed out over the cityscape. The buildings here were impressive. Anyone would think so. Well, probably not the people who were doing their best to blow them up. The waiter came over and Robie ordered a ginger ale. He sipped on it and constantly checked the door into the bar. On his fifth rotation he glanced at his watch. Fifteen after. Lambert might turn out to be a no-show. She might have wanted to call him, but he hadn’t given her his number and he didn’t have hers. Maybe late duties at the White House had interrupted her plans.
He was about to get up when she walked in, spotted him, and rushed over.
“I am so sorry,” she said. She draped her coat over the back of the chair and sat down, setting her bag next to her. She had kept on her heels, he noted. Her sneakers were probably in the bag. Her hair was down around her shoulders and proved to be an attractive backdrop for her long neck.
“You fast walked over?”
“How’d you know?” she gasped.
“You wouldn’t ride your bike with heels on, and you’re pretty breathless for a short walk followed by an elevator ride.”
She laughed. “Good deductions. Yeah, I left my bike at work and ran over. I got caught up in something right at five to eight. Had to get it done. And I did.”
“Then that deserves a reward.”
Robie waved the waiter over and Lambert ordered a vodka tonic. The waiter brought it back, along with a bowl of nuts and pretzels, and set it down between them.
Robie bit into a nut and took a swallow of his drink. Lambert sipped her cocktail and snagged a handful of the snack mix and gobbled it down.
“Hungry?”
“No time for lunch today,” she explained. “Or breakfast either, actually.”
“You want to order off the menu?”
She ordered a cheeseburger and fries while he went with some spring rolls.
“My diet is not the healthiest in the world,” she said. “Sort of an occupational hazard.”
Robie settled farther back in his chair and prepared himself to engage in small talk. He had wanted to have a drink with Lambert. But now that he was here with her, it seemed crazy given all that he was confronting right now.
I can’t be normal, no matter how much I want to be.
“I can understand that. You do much traveling in your job?” he said, trying to sound excited to hear her answer.
“No. I’m not officially high enough in the pecking order to ever be considered for a ride on Air Force One or even in any of the secondary planes. But I’m working hard and making a name for myself, and maybe one day, who knows, right?”
“Right. So you enjoy politics?”
“I enjoy policy,” she replied. “I don’t really get into the campaigning or election stuff. Energy is my specialty and I do white papers and briefing documents and I help write speeches for the administration in those areas.”
“So energy is your background?”
“My undergraduate degree is in engineering. I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry with an emphasis on renewable energy resources. And we are running out of the fossil fuel stuff. Not to mention wreaking great harm through climate change.”
Robie grinned.
“What?” she asked.
“Now you sound like a politician.”
She laughed. “I guess the place rubs off on you.”
“I guess it does.”
Their food came and she bit eagerly into her burger and followed that up with several fries awash in ketchup.
Robie put duck sauce on one of his spring rolls and bit into it.
“So what about you?” asked Lambert. “You said investments and that you worked on your own.”
“Actually, right now I’m doing as little as possible.”
“You don’t strike me as that sort. You seem way too intense to just sit around.”
“I don’t just sit around. I’ve traveled quite a bit, done some interesting work, made enough to take some time off, and that’s what I’m doing now. As little as possible. But at some point that will end. You’re right, I am too intense.”
“Sounds nice, though. Just enjoying life.”
“It can be. Or it can be really boring.”
“I wouldn’t mind trying it at some point.”
“I hope you can.”
She said, “How’d you end up in D.C.? Or are you from here?”
“I haven’t met many people who are from D.C. I came from the Midwest. How about you?”