the plan. I couldn’t deviate from the plan—not unless I was being followed.
I was told to hail a taxi at the corner of Florida and T at seven forty-five and take it to the Mayflower Hotel. The hotel was only a short walk from there, but the optics, they said, were better if I got out of a taxi.
I was told to avoid wearing anything that would make me stand out: flashy jewelry, too much makeup, an ostentatious hat, ostentatious shoes, anything ostentatious. I thought of all those sequined gowns filling our basement apartment, of all the women coming by to try them on and buy them from Mama. I didn’t own a single item of clothing that could be classified as ostentatious. My instructions were to dress well but not too well, to look nice but not too nice. I was to look like the type of woman who frequented the Mayflower’s bar, the Town & Country Lounge. The tricky part was that I was the type of woman who hadn’t even heard of the Mayflower Hotel, let alone the Town & Country Lounge.
For the night, I was no longer Irina; I was Nancy.
The taxi came to a full stop midway through the circle and I checked my hair in my compact, still unsure I’d gotten the look right. I wore Mama’s old fur, which I’d spritzed with Jean Naté—an attempt to mask the mothball smell. I wore the periwinkle and white polka-dot dress I’d worn to every wedding I’d attended for the last five years. My hair was pulled back in a French twist and secured with a silver comb, another item borrowed from Mama. Reapplying the new shade of orange-red lipstick I’d purchased from Woolworth’s, I frowned into the mirror. Something was still off. It wasn’t until the taxi pulled up to the hotel and a doorman opened my door that I looked down and realized it was my shoes: dull black pumps. Dull black pumps with a scuffed left heel. And I hadn’t even thought of shining them. The kind of women who went for drinks at the Town & Country on a Wednesday night wouldn’t be caught dead in anything dull. As I entered the Mayflower’s grand lobby, decked out in red and white roses for Valentine’s the next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about my shoes. At least I’d been given a nice purse—a quilted black leather Chanel bag with a double flap and a gold chain, large enough to hold an envelope.
I told myself to project confidence, to become someone who belonged with the well-heeled set—to become my cover, to become Nancy. Gripping the Chanel like a talisman, I passed the bellboys in their tasseled caps, the honeymooners checking in, the huddled men conducting after-hours meetings, the glamorous brunette waiting for one of those men to take her upstairs, the large potted palms lining the mirrored corridor. I walked through the lobby and into the Town & Country like the kind of person whom the bartender knew by name.
I already knew the bartender’s name. It was Gregory, and there he was: prematurely gray hair, white shirt and black bow tie, standing behind the bar pouring a Gibson.
The lounge was busy, but the second-to-last high-backed chair at the bar was free, as they said it would be.
“What’ll it be?” Gregory asked, his nametag confirming what I already knew.
“Gin martini,” I said. “Three olives, with one of those little red swords.” One of those little red swords? I scolded myself for going off script.
In front of me was a thin glass vase containing a single white rose. I picked it up, turned it clockwise in my hand, sniffed it, and put it back—as instructed. Then I hung the Chanel by its gold chain on the chair back’s left side. Then I waited.
The man to my left hadn’t so much as glanced my way when I sat down. He was reading the sports section of the Post and looked like every other man in the place—a lawyer or businessman on a one-night trip in from New York or Chicago or wherever those types came to the District from. The word to describe him would be nondescript, and I wondered if he’d describe me that way too. I hoped so.
Gregory set my drink down on a white napkin with the Mayflower’s gold insignia, and I took a sip. “You make a damn fine martini,” I said. I hated martinis.