Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,111

again in his managerial-looking leather chair. “Why don’t we pick up where we left off?” he asked, his slate blue eyes sparkling with insouciance. “Armed with a degree in French literature from George Washington University, you had just come back from a trip to Paris and had some time to kill before taking a job you’d been offered as the Times-Herald’s Inquiring Camera Girl. Did I get that right?”

Jackie was amazed at his retentive memory. It seemed like a magic trick. “Yes, I’ve been working at the newspaper since the first of the year. I’m learning a lot, and it’s great fun. The veteran photographers on the paper have been teaching me the tricks of the trade. Joe Heilberger even stretched out on the floor on his back to illustrate six feet and told me to take all pictures from that distance.”

“That was good of him,” Jack said, smiling. He gave her an inquisitive look. “But where’s your camera?”

Jackie laughed. “I didn’t bring it because I thought I’d sketch you instead. I’d like to do something a little more original than just take another photograph to add to the hundreds of you already out there.” In truth, she was afraid that lugging an ungainly four-pound camera to his office would have spoiled the sophisticated impression she wanted to make. Knowing how important appearances were in Washington, she’d spent the whole morning in the beauty salon getting her hair cut and tinted and her fingernails polished red to cover their atrocious green color caused by exposure to developing fluid in the darkroom.

“Oh, are you an artist?” Jack asked.

“I studied art history at the Sorbonne, and I’ve been sketching for years.”

“The Sorbonne? That’s impressive.” Jack glanced at the folio Jackie had brought with her. “Have you brought some samples of your column with you?”

“I have,” Jackie said as she took some clippings out of her folio and handed them to him.

“Very insightful,” Jack said, scanning the columns. “It’s a clever concept. You ask people who have been in the news some revealing question that shows their human side and helps the public identify with them, is that it?”

“Yes, exactly. The idea is to give the readers a more personal, down-to-earth view of celebrities than they normally get,” Jackie said, quickly adding, “But it’s never done to embarrass the subjects in any way.”

“Ah, then I won’t have to plead the Fifth,” Jack said, smiling. “And do you pick your own subjects or does the newspaper assign them to you?”

That was a tricky question. The truth was that Jackie could make the column about anyone or anything she wanted, but if she revealed that to Jack, he might jump to the conclusion that she had some ulterior motive in selecting him for an interview. She decided to give him a plausible answer that would flatter his ego and wouldn’t arouse suspicions of any kind.

“The newspaper gives me a lot of leeway,” she said, “but when all of Washington is buzzing about someone, as people are about you, I’m expected to do a column about that person, but give it a different twist.”

“A different twist?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “I don’t know, Jacqueline; that sounds ominous, but I’m game.” He folded his arms across his midriff, bracing himself. “Okay then, what is the question you have for me?”

Jackie hesitated, hoping that he wouldn’t think it was silly, and then blurted, “With what person, living or dead, would you most like to be shipwrecked on an island?” She had dreamed that one up in fond remembrance of her idyllic interlude with Emiliano on Saetía.

Jack threw his head back and chortled out loud. “That’s easy. Henry Cabot Lodge. So I could hit him over the head with a coconut, swim back to shore, and win the election by default.”

Jackie laughed too, but she wished Jack would turn more serious. She didn’t want to waste her precious appointment with him bantering.

But he leaned back in his chair with an amused look on his face and seemed in no hurry to get on with the interview. “And what person would you most like to be shipwrecked on an island with, Miss Inquiring Photographer Without a Camera?” he asked in a teasing tone.

“Sergei Diaghilev,” Jackie replied without hesitation. She could tell from Jack’s cocked eyebrow that her answer had surprised him. She wondered if he even knew who Diaghilev was. “I’m a lover of the ballet and the opera, and if I were shipwrecked on an island with Diaghilev,”