Free The Dinner Party by Howard Fast Page B

Americanus?”
    â€œMencken.”
    â€œWhat’s Mencken?”
    â€œThat other gentleman coming tonight, Justin, the man from the state department, I asked the senator was there anything special about his needs we should know, the senator called him Boobus Americanus, which is something this Mencken said. Put the glasses on the table there.”
    â€œSo I’m that,” Mac said thoughtfully. “How come, if I’m so stupid, I got two kids who are smart.”
    â€œMy genes.”
    â€œWell, you are one smartass fox, I got to admit. What time do I go to the airport for the VIPs?”
    â€œNo time. The Justin summer place is about twelve miles away, and they’ll be driven here. What I want you to do is get down the Federal plates, the ones with the blue and gold stripe and the eagle in the middle. We got nineteen of them, but tonight we want only eleven. They’ll be place plates.”
    â€œWe ain’t used them maybe two years.”
    â€œThey are too precious. One hundred seventy-nine years old, according to Miss Dolly. She decided to make them a gift to the White House, because the way the Levi’s got them was a gift from—oh, what is his name?”
    â€œJefferson. Thomas Jefferson.”
    â€œHow do you know that?”
    Mac shrugged and spread his hands. “Anyone knows that.”
    â€œWell, if you break one—”
    â€œYou ever see me break a dish?”
    He was grinning at her, fondly, and she said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you are trying. Trying. And don’t you dare put them in the dishwasher. Just wipe each one off gently with a warm-water cloth.”
    â€œYavo, mein Führer.”
    â€œOh, get out of here.”
    There was a tapping on the door of the senator’s study. “Come in,” he said. Dolly opened the door and came into the room, and for a moment stood waiting, her whole manner hesitant and even apologetic. The senator’s study was a comfortable room, a tufted leather couch, a pair of deep leather chairs, paneled walls, two excellent paintings, one a Thomas Eakins of boys swimming naked in a creek, and the other an unusually large George Inness Hudson highland scene, a gift from his father-in-law. There were also two Audubon bird prints, a gift from Dolly out of her inheritance. Her great-grandfather had a full folio of the bird prints, and on his death in 1890, the prints were divided among his children. Eventually, eight of the prints came to Dolly. Six hung in various rooms of the house and two were in the senator’s study. The rich rose and ivory Chinese rug gave a glow to the study. Dolly loved the room. She had put it together herself, picking up the rug when she and Richard were in Hong Kong, and finding the Eakins at an auction in London, and bidding for it and getting it at a wonderful price because he was American and not too desired then—before Eakins jumped to six and then seven figures.
    The senator, who had been gazing out of the window, turned as she entered. He was such a big, good-looking man, Dolly thought, well, not exactly good-looking, his nose too heavy, his face too wide, but casually handsome in light gray trousers and a black golf sweater.
    â€œYou’re very angry at me, aren’t you,” Dolly said.
    â€œNo—”
    â€œI say awful things. I have a terrible temper.”
    The senator shrugged. She hated to have contention in the house when the children were home and even more so when her parents came. He had never been fully aware of Dolly or able to understand her movements and motives. At best, he was aware of her devotion to order, propriety, indeed to conservatism; on the other hand, in Washington, she despised the conservatives she met socially, their manners—or lack of manners—their taste, their gauche and naked drive for power, the furniture in their homes, the way they did their hair, their use of overpriced jewelry, their impassive,