Free Mortal Friends by Jane Stanton Hitchcock Page A

decorate. Wouldn’t let her decorate my office, though.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t like knickknacks. She was a great one for knickknacks, my wife was.”
    Everyone at our table congratulated Cynthia except for Grider, who sat there like a big old hayrick without uttering a word. He stood up abruptly and announced to the table: “Folks, I’ve enjoyed my evening. Pleasure to be with you all. Good night.”
    “Happy lawmaking,” I said with mock cheer.
    He reached inside his pocket and handed me his card.
    “You ever want to visit the Senate, give me a call.”
    Soon after Senator Grider left, everyone got up. Bob Poll walked over to my side and whispered, “You’ve made a conquest.”
    I looked at him askance. “You must be kidding. Senator Grider’s as dry as a dust bowl.”
    “I don’t mean him. I mean me.”
     
    On the way home in the car, I made reference to Cynthia—something about how she was “the girl who had everything.”
    “Everything except the ability to listen,” Bob countered. “She’s a little too full of herself for my taste.”
    I was so relieved to hear this, because I assumed that she’d charmed him. Bob was more eager to talk about Senator Grider.
    “I’ve never seen Zack Grider so taken with a woman,” he said.
    “If you call that taken, the old toad…. What happened to his wife? He alluded to her in the past tense. Are they divorced?”
    “Nope. He’s a widower.”
    “I’m sure he bored her to death.”
    Bob laughed. “See? You’re irreverent. I bet he loved that. A breath of fresh air. So many of the women we sit next to at these events are dull because they’re so careful.”
    “How do you mean, careful?”
    “Well, say they’re married to an important man, or they hold somebig job, they have to tread cautiously. Don’t forget this is Washington. Anything you say will be repeated and held against you. That’s why so many people act like they’re on a job interview or in front of a camera…. Take my word for it, Grider’s smitten with you. And he’s a powerful man. I was getting a little jealous.”
    “That’s funny, because I was getting a little jealous of you and Cynthia. You looked like you couldn’t take your eyes off her.”
    Bob chuckled. “That’s because I was in disbelief. I never met a woman who sounded more like she was running for office with no office in sight. No…she’s a ball-buster, but that figures. Shy women don’t make fortunes, believe me.”
    It was nice to think that Bob had been watching me as much as I’d been watching him. I couldn’t wait to tell Violet that the seating had worked out so well, since Bob was turned on by Grider’s attentions to me.
    We pulled up to my house. Maxwell came around and opened the door for us, and Bob walked me up to my front door. I let him kiss me good night, and I have to say that he took my breath away. Still, I didn’t ask him in.
    “What are you doing for dinner?” he asked.
    “When?”
    “How about for the foreseeable future?”
    I thought he was kidding.

Chapter 9
    H e wasn’t…. For the next month, Bob Poll gilded me with so much attention I was practically glowing in the dark. I’m talking about bright gold glittery attention the likes of which I hadn’t received since I was a luscious babe in my twenties. Roses every day, dinners every night, evenings at the Kennedy Center, receptions at the National Gallery, the Phillips, the Corcoran, the Smithsonian, the National Portrait Gallery.
    Bob didn’t enjoy the cultural part of the evenings as much as he did the social part. He was much more interested in the intermissions than in the shows. He liked to mix and mingle and be seen. He actually looked forward to the big gala dinners most people dreaded. I was just the opposite. I loved the shows far more than the socializing. It was such a treat seeing Claudio Piccere and Norma Jessup sing Aïda at the opening night of the Washington National Opera. Although when Bob leaned in