Ghost Image, page 5
I knocked on her door, and she said, “It’s open, come on in,” without turning around.
A manuscript bristling with neon flags and Post-its sat on the corner of her desk. I read the title upside down, “No Little Plans.” It was part of a quote by Daniel Burnham, a Chicago architect and urban designer who had lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More of the quote, I knew, was on the dedication page: Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.
Olivia chose it as the title for a book on the history of the Mall because Burnham, who played an important role in designing the master plans for several major American cities, had served on a Senate commission that took a hard look at Washington at the beginning of the twentieth century and was appalled by what it saw. A mediocre town with nondescript architecture and poorly planned public spaces, nothing that could hold a candle to London, Paris, or Rome. The commission resurrected the original grand plan of Pierre L’Enfant, the French architect hired by George Washington in 1791 to design the city, after it had been scrapped for more than a century. They razed the hodge-podge collection of buildings, a Victorian park, and even a train station that had overrun the Mall, and started over. Since this was Washington and Congress had been involved, it had taken decades.
Olivia spun around in her chair and smiled when she saw me. “Sophie, sorry I kept you waiting. There’s always so much work here. Please sit down. I’ve got the manuscript ready for you, as you can see. The Post-its and flags mark the places where I want photos. I’ve also made notes in the margins.”
I realized when we started working together that she was going to be a hands-on editor. What I didn’t know was whether she would feel the need to change “puppies” to “young dogs” just to have her imprimatur stamped all over this project. She stood and handed me the manuscript. Then she picked up a book that had been sitting on top of her bookcase.
“I think you should read this. It’s a biography of Pierre L’Enfant.”
“Thank you, but I know who Pierre L’Enfant is.”
A look of annoyance crossed her face, and I knew that she was a “young dogs” editor.
“Everyone studied Pierre L’Enfant in high school,” she said in a cool, firm voice, “for about fifteen minutes. This is probably the best book I’ve read on his life, why he wanted Washington to become a grand capital like Paris and London, and the problems that caused him with Thomas Jefferson, who hated that idea.” She held it out. “And why George Washington finally fired him.”
“Olivia, I’m taking photos of what’s here now, not what should have been or didn’t get built. You’re getting those pictures, the historical photos, from the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian.”
She held the book out to me. “I think it’s important for you to understand L’Enfant’s vision for Washington. It’s important for this book.”
I didn’t take it. Long ago I learned to pick the battles worth fighting and let the other ones go. She was trying to do my job, or at least get me to do it the way she wanted. At some point she needed to trust me, or this wasn’t going to work.
“And why do you believe I don’t?”
“Would you please at least look at it? As a favor to me?”
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “Let me go through your manuscript first. You’ve got a lot of notes here. Then we can talk about the book.”
She set it on her desk and gave a little one-shoulder shrug. “Fine. I know you’re busy. You’re the photographer for the royal wedding.” She sat down and avoided my eyes. “Everyone’s talking about it around here. I heard about the party last night at the Austrian ambassador’s residence.”
She hadn’t been at the party. “Do you know Yasmin?”
Her smile was brittle. “Oh, sure. Everyone here knows her. And her mother. Senator Gilberti’s on the Smithsonian board.”
It sounded like a dig at Yasmin, implying Ursula pulled strings to get her daughter a job at the museum.
“I didn’t know that.”
She nodded. “How did you end up with the job, if you don’t mind my asking? I didn’t know you photographed weddings.”
“I don’t. A mutual friend introduced me to Victor. He liked my photographs, so he asked me if I’d do it as a personal favor.”
“I should have guessed it was Victor. I heard Yasmin was looking for a celebrity photographer, no disrespect to you.”
“Olivia,” I said, “they’re my clients.”
She leaned toward me, elbows on her desk, fingers interlaced. “I wish you the best of luck. Yasmin went after Victor because she wanted his title and all the glamour and wealth that come with who his family is. That’s all there is to it. She wants to appear on the cover of magazines because she’s such a fashion icon or she went skiing in Gstaad or vacationed on Richard Branson’s private island or partied with some rock star after his concert.” She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. There were two bright pink spots in her cheeks. “I wonder how long it will be before she finds a lover.”
Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth, a flamboyant woman who had been known as “the other Washington monument” because of her sharp-tongued political zingers, owned a needlepointed pillow that read, “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”
“I think we ought to change the subject,” I said. “I’m meeting Yasmin and her mother at the Franciscan Monastery at five o’clock. This is more information than I want to know.”
She looked embarrassed. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have said anything, though all of it is an open secret around here. I met Victor last year at a Smithsonian lecture. He’s a doll.” She stood up. “Be in touch if you have questions about my notes. And let’s get together again when you’re done. Maybe the end of next week? I need your spring photos and all the interior shots by the last week of May, by the way.”
I nodded. “I’m still waiting to hear from someone about taking photographs inside the Arts and Industries Building. Though I met a friend of yours who said he could cut the red tape. David Arista.”
Her eyes flashed when I mentioned his name, but she said in a cool voice, “David? Really? How did you meet him?”
“At the party last night and then I ran into him walking through the Ripley Garden.”
She straightened a pile of already tidy papers. “Last year right after Museum Press hired me, we worked together on publicity for a book on the history of the National Portrait Gallery.” She fiddled with the pages until the edges were aligned. “Now he works with Yasmin. They’re very close.”
The pink color had returned to her cheeks. “Tell me,” she said, “did he invite you for coffee or a drink?”
I smiled. “He did.”
She didn’t smile. “Want some advice about David Arista?”
“Sure.”
She pointed to the corridor outside her door. “Walk down that hall. There are a couple of women who could give it to you.”
I thought about what Thea Stavros had said to me last night: Get in line, darling.
“I’m not interested in anything except speeding up my request to get into the Arts and Industries Building.”
She reached around and flipped her hair off her neck again. “I wouldn’t ask him. Then you’d owe him a favor. And David always collects.” Her phone rang and she glanced down at it. “Sorry, I need to take this. Good luck.”
I left and wondered if she had been talking about the book or David Arista. And if Olivia Upshaw was also one of the women who could give me firsthand advice about the danger of getting involved with him.
I left the Smithsonian by the Mall entrance and stood under the portico. Across from me, the enormous green dome of the Natural History Museum rose behind a line of bare trees. The rain had come and gone during my meeting with Olivia, and the frigate-sized clouds piled overhead now streamed west toward the river, leaving a swath of bright sky behind. But the streets were still wet and slick, and the slant of the rain had made dark-ringed stains on the curves of the sand-colored American Indian Museum at the far end of the Mall.
As predicted, it took half an hour to find a legal parking place on Capitol Hill and then pass through security in the Russell Senate Office Building. Ursula Gilberti had an office in the Capitol as a member of the Senate leadership, but her secretary had told me I was expected in her private office on the fourth floor of Russell.
It was the oldest of the three Senate office buildings, and to me the two other buildings—Dirksen and Hart—lacked its character, history, and elegance. They also didn’t have the magnificent two-story columned Rotunda or the grand Kennedy Caucus Room, where the sinking of the Titanic had been investigated and the Watergate hearings had unfolded.
I made a point of detouring through the Rotunda, which was silent and empty except for a security guard. Daylight flooding through the oculus in the dome softened the severity of the gray-and-white-hued marble, and I stopped to take photographs of the arches and columns and the carvings in the coffered ceiling while the guard watched me. Then I took an elevator to the fourth floor.
Ursula’s state flag, the flag of West Virginia, hung from a stand in an alcove in the corridor outside her suite of offices; bright colors against more gray-and-white marble. One of the young female receptionists in the visitors’ room took me back outside and walked me to a door that led to the secretary’s office, where she handed me over to a white-haired no-nonsense woman. She, in turn, led me into Ursula’s office.
The large room was furnished with a quirky mix of modern and antique furniture, the walls painted a buttery yellow and covered with art, mostly avant-garde modern, which surprised me, along with numerous awards and rows of photographs of Ursula with the good and the great, which did not. On the mantel of her carved marble fireplace next to a modern sculpture of what looked like a bronze elephant was my framed engagement photograph of Yasmin and Victor.
She got up from a paper-strewn desk and shook my hand.
“Can I get you and Ms. Medina a cup of coffee, Senator? Tea?” the secretary asked.
Ursula gave me a quizzical look and I shook my head. “Not just now, thanks. Can you buzz me when my two o’clock arrives?”
I glanced at my watch. One fifty. Whatever Ursula had to say wasn’t going to take long.
“Sophie, please have a seat.” She gestured to a pair of leather mission-style armchairs across from her desk and I slid into one of them. “Thank you for coming by.”
Last night, the golden light of the candelabras that graced the dining room table and the glittering chandeliers in the formal rooms of the Austrian ambassador’s residence had somewhat softened Ursula Gilberti’s hard-shell demeanor. She had been a proud mother at a family celebration, not the tough get-the-deal-done woman she was known as on the Hill. Today she wore a severe black suit with a white blouse and a pearl choker, and any softness I’d seen at that party was gone.
“I have a proposal for you.” She smiled, but it lacked warmth, and already I knew I didn’t like where this was going.
She put on a pair of thick-framed reading glasses and picked up a piece of paper from her desk. Though I couldn’t see through it, I thought it looked a lot like my contract. “It concerns the fee you’re charging.”
It was the fee we’d agreed on after a round of horse trading. I gave her a tight-lipped smile and waited for her to go on. She wanted more sessions for the same price or something like that.
“I’d like you to do this job pro bono.”
“Pardon me?”
“Pro bono. It means you wouldn’t charge me for it.”
“I know what pro bono means, Senator.”
“In return, I will recommend you to everyone I know, and believe me, I know a lot of people.”
She had somehow managed to make it sound like she was doing me a favor.
“Thank you for the offer, but I’d prefer to stick to the agreement we have.”
Ursula took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “I’m not sure you understand. Do you realize how much publicity you’re going to get just from being chosen as the photographer for this wedding? A royal wedding in Washington? You couldn’t pay for that kind of exposure. Already the guest list includes royalty from just about every European country, senators, cabinet secretaries, a Supreme Court justice … not to mention that we’re juggling publicists from a couple of rather big names in Hollywood whom I’ve met over the years and would like to be here.” She folded her hands. “The president and the first lady are on the guest list.”
“It sounds like it’s going to be quite an event. But with all respect, I didn’t volunteer for this or compete with anyone else. Victor asked me because he likes my work and I said yes.”
Ursula blew out a short-fused breath and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, focusing on me again. “Do you have any idea how much this wedding has cost me so far? I’m also in the middle of a primary where I’m being outspent by an opponent who’s got deep pockets all the way to China, and then there’s the election in the fall. When all is said and done, I’m a working single mother, not a millionaire. The expenses for all of this are absolutely crushing. Can you possibly understand what I’m saying?”
Sure I could. I had bills, too. That’s why I worked for a living and expected to get paid for it.
“I’m sorry to hear that—”
She cut me off. “I need you to do this, Sophie. I’m not really asking you. I’m telling you. I can’t afford to pay you anything beyond what I’ve already given you. You were well compensated for last night’s party, and I trust you’ll be sending a link to those photos soon because I’m fending off press queries with a stick until I get them. I’m not asking for charity, you understand, because I assure you what I’m offering will be very much in your financial and professional interest. And I always keep my word.”
Except for the contracts she signed. And it certainly felt like she was asking for charity. Before I could open my mouth, her phone buzzed and she reached for it.
“We’re almost through here. Ask him to wait.” She put down the phone and said to me, “If you don’t want to do it, I’ll find someone else. Any other photographer would kill to be in your position. And I don’t want Yasmin to know, either. Or Victor. This conversation needs to stay between us.”
Gloves off. Now I knew why she was so good at her job as her party’s whip.
“I’ll have to think about it,” I said.
“Fine. You have until five o’clock, when we’re supposed to meet at the monastery. If you change your mind between now and then, let me know. I’ll need to start looking for another photographer right away.” She paused and gave me a halfhearted smile. “I certainly hope it won’t come to that.”
I stood up. “I’ll let you know. And I can see myself out. Good afternoon, Senator.”
Before she could reply or buzz her secretary to escort me out and admit her waiting two o’clock, I walked over to her private door, which led directly to the outside corridor.
“You need to use the other door—” she said.
I had no intention of waiting to be escorted out by the secretary and I didn’t hear the forbidden door click shut behind me until I passed Ursula’s state flag at the entrance to her suite of offices. This time I took the spiral staircase with its winding bronze balustrade. When I reached the first floor, I was as breathless with anger as I’d been a few minutes ago in her office.
By the time I walked outside, it was ten past two. I had fewer than three hours to simmer down and decide what I was going to do.
I reached in my jacket pocket for my phone, ready to call Ursula and tell her she could find another photographer. But it was the wrong pocket and my fingers closed around the little key I’d found this morning by the Japanese lantern. I thought of Victor and the sweet letter he had written me, asking if I would do him and Yasmin the honor of photographing their wedding. Could I really face him and tell him I had changed my mind?
Whatever I decided to do about Ursula’s ultimatum, I had to stop by the monastery anyway. I had promised Kevin I would take pictures of the community garden and I needed to ask him if he’d lost this key. It was too early to drive over there now. Kevin was probably still busy with the children from Brookland Elementary. Between the meetings with Olivia and Ursula I had forgotten about lunch, and right now I was famished.
I dropped the key in my pocket and walked down 1st Street past the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress on my left and the Capitol on my right until I got to Pennsylvania Avenue. A few blocks later, I slid into a booth at the Tune Inn, the scruffy, beloved bar that was one of the Avenue’s oldest Hill hangouts, ordered a beer and a burger, and tried to forget about Ursula Gilberti. There was a sports program on the television over the bar, alternating between highlights of March Madness and ice hockey, while Willie Nelson, Brad Paisley, and the rest of them sang the old rip-your-heart-out country songs from the jukebox. I ate and drank and listened to them croon about lost love and women who were trouble and the tantalizing freedom of getting in your truck and leaving it all behind.
I thought about ordering another beer and just spending the rest of the afternoon at the Tune until whenever I felt like leaving, but I’m not that kind of girl. I paid the waitress and told her to keep the change, which was almost as much as the bill. Then I walked back to my car and drove to Brookland and the Franciscan Monastery.
It was time to face my own music.
The parking lot across the street from the monastery was deserted when I pulled in shortly before four, even though the gardens and the church were still open to the public. The Byzantine-style Church of Mount St. Sepulchre, built to resemble the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, always looked to me as if it had been plucked from the midst of the real Holy Land, where it had stood in the shadow of a sacred Catholic shrine and set down in this working-class neighborhood of Craftsman bungalows and wood-framed houses the way Dorothy’s house had landed in Oz. The inlaid gold-and-red Jerusalem Cross, the symbol of the Franciscans since the Crusades, and the gold cupola on top of the dome gleamed in the dull late-afternoon light. I walked through the arched entrance to the Rosary Portico, the cloistered walkway that surrounded the monastery on three sides.
