My Gal Sunday

  I hope he doesn’t think Henry and I had an argument, she’d thought, amused at the notion that they could ever argue. We just debate things every now and then, that’s all. Intellectual discussions, she reasoned. But certainly not arguments.

  Giving up on sleep, Sunday reached over and turned the light back on. Sitting up, she brushed her hair away from her face and plumped the pillows behind her. Sims had said that the ship’s furnishings hadn’t been changed. She imagined Henry sitting at the desk, writing a detailed entry even though, as he had told her, he was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open.

  I wonder if when you’re very tired, you don’t almost spirit-write instead of consciously thinking, Sunday considered. Oh well, she thought, sighing, this isn’t getting me anywhere. I’d better try again to get to sleep.

  She turned off the light again. It was so quiet!

  Henry told me he has not so much memories of that night as he does impressions. Of someone in the room, and of someone standing over him. We do know his father looked in on him. But could there have been someone else? she wondered.

  What else did he tell me that I can’t recall? Why do I have a creepy feeling about all this?

  The quiet was broken by a slight creak as the tempo of the boat’s rocking began to increase. Another creak followed, this one less general, and much closer. Sunday’s head turned instinctively toward the closet wall.

  She had heard a sound, like something sliding along the floor. And it seemed to be coming from inside the closet. It sounded as if someone were in there. She was sure of it.

  Cautiously she slid her hand along the night table, searching for the button that would summon help, but as she did, the door from the corridor opened, the light went on, and she looked into her husband’s concerned eyes.

  Whoever is in that closet obviously didn’t expect me, she thought. He’s looking for something.

  “Sunday!” Henry exclaimed. “Whatever possessed you to . . . ?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she interrupted, her voice above normal pitch. “I’m ready to go back up now. I can’t seem to get to sleep here, either.”

  “I warned you about the coffee,” Henry admonished.

  “I know, darling, you’re always right. That’s why they elected you president.”

  Sunday hopped out of bed, grabbed her robe, and almost shoved Henry out the door, pulling it closed behind them with a decisive click.

  In the corridor, she put her hand over his mouth just as he started to ask what on earth was going on.

  “I’ve cornered our man,” she whispered fiercely. “ He’s in there, in the closet. I’d just realized it when you came in. Ten to one he’s looking for the papers that disappeared that night, and he must know they’re somewhere in the closet. We’ll let him find them for us.”

  An hour later, Lenny was still sawing away at an ever-widening hole in the back wall of the closet of Stateroom A. Reuthers must have been dreaming, he thought, growing increasingly frustrated and on the verge of becoming frantic. Those papers aren’t here. They’re just not here!

  Mama! My aunties! Tia Bianca, Tia Concetta, Tia Desdemona, Tia Eugenia, Tia Florina, Tia Georgina, Tia Helena, Tia Iona . . .

  Tears of frustration began to roll down Lenny’s cheeks. The papers weren’t here, and he would be blamed. He would have to figure out some way to save everyone’s neck, his included, but for now he had to get back to his bunk. There was no telling if someone might not wander into the cabin again.

  He left the closet, closing the door securely behind him; he tiptoed across the room to the outer door and opened it cautiously. Then he froze.

  He was looking into the steely eyes of senior Secret Service agent Jack Collins.

  “Show us the buried treasure,” Collins ordered as other agents grabbed Lenny’s arms.

  At Collins’s insistence, Henry and Sunday were at the end of the corridor, separated from the action by four burly agents. When he signaled, one of them said to the former president, “If you wish, sir . . .” and stepped aside.

  Collins pushed Lenny back into the stateroom. “Obviously, he was looking for something, sir,” he said, pointing to the destroyed back wall of the closet. “He’s one of the deckhands. A deplorable lapse of security.”

  “Never mind that,” Henry interrupted. “Did he find the missing papers?”

  “There are no papers on him, sir.”

  Lenny knew his only hope was to cut a deal, and fast. “I’ll tell you anything,” he implored, “but if I do, can you stop them from hurting Mama and my aunties?”

  “We can try,” Henry promised. “Talk!”

  “Mr. President, your bathrobe, sir,” said Sims, who had appeared in the doorway.

  The man even looks dignified with his nightshirt on, Sunday thought. Sims had arrived wearing a morning coat over the nightshirt, black silk socks and black oxfords.

  “Just a minute, Sims.” Henry went eye to eye with Lenny. “I said, Talk.”

  “. . . and so Reuthers knows that you’re taking the boat apart to renovate it. He knows that if you found the envelope and your journal pages from that night, it would be all over for Angelica del Rio. The people would lynch her. He said the papers would be behind the closet wall under the safe, but he’s wrong. The papers must have evaporated. They just aren’t there.”

  Sunday saw her own leaden disappointment reflected in her husband’s face.

  “Your bathrobe, sir,” Sims urged. “You’ll catch your death of cold. He shivered suddenly. “Oh dear! Déjà vu! This reminds me of that dreadful night thirty-two years ago. After the prime minister’s disappearance, I brought you your bathrobe and escorted you to your father’s suite . . .”

  “Wait a minute!” Sunday exclaimed. “What did you just say?”

  “I said I brought Mr. Henry — that’s what I called him in those days — his robe and then — ”

  “That’s what I mean,” Sunday said. “You brought him his robe. Why wasn’t it in his stateroom?”

  Sims’s brow furrowed, then cleared.

  “Of course. Of course. That’s how it happened. I had personally brought up your milk and cookies, sir, and checked to be sure all was in readiness. I noted a most annoying dripping sound coming from the water closet in Stateroom A and decided to put you in Stateroom B for the night.”

  Sims frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, I remember clearly. I brought your pajamas into Stateroom B, I turned down the bed. I transferred your milk and cookies. Knowing you would wish to write in your journal, I also moved your journal and pen onto the desk in B.”

  “Of course!” Henry exclaimed. “The door was open, you were here, and I was so groggy I didn’t even notice that I was going into Stateroom B.”

  Sunday turned to Jack Collins. “Jack, let’s take an ax to the closet wall next door.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the former president of the United States looked up from the yellowing pages he had just read. “It’s all here,” he said emotionally. “Jack, get me the special phone. I need to talk to President Ogilvey immediately.”

  Three minutes later, Henry was on the phone to his successor in the Oval Office, reading him the last written words of Garcia del Rio:

  “It is with heavy heart that I order the arrest of my wife, Señora Angelica del Rio, and of her father, Generalissimo José Imperate, on the charges of treason and grand larceny.

  “I have learned that an attempt is to be made on my life next Tuesday. The informant is uncertain if it is to take place when I am driven from the palace to address our congress or later at the private dinner that I will host for my party leaders. The new chef that my wife chose may be planning to poison all of us. I believe that my wife and her father have ensured my lack of protection by having trumped-up charges placed against the good and honest men who have guarded me for years. They have replaced them with their own henchmen, led by a man I now know to be Angelica’s distant cousin, one Congor Reuthers, who was raised in England.

  “In a sep
arate charge I accuse my wife of the crime of grand larceny. She has stolen millions of dollars from the charitable foundations she heads, dollars that were given and intended for the destitute of our country. In support of that charge I herewith list her numbered accounts in Switzerland.

  “That’s it, Des,” Henry concluded. “ My journal entry notes that when my father stood up to speak at dinner, Garcia del Rio surreptitiously changed his plate for his wife’s. My guess is that even though he didn’t expect to be poisoned that night, he was always on guard. Then I made an observation about the crème brûlée her personal chef, whom she had insisted accompany her, had prepared — that it tasted faintly medicinal to me. I think we were all drugged with a sedative to be sure that no one would be able to come to del Rio’s aid. I noted that she never touched the dessert. But that at her insistence he sampled hers.”

  Henry paused and sighed. “Obviously he was overpowered even though he ate very little of it. And now, my friend, the ball’s in your court.”

  He handed the phone to Jack Collins and turned to Sunday. “It’s over, darling.”

  “It’s really quite wonderful, isn’t it?” Sunday asked emotionally as, a week later, she and Henry watched the newly elected prime minister, Miguel Alesso, wave to the cheering multitudes in Costa Barria.

  “He’ll make a fine leader,” Henry agreed. “And he’ll bring to fruition the dream Garcia del Rio had for his country — human rights, a democratic government, a sound economy, educational opportunities.”

  They were in the library at Drumdoe, watching the special election report that had followed the eleven o’clock news.

  Sunday reached for Henry’s hand. “You are convinced now that you couldn’t have changed what happened even if you had walked on the deck with del Rio that night?”

  “Yes, I’m convinced,” Henry agreed. “I’m only grateful that at that last moment some impulse made him slip that envelope into my pocket. Otherwise we’d never have known.”

  “And at least Angelica and her cousin will pay for their crimes,” Sunday said. “I don’t think that lady will enjoy life imprisonment.”

  “I’m sure she won’t.” Henry smiled. “Shall we have one more sail on the Columbia before the renovating starts?”

  “I’d like that,” Sunday agreed.

  “But this time try to stay in the stateroom with me. I don’t like looking for you in the middle of the night.”

  “I’ll stay put. You never know who you’ll find in a closet on that yacht, do you?” Sunday asked, with a smile.

  Merry

  Christmas/

  Joyeux Noël

  “Heap on more wood! — the wind is chill;

  But let it whistle as it will,

  We'll keep our Christmas merry still”

  Congresswoman Sandra O’Brien Britland looked up to see her poetry-spouting husband, the former president of the United States, standing in the doorway of her cozy office in Drumdoe, their country home in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

  She smiled affectionately. Even in a turtleneck sweater, jeans, and worn ankle boots, Henry Parker Britland IV exuded a natural born-to-the-manner persona. The touches of gray in his dark brown hair, and thoughtful creases in his forehead, were almost the only signs that Henry was approaching his forty-fifth birthday.

  “So it’s Tennyson we’re quoting,” she said as she uncurled herself from the couch where she had been reading the seemingly endless stack of material about pending legislation. “I gather the ‘All-Around Hunk’ is up to something.”

  “Not Tennyson, love. Sir Walter Scott, and be aware I will hang you by the thumbs if you call me ‘All-Around Hunk’ again.”

  “But People magazine just voted you that for the fifth year in a row. That’s a real record. Pretty soon they’ll have to create a ‘Perennial Hunk’ award and retire you from active consideration.”

  Seeing the mock-menacing look on Henry’s face, Sunday said hastily, “Okay, okay. Just kidding.”

  “Your saw, Mr. President.” Sims, the butler, appeared in the doorway, carrying a shiny new saw across upturned palms. He displayed it to Henry with the same reverence he might have shown in tendering the crown jewels.

  “What in heaven’s name is that all about?” Sunday exclaimed.

  “What do you think, darling?” Henry inquired as he studied it carefully. “Well done, Sims. I think this should handle the job quite adequately.”

  “Are you planning to saw me in half?” Sunday asked.

  “Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth had quite a successful act staging that scene. No, my sweet love, you and I are going into the woods. This morning when I was riding I spotted a magnificent evergreen that will be perfect for our first Christmas tree. It’s at the north end of the property, out past the lake.”

  “You’re going to cut it down yourself?” Sunday protested. “Henry, you’re taking this ‘all-around’ business too seriously . . .”

  Henry held up his free hand. “No arguments. I heard you say several weeks ago that one of your happiest memories was going out with your father to buy the Christmas tree, then helping him carry it home and trim it. This year, you and I are starting our own tradition.”

  Sunday tucked a runaway lock of blond hair behind her ear. “ You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely. We’re going to tramp through the snow into our woods. I am going to cut down the tree, and together we’re going to drag it back here.”

  Henry beamed in satisfaction at his plan. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. If we get the tree in and up today, we can start trimming it this evening and finish tomorrow. Sims will bring out the boxes from the storeroom, and you can select any ornaments you choose.”

  “We have quite a selection, madam,” Sims volunteered. “Just last year Lanning decorators came as usual and did the blue-and-silver effect. Quite beautiful. The year before we had a white Christmas. Ah, yes, it was much admired.”

  “Lanning must be having a heart attack that you’re not having him in this year,” Sunday observed as she put the files and notepad aside and stood up. She walked over to Henry and put her arms around his waist. “I can see through you. You’re doing this for me.”

  He cupped her face in his hands. “You’ve had a rough few weeks. I think we’re putting together exactly the kind of Christmas you need. All the household help except for Sims gone, the Secret Service guys home with their own families. It’ll be just the two of us and Sims.”

  Sunday swallowed over the sudden lump in her throat. Her mother had had an emergency triple bypass several weeks earlier. She was now recuperating at the Britland estate in the Bahamas, with Sunday’s father in attendance. But it had been touch and go for a while, and the fear of losing her mother had shaken Sunday to the core.

  “If it’s quite all right with you, madam, that I stay . . .” Sims said, his tone questioning, his voice dignified, his demeanor as always stately.

  “Sims, this has been your home for over thirty years,” Sunday said. “You bet we want you to stay.”

  She pointed to the saw. “I thought woodchoppers used axes.”

  “You get to carry the ax,” Henry said. “It’s cold out there. Wear your ski outfit.”

  From behind the thick trunk of a hundred-year-old oak, Jacques cautiously moved his head to observe the tall man cutting down the tree. The lady was laughing and seemed to be trying to help, while the other man, who looked something like Grand-père, just stood there.

  Jacques didn’t want them to see him. They might give him back to Lily, and Lily frightened him. In fact, she had frightened him since she first arrived to baby-sit him while Maman and Richard went on their trip.

  Maman and Richard had been married last week. Jacques had liked his new daddy a lot, until Lily told him that Maman and Richard had phoned to say they didn’t want him anymore and had told her to take him away. Then they got in Lily’s car and drove for a long time. Jacques remembered that he’d been asleep when a loud noise woke him, and the car
spun around, then went off the road. The door next to him flew open, and he ran away.

  Why didn’t Maman give him to Grand-père if she didn’t want him any longer? Grand-père had gone back to Paris earlier today. When he left, Grand-père told Jacques how happy he would be living in this nice place called Darien, in Richard’s new home. Grand-père promised that he could spend a month with him at the country house in Aix-en-Provence next summer, and in the meantime he would be sending Jacques lots of messages on his computer.

  Even though he was going to be six soon, and Maman kept calling him her “little man,” it was too much for Jacques to understand. All he knew was that Maman and Richard did not want him, and that he didn’t want to be with Lily. If he could just talk to Grand-père, maybe Grand-père would come and get him. But what if Grand-père told him he had to stay with Lily? Better not to talk to anyone, Jacques thought.

  Opposite him, the big tree came down with a crash. The tall man and the lady and the man who looked like Grand-père began to cheer, and then together they took hold of it and started to drag it away.

  Silently, Jacques followed them.

  “A most satisfactory evergreen, sir,” Sims remarked, “but perhaps it could be a trifle more centered.”

  “It isn’t in the stand straight,” Sunday observed. “In fact it’s slightly lopsided. That’s why it looks off center.”

  She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the library going through the neatly packed boxes of Christmas ornaments. “However,” she added, “considering the energy you two expended getting that tree into the stand in the first place, I’d suggest you leave it alone. It will be fine.”

  “I fully intend to,” Henry said. “Which color scheme are you using?”

  “None,” Sunday told him. “All mixed up. Real loving-hands-at-home. Multicolored lights. Tinsel. I wish you had some battered ornaments that you remember from the time you were a kid.”

  “Better than that, I have your battered ornaments,” Henry told her. “Before your folks left for Nassau, your dad retrieved them for me.”