'Yes, that's right, Mrs. Cassidy, warm yourself. Shall I make some tea?'
'Tea would be lovely, Frank!' Sylvie replied, her teeth chattering as she backed up against the radiator and looked around her and Frank disappeared into what she assumed was the kitchen. Through an open door at the end of the living room she could see a large double bed, and upon its white chenille spread lay what appeared to be some kind of tools. She remembered that Frank had told her he had some kind of workshop, and she wondered what kind of things he made. Then she saw for the first time that the end tables on either side of the sofa were covered with framed photographs. She went over to see the pictures and was startled when she saw that each frame contained a photograph of a member of the Cassidy family. They were all taken from newspapers and magazines, but had been cleverly cropped so that they looked like real pictures. Everyone was there; a smiling and waving Thelma Cassidy, looking half her seventy-odd years, wiry and spry as a young girl in her flowing veils and stylishly cut dress… an old picture of Jenson Cassidy, the enterprising oil magnate who had been dead for many years now-the picture showed him shaking with President Teddy Roosevelt, and Sylvie was shocked to think of how long ago it had been taken… then there was Tim, her husband, and Sylvie's heart skipped a beat to see a young and innocent-looking boy, probably still in prep school, years before their marriage, when she herself had probably been in grade school. Frank had known her husband then, and even before that, and Sylvie realized that she had rarely, if ever, thought of this fact.
Why, Frank was more of a Cassidy than she was, really!
There were also pictures of Ron graduating from Yale, already looking sternly serious and determined, and of Erick sitting on the zebrastriped seats of that famous nightclub in New York with some gorgeous debutante. Then Sylvie saw a photo of herself! It was by far the largest and the most recent, but she had not seen it at first because it was half hidden behind the lamp. She recognized the photograph as the one from the cover of Weekly Magazine. One of the best she'd ever taken, it showed her perfectly balanced patrician features, her broad smile and shining white teeth and her flowing blonde hair, framed before a background of the Capital Building in Washington. It had been taken several years before, and Sylvie recalled looking at it carefully that night… the fatal night when she had taken the fake medicine!
Frank must have cut it out then, she thought with alarm. Homey sounds of clinking china were coming from the direction of the kitchen.
Hurriedly, Sylvie replaced the picture so that it was behind the lamp.
She remembered that the caption had read: 'Sylvie Cassidy the popular D.A.'s wife/On her way to Washington?'
Well, here she was in Washington, and her husband had already been reselected to the Senate. She knew that his brother Ron was already hard at work so that Tim would get his party's nomination at the convention, and Tim himself never ceased to remind her that she must never do or say anything that would reflect poorly upon a prospective First Lady. She must act as though she had already attained that exalted height, and that way there would be no problems.
But at this moment Sylvie felt very far from being a First Lady. In fact, she was acutely aware of the fact that she was not. Some of her old insecurity that she had known in the early days returned to her as she thought anxiously that perhaps she would not make a good President's wife after all. She had been doing just fine so far, true, and there wasn't a Washington hostess who did not vie for her presence at the numerous teas and parties that took place in and around Washington. She and her senator husband were always invited to the most prestigious embassy parties as well, and Sylvie was famous for her clothes and her exquisite good looks. A tall, willowy blonde, there was little that she could wear that did not become her; and her figure, she knew, was the envy of all the women who were acquainted with her.
People sensed the deep sensual bond between her and the handsome Senator, and it made them one of the most popular couples in Washington. Her husband's brother and expert campaign manager, Ron, had put it crudely to her long ago, and Sylvie had to admit that he'd been correct.
'The people want to elect a senator who looks like he's getting laid.
And you're our ticket to ride!'
Sylvie sat uncomfortably upon the sofa. Her dress was still damp, although she felt quite a bit warmer than before. She wished that she had something to put around her, for she feared that the already thin material of her dress had become so translucent with moisture that the round brown tips of her bare nipples beneath were showing. What am I doing here anyway? she asked herself. I should have insisted that Frank take me right home! She repeated to herself her husband's words when she had worried about the aging valet's reaction to that devastating evening in her dressing room.
'I trust Frank implicitly, Sylvie. I'm sure he only thought he was doing the right thing. He was following your orders, even though they were bizarre. He was responding above and beyond the call of duty. I'm sure he looks upon it that way. Don't forget, he was trained long ago in England to respond to the most unusual of circumstances with dignity and calm. You and I will try to forget about what happened. Certainly Frank already has!'
'Here we are, Mrs. Cassidy!' Frank said, entering the room with a tray.
The piping hot tea steamed from the pot as he set it down on the low coffee table in front of Sylvie, and she could not help looking forward to its warmth.
'As I recall, you take two lumps and a little bit of milk. Is that correct?' Frank smiled down at her, and Sylvie blushed.
'Yes,' she replied, lowering her eyes. 'Yes, thank you, Frank!' The man's memory was obviously quite excellent!
The hot tea tasted delicious, and Sylvie sat back, just a bit more at ease than before. She tried, however, to keep her arms in front of her, just in case her nipples showed too clearly. There were times when she wished she still wore a brassiere, and this was one of them. Some people just didn't understand that the times were changing.
'Well, Frank,' she said, breaking into the long silence that threatened to become uneasy. 'What a cozy place you have here. I really like it.
Tell me, how do you spend your time, now that you have so much of it?'
'Oh, I keep quite busy.' Frank had taken a seat opposite Sylvie in a straight-backed chair that he pulled up to the coffee table. He drank his own tea with relish. 'I work on my little gadgets… and then there's the book.'
'The book? What book?' Sylvie asked. Suddenly everything inside her was listening, waiting for what the gray-haired man's answer would be.
'Why, the book about the Cassidys, of course!' he replied easily, as though she should have known all along. 'I see where everyone's writing books these days, and in my youth I used to fancy myself a writer. That was before I went to training school, of course!' he added with a twinkle in his dark brown eyes. Sylvie was silent. She couldn't think of a thing to say. It was all she could do to keep her hands from trembling on her teacup.
'Oh yes, I keep busy! I have a very modern tape recorder that I use to dictate into. It's the best way, I understand. Oh yes, I have a lot of memories already down on tape.'
'I… I see…' Sylvie stammered.
Frank was thinking about how well his book was going. The Cassidys had been his life, and he knew more about them than about anything on earth. It would be splendid to have that fact acknowledged. He would become a celebrity in his own right.
'There's already a columnist fellow who says he'd be interested in helping me get the book published,' Frank said quietly. He was watching young Sylvie Cassidy carefully. 'Perhaps you'd like to hear some of the tapes?' he inquired.
Outside a siren was screaming, and a fire truck clattered past. Sylvie felt that sirens were wailing inside her head, that any second the terrible throbbing would burst from her temples.
'Yes… yes, I would like that,' she said. A part of her knew that the danger was near, that it was in fact present, but another part of her dared to hope that there was nothing to worry about. Frank got up and started into the bedroom, motioning her to follow.
'This is my workroom back here,' he said.
On legs that wobbled and trembled, Sylvie followed her husband's former valet into the room.
'There's something I'd like to ask your advice about, anyway, Mrs.
Cassidy,' Frank said. 'Won't you sit down on that chair there?' He pointed to a chair that was placed between the bed and in impressive bank of taping equipment that sat upon a long table against the wall.
