Lady in Red by Sheila Tate

Author:Sheila Tate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

“People keep stuffing them into their beaded evening bags and dinner jacket pockets to take home for souvenirs. So it’s time for Nancy Reagan to reorder those oversized monogrammed damask dinner napkins that Jackie Kennedy started using at state dinners at the White House during the days of ‘Camelot.’ The price has doubled, to $900 a dozen, in the past 20 years.”

My by-now practiced eye readily recognized the dinner napkin item for what it was. A clever way for the New York linen shop to gin up some business. Hostesses always wanted whatever the White House ordered. A stern warning went out through the White House Legal Office. No more bogus items about napkins showed up in the papers.

The real reason the White House needs to order new china every fifteen years or so is not breakage, which is rare indeed; it’s politely called “loss.” Some people simply cannot leave the White House where they have just had the privilege of dining without “losing” a saucer or a demitasse cup into their pocket. Since the mold for each china service is destroyed after it is delivered to the White House, the possibility of ordering replacement pieces is not an option. At one state dinner, Joan Rivers was a guest. She talked with Deputy Press Secretary Barbara Fabiani and me afterward and showed us all the items she’d been able to slip into her purse. Let the record show she did not take any china. She took name cards, menus, a few flowers; at least that’s what she showed us.

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