The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

Author:Lara Prescott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2019-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

The day after our lunch on the Temple steps, Anderson informed me that instead of my meeting with Teddy, as I’d been doing, Sally would continue my training. “Surprised?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, biting my lip to keep from smiling.

The day after that, Sally stood outside the Agency’s black iron gates, applying her red lipstick in the driver’s-side mirror of a pale yellow Studebaker. She looked impeccable in a tartan wool cape and long black calfskin gloves. She saw me approach in the mirror and turned, lipstick applied to only her bottom lip. “Looks like it’s just you and me now, kiddo,” she said and pressed her lips together. “Let’s go for a walk.”

As we made our way through Georgetown, Sally pointed out the stately homes of some of the Agency’s higher-ups. “Dulles lives up there,” she said, pointing to a red brick town house obscured by a wall of maple trees. “And that big white one with the black shutters across the way? That’s Wild Bill Donovan’s old house that the Grahams bought. Frank lives on the other side of Wisconsin. All of ’em spitting distance from each other.”

“Where do you live?”

“Just up the street.”

“To keep tabs on the men?”

She laughed. “Smart girl.”

We took a left into Dumbarton Oaks and walked the park’s winding path into the gardens. Descending the stone steps, Sally pulled on a dead wisteria vine hanging from the wooden arbor. “In the spring, this whole place smells absolutely delicious. I open my windows and hope for a breeze.”

We walked until we reached the swimming pool, which had been drained for the season. We sat on a bench across from an elderly man who was working on a crossword puzzle in his wheelchair, parked next to his milk-faced caretaker. Two young mothers wearing almost identical belted red princess coats smoked and chatted at the pool’s far end while their toddlers, a boy and a girl, tossed pebbles into the pool, screaming with glee when their stones reached the small puddle in the center. A pensive-looking young man sat in a black iron chair near the fountain at the pool’s head reading a copy of The Hatchet.

“See that man over there?” Sally asked, without looking.

I nodded.

“What do you think his story is?”

“College student?”

“What else?”

“College student with a clip-on tie?”

“Nice eye. And what do you think that clip-on tie means?”

“He doesn’t know how to tie a real one?”

“And what does that mean?”

“He’s never been taught?”

“And?”

“He doesn’t have a father? Maybe he doesn’t come from money? He definitely doesn’t have a girlfriend or a mother close by to tell him that clip-ons look ridiculous. Perhaps he’s from out of town? On scholarship maybe?”

“Where?”

“Given our location? Georgetown. But given his choice of newspaper? I’d say George Washington.”

“Studying?”

I looked the man over: clip-on, cowlick, maroon sweater vest, dull brown leather shoes, smoking Pall Malls, legs crossed, his right foot turning slow circles. “Could be anything, really.”

“Philosophy.”

“How do you know?”

Sally pointed to his open leather knapsack and the book inside it: Kierkegaard.

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