Watergate: A Novel by Thomas Mallon

Author:Thomas Mallon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Political, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780307907080
Publisher: Pantheon
Published: 2012-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

APRIL 30, 1973, 7:40 P.M.

WHITE HOUSE SOLARIUM

Pat Nixon stubbed out a cigarette before picking up a phone she was certain had no tape recorder attached to it.

“Operator,” she said, “this is Mrs. Nixon. Please get me Mr. Thomas A. Garahan in New York.” She gave the Madison Avenue address and hung up, and as she waited for the connection to be made, she pictured Tom behind the tray table in his study, drinking a second cup of coffee after having eaten his dinner with Cronkite.

She glanced at the clock: there were only eighty minutes until Dick went on the air, and he still wasn’t back from Camp David.

The phone rang. “I have Mr. Garahan in New York,” said the operator.

“Thank you.” Pat listened for the civilized click that assured her there was no one listening in, that for the next several minutes her conversation with Tom would only shine as a small red light amidst all the switches and wires downstairs.

“I want to tell you what I’ve been thinking of,” she said to him. She was alarmed by the strain she could hear in her own voice.

“Tell me,” he said, gently.

“I’m remembering a day late in ’68. A few weeks after the election. We were going from New York to Key Biscayne, and Johnson gave us Air Force One for the trip. We got on it together for the first time. And you know what he did? Dick?”

“Tell me.”

“He picked me up by the waist and spun me around. Twice. He hadn’t done that when we got the house in Whittier or even the one on Tilden Street, just a couple of miles from here. But that plane. That was carrying me over a threshold he could appreciate.”

She didn’t have to ask if Tom was listening; she knew his silence indicated patience, a willingness for her to tell this story at her own pace. And she didn’t have to worry that he was hearing anything in it but a tormented affection for her husband.

“We thought we were alone,” she continued. “Later I found out that Ron Ziegler was near the back of the cabin and had seen the whole thing.” Her eyes were still dry, but she didn’t know for how much longer.

“I haven’t been myself since Easter,” she said, briskly, straightening her shoulders. “The most horrible weekend we ever spent in Florida. I couldn’t make myself open the newspapers. Julie’s down there now, giving a speech to the Girl Scouts. She won’t be back here for this one tonight. I’m sorry; I’m rambling.”

“Ramble.”

“I can’t. I’ve got to go. I can hear the helicopter coming toward the lawn.”

Suddenly Tom Garahan roared with Irish laughter—over this absurdly grandiose version of the Oh-my-God-he’s-home-early moment that each of them had seen a hundred times at the movies. Pat herself couldn’t keep from smiling.

“Back in October,” she said, “you told me that I’d be the one coming to you next time. A month or so later I told myself that sending the little Art Buchwald column didn’t count.

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