Paris Match

1


            Stone Barrington closed his three suitcases and called down for Fred Flicker to fetch his luggage. Fred was quick.

            “I’ll have the car around in five minutes, Mr. Barrington,” he said.

            “Thank you, Fred.”

            Fred hustled the three cases onto the elevator and disappeared. Stone turned to Ann Keaton, who was sitting on the end of his bed, fully dressed and ready to go to her job at the New York City campaign headquarters of Katharine Lee, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. Ann was her deputy campaign manager.

            “Are you crying because I’m leaving?” Stone asked. “I mean, you’ve known for weeks that I have to go to Paris for the opening of the new hotel, l’Arrington.”

            “No,” she said, “that’s not why.”

            “I’ll be back in two or three weeks, and you’re going to be so busy with the campaign that you won’t even notice that I’m gone.”

            “I’ll notice,” Ann said. “I have something to tell you.”

            “Just a minute,” Stone said. He buzzed his secretary, Joan Robertson. “Ask Fred to pick up the Bacchettis, then come back for me,” he said. Then he returned and sat next to Ann on the bed.

            “All right,” he said, “tell me.”

            “I’m crying because I won’t be here when you get back,” Ann said.

            This was news to Stone. “And where will you be?”

            “In Washington.”

            “I don’t understand, Kate said you could work out of New York.”

            “Kate changed her mind,” Ann said. “She wants me to work with Sam more closely. She wants us to meet every day, and Sam can’t come to New York.” Sam Meriwether, the senior senator from Georgia, was Kate Lee’s campaign manager.

            “And this is until the election?” Stone asked hopefully.

            “Only if Kate isn’t elected,” Ann said. “We’ve talked about what happens if she gets elected: I’ll be heading up the search operation for administration appointees, while remaining her chief of staff. And after the inauguration . . .”

            “As the president’s chief of staff, you’ll be the second-most-powerful person in the world?”

            “That’s what everybody says,” Ann said, then she renewed her crying.

            “Ann, I can understand that if you have to choose between being with me and being the second-most-powerful person in the world, why you might not choose me.”

            “And I hate that about myself!” she sobbed. “Why do I want that above personal happiness?”

            “Because you’d be doing it for your country,” Stone said, “and, of course, because you’d be the second-most-powerful person in the world.”

            “Do you hate me?” Ann asked.

            “Of course not. I love you.”

            “But you’re not in love with me, not anymore.”

            “That’s a self-defense mechanism,” Stone said. “I know I can’t have you, so I can’t be in love.”

            “I can understand that,” she said. “Everybody’s got to protect himself. Still, I wish you were the one crying.”

            “I hardly ever cry,” Stone said.